Embodied Community, Communal Bodies: Karl Barth and James Cone on the Relational Human Creature

In this paper, I argue for a shared basis for Barth’s and Cone’s theological anthropology in Christological anthropology, warranting their anthropological claims with claims about how Christ embodied his own humanity. This leads Barth to characterize humanity as relational, defining human nature in relation to God and other human persons. Cone argues that Barth stopped short in developing this relational understanding of humanity. Where Barth stopped, Cone continues to implicate the social-situatedness of the human creature and Christ’s transformation of social structures in assuming humanity. From Cone’s development, I argue that humanity is created as embodied and relational creatures formed in our belonging to one another in community. While this relational constitution of the human creature is principally found in the God-human relationship, it cannot be reduced to the God-human relationship. Instead, human persons rely also on their embodied relationships to one another in life-giving community for our flourishing.