Karl Barth Quotes

Describing the relationship between the biblical witnesses and the theologians who come after, the author challenges that the theologian is not to correct the notebooks of the biblical writers like some high school teacher. Instead, our theology is always subject to what THEY say, as we willingly submit our notebooks for their approval.

For if God Himself became man, this man, what else can this mean but that He declared himself guilty of the contradiction against Himself

Faith is never identical with "piety" even if it were the purest and finest.

How can a reformation of the whole people be brought about if it is common knowledge that the Church itself is bent only on self-preservation and restoration — or not even that?

Durch das Leid hindurch, nicht am Leid vorbei, geht der Weg zur Freude.

"In this history of which we have spoken, man is rescued by grace alone by the intervention of God for him. What does this history say to us? It says: "Set your mind not on high things, but condescend to the lowly." Christian ethics repeats to itself and to others this summon to sobriety. Christian ethics is not optimistic. It sees man as he is: gone astray, condemned, and lost. It sees him as a being who can only stumble deeper and deeper into corruption, weighed down with illusions and all sorts of reflections. Christian ethics knows that man lives alone by the fact of God's waiting upon man, God's patience and forgiveness. It knows that man cannot live except by also waiting, having patience, receiving forgiveness, and in turn forgiving others."

Man as man can never know God: His wishing, seeking, and striving are all in vain.

A quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought.

If we cannot defend the things of this world and if none of the relationships in which we walk the earth can withstand the criticism which reduces the whole to relativity, we can still love them and we need take the criticism no more seriously than it deserves (pp. 29, 248).

Who God is and what it is to be divine is something we have to learn where God has revealed Himself and His nature, the essence of the divine.

When attempts were later made to speak systematically about God and to describe His nature, men became more talkative. They spoke of God's aseity , His being grounded in Himself; they spoke of God's infinity in space and time, and therefore of God's eternity. And men spoke on the other hand of God's holiness and righteousness, mercifulness and patience. We must be clear that whatever we say of God in such human concepts can never be more than an indication of Him; no such concept can really conceive the nature of God. God is inconceivable.

Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.

Theology must have the character of a living procession.

For the millions that suffer unjustly, the Confessing Church does not yet have a heart.

He who knows the world to be bounded by a truth that contradicts it; he who knows himself to be bounded by a will that contradicts him; he who, knowing too well that he must be satisfied to live with this contradition and not attempt to escape from it, finds it hard to kick against the pricks; he who finally makes open confession of the contradition and determines to base his life upon it — he it is that believes. The believer is the man who puts his trust in God, in God Himself, and in God alone.