Karl Barth Quotes

God does not have to dishonor himself, when he goes into the far country and conceals his glory.

"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."

But — we must ask today — why then did no one listen to Overbeck?

Concerning the Investigation of Super-History’ (Urgeschichte) (pp. 20–8)

[From our side] our relation to God is unrighteous. Secretly we are ourselves the masters in this relationship. We are not concerned with God, but with our own requirements, to which God must adjust Himself. Our arrogance demands that, in addition to everything else, some super-world should also be known and accessible to us. Our conduct calls for some deeper sanction, some approbation and remuneration from another world. Our well-regulated, pleasurable life longs for some hours of devotion, some prolongation into infinity. And so, when we set God upon the throne of the world, we mean by God ourselves. In “believing” on Him, we justify, enjoy, and adore ourselves.

Of Myself and of Death’ (pp. 287–300).

whatever is subject to time is limited, is relative, and is made manifest as world by the ‘last things’ of which we are now cognizant, whether we will or not. ‘It is in no way possible to concede to the Pharisees a kingdom of God already appearing among them, wholly on this side of the end’ (on Luke 17:20–1, p.

the older and younger Blumhardt and their friends. There would have been something significant to learn — as later developments prove — from the books of Friedrich Zündel, for example.

For ‘historical’ means ‘subject to time’ (p. 242).

If I ever get to heaven, I would first of all seek out Mozart, and only then inquire after Augustine, St. Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and Schleiermacher.

There is not other relation to God save that which appears upon the road along which Job travelled.

If we have forgotten who God is, resurrection will proclaim it to us, it will tell us what He is, what He wills, what He can do and continually does, and what an awful thing it is for us to dare to think about this God!

What lies between these two ends, these ‘last things’, is the world, our world, the comprehensible world which has been given us.

But be warned! The book is an inconceivably impressive sharpening of the commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain’.

Theology must have the character of a living procession.