Quotes from Karl Barth

Faith is never identical with piety.

God has not the slightest need for our proofs.

In Jesus Christ there is no isolation of man from God or of God from man. Rather, in Him we encounter the history, the dialogue, in which God and man meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant MUTUALLY contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them. Jesus Christ is in His one Person, as true GOD, MAN'S loyal partner, and as true MAN, GOD'S. He is the Lord humbled for communion with man and likewise the Servant exalted to communion with God.

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

the Church should be the place where a word reverberates right into the world.

heaven and earth, nature and man, comedy and tragedy, … the Virgin Mary and the demons...Mozart simply contains and includes all this within his music in perfect harmony. This harmony is not a matter of "balance" or "indifference" – it is a glorious upsetting of the balance, a turning in which the light rises and the shadows fall, in which the Yes rings louder than the ever-present

There does not exist any more a holy mountain or a holy city or holy land which can be marked on a map. The reason is not that God's holiness in space has suddenly become unworthy of Him or has changed into a heathen ubiquity. The reason is that all prophecy is now fulfilled in Jesus, and God's holiness in space, like all God's holiness, is now called and is Jesus of Nazareth.

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

The author says that theologian operates with windows open to the interest of the world, but also with a skylight that allows full awareness of prayer.

political correctness jeopardizes more than it should the human capacity to speak the truth

Anyone who does not want communism-and none of us do-should take socialism seriously.

Agape is related to Eros, as Mozart to Beethoven. How could they possibly be confused?

There is a notion that complete impartiality is the most fitting and indeed the normal disposition for true exegesis, because it guarantees a complete absence of prejudice. For a short time, around 1910, this idea threatened to achieve almost canonical status in Protestant theology. But now we can quite calmly describe it as merely comical.

The very names Kierkegaard, Luther, Calvin, Paul and Jeremiah suggest what Schleiermacher never possessed, a clear and direct apprehension of the truth that man is made to serve God and not God to serve man.

Exactly halfway between exegesis and practical theology stands dogmatics

In the Credo the Church bows before that God Whom we did not seek and find—Who rather has sought and found us. Now

To wish to withstand the Holy Spirit would be the one unforgivable sin.

Christendom and the theological world were always ill-advised in thinking it their duty for some reason or other, either of enthusiasm or of theological conception, to pitch their tents in opposition to reason.

Thou shalt make no image, no abstraction, including none of THE American, THE Swiss, THE German.

God transcends even the undertakings of evangelical theologians.

No act of man can claim to be more than an attempt, not even science.

The Christian Church does not exist in Heaven, but on earth and in time.

The church speaks finally in that it prays for the world.

Agape is related to Eros, as Mozart to Beethoven. How could they possibly be confused? Agape