Quotes from Karl Barth

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.

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).

Evangelical theology is modest theology, because it is determined to be so by its object, that is, by him who is its subject.

When theology recognizes one thing properly, it mis-recognizes something else all the more thoroughly.

On observing 1963 America for the first time, the author says that organization and standardization to a certain degree compete with divine providence.

But, even in this concrete relationship to the Son of God become man, this is really something new only in so far as it expresses the revelation of what began to be true with the Incarnation and has never since ceased to be true.

Religion may be a private affair, but the woik and word of God are the reconciliation of the world with God, as it was performed in Jesus Christ.

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

Theology must have the character of a living procession.

Creation is grace: a statement at which we should like best to pause in reverence, fear and gratitude. God does not grudge the existence of the reality distinct from Himself; He does not grudge it its own reality, nature and freedom.

the concrete actuality of God's revelation in Word and Act.

The area of the Church stands in the world, as outwardly the Church stands in the village or in a city, beside the school, the cinema and the railway station. The Church's language cannot aim at being an end in itself. It must be made clear that the Church exists for the sake of the world, that the light is shining in the darkness.

Heaven is the creation inconceivable to man; earth is the creation conceivable to him.

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.

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

The lifting up of themselves for which he gives them freedom is not a movement which is formless, or to which they themselves have to give the necessary form. It takes place in a definite form and direction. Similarly, their looking to Jesus as their Lord is not an idle gaping. It is a vision that stimulates those to whom it is given to a definite action.

God's love toward us commends itself in this, that Christ died for us while we were still weak, still sinners, still godless, still enemies. It has therefore not waited for us, but has come to meet us and gone before us.

In virtue of the name of Pontius Pilate being connected with Him, the life and passion of Jesus Christ is an event in the same world history in which our life also takes place.

He reconciles them with God through His death. That means that in His own death He makes their peace with God--before they themselves have decided for this peace and quite apart from that decision. In believing, they are only conforming to the decision about them that has already been made in Him.

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

I regard anticommunism as a matter of principle an evil even greater than communism itself.

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

The relation of this God with this man; the relation of this man with this God--this is the only theme of the Bible and of philosophy.

Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.