Karl Barth Quotes (24 Quotes)


    Men have never been good, they are not good, they never will be good.

    All sin has its being and origin in the fact that man wants to be his own judge. And in wanting to be that, and thinking and acting accordingly, he and his whole world is in conflict with God. It is an unreconciled world, and therefore a suffering world, a world given up to destruction.

    Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

    Jews have God's promise and if we Christians have it, too, then it is only as those chosen with them, as guests in their house, that we are new wood grafted onto their tree.

    Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.


    Faith is never identical with piety.

    Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo.

    Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.

    Man can certainly keep on lying. . . but he cannot make truth falsehood. He can certainly rebel. . . but he can accomplish nothing which abolishes the choice of God.

    What God chooses for us children of men is always the best.

    Karl Barth, the 20th-century theologian who pounded home the theme of God's sovereignty, saw no contradiction at all in a God who chooses to let prayers affect him. He is not deaf, he listens more than that, he acts. He does not act in the same way whether we pray or not. Prayer exerts an influence upon God's action, even upon his existence. That is what the word 'answer' means. ... The fact that God yields to man's petitions, changing his intentions in response to man's prayer, is not a sign of weakness. He himself, in the glory of his majesty and power, has so willed it.

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

    Mozart's music always sounds unburdened, effortless, and light. This is why it unburdens, releases, and liberates us.

    It is always the case that when the Christian looks back, he is looking at the forgiveness of sins.

    Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure. I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart.

    Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.

    We have before us the fiendishness of business competition and the world war, passion and wrongdoing, antagonism between classes and moral depravity within them, economic tyranny above and the slave spirit below.

    It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they play Mozart.

    No one can be saved - in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved - in virtue of what God can do.

    The best theology would need no advocates; it would prove itself.

    In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.

    Men have never been good, they are not good and they never will be good.

    Man can certainly flee from God... but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate.

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


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