150 Quotes by Karl Barth

Sin is not confined to the evil things we do. It is the evil within us, the evil which we are.

Society is now really ruled by its own logos; say rather by a whole pantheon of its own hypostases and powers... we are beginning to suspect that the idols are vain, but their demonic influence upon our lives is not thereby allayed. For it is one thing to entertain critical doubts regarding the god of this world, and another thing to perceive the dunamis, the meaning and might of the living God who is building a new world.

The gospel is not a truth among other truths. Rather, it sets a question mark against all truths.

Mozart’s music is an invitation to the listener to venture just a little out of the sense of his own subjectivity.

Sin scorches us most after it comes under the scrutinizing light of God’s forgiveness and not before.

The statement that ‘God is dead’ comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them.

Everyone who has to contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously.

Abortion is ’the great modern sin.

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.