150 Quotes by Karl Barth

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

This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen before.

A free theologian works in communication with other theologians...He waits for them and asks them to wait for him. Our sadly lacking yet indispensable theological co-operation depends directly or indirectly on whether or not we are wiling to wait for one another, perhaps lamenting, yet smiling with tears in our eyes.

Theology is not a private subject for theologians only. Nor is it a private subject for professors. Fortunately, there have always been pastors who have understood more about theology than most professors. Nor is theology a private subject of study for pastors. Fortunately, there have repeatedly been congregation members, and often whole congregations, who have pursued theology energetically while their pastors were theological infants or barbarians. Theology is a matter for the Church.

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.

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

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

Prayer without study would be empty. Study without prayer would be blind.

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