Quote

The Spirit bears witness. Ecstasy and enlightenment, inspiration and intuition are not necessary. Happy is the man who is worthy of these but woe unto us if we wait for such experiences woe unto us if we do not perceive that these things are of secondary importance.

Karl Barth

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Karl Barth
Age: 82 †
Born: 1886
Born: May 10
Died: 1968
Died: December 10
Pastor
Theologian
University Teacher
Basle
Happiness
Worthy
Woe
Happy
Wait
Ecstasy
Spirit
Bears
Unto
Things
Importance
Intuition
Men
Necessary
Perceive
Joy
Enlightenment
Inspiration
Witness
Waiting
Experiences
Secondary

More quotes by Karl Barth

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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.
Karl Barth
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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.
Karl Barth
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Mozart creates music from a mysterious center, and so knows the limits to the right and the left, above and below. He maintains moderation.
Karl Barth
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Mozart's music always sounds unburdened, effortless, and light. This is why it unburdens, releases, and liberates us.
Karl Barth
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True theology is an actual determination and claiming of man by the acting God.
Karl Barth
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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.
Karl Barth
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In Jesus, God wills to be true God not only in the height but also in the depth - in the depth of human creatureliness, sinfulness and mortality.
Karl Barth
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Where dogmatics exists at all, it exists only with the will to be a Church dogmatics, a dogmatics of the ecumenical Church.
Karl Barth
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Mozart's music is free of all exaggeration, of all sharp breaks and contradictions. The sun shines but does not blind, does not burn or consume. Heaven arches over the earth, but it does not weigh it down, it does not crush or devour it.
Karl Barth
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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.
Karl Barth
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Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure.
Karl Barth
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What God chooses for us children of men is always the best.
Karl Barth
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Faith is never identical with piety even if it were the purest and finest.
Karl Barth
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No act of man can claim to be more than an attempt, not even science.
Karl Barth
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Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.
Karl Barth
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If I have a system it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called 'the infinite qualitative distinction' between time and eternity
Karl Barth
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The theologian who labors without joy is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this field.
Karl Barth
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Mozart's music is an invitation to the listener to venture just a little out of the sense of his own subjectivity.
Karl Barth
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He [Jesus Christ] is the Master of all as the Servant of all.
Karl Barth
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As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give glory to God
Karl Barth