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A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.

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
Activity
Free
Limit
Determine
Limits

More quotes by Karl Barth

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The Christian Church does not exist in Heaven, but on earth and in time.
Karl Barth
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What expressions we used - in part taken over and in part newly invented! above all, the famous 'wholly other' breaking in upon us 'perpendicularly from above,' the not less famous 'infinite qualitative distinction' between God and man, the vacuum, the mathematical point, and the tangent in which alone they must meet.
Karl Barth
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There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.
Karl Barth
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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.
Karl Barth
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With an ear open to your musical dialectic, one can be young and become old, can work and rest, be content and sad: in short, one can live.
Karl Barth
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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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Scientific dogmatics must devote itself to the criticism and correction of Church proclamation and not just to a repetitive exposition of it.
Karl Barth
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The person who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that.
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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Humanity in its basic form is co-humanity.
Karl Barth
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What God chooses for us children of men is always the best.
Karl Barth
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Dogmatics is the testing of Church doctrine and proclamation.
Karl Barth
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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.
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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I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally.
Karl Barth
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'joy' in Phillippians is a defiant 'Nevertheless!' that Paul sets like a full stop against the Philippians' anxiety.
Karl Barth
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We must read the Bible through the eyes of shipwrecked people for whom everything has gone overboard.
Karl Barth
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When the frontier between God and man, the last inexorable barrier and obstacle, is not closed, the barrier between what is normal and what is perverse is opened.
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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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