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I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally.

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
Literally
Seriously
Bible
Take

More quotes by 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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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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Grace and gratitude go together like heaven and earth.
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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I have read many books, but the Bible reads me.
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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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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Let us hear what the Bible says and what we as Christians are called to hear together: By grace you have been saved.
Karl Barth
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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.
Karl Barth
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What is offered to man's apprehension in any specific revelation of Christ is the living God himself.
Karl Barth
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We act unbelievingly and disobediently when, for whatever motive, we distort, falsify, or suppress the facts about our life in nature and history.
Karl Barth
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In dogmatics our question is: What are we to think and say?
Karl Barth
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Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Gratitude evokes grace like the voice and echo. Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightning.
Karl Barth
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To be a Christian and to pray are one and the same thing it is a matter that cannot be left to our caprice. It is a need, a kind of breathing necessary to life.
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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A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.
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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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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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