Quotes from Karl Barth

It is always the case that when the Christian looks back, he is looking at the forgiveness of sins.

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

The goal of human life is not death but resurrection.

Faith is never identical with piety.

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.

The saving of anyone is something which is not in the power of man, but only of God. No one can be saved in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved in virtue of what God can do. The divine claim takes the form that it puts both the obedient and the disobedient together and compels them to realise this, to recognise their common status in face of the commanding God.

God is personal, but personal in an incomprehensible way, in so far as the conception of his personality surpasses all our views of personality.

Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone. Piety is the possibility of the removal of the last traces of a firm foundation upon which we can erect a system of thought.

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.

The power of God can be detected neither in the world of nature nor in the souls of men. It must not be confounded with any high, exalted, force, known or knowable.

The Gospel is not a religious message to inform mankind of their divinity or to tell them how they may become divine. The Gospel proclaims a God utterly distinct from men.