Quote by Karl Barth
“[A]lthough the deeds opposed to love which mark Christian religious history, are in accordance with Christianity, and its antagonists are therefore right in imputing to it the horrible actions resulting from dogmatic creeds; those deeds nevertheless at the same time contradict Christianity, because Christianity is not a religion of faith, but of love also … Uncharitable actions, hatred of heretics, at once accord and clash with Christianity? how is that possible? … Christianity sanctions both the actions that spring out of love, and the actions that spring from faith without love. If Christianity had made love its only law, its adherents would be right, - the horrors of Christian religious history could not be imputed to it; … But Christianity has not made love free; … has not raised itself to the height of accepting love as absolute. … [B]ecause it is a religion, - and hence subjects love to the dominion of faith.”
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Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century.
Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected his training in the predominant liberal theology typical of 19th-century Protestantism. Instead he embarked on a new theological path initially called dialectical theology, due to its stress on the paradoxical nature of divine truth (e.g., God's relationship to humanity embodies both grace and judgment). Other critics have referred to Barth as the father of neo-orthodoxy -- a term emphatically rejected by Barth himself. The most accurate description of his work might be "a theology of the Word." Barth's theological thought emphasized the sovereignty of God, particularly through his innovative doctrine of election.
Barth tries to recover the Doctrine of the Trinity in theology from its putative loss in liberalism. His argument follows from the idea that God is the object of God's own self-knowledge, and revelation in the Bible means the self-unveiling to humanity of the God who cannot be discovered by humanity simply through its own efforts.