Inspirational Quotes by Karl Barth

“Faith in a written revelation is a real, unfeigned, and so far respectable faith, only where it is believed that all in the sacred writings is significant, true, holy, divine. Where, on the contrary, the distinction is made between the human and divine, the relatively true and the absolutely true, the historical and the permanent, - where it is not held that all without distinction is unconditionally true; there the verdict of unbelief, that the Bible is no divine book, is already introduced into the interpretation of the Bible, - … it's title to the character of a divine revelation is denied. Unity, unconditionality, freedom from exceptions, immediate certitude, is alone the character of divinity. A book that imposes on me the necessity of discrimination, the necessity of criticism, in order to separate the divine from the human, the permanent from the temporary, is no longer a divine, certain, infallible book, - it is degraded[.]”

“Religion is a dream, in which our own conceptions and emotions appear to us as separate existences, beings out of ourselves. The religious mind does not distinguish between subjective and objective, - it has no doubts; it has the faculty of not discerning other things than itself, but of seeing its own conceptions out of itself as distinct beings. What is in itself merely a theory is to the religious mind a practical belief, a matter of conscience, - a fact. [A] fact is that which one cannot criticise or attack without being guilty of a crime; … a fact is a physical force, not an argument, - it makes no appeal to the reason. … [F]acts are just as relative, as various, as subjective, as the ideas of different religions[.] … A fact … is a conception about the truth of which there is no doubt, because it is no object of theory, but of feeling, which desires that what it wishes, what it believes, should be true. … A fact is … a … conception which, for the age wherein it is held to be a fact, expresses a want, and is for that reason an impassable limit of the mind. A fact is every wish that projects itself on reality[.]”

“That which has essential value for man, which he esteems the perfect, the excellent, in which he has true delight, - that alone is God to him. … Therefore, the feeling, sensitive man believes only in a feeling, sensitive God, … [T]hat alone is holy to man which lies deepest within him, which is … the basis, the essence of his individuality. To the feeling man a God without feeling is an empty, abstract, negative God[.]”

“The more man alienates himself from Nature, the more subjective, i.e., supranatural or antinatural, is his view of things, the greater the horror he has of Nature, or at least of those natural objects and processes which displease his imagination, which affect him disagreeably.”

“Divine grace is the power of chance beclouded with additional mystery. … Religion denies, repudiates chance, making everything dependent on God, explaining everything by means of him; … the divine will … determines or predestines some to evil and misery, others to good and happiness, has not a single positive characteristic to distinguish it from the power of chance. The mystery of the election of grace is thus the mystery of chance.”

“[I]n love, man declares himself unsatisfied in his individuality taken by itself, he postulates the existence of another as a need of the heart; … the life which he has through love to be the truly human life, … The individual is defective, imperfect, weak, needy; but love is strong, perfect, contented, free from wants, self-sufficing, infinite; … friendship is a means of virtue, and more: it is … dependent however on participation. … [I]t cannot be based on perfect similarity; on the contrary, it requires diversity, for friendship rests on a desire for self-contemplation. One friend obtains through the other what he does not himself possess. … However faulty a man may be, it is a proof that there is a germ of good in him if he has worthy men for his friends. If I cannot be myself perfect, I yet at least love virtue, perfection in others.”

“[L]ove is also the idealism of nature … Love alone makes the nightingale a songstress; love alone gives the plant it corolla. And what wonders does love not work in our social life!”

“Belief in Providence is belief in a power to which all things stand at command to be used according to its pleasure, in opposition to which all the power of reality is nothing. Providence cancels the laws of Nature; it interrupts the course of necessity, the iron bond which inevitably binds effects to causes; in short, it is the same unlimited, all-powerful will, that called the world into existence out of nothing. Miracle is a creatio ex nihilo. He who turns water into wine, makes wine out of nothing, for the constituents of wine are not found in water; otherwise, the production of wine would not be a miraculous, but a natural act. The only attestation, the only proof of Providence is miracle. Thus Providence is an expression of the same idea as creation out of nothing.”

“If I know not now what and how I shall be; if there is an essential, absolute difference between my future and my present; neither shall I then know what and how I was before, the unity of consciousness is at an end, personal identity is abolished, another being will appear in my place; and thus my future existence is not in fact distinguished from non-existence. If, on the other hand, there is no essential difference, the future is to me an object that may be defined and known[:] … I am the substance which connects the present and the future into a unity. How then can the future be obscure to me? That which irreligious-religious reflection converts into a known image of an unknown yet certain thing, is … in the primitive, true sense of religion, not an image, but the thing itself. … The future life is nothing else than life in unison with the feeling, with the idea, which the present life contradicts. … [T]he other world is nothing more than the reality of a known idea, the satisfaction of a conscious desire, the fulfilment of a wish; it is only the removal of limits which here oppose themselves to the realisation of the idea. … [A]n image, a conception; still it is not the image of a remote, unknown thing, but a portrait of that which man loves and prefers before all else[:] … his soul.”

“That which I think only according to the standard of my individuality is not binding on another; it can be conceived otherwise; it is an accidental, merely subjective view.”

“[T]here is no distinction between the predicates of the divine and human nature, and, consequently, no distinction between the divine and human subject … [T]he predicates are not accidents, but express the essence of the subject … [T]he essence of religion … conceives and affirms a profoundly human relation as divine relations[.]”

“Prayer is the self-division of man into two beings, - a dialogue of man with himself, with his heart. … [I]n prayer, man speaks undisguisedly of what weighs upon him, which affects him closely; he makes his heart objective; … Concentration … is the condition of prayer; … prayer is itself concentration, - the dismissal of all distracting ideas, of all disturbing influences from without, … in order to have relation only with one's own being. Only a trusting, open, hearty, fervent prayer is said to help; but this help lies in the prayer itself.”

“The clearest, most irrefragable proof that man in religion contemplates himself as the object of the Divine Being … is … love … , the … central point of religion. God, for the sake of man, empties himself of his Godhead, lays aside his Godhead. … How can the worth of man be more strongly expressed than when God, for man's sake, becomes a man, when man is the end, the object of the divine love? The love of God to man is an essential condition of the Divine Being … . Here lies the ultimate emphasis, the fundamental feeling of religion. The love of God makes me loving; … But when I love and worship the love with which God loves man, do I not love man … ? [I]f God loves man, man is the heart of God … [I]s not the content of the divine nature, the human nature? … [T]he love of God … - the … central point of religion – [is] the love of man to himself.”

“Belief in Providence is belief in a power to which all things stand at command to be used according to its pleasure, in opposition to which all the power of reality is nothing. Providence cancels the laws of Nature; … it is the same unlimited, all-powerful will, that called the world into existence out of nothing. … [T]he only proof of Providence is miracle. … [M]iracle … implies … that the miracle worker is the same as he who brought forth all things by his mere will – God the Creator.”

“[A] merely personal God is an abstract God; but so he ought to be – that is involved in the idea of him; for he is nothing else than the personal nature of man positing himself out of all connection with the world, making itself free from all dependence on nature.”

“The religious man renounces the joys of this world, but only that he may win in return the joys of heaven; … and the joys of heaven are the same as those of earth, only that they are freed from the limits and contrarieties of this life. Religion thus arrives, though by a circuit, at the very goal, the goal of joy, towards which the natural man hastens in a direct line. To live in images or symbols is the essence of religion. Religion sacrifices the thing itself to the image.”

“[E]very understanding which I posit as different from my own, is only a position of my own understanding, i.e. an idea of my own, a conception which falls within my power of thought, and thus expressed my understanding. … What I think of as united, I unite; what I think of as distinct, I distinguish; … [M]y understanding or my imagination is itself the power of uniting … ; understanding is only the understanding which exists in man[.]”

“[Faith] makes salvation dependent on itself, not on the fulfilment of common human duties. … [I]nwardly morality is subordinate to faith, so it must also be outwardly, practically … sacrificed to faith. … [A]ctions which are morally bad, but which according to faith are laudable, because they have in view the advantage of faith. … Hence faith absolves … everything; … the highest commandment therefore is: Believe!”

“That he is, he has to thank Nature; that he is man, he has to thank man; spiritually as well as physically he can achieve nothing without his fellow-man. Four hands can do more than two, but also four eyes can see more than two. … In isolation human power is limited, in combination it is infinite. The knowledge of a single man is limited, but reason, science, is unlimited, for it is a common act of mankind; … the scientific genius of a particular age comprehends in itself the thinking powers of the preceding age[.]”

“We consume the air and we are consumed by it; we enjoy and are enjoyed.”