Barth Quotes & Sayings

Intellectual discussion, after all, is the real joy of the winter of life, when other pleasures have flown, as it were. — John Barth

Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death. — Karl Barth

I had to show that the Bible dealt with an encounter between God and Man. I thought only of the apartness of God. What I had to learn after that was the togetherness of Man and God a union of two totally different kinds of beings. — Karl Barth

Loyalty in a free society depends upon the toleration of disloyalty. — Alan Barth

You take ordinary things and turn them rainbow bright. It's what makes you so special. — Christi Barth

The Bible itself has a hundred theologies.

(Karl Barth, January 27, 1959 to English Colloquia in Basel) — Raymond Kemp Anderson

A quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought. — Karl Barth

We don't know what drives and sustains us, only that we are most miserably driven and, imperfectly, sustained. — John Barth

Unhappily, things get clearer as we go along. I perceive that I have no body. What's less, I've been speaking of myself without delight or alternative as self-consciousness pure and sour; I declare now that even that isn't true. I'm not aware of myself at all, as far as I know. I don't think ... I know what I'm talking about. — John Barth

What is offered to man's apprehension in any specific revelation of Christ is the living God himself. — Karl Barth

The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it's you I'm addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction. You've read me this far, then? Even this far? For what discreditable motive? How is it you don't go to a movie, watch TV, stare at a wall, play tennis with a friend, make amorous advances to the person who comes to your mind when I speak of amorous advances? Can nothing surfeit, saturate you, turn you off? Where's your shame? — John Barth

Articulation! There, by Joe, was MY absolute, if I could be said to have one. At any rate, it is the only thing I can think of about which I ever had, with any frequency at all, the feelings one usually has for one's absolutes. To turn experience into speech - that is, to classify, to categorize, to conceptualize, to grammarize, to syntactify it - is always a betrayal of experience, a falsification of it; but only so betrayed can it be dealt with at all, and only in so dealing with it did I ever feel a man, alive and kicking. — John Barth

Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo. — Karl Barth

My classes commenced on the seventh of September, a tall blue day as crisp as the white starched blouses of the coeds who filed into my classroom and nervously took their seats. Standing behind the lectern at eight o'clock sharp, suit fresh-pressed and chin scraped clean, I felt my nostrils flare like a stud's at the nubby tight sex of them, flustered and pink-scrubbed, giggling and moist; my tighs flexed, and I yawned ferociously. — John Barth

Radically and basically, all sin is simply ingratitude. — Karl Barth

The term 'laity' is one of the worst in the vocabulary of religion and ought to be banished from the Christian conversation. — Karl Barth

We must hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. — Karl Barth

The righteousness of God in His election means, then, that as a righteous Judge God perceives and estimates as such the lost cause of the creature, and that in spite of its opposition He gives sentence in its favour, fashioning for it His own righteousness. — Karl Barth

third understanding of the imago Dei also gained popularity in the twentieth century, though it too had historical predecessors. In the early part of the twentieth century, Karl Barth argued that the central defining feature of the imago Dei is human relationality. Hence, this view is called the relational view of the imago Dei. Humans are created in the image of the Triune God and thus are meant to find their essence and destiny in community with one another and with God The following three essays offer arguments in favor of each of these views. — Gregory A. Boyd

Theology is not a private subject for theologians only. Nor is it a private subject for professors. Fortunately, there have always been pastors who have understood more about theology than most professors. Nor is theology a private subject of study for pastors. Fortunately, there have repeatedly been congregation members, and often whole congregations, who have pursued theology energetically while their pastors were theological infants or barbarians. Theology is a matter for the Church. — Karl Barth

The mature and well-balanced man, standing firmly with both feet on the earth, who has never been lamed and broken an half-blinded by the scandal of life, is as such the existentially godless man. — Karl Barth

The wisdom to recognize and halt follows the know-how to pollute past rescue. The treaty's signed, but the cancer ticks in your bones. Until I'd murdered my father and fornicated my mother I wasn't wise enough to see I was Oedipus. — John Barth

The Church should be the place where a word reverberates right into the world. — Karl Barth

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. — Karl Barth

May I recommend three Maryland beaten biscuits, with water, for your breakfast? They are hard as a haul-seiner's conscience and dry as a dredger's tongue, and they sit for hours in your morning stomach like ballast on a tender ship's keel. They cost little, are easily and crumblessly carried in your pockets, and if forgotten and gone stale, are neither harder nor less palatable than when fresh. What's more, eaten first thing in the morning and followed by a cigar, they put a crabberman's thirst on you, such that all the water in a deep neap tide can't quench
and none, I think, denies the charms of water on the bowels of morning? — John Barth

Mozart's music is free of all exaggeration, of all sharp breaks and contradictions. The sun shines but does not blind, does not burn or consume. Heaven arches over the earth, but it does not weigh it down, it does not crush or devour it. — Karl Barth

Holy Communion is offered to all, as surely as the living Jesus Christ is for all, as surely as all of us are not divided in him, but belong together as brothers and sisters, all of us poor sinners, all of us rich through his mercy. Amen. — Karl Barth

My work never directly addresses the literal subject matter of the photograph, but attempts to ask questions about vision itself. — Uta Barth

This is an exciting time. A new chapter in our history. — John Barth

No one can be saved - in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved - in virtue of what God can do. — Karl Barth

Choosing is existence. To the extent that you don't choose, you don't exist, — John Barth

Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up. — Joseph Barth

There is no philosophy that is not to some extent also theology. — Karl Barth

The person who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that. — Karl Barth

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

... beg Love's pardon for your want of faith. Helen chose you without reason because she loves you without cause; embrace her without question and watch your weather change. — John Barth

Anastasia...' The name seemed strange to me now, and her hair's rich smell. What was it I held, and called Anastasia? A slender bagful of meaty pipes and pouches, grown upon with hairs, soaked through with juices, strung up on jointed sticks, the whole thing pushing, squirting, bubbling, flexing, combusting, and respiring in my arms; doomed soon enough to decompose into its elements, yet afflicted in the brief meanwhile with mad imaginings, so that, not content to jelly through the night and meld, ingest, divide, it troubled its sleep with dreams of passedness, of love. — John Barth

Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind. The chances are that you'll never make them identical. That's one reason I'm still hitting the keyboard. Obsessed by the secrets of my past, I try to put metaphorical versions of them on the page, but each time, no matter how honest and hard my effort, what's in my mind hasn't been fully expressed, compelling me to keep trying. To paraphrase a passage from John Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse," I'll die telling stories to myself in the dark. But there's never enough time. There was never enough time. — David Morrell

Innocence is like youth,' he declared sadly, 'which is given to us only to expend and takes its very meaning from its loss. — John Barth

Some theologians claim that all God's desires culminate in a single desire: to assert and to maintain God's own glory. On its own, the idea of a glory-seeking God seems to say that God, far from being only a giver, is the ultimate receiver. As the great twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth disapprovingly put it, such a God would be "in holy self-seeking ... preoccupied with Himself"10. In creating and redeeming, such a God would give, but only in order to get glory; the whole creation would be a means to this end. In Luther's terms, here we would have a God demonstrating human rather than divine love. — Miroslav Volf

The difference here 'twixt simple and witty folk, if the truth be known, is that your plain man cares much for what stand ye take and not a fart for why ye take it, while your smart wight leaves ye whate'er stand ye will, sobeit ye defend it cleverly. — John Barth

God has not the slightest need for our proofs. — Karl Barth

I haven't even read everything I wrote. — Karl Barth

So, reader, should you ever find yourself writing about the world, take care not to nibble at the many tempting symbols she sets squarely in your path, or you'll be baited into saying things you don't really mean, and offending the people you want most to entertain. Develop, if you can, the technique of the pall bearers and myself: smile, to be sure
for fucking dogs are truly funny
but walk on and say nothing, as though you hadn't noticed. — John Barth

Drolls & dreamers that we are, we fancy that we can undo what we fancy we have done. — John Barth

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

I was a huge fan of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. — Jessica Barth

Theology can be useful only when it does not retreat from the divine judgment that accompanies the work of all men, but, instead unreservedly exposes and submits itself to this judgment. Only by not rejecting or resisting the threat that encounters it, but, instead, acknowledging it propriety, reconciling itself to it, and enduring and bearing it, can theology become useful. — Karl Barth

I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally. — Karl Barth

The Word ought to be exposed in the words — Karl Barth

Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state. — John Barth

More history is made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills and proclamations. — John Barth

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

Innocence is ignorance; ignorance is illusion; and Commencement, while it certainly is a metaphor, is no illusion. Commencement's for the disillusioned, not for the innocent. — John Barth

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

The best theology would need no advocates; it would prove itself. — Karl Barth

Thou shalt make no image, no abstraction, including none of THE American, THE Swiss, THE German. — Karl Barth

Belief cannot argue with unbelief, it can only preach to it. — Karl Barth

Describing the relationship between the biblical witnesses and the theologians who come after, the author challenges that the theologian is not to correct the notebooks of the biblical writers like some high school teacher. Instead, our theology is always subject to what THEY say, as we willingly submit our notebooks for their approval. — Karl Barth

I don't believe in universalism, but I do believe in Jesus Christ, the reconciler of all — Karl Barth

One of the things I miss about teaching is that students would tell me what I ought to read. One of my students, back in the 1960s, put me onto Borges, and I remember another mentioning Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two-Birds in the same way. — John Barth

Nobody knew how to be what they were right. — John Barth

Quantitative changes suddenly become qualitative changes. From all of Marxism, which I once thought attractive enough, I find only this dictum remaining in the realm of my opinions. Water grows colder and colder and colder, and suddenly it's ice. The day grows darker and darker, and suddenly it's night. Man ages and ages, and suddenly he's dead. Quantitative changes suddenly become qualitative changes; differences in degree lead to differences in kind. — John Barth

There does not exist any more a holy mountain or a holy city or holy land which can be marked on a map. The reason is not that God's holiness in space has suddenly become unworthy of Him or has changed into a heathen ubiquity. The reason is that all prophecy is now fulfilled in Jesus, and God's holiness in space, like all God's holiness, is now called and is Jesus of Nazareth. — Karl Barth

Tis e'er the lot of the innocent in the world, to fly to the wolf for succor from the lion. — John Barth

When I was sixteen and knew nothing about art, I sat through almost six hours of Andy Warhol's Empire. I did not understand it but thought: this is in a major museum, it must be important, what is going on here? I stayed until the museum closed. His Screen Test films are some of my favorite works made this century, but you need to give them back the time they took to be made. — Uta Barth

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone. — Karl Barth

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

One way or another, no matter which theory of our journey is correct, it's myself I address; to whom I rehearse as to a stranger our history and condition, and will disclose my secret hope though I sink for it. — John Barth

The church speaks finally in that it prays for the world. — Karl Barth

I've been thinking about what this would be like, too. Ever since that night I almost kissed you on the beach back in June. Say you're right. Say I can have any woman I want. The woman I want is you. Because you're perky and fun. Because you're adorable and you make me laugh all the time. And because you're far more beautiful than you give yourself credit for. I want you, Trina. You've got adaptability and smarts that can't be measured by essays and bubbled answer sheets. I don't want a distraction. I don't want a random hook-up. I want you. — Christi Barth

Faith is never identical with piety. — Karl Barth

Thus in this oneness Jesus Christ is the Mediator, the Reconciler, between God and man. Thus He comes forward to MAN on behalf of GOD calling for and awakening faith, love and hope, and to GOD on behalf of MAN, representing man, making satisfaction and interceding. Thus He attests and guarantees to God's free GRACE and at the same time attests and guarantees to God man's free GRATITUDE. — Karl Barth

When we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers. — Karl Barth

Don't get cute.

Sorry. Born that way. — Christi Barth

The story of your life is not your life; it's your story. — John Barth

Sin is not confined to the evil things we do. It is the evil within us, the evil which we are. — Karl Barth

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

Impossibility is more possible than everything which we hold to be possible. — Karl Barth

Barth (or Barthianism134) believed that the Scriptures are not the word of God, per se, but merely a witness to the word of God (Jesus Christ).135 Revelation is not a propositional statement about God; rather it is an event (Ereignis), an encounter, something that "happens" to an individual. — Michael J. Kruger

Christian worship is the most momentous, most urgent, most glorious action that can take place in human life. — Karl Barth

What I've learned is that the muses' decision to sing or not to sing is not based on the elevation of your moral purpose - they will sing or not, regardless. — John Barth

If you are a novelist of a certain type of temperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist, except he was a Realist. — John Barth

Though life's tuition is always ruinous, inexorably we learn. — John Barth

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

The horror of our history has purged me of opinions. — John Barth

It's easier and sociabler to talk technique than it is to make art. — John Barth

It's not difficult to be encyclopedic in a work of fiction; it's damned difficult to be encyclopedic, I suppose, in truth. — John Barth

Barth observes that the seventh day does not come at the end of a week of toil and labor for human beings as though its primary purpose is to offer a measure of respite after days of toil. Rather, since "God's seventh day was man's first,"54 the seventh day sets life's priority for human beings in the most tangible way. Better yet - and much closer to the point - the seventh day brings to view God's priorities. Seeing that human time "begins with a day of rest and not a day of work,"55 the spiritual pursuit, living life in a relationship with the Creator that is mutually meaningful, stands out as the primary meaning in life. — Sigve K. Tonstad

The cry of revolt against such a god [a god which just affirms the world as it is] is nearer the truth than is the sophistry with which men attempt to justify him ... — Karl Barth

The theologian who labours without joy is not a theologian at all. — Karl Barth

The Devil may also make use of morality. — Karl Barth

I particularly scorn my fondness for paradox. I despise pessimism, narcissism, solipsism, truculence, word-play, and pusillanimity, my chiefer inclinations; loathe self-loathers ergo me; have no pity for self-pity and so am free of that sweet baseness. I doubt I am. Being me's no joke. — John Barth

If you try, you've got a chance at succeeding. Failure isn't guaranteed. If you don't even try at all, you've already failed. — Christi Barth

I have remarked elsewhere that I regard the Almighty as not a bad novelist, except that He is a realist. — John Barth

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. — John Barth

Mozart's music is an invitation to the listener to venture just a little out of the sense of his own subjectivity. — Karl Barth

Barth was the first theologian to begin the criticism of religion ... but he set in its place the positivist doctrine of revelation which says in effect, 'Take it or leave it': Virgin Birth, Trinity or anything else, everything which is an equally significant and necessary part of the whole, which latter has to be swallowed as a whole or not at all. That is not in accordance with the Bible. There are degrees of perception and degrees of significance, i.e. a secret discipline must be re-established whereby the mysteries of the Christian faith are preserved from profanation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Only in living by the effect of Christ's sacrifice and after its pattern can the saints find out and attempt to do 'what pleases the Lord — Markus Barth

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