We have before us the fiendishness of business competition and the world war, passion and wrongdoing, antagonism between classes and moral depravity within them, economic tyranny above and the slave spirit below.
Karl BarthRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the concept that God embodies truth in both exalted and humble human experiences, including our flaws and mortality.
Karl Barth's quote reflects a deep theological perspective that portrays God as being intimately connected to humanity's experience, including its imperfections and vulnerabilities. By stating that God wills to be true not only in the 'height' but also in the 'depth', Barth suggests that divine truth is not only found in grand or majestic moments, but also in the everyday reality of human struggle, sinfulness, and the inevitable reality of mortality. This understanding highlights the relational nature of God with humanity, affirming that even in our lowest points, God remains present and authentic.
Themes
GodTruthHumanitySinMortalityDepthFaith
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing the nature of God's relationship with humanity.
More from Karl Barth
All quotes βWhen we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers.
Karl BarthRead
Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.
Karl BarthRead
That the zeal for God's honor is also a dangerous passion, that the Christian must bring with him the courage to swim against the tide instead of with it... accept a good deal of loneliness, will perhaps be nowhere so clear and palpable as in the church, where he would so much like things to be different. Yet he cannot and he will not refuse to take this risk and pay this price... he belongs where the reformation of the church is underway or will again be underway.
Karl BarthRead
In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.
Karl BarthRead
Christian worship is the most momentous, most urgent, most glorious action that can take place in human life.
Karl BarthRead
Similar quotes
I'm not alive. People believe memories grow vague, are erased by time, since nothing endures against the passage of time. That's the difference; time does not pass over me, over us. It doesn't erase anything, doesn't undo it. I'm not a live. I died in Auschwitz but no one knows it.
Charlotte DelboRead
I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man's spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?
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The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human.
Jeffrey KlugerRead
I saw firsthand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people can do - the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability.
Mary L. TrumpRead
If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.
Yevgeny ZamyatinRead
Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?
Henry David ThoreauRead