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
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
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the duality of our obligation to speak about God and our inherent limitations in fully understanding or articulating divine concepts.
Karl Barth's quote reflects on the tension between the responsibility of ministers to communicate the divine message and the inherent limitations of human language and understanding. He acknowledges that while there is an obligation to speak about God, we must recognize our inability to fully comprehend or express the divine nature. This recognition itself becomes a form of honoring God, as it leads to humility and reverence in the face of the divine mystery.
Themes
GodObligationInabilityRecognitionGlory
In practice
Example use cases
A minister might use this quote during a sermon to illustrate the limits of human understanding of the divine.
More from Karl Barth
All quotes →When we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers.
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Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.
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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
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