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.
There is no philosophy that is not to some extent also theology.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Philosophy and theology are intertwined, influencing each other in understanding existence and meaning.
Karl Barth's quote emphasizes the inherent connection between philosophy and theology, suggesting that philosophical inquiries often lead to theological considerations. This intertwining reflects the complexity of human thought, where questions about existence, morality, and the universe cannot be fully explored without contemplating the divine or spiritual aspects that influence philosophical discourse.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the relationship between science and religion, one might use this quote to illustrate how philosophical questions about the universe often intersect with theological discussions.
More from Karl Barth
All quotes βWhen we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers.
Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.
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.
In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.
Christian worship is the most momentous, most urgent, most glorious action that can take place in human life.
Similar quotes
It stands to reason that if sacrifices are being given, somebody is collecting sacrifices.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.
It was among farmers and potato diggers and old men in workhouses and beggars at my own door that I found what was beyond these and yet farther beyond that drawingroom poet of my childhood in the expression of love, and grief, and the pain of parting, that are the disclosure of the individual soul.
Anything that just costs money is cheap.
Investing a lot of time and money in external beauty and caring little about internal beauty.
I was deeply interested in conveying what is a deeply felt conviction of my own. This is simply to suggest that human beings must involve themselves in the anguish of other human beings. This, I submit to you, is not a political thesis at all. It is simply an expression of what I would hope might be ultimately a simple humanity for humanity's sake.