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
When we are at our wits' end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of humility in seeking guidance and wisdom beyond our own understanding.
In this quote, Karl Barth reflects on the necessity of relinquishing our preconceived solutions in order to receive deeper insights from the Holy Spirit. When we cling to our own answers, we block ourselves from divine guidance, suggesting that true understanding often requires us to let go of our certainty and be open to higher wisdom.
Themes
WisdomGuidanceHumilityUnderstandingInsight
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a spiritual retreat to encourage openness to divine guidance.
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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