The Quotable Karl Barth #1

Karl Barth, you either love him or hate him. He's got a debatable pedigree. Let's put it this way, however you feel about him, it can't be denied he was one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century. I've been working through Church Dogmatics II.2 The Doctrine of God 32-33, The Election of God. While I could list a number of serious areas (and I stress, serious) in which I disagree with him, he sometimes says things that completely resonate with my own internal theology. For instance:

Theology must begin with Jesus Christ, and not with general principles, however better, or, at any rate, more relevant and illuminating, they may appear to be: as though He were a continuation of the knowledge and Word of God, and not its root and origin, not indeed the very Word of God itself. Theology must also end with Him, and not with supposedly self-evident general conclusions from what is particularly enclosed and disclosed in Him: as though the fruits could be shaken from this tree; as though in the things of God there were anything general which we could know and designate in addition to and even independently of this particular. The obscurities and ambiguities of our way were illuminated in the measure that we held fast to that name and in the measure that we let Him be the first and the last, according to the testimony of Holy Scripture. Against all the imaginations and errors in which we seem to be so hopelessly entangled when we try to speak of God, God will indeed maintain Himself if we will only allow the name of Jesus Christ to be maintained in our thinking as the beginning and the end of all our thoughts [Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 The Doctrine of God 32-33, The Election of God (New York: T & T Clark, 2009) p. 2].

However neo-orthodox or downright wrong Barth may have been, these words ring true. Chew the meat and spit out the bones.