Friday Theology Quotes 9

It's Barth all the way down. After some time I will share some initial reflections on my little Barth project, but for now, here are some gems I've picked up (CD has one on nearly every page) this week. All of these are from Church Dogmatics, vol. I.1, "The Doctrine of the Word of God":

Theology guides the talk of the Church to the extent that it concretely reminds it that in all circumstances it is fallible human work which in the matter of relevance or irrelevance lies in the balance, and must be obedience to grace if it is to be well done. Theology accompanies the utterance of the Church to the extent that it is itself no more than human "talk about God," so that with this talk it stands under the judgment that begins at the house of God and lives by the promise given to the Church. (p. 4)

The Bible, speaking to us and heard by us as God' Word, bears witness to past revelation. Proclamation, speaking to us and heard by us as God's Word, promises future revelation.... The Bible is not in itself and as such God's past revelation. (p. 111)

On the one hand Deus dixit, on the other Paulus dixit. These are two different things. And precisely because they are not two things but become one and the same thing in the event of the Word of God, we must maintain that it is by no means self-evident or intrinsically one that revelation should be understood primarily as the superior principle and the Bible primarily as the subordinate principle. (pp. 113-114)

If "written" and "preached" denote the twofold concrete relation in which the Word of God is spoken to us, revelation denotes the Word of God itself in the act of its being spoken in time. Above this act there is nothing other or higher on which it might be based or from which it might be derived unless it was from the transcendence of the eternal Word of God that it came forth in revelation." (p. 118)

To say revelation is to say "The Word became flesh." (p. 119)

The equation of God's Word and God's Son makes it radically impossible to say anything doctrinaire in understanding the Word of God. In this equation, and in it alone, a real and effective barrier is set up against what is made of proclamation according to the Roman Catholic view and of Holy Scripture according to the later form of older Protestantism, namely, a fixed sum of revealed propositions which can be systematised like the sections of a corpus of law. The only system in Holy Scripture and of proclamation is revelation, i.e., Jesus Christ. (p. 137)

The doubtful thing is not whether God is person, but whether we are. (p. 138)

Is it clear to our generation in life as well as thought that the serious element in serious theological work is grounded in the fact that its object is never in any circumstances at our command, at the command of even the profoundest biblical or Reformation vision or knowledge, at the command of even the most delicate and careful construction? (p. 163)

If a man, the church, Church proclamation and dogmatics think they can handle the Word and faith like capital at their disposal, they simply prove thereby that they have neither the Word nor faith. When we have them, we do not regard them as a possession but strain after them, hungering and thirsting, and for that reason blessed. (p. 225)

Good stuff all around.