“ The more luminously clear it becomes that the demand requires my actual obedience to the will of God, and that His commandments are not grievous, the more luminously clear it becomes to me that, even in the simplest occurrences of my life, His will has not been done, is not done, and never will be done. For not even at the most exalted moment of my life do I fulfill all His commands. Does any single thought of mine express the all-compelling power of the Spirit? Does one single word of mine formulate the Word after which I am striving and which I long to utter in my great misery and hope? Does not each sentence I frame require another to dissolve its meaning? And are my actions any better? Does my lack of fidelity in little things make amends for my great infidelity, or vice versa? Take the case of any reputable and serious-minded philosopher, poet, statesman, or artist. Does he ever suppose his actual achievement to be identical with what he wished to achieve? When my piece of work is done, do I not take leave of it sorrowfully? Woe is me, if I have unduly celebrated what I have accomplished. If, then, my thoughts and words and actions are of such sort as this, can I seek refuge in the restless sea of my emotions? Can I find in the witches’ cauldron of my unconscious achievements an adequate substitute for the failure of my conscious attainments? None but those who are past reclaiming really believe in the eternal significance of their emotions. No! there is no achievement of mine which I can recognize as legitimate. All my products are foreign bodies testifying to my inadequacy. I have no affection for them, no comprehension of them. If I could, I would deny them. They appear before me as hideous, evil-looking changelings. Fragmentary is our knowledge, and partial our understanding. I am unable to apprehend what I have done. What I would, I do not; what I hate, that I do. Who then am I? for I stand betwixt and between, dragged hither by my desires and by my hates, and thither by my inability to do what I desire and by my ability to practise what I hate. ”
Barth on Rom 7:15, p260 (via maconstokes)
“ Grace is the KRISIS from death to life. Death is therefore at once the absolute demand and the absolute power of obedience over against sin. No tension or polarity is possible between grace and sin; there can be no adjustment or equilibrium or even temporary compromise between them. As men under grace, we cannot admit or allow grace and sin to be two alternative possibilities or necessities, each with it’s own rights and properties. For this reason, the Gospel of Christ is a shattering disturbance, an assault which brings everything into question. For this reason, nothing is so meaningless as the attempt to construct a religion out of the Gospel, and to set it as one human possibility in the midst of others. Since Schleiermacher, this attempt had been undertaken more consciously than ever before in Protestant theology — and it is the betrayal of Christ. The man under grace is engaged unconditionally in a conflict. This conflict is a war of life and death, a war in which there can be no armistice, no agreement — and no peace. ”
Barth (1968), on Rom 6:20-23, p225 (via maconstokes)
“ The thought of Life and of God is stirred in us by death — by the reality of death, not by our experience of it. It is unavoidable that it is for the sake of life that we have to remember that we must die; unavoidable too that the finger which directs us to the Cross of Christ should also remind us that we cannot pass beyond the world of sin except where the barrier has been passed. ”
Barth, Epistle To The Romans, p170. (via maconstokes)
