Status Updates From Church Dogmatics I.1: The D...

Barth concludes his book exposition of the Trinity how Augustine concludes his: “O Lord God, one, God Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is from You, may Yours acknowledge it; if anything is from myself, may You forgive, and may Yours also forgive. Amen.”

“We can comprehend God in *ourselves* only as we comprehend ourselves in *God*, just as we can, of course, comprehend *ourselves* in God only as we comprehend *God* in ourselves. It is precisely εν πνεύματι that we shall be ready either way to turn from ourselves to God and to pray to Him, not to contemplate God and manipulate Him.”

“The doctrine of the Trinity, when considered historically in its origin and development, is not equally interested in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Here too the theme is primarily the second person or the Trinity, God the Son, the deity of Christ.” 315

“The doctrine of the Trinity is simply a development of the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ or the Lord.” 334

“Theology means rational wrestling with the mystery.”

Barth quotes Hilary (De trin., 4), “The understanding of what is said is to be assumed for the sake of speaking, because the thing is not subject to speech, but the speech of the thing is subject.” Then says, “Without having this statement before us, we cannot understand the point here, and he who does not adopt this statement as his own methodological axiom is no theologian and never will be.”

“The Lord of speech is also the Lord of our hearing. The Lord who gives the Word is also the Lord who gives faith. The Lord of our hearing, the Lord who gives faith, the Lord by whose act the openness and readiness of man for the Word are true and actual, not another God but the one God in this way, is the Holy Spirit.”