If a man tries to grasp at truth of himself, he tries to grasp at it a priori. But in that case he does not do what he has to do when the truth comes to him. He does not believe. If he did, he would listen; but in religion he talks. If he did, he would accept a gift; but in religion he takes something for himself. If he did, he would let God Himself intercede for God: But in religion he ventures to grasp at God. Because it is a grasping, religion is the contradiction of revelation, the concentrated expression of human unbelief.” (I.2, pp 302-303; emphasis mine)
amen to that sir.
“Sin is always unbelief. And unbelief is always man’s faith in himself. And this faith invariably consists in the fact that man makes the mystery of his responsibility his own mystery, instead of accepting it as the mystery of God. It is this faith which is religion. It is contradicted by the revelation in the New Testament, which is identical with Jesus Christ as the one who acts for us and on us. This stamps religion as unbelief.” (I.2, p 314)
amen sir
Christian religion does not get a pass. It would be easy to read Barth and see how his critique of religion was against all “other” religions, giving Christianity a pass as the true religion. But when Barth turns to discussing true religion he first points out that “we can speak of ‘true’ religion only in the sense in which we speak of a ‘justified sinner.'” (I.2, p. 325) Perhaps we could put it this way: Christian religion is forgiven unbelief. With that in mind, we should have an attitude of humility when it comes to religion: “It is our business as Christians to apply this judgment [that religion is unbelief] first and most acutely to ourselves: and to others, the non-Christians, only in so far as we recognize ourselves in them.” (I.2 p 327) amen sir love humble....
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