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Philosophical Haiku

Karl Barth (1886-1968)

by Terence Green

Proud Reason brought low
Credo ut intelligam
The Word revealed

Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth was the leading Christian theological scholar of the twentieth century. He didn’t think much about sinful humanity, but he did have a reasonably high estimation of his own qualities, humbly considering himself part of an august lineage that included Kierkegaard, Luther, Calvin, St Paul, and Jeremiah – seers who believed that ‘man is made to serve God and not God man’.

Barth was revolted by the turn that Christianity had taken in nineteenth century Europe, with its liberal views on beliefs, its reductively rationalistic (ie anti-supernatural) approach to God, and a biblical exegesis which reduced the word of God to the status of historical myth. The idea that we share in the Divine Mind through human reason, he said, was sheer hubris on our part – yet another of humanity’s pitiful delusions.

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