The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedKarl Barth
Title QuotedDogmatics in Outline
Date (Year/Month/Day)1963/09/30
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1949I
QuotationA magnificent line from Karl Barth. "Everyone who has to contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously. Only faith is to be taken seriously, and if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, that suffices for the devil to have lost his gam" (Dogmatics in Outline, p. 20). What stupendous implications in that! Always the old trouble, that the devil and our nature try to persuade us that before we can begin to believe we must be perfect in everything. Faith is not important as it is "in us." Our faith is "in God," and with even a very little of it, God is in us. "To believe is the freedom to trust in Him quite alon" (and to be independent of any other reliance) and to rely on Him in everything that concerns us.
Quotation SourceDancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 20
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