Ben Myers tweeted today an excellent guide/summary to each of Barth's volumes of the Church Dogmatics, this will surely encourage those non-readers to give Barth a go, or those still too daunted to grasp something of great man's theological mind.

Barth 1/1: Before I ever thought of God, before I opened my mouth to speak, God is, God speaks, and what God says is "God!"

Barth 1/2: God's mighty Word is humbly hidden in the human flesh of Jesus, the human words of scripture, & the boredom of the Sunday sermon

Barth 2/1: God's happy Word is unconditioned by anything in us. That's why God is better than anyone, because God is free to love everyone

Barth 2/2: Why is God so good at freely loving us? Because God had so much practice before we ever existed

Barth 3/1: We were summoned into being by God's freely loving Word. From that day on, God has spared no expense in trying to befriend us

Barth 3/2: Our nature fits God like a glove: God wore it first then let us try it on, and Jesus shows us how to wear it right

Barth 3/3: God's freely loving Word holds the world in being and keeps at bay the dreadful power of nonbeing. (P.S. There are angels.)

Barth 3/4: How good it is to be a creature! To be ourselves, never more or less, within the constraints that God has lovingly set for us

Barth 4/1: When I saw the way Jesus used his deity to become small and humble for my sake, it took my breath away (and then my pride)

Barth 4/2: When I saw Jesus triumphant in his humanity, it roused me from a deadly boredom: I became freely and fully human, almost a god

Barth 4/3: The human messenger is the divine Message: Jesus, the living truth that unmasks my self-deception & makes me a disciple of truth

Barth 4/4: So cheer up! God's faithfulness frees us for faith. God's loving address frees us to answer. God's gift frees us for gratitude.

Barth volume 5: And the rest, my friends, is Mozart