"A theologian may and should be a pleased or satisfied man, if not always on the surface then all the same deep within. To be 'satisfied' in the good old sense of this word means to have found sufficiency in something. As Paul Gerhardt says in one of his hymns: 'Let this suffice you, and be still in the God of your life.' If anyone should not find it sufficient to be 'in God,' what sufficiency would he find in the community or world? How could he exist as a theologian? The community knows from experience that it is a lost flock, but it does not know, or never knows adequately, that it is God's beloved and chosen people, called as such to praise him. And the world knows from experience that it lies in the power of evil (no matter how much it may continually delude itself about its predication). But it does not know that it is upheld on all sides by the helping hands of God.
The theologian finds satisfaction when his knowledge, the intellectus fidei, is directed by the the thrust conveyed to him by the object of his science. In this way he becomes and remains a satisfied and pleased man, who also spreads satisfaction and pleasure throughout the community and world."
- Barth, Karl, 1979: Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company. S.94-95. (Utg. på tyska 1963: Einführung in die evangelische Theologie. Utg. av EVZ-Verlag, Zürich.)
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