This coming saturday in the theology discussion group we are reading and discussing chapters 4 and 5 of
Karl Barth's Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. The chapter titles are The Community and The Spirit. The latter includes:
It was the Spirit whose existence and action make possible and real (and possible and real up to this very day) the existence of Christianity in the world. Up to this very day the Spirit calls into being the existence of every single Christian as a believing, loving, hoping witness to the Word of God. The Spirit does this certainly and irresistibly (for to wish to withstand him, when he steps in and acts, would be the one unforgivable sin), for he alone does this. "Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him" ( Rom. 8:9).
It is clear that evangelical theology itself can only be pneumatic, spiritual theology. Only in the realm of the power of the Spirit can theology be realized as a humble, free, critical, and happy science of the God of the Gospel. Only in the courageous confidence that the Spirit is the truth does theology simultaneously pose and answer the question about truth.
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