Seek, and you will find

"The Bible gives to every man and to every era such answers to their questions as they deserve.  We shall always find in it as much as we seek and no more:  high and divine content if it is high and divine content that we seek; transitory and 'historical' content, if it is transitory and 'historical' content that we seek--nothing whatever, if it is nothing whatever that we seek.  The hungry are satisfied by it, and to the satisfied it is surfeiting before they have opened it.  The question, What is within the Bible? has a mortifying way of converting itself into the opposing question, Well, what are you looking for, and who are you, pray, who make bold to look?"

Karl Barth, "The strange new world within the Bible," The Word of God and the word of man (Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie) II (trans. Douglas Horton, Great books of the Western world, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990), 458).

David Martin on the necessity of judgment

"there is no escaping the social logic of authority.  Compassion has to include judgement and all the catch-phrases about 'non-judgemental compassion' are a sentimental gloss on the Gospels.  Vast harm is done by the refusal to exercise judgement, just because it makes you feel good."

David Martin as interviewed by Rupert Shortt in God's advocates:  Christian thinkers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2005), 157.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis?

"The crux is the necessity of authority, which is a 'functional prerequisite' of social organisation, let alone civility, and includes a settled claim to power and the legitimate use of violence.  Whatever the contemporary decline in deference and respect, and the proper fear of authoritarianism, authority is a key to everything worthwhile, indeed the key to any reform.  Just think of all the Christian experiments throughout history and it is clear that fraternity depends on discipline, on fathers-in-God as well as brothers, otherwise the wolf of chaos destroys the fold."

"My research on Pentecostalism reminded me of my grandfathers, who preferred standing up as 'speaking men' in the street or the chapel to taking a back seat while the military and the squirearchy read the lessons."

Pentecostalism is "a movement of Christian revival comparable to Islamic revival.  Yet when it comes to Pentecostalism, there isn't even a margin of violence.  One has to ask why people in Latin America, Africa and the Far East with much more to motivate hostility to 'the West' than the Middle East are so resolutely peaceful and anxious simply to work  hard to improve their own circumstances by the classic path of individual and group mobility.  Pentecostalism had an autobiographical resonance for me because I saw it as the kind of religious mobilisation of the poor seeking 'respectability'.  By that I mean the self-respect and the respect of others, through the respect shown them by the grace of God that had moved my own parents.  It is why I revived the theory of Halévy about Methodism and the entry of England into modernity. . . ."

David Martin as interviewed by Rupert Shortt in God's advocates:  Christian thinkers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2005), 156, 170, 169.

"FOR OUR SAKE THE WORD OF GOD BECAME AS GRASS" (Is 40:6-9; cf. 1 Pt 1:24-25)

from the moment God's humanity becomes known, from that moment [his] benignity cannot remain obscure.

"Ubi . . . Dei innotescit humanitas, iam benignitas latere non potest."

     St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 1 on the Epiphany.  Bernhard von Clairvaux:  Sämtliche Werke, lateinisch-deutsch 7, p. 322, ll. 5-6; PL 183, col. 143A.  Modern critical editions:  Opera omnia, ed. Leclercq & Rochais; SC 526.  Office of readings for 29 December, Liturgy of the hours, vol. 1, p. 447:  "God's Son came in the flesh so that mortal men could see and recognize God's kindness.  When God reveals his humanity, his goodness cannot possibly remain hidden.  To show his kindness [(benignitatem suam)], what more could he do beyond taking my human form?"
     Here is that sermon as excerpted in the Liturgy of the hours:

The goodness and humanity of God our Savior have appeared in our midst. We thank God for the many consolations he has given us during this sad exile of our pilgrimage here on earth. Before the Son of God became man his goodness was hidden, for God’s mercy is eternal, but how could such goodness be recognized? It was promised, but it was not experienced, and as a result few believed in it. Often and in many ways the Lord used to speak through the prophets. Among other things, God said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. But what did men respond, thinking thoughts of affliction and knowing nothing of peace? They said: Peace, peace, there is no peace. This response made the angels of peace weep bitterly, saying: Lord, who has believed our message? But now men believe because they see with their own eyes, and because God’s testimony has now become even more credible. He has gone so far as to pitch his tent in the sun so even the dimmest eyes see him. 

     Notice that peace is not promised but sent to us; it is no longer deferred, it is given; peace is not prophesied but achieved. It is as if God the Father sent upon the earth a purse full of his mercy. This purse was burst open during the Lord’s passion to pour forth its hidden contents—the price of our redemption. It was only a small purse, but it was very full. As the Scriptures tell us: A little child has been given to us, but in him dwells all the fullness of the divine nature. The fullness of time brought with it the fullness of divinity. God’s Son came in the flesh so that mortal men could see and recognize God’s kindness. When God reveals his humanity, his goodness cannot possibly remain hidden. To show his kindness what more could he do beyond taking my human form? My humanity, I say, not Adam’s—that is, not such as he had before his fall. 

     How could he have shown his mercy more clearly than by taking on himself our condition? For our sake the Word of God became as grass. What better proof could he have given of his love? Scripture says: Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him; why does your heart go out to him? The incarnation teaches us how much God cares for us and what he thinks and feels about us. We should stop thinking of our own sufferings and remember what he has suffered. Let us think of all the Lord has done for us, and then we shall realize how his goodness appears through his humanity. The lesser he became through his human nature the greater was his goodness; the more he lowered himself for me, the dearer he is to me. The goodness and humanity of God our Savior have appeared, says the Apostle. 

     Truly great and manifest are the goodness and humanity of God. He has given us a most wonderful proof of his goodness by adding humanity to his own divine nature.

      There are other translations, just e.g. the one in (presumably) Cistercian fathers series 51, trans. Edmonds & Beckett.

"We needn't discuss the inanity of that."

"Sara Grant in her book Towards an alternative theology. . . . characterizes the unique bond between Creator and creation as a non-reciprocal relation of dependence.  All our relations of dependence are, of course, reciprocal.  It's illuminated in the Arab world, where people's names change when they become parents.  Let's say a couple have a child called Rasheed.  The father then becomes Abu Rasheed, and the mother's name becomes Um Rasheed.  So it reminds us that even though you might think the child depends solely on its parents, they, of course, experience a whole new identity through the birth of their child.  So every relationship between us in the world is a reciprocal one.  In Thomas' view, it's only creation which entails a non-reciprocal relation of dependence.  And, of course, some modern theologians took umbrage at this idea, and invented process theology, which pictures God as changing along with the universe.  We needn't discuss the inanity of that."

     David Burrell as interviewed by Rupert Shortt in God's advocates:  Christian thinkers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2005), 139.

Burrell on the distinction between philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion

". . . Thomas Aquinas offers us the stellar example of how someone, in trying to use philosophy to search for the truth of our faith, will have to transform ordinary philosophical categories.  And that transforming is to me the difference between the work I do—philosophical theology—and standard philosophy of religion.  Because the tendency of philosophers of religion is to think that their philosophical categories will work everywhere and there's no need to transform them to talk about God.  To my mind, the result of that is a procrustean picture of God—in effect an idol.  If you've got to fit God into your philosophical categories, then it's no longer God you're talking about.  And interestingly enough, something analogous can happen with ethical categories which have emerged in a climate without reference to a transcendent Creator. . . ."

David Burrell as interviewed by Rupert Shortt in God's advocates: Christian thinkers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 137.

Burrell on the natural law

"In referring to natural law, Thomas was talking about the fact that we cannot simply decide the rightness or wrongness of certain actions.  Take abortion.  You can argue as an ethicist as to whether abortion can be permitted, but you cannot say that abortion is simply a matter of choice, for the simple reason that certain ethical notions are built into the very grammar of our discourse.  It's not for us to overthrow them—even though in practice, of course, we tend to blur the categories when it suits us."

     David Burrell as interviewed by Rupert Shortt in God's advocates:  Christian thinkers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2005), 137.