Karl Barth, reflecting on the childhood Bible songs he sang as a child:
Was it all rather naive? Indeed it was very naive, but perhaps the deepest wisdom, with its fullest force, lies in naivety, and this kind of wisdom, once gained, can carry a man over whole oceans of historicism, and anti-historicism, mysticism and rationalism, orthodoxy, liberalism and existentialism. He certainly will not be spared trial and temptation, but in the end he will be brought back relatively unscathed to firm ground.
