For Karl Barth man always appears to remain
on the
knife edge between the love of God and the abyss of damnation.24 Reinhold Niebuhr holds that we are redeemed from sin in principle, but whether we are redeemed in fact is not made clear.25 Christ, he says, is our hope, not our possession.26 And
again he suggests that only in the moment of prayer can man really love God and his neighbor with the love which Christ has shown to us.27 Emil Brunner comes closer to positive affirmation of the new life of the man to whom the love of God has come with power.