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Dogmatics: Volume II - Christian Doctrine of Creation & Redemption (Library of Theological Translations)

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Heinrich Emil Brunner (1889-1966) was a Swiss Reformed theologian, who (along with Karl Barth) was the leader of the Neo-Orthodox theology movement.

He states in the Preface to this second of three volumes (the others are The Christian Doctrine of God - Dogmatics - Volume 1 and The Christian doctrine of the church, faith, and the consummation (Dogmatics, Volume III)), "The present work ... shows, however, that it is only on these lines that Christian thought can be saved from the rigidity of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, and the results of Biblical criticism can be made fruitful for the shaping of Christian doctrine. For after the promising beginnings of the `Dialectical Theology' in overcoming the sterile and false contrast between Liberalism and Orthodoxy, we are unfortunately back again at the point where this contrast dominates theological discussion afresh."

Here are some representative quotations from this volume:

"Sin does not hinder men from knowing the things of the world, the laws of nature, the facts of nature, and man in his natural, historical and cultural manifestations." (Chap. 1)

"The so-called `Mosaic' story is not only a wonderful testimony to the divine revelation, but it is also a product of a very primitive view of the world." (Chap. 1)

"The Creation is the invisible background of Evolution; Evolution is the visible foreground of Creation." (Appendix to Chap. 1)

"While, to a certain extent, some kinds of suffering are inherent in the physico-temporal existence of man... The worst sufferings of human life are those which men bring upon themselves." (Chap. 4)

"Is not a world in which, from the very beginning, from the first emergence of living creatures, there has been the struggle for existence, with all its suffering and its `cruelty,' an arena suitable for sinful man?" (Chap. 4)

"Hence we must follow the dogmatic rule that we have already accepted as final: our final authority is not what Scripture says, but its relation to the centre of the Christian faith as a whole." (Chap. 5)

"Thus Evil, and all the harm which comes from it, is opposed to the will of God, and God is opposed to it. It is the product of apostasy from God, of the perversion of the divine order of Creation. It is the product of the misused gift of human freedom." (Chap. 6)

"Suffering becomes the way to eternal life. Here, then, the theodicy problem is not solved intellectually, but, by a real redemption, it is overcome." (Chap. 6)

"The Commandment of Love never says WHAT we are to do; it does not tell the Good Samaritan what he ought to do for the poor man who fell among robbers. All it says to him is this: Here and now do everything you can for him!" (Chap. 8)

"Theological liberalism is an arrogant attempt to see `Jesus himself,' without being led to this view by the Apostles." (Chap. 10)

"For all these reasons the idea of the Mythical should not be taken for granted and used in the way in which Bultmann does. If anyone wants to be critical, let him be above all critical in the use of his criteria!" (Chap. 10)

"(T)o him who was the earliest and most reliable of the witnesses to the Resurrection, the thing that mattered most was not the Empty Tomb, but the meeting with the Risen Lord, as a spiritual personal reality." (Chap 12)