Emil Brunner

Emil Brunner , 1889-1966, Swiss Protestant theologian. A clear and systematic thinker from the school of dialectical theology, he was a professor of theology at the Univ. of Zürich (1924-53) and Christian Univ., Tokyo (1953-55). He several times visited and lectured in the United States. Like Karl Barth he challenged the leaders of modern rational and liberal Christian theology and proclaimed a theology of revelation. The Christian faith, he maintained, arises from the encounter between individuals and God as He is revealed in the Bible. Brunner, in attempting later to leave a place for natural theology in his system, came into conflict with Barth over the question of natural revelation. Brunner refused to accept the radical divorce between grace and human consciousness that Barth proposed. His more important works include Die Mystik und das Wort (1924), Der Mittler (1927, tr. The Mediator, 1934), Das Gebot und die Ordnungen (1932, tr. The Divine Imperative, 1937), Der Mensch in Widerspruch (1937, tr. Man in Revolt, 1939), Wahrheit als Begegung (1938, tr. The Divine-Human Encounter, 1943), and Christianity and Civilization (2 vol., 1948-49).

Bibliography: See study by J. Edward Humphrey (1984).

Brunner, Emil (1889–1966), Swiss dialectical theologian. From 1922 to 1953 he taught mainly at Zurich. He supported K. Barth in opposing theological liberalism, but he was sharply divided from him by the influence of M. Buber and by his acceptance of the concept of natural theology, by which a limited knowledge of God may be gained from creation. This, though it did not, like revelation, provide a personal meeting, was a necessary condition of Christian thought. His works include Der Mittler (1927; Eng. tr., The Mediator, 1934) and Das Gebot und die Ordnungen (1932; Eng. tr., The Divine Imperative, 1937).

Brunner, Heinrich Emil (1889–1966). Christian (Swiss Reformed) theologian, for most of his working life Professor of Theology at Zurich. He maintained a distinct position from Karl Barth, but endeavoured to retain a dialectical theology, with the utter distinctiveness of God nevertheless already ‘prepared for’, by way of recognition, in his creation. Thus in The Mediator (1927, 1934) he claimed that the command to love God wholly and solely is unrealistic apart from Christ's own fulfilment of it which opens the way to our own.