Emil Brunner

Swiss theologian

• Born: December 23, 1889
• Birthplace: Winterthur, Switzerland
• Died: April 6, 1966
• Place of death: Zurich, Switzerland

A leading and articulate exponent of the “new theology” or “dialectical theology” movement that dominated Europe during the 1920’s and 1930’s and profoundly influenced American theology, Brunner lectured widely, published frequently, and was an influential and respected scholar, especially in English-speaking religious circles. His work on behalf of such international organizations as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the ecumenical movement earned for Brunner the reputation of a world Christian theologian.

Early Life

One of the twentieth century’s most noteworthy and influential religious thinkers, Emil Brunner (AY-meel BROON-ehr) was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, the descendant of generations of Swiss farmers. Brunner himself noted, in autobiographical sketches, the influence of his background and ancestry in the value that he placed on personal life, in his emphasis on direct, interpersonal relationships, and in the precedence given in his writings to the orders of marriage and family in society.

Brunner was graduated from the gymnasium, a prestigious boys’ high school in Zurich, in 1908 and was educated at the Swiss University of Zurich and at the German University of Berlin. He was awarded his doctorate in theology from the University of Zurich in 1913, and during the following year his doctoral dissertation, Das Symbolische in der Religiösen Erkenntnis (the symbolic element in religious knowledge), was published.

During his formative years, Brunner and his family had been drawn into the Religious Socialist Movement, the founders of which were a Swiss activist named Hermann Kutter, pastor of the Neumünster Church in Zurich, under whom Brunner was catechized (and whom he regarded as “the gentlest man” whom he had known), and Leonhard Ragaz, who was one of Brunner’s teachers at the University of Zurich. With the outset of World War I in 1914, however, Brunner’s faith in progress was shattered, and his religious socialism, he reflected, began “to look suspiciously like a beautiful illusion.” During the years 1913-1914, Brunner spent several months in England teaching languages at a high school in Leeds and becoming proficient in the use of English. When the war began in Europe, he returned to his native Switzerland and served for a time in the militia.

Brunner’s pastoral experience began with six months’ service as vicar in Hermann Kutter’s Neumünster congregation. In 1916, Brunner, a minister in the Swiss Reformed church, received the call to become pastor of a small congregation in Obstalden in Canton Glarus. He was to serve the congregation as pastor for eight years. In 1917, he married Margit Lauterburg from Bern, Switzerland, a niece of Kutter. The Brunners had four sons, three of whom served with the Swiss army during World War II.

It was during his pastorate in Obstalden that Brunner wrote and published his first two important books. The year 1921 saw the publication of his inaugural thesis, Erlebnis, Erkenntnis, und Glaube (experience, knowledge, and faith), in which he attacked modern theology, dominated as it was by historicism (a product, Brunner believed, of the prejudiced idea that every given reality can be understood from the standpoint of its historical development) and psychologism (religion understood as experience). Three years later, he published his first major contribution to the “dialectical theology movement” (a circle of thinkers including Karl Barth, Eduard Thurneysen, Friedrich Gogarten, George Merz, and Rudolf Bultmann), a critical examination of the theology of the German Romanticist Friedrich Schleiermacher, entitled Die Mystik und das Wort (1924; mysticism and the word). This work represents a search for what Brunner himself has called “a scientifically satisfying formulation” of his faith. It was written at a time when he was reacting to the ideological framework of religious socialism and when Brunner himself was deeply engrossed in the study of philosophy. It was the second edition of the Schleiermacher book, considerably modified and expanded (published in 1928), that brought Brunner, now a college professor, to center stage in the theological struggles that were engulfing European theology and thought.

During the academic year 1919-1920, Brunner studied at Union Theological Seminary in were chosen, the “first Swiss fellow” to be chosen; there he began to make contacts with religious thinkers, institutions of learning, and churches in the United States. In 1922, he became a Privatdocent in Zurich and two years later was called to the Chair of Systematic and Practical Theology at the University of Zurich, where he was to teach for thirty-one years until his retirement in 1955. Brunner continued to live in Zurich until his death there on April 6, 1966.

Life’s Work

Brunner’s theological writings have been called, by German theologian Christof Gestrich, an accompanying phenomenon to the development of dialectical theology (new theology). They may be described more accurately as lucid, articulate, sometimes controversial (in choice and development of themes), not always original attempts to develop and to defend basic theological themes in the post-World War I era. Brunner is often compared, rather unfavorably, with his Swiss contemporary, the theologian Barth, as the spirit of water over and against Barth’s fire, as lucidity to depth, as conventionality to creativity. Brunner contended, however, that from the beginning he had taken a position independent of that of Barth. Like Barth, Brunner had been a child of nineteenth century Liberalism, and, like Barth, he had passed through the ashes of liberal thought to erect a new theology, primarily by a return to the Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. From his early acceptance of “experience” as the basis of religious beliefs and actions, Brunner moved to a rejection of experience as “mysticism” and to placing his emphasis on faith, sola fide (by faith alone), as the basis and path of belief.

Brunner’s major theological writings demonstrate a faith that is at once biblical in its basis, strongly reformational in its accent, and independent in its direction. His extensive writings cover the entire range of theology and social ethics and include such notable and widely read books as Der Mittler: Zur besinnung über den Christusglauben (1927; The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith , 1934), on the doctrine of reconciliation, in which book Brunner accepted the idea of a general revelation; his widely admired book on Christian ethics, Das Gebot und die Ordnungen: Entwurf einer protestantisch-theologischen Ethik (The Divine Imperative: A Study of Christian Ethics , 1937), published in 1932; and a powerful treatise of humanity, sin, and reconciliation, Der Mensch im Widerspruch: Die Christliche lehre vom wahren und vom wirklichen menschen (1937; Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology , 1939).

Brunner’s career was marked by many series of well-received lectures, beginning with a tour of Holland in 1923, which was followed in 1928 by an extensive tour of the United States. His American lectures, delivered mainly in Reformed and Presbyterian colleges and seminaries, were published in 1929 as The Theology of Crisis. In 1931, Brunner lectured in London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and in 1947-1948 he delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Scotland, which resulted in a two-volume work published as Christianity and Civilization (1948-1949). Brunner also accepted invitations to lecture in Hungary, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.

Of particular importance to Brunner in the 1930’s were two “spiritual factors” that, despite their apparent diversity, were to be closely connected in their contribution to his theological thought and method. The first was the Oxford Group Movement, which reached Switzerland in 1931, with its relationship between spiritual reality and fellowship or communion. The second spiritual factor that influenced Brunner was the “I-Thou philosophy” of Ferdinand Ebner, whose approach to personal and interpersonal relationships was given a powerful statement by the Jewish thinker Martin Buber in his 1922 book Ich und du (I and Thou, 1937) and subsequently by the prominent European thinkers Paul Tillich and Gogarten. These writers in their turn owed insights to the Bible and to the profoundly original Danish thinker S ren Kierkegaard, one of the founders of existentialism. This I-Thou philosophy helped Brunner to expound his anthropology on a plane above the traditional rationalistic thought scheme of subject and object and enabled him to understand the biblical concept of humanity as human responsibility before God. The I-Thou philosophy also aided Brunner in understanding “truth as encounter,” which he characterized as the “lodestar” of his theological thinking from the year 1938 onward.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Brunner had been offered a combined professorship at Princeton University and at Princeton Theological Seminary. Although he declined, citing the needs of his native Switzerland and of the European church and civilization during the coming time of darkness, Brunner did remain in the United States for one year as a guest professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1946, he returned to the United States for another lecture tour, this time traveling through the eastern states and the Midwest.

Brunner’s various contributions to the Christian church and to world Christianity were not limited to his lecturing, teaching, and writing. From 1930 on, he worked intensively with study groups in the framework of the emerging ecumenical movement as a member of the study commissions on “life and work” and “faith and order.” On invitation from John R. Mott, American Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) leader and pioneer in the ecumenical movement, Brunner served as theological adviser to the YMCA, helping in the Christian training of YMCA secretaries. In 1949, he traveled to the Far East, where for several months he was involved in lecturing and in leading training courses in Japan, Korea, India, and Pakistan. Prior to his retirement from the University of Zurich, Brunner spent the years 1953-1955 in Japan, where he helped to build the new International Christian University in Tokyo. He interrupted his sojourn in Japan long enough to return to the United States one final time to deliver the Earl Lectures on faith, hope, and love. It was during his return from Japan to Switzerland that Brunner suffered a stroke from which he would never fully recover and which limited his writing but not his strong personal faith and his commitment to the work of Christian theology in the ecumenical age.

Significance

Among the system-builders of Christian theology in the twentieth century, Brunner holds a deserved place of unquestioned eminence. It was Brunner who first introduced the “new theology” to the English-speaking world, and it was Brunner and his theology that influenced generations of pastors, teachers, and theologians in Europe and especially in the United States, where his importance was felt until the early 1960’s. In his development of a Christian anthropology during the 1930’s and in his presentation and defense of “truth as encounter” as biblical and as opposed to the subject-object antithesis that he rightly regarded as a legacy of Greek thought, Brunner changed the face of European and American theology and redirected religious thought and action toward personal encounter, human responsibility, and intersubjective relationships. Brunner’s entire theology was set within the framework of “the divine self-communication,” which he developed and stated with clarity and conviction in his three-volume Dogmatik (1946-1960; Dogmatics , 1949-1962).

During the years of his distinguished academic career, Brunner was perceived by his students from many countries as a lucid, cogent, friendly teacher. These students remember Brunner’s opening early morning classes with a rousing hymn, his orderly, clearly written lectures delivered with passion, his wise counsel in courses of pastoral care, and the hospitality of the Brunners’ home in Zurich and the countless evenings of discussion there. These personal influences, which were consistent with his emphasis on the I-Thou relationship, and his fondness for personal encounters are as important and as lasting as his published works. Through his writings, however, Brunner was, and still is, a very lucid, occasionally profound, and always stimulating Protestant theologian.

Bibliography

Brunner, Emil. Our Faith. Translated by John W. Rilling. 1936. New ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954. Short writings that cover the scope of the Christian faith. This book, which has been translated into nineteen languages, remains the best introduction to Brunner’s theology.

Hart, John W. Karl Barth versus Emil Brunner: The Formation and Dissolution of a Theological Alliance, 1916-1936. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. Recounts how Barth and Brunner’s debate over natural theology led to the dissolution of their relationship.

Humphrey, J. Edward. Emil Brunner. Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1976. For the student this is the clearest and most comprehensive introduction to Brunner’s theology and writings. Humphrey skillfully develops the foundation of Brunner’s theology and the Christian doctrines. Includes a selected bibliography.

Jewett, Paul K. Emil Brunner: An Introduction to the Man and His Thought. Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1961. Part of a series on contemporary Christian thought. A brief but readable study of Brunner and his theology that focuses on Brunner himself, on the place of reason in his thought, and on his views of faith and the Bible. Includes a selected bibliography.

Kegley, Charles W., ed. The Theology of Emil Brunner. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Includes an intellectual autobiography of Brunner, seventeen essays of interpretation and criticism of his work, Brunner’s personal and social ethic, and Brunner as apologist for the Christian faith, with a reply by Brunner. Contains a bibliography of Brunner’s writings to 1962.

Nelson, J. Robert. “Emil Brunner.” In A Handbook of Christian Theologians, edited by Dean G. Pearman and Martin E. Marty. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, England: Lutterworth, 1989. Contains a brief biography, a sketch of Brunner’s theology, and an assessment of his influence on Christian thought.

Van Til, Cornelius. The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1947. A well-known and provocative study that accuses both Barth and Brunner of building their theologies on the same principle that governs modernism. Attempts to compromise the divine by means of argument. Van Til treats critically various aspects of Brunner’s theology.