Brunner, Emil (1889–1966)

Emil Brunner was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. He was a minister of the Swiss Reformed Church, a professor at the University of Zurich, and held distinguished lectureships in England, the USA and Japan. He joined the ‘dialectical school’ early in his career, but tried to rehabilitate natural theology, which led to a rift with Barth. His works were widely read and often served as basic texts in Reformed and Presbyterian seminaries. He rejected the historicist reduction of Christ to a wise teacher figure that was characteristic of neo-Protestantism. He was also critical of modern philosophical anthropologies – as propounded by Marx or Nietzsche, for example – because he felt that they reduced human essence to a single dimension. Only theological anthropology can fully interpret human essence; and of central importance here is the ‘I–Thou encounter’, whereby the fulfilment of the human ‘I’ is achieved through a relationship with the divine ‘Thou’. Brunner also unfolded an original view on the relation of theology to philosophy. Reason, he argued, is essential for the elucidation and communication of faith. Philosophy, in so far as it indicates the limitations of reason, can serve to prepare us for the revelation of the Absolute.