Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, April 21, 2014

Introduction to Emil Brunner, Part 2 (+ book links)




[My] Favorite Theologian Revisited: Emil Brunner
(Review of Alister McGrath’s Book: Part Two)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/04/a-favorite-theologian-revisted-emil-brunner-review-of-alister-mcgraths-book-part-two/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rogereolson_042014UTC010415_daily&utm_content=&spMailingID=45670627&spUserID=Nzg4MDU4NjI4MjkS1&spJobID=422432262&spReportId=NDIyNDMyMjYyS0

by Roger Olson
April 19, 2014

Continued of article from:


This is a continuation of a recent blog post about theologian Emil Brunner under the guise of being a review of Alister McGrath’s recently published Emil Brunner: A Reappraisal (Wiley Blackwell, 2014). I mean that tongue-in-cheek because I’m aware, as you may be, that my interest in McGrath’s book arises from my interest in and love for Emil Brunner’s theology, and I’m more interested in promoting that than McGrath’s book! However, if you’re a fan of Brunner, like I am, you may want to spend $83 for this approximately 200 pages book. I did.


Barth Debates Brunner's Natural Theology

I’m reading the book slowly because I want to absorb it, reflect on it, think critically about it and let it renew and refresh my interest in and knowledge of Brunner’s theology. This second installment focuses on one crucial chapter of the book which deals with one crucial episode in Brunner’s theological career—his famous (or infamous) 1934 debate with Karl Barth about “natural theology.” This is Chapter 4: “Natural Theology? The Barth—Brunner Debate of 1934″ (pp. 90-133).

For those who are not aware of this debate, I’ll review it briefly. During the 1920s Barth and Brunner were fairly friendly and working together, with Eduard Thurneysen and Friedrich Gogarten, on what came to be called “dialectical theology.” McGrath rightly notes that Barth was a little jealous that Brunner was better known in Britain and America and Brunner was a little concerned that Barth might be the stronger personality and thinker of the group. Barth went to Germany to teach; Brunner taught at the University of Zurich but lectured in many places. The two Swiss theologians knew each other well and carried on a lively correspondence. They also met many times for theological conversations—often with Thurneysen who seemed to be the one of the group who tried to hold it together. These were all big personalities with relatively large egos.

In Germany, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Barth experienced the chaos of the Weimar Republic and the beginnings of National Socialism as a political force. Eventually, of course, to make a long story short, he spoke out against the “Nazification” of the German churches and helped form the “Confessing Church” that stood against Fascism. Barth saw what was happening in Germany as the inevitable result of German liberal religious thought—openness to new revelations of God in culture. He tended to equate this with natural theology.

Back in Switzerland, Brunner was not personally touched by happenings in Germany, at least not to the extent Barth was. Barth was involved in the controversy and eventually was expelled from Germany for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler. Brunner did not see the events unfolding in Germany as directly related to liberal theology or natural theology.

During the 1920s, as McGrath helpfully explains, Brunner was developing his idea of a “second task of theology” and calling it “eristics.” This was the task of a kind of Christian apologetics—setting the Christian world view over against alternatives such as naturalism and idealism and showing its superiority. Barth was opposed to this because it seemed to him to presuppose a universal rationality above revelation, the Word of God.

The Onset of the Debate

Barth began to criticize Brunner’s eristics (as expressed for example in The Mediator—Brunner’s first major monograph published in 1929) and he began rather stridently to criticize all natural theology as inherently idolatrous.

In The Mediator Brunner had argued for a twofold view of the imago dei - i) humanity’s “formal image of God” which is not lost or even damaged by the fall and, ii) humanity’s “material image of God” which is lost by the fall. The former is simply capacity for hearing and responding to the Word of God. The latter is actually responding to the Word of God resulting in having a relationship with God. Brunner made clear that the latter, the material image, could only be restored by grace.

Barth attacked Brunner’s distinction in some lectures that were published. Brunner was stung by the harshness of the criticisms and believed Barth was either misunderstanding him or misrepresenting his view.

In 1934 Brunner published Nature and Grace in which he responded to Barth’s criticisms and defended a kind of natural theology. However, as McGrath very helpfully explains, what Brunner called “natural theology” in this work (and before and after) was not what most people mean by the concept. He meant general revelation and the formal image of God as a “point of contact” for the gospel in natural man. He feared that Barth was throwing the baby of general revelation out with the bathwater of natural knowledge of God.

Barth responded to Brunner’s book with Nein! (“No!) The subtitle was “A Reply to Emil Brunner” and the reply was extremely harsh. McGrath is right to say that 1) Barth made some good points against natural theology in light of what was happening in Germany, but 2) misrepresented Brunner’s view. Brunner’s view was not very different, if at all, from Calvin’s in the Institutes and was grounded in Romans 1. Brunner went out of his way to explain that he was not defending a “natural knowledge of God” with any salvific potential. He was only defending the “point of contact” for the gospel in natural, fallen humans. But Barth represented Brunner as if he were attempting to return to the “fleshpots of Egypt”—meaning to Catholic and liberal Protestant notions of a natural knowledge of God that could potentially serve as a prison for revelation and/or a foundation for idolatry.

I was much relieved by McGrath’s chapter. I have always thought that Barth’s response was wrong and that Brunner was more right than Barth—with regard to the point of contact. Barth was over reacting to the Nazification of the German churches and simply could not see Brunner’s proposal for what it was. However, Barth fans like to think Barth won the debate. If he did, it was by cheating. (For example, as McGrath shows, Barth attributed sayings to Brunner nowhere to be found in Brunner’s work.)

Barth Misrepresented Brunner's Argument

I can’t help but compare Barth’s Nein! with Luther’s The Bondage of the Will—Luther's response to Erasmus’ defense of free will. Erasmus had clearly defended what I call “freed will”—the will freed by prevenient grace to accept or reject saving grace. Luther simply ignored that and criticized a straw man—his perception (misrepresentation) of Erasmus’ view as humanistic belief in humanity’s ability to save itself.

So Barth’s Nein! attacked a straw man and not Brunner’s actual position which he later clarified in Man in Revolt and Dogmatics. But it shouldn’t have needed such clarification (even though McGrath thinks it helped).

The upshot of all this is that I find McGrath’s treatment of this sorry episode in 20th century theology very helpful. He mostly sides with Brunner—as he should. But very many theologians under the spell of Barth’s influence cannot bring themselves to admit that, at least in this case, Barth was wrong—if not about natural theology itself at least about Brunner’s view. Simply put, Barth threw the baby of general revelation out with the bathwater of natural knowledge of God. Brunner’s only error was in calling his view “natural theology.”

I believe, with Brunner, that there is a natural point of contact in the sinner that I would describe as “life’s ultimate questions” and their unanswerability by anything other than God’s Word. And I agree with Brunner that this, by itself, does no one any good with regard to salvation unless, and until, God’s special, prevenient grace liberates his or her mind and will to “see” that God’s Word answers. [As Brunner would say,] the point of contact can incline a person under pressure to be open to prevenient grace.


by Alistair McGrath



by Emil Brunner



By Westminister Press:
Emil Brunner's Dogmatics Series, I-III