Subscribe to our mailing list.
All Blog Posts With Tag: Emil Brunner
Karl Barth wrote two famous letters in August 1963 wherein he condemned Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881 – 1955) as a "giant gnostic snake" that has swallowed up Jesus Christ in order to worship the "deity of evolution", and that Emil Brunner is a "harmless blind-worm" in comparison to […]
Related: Australopithecus, Barth, Emil Brunner, Evolution, Georges Casalis, Giant Gnostic Snake, Gnostic, Gnosticism, Hominisation, human evolution, Karl Barth, karl barth letters: 1961-1968, Karl Rahner, Letters: 1961-1968, Marie-Claire Barth, Natural Revelation, Natural Theology, Peking Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ, Piltdown man, Secular Parables, secular parables of the truth, T. F. Torrance, Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, The Phenomenon of Man, theology of nature
It may surprise many Evangelicals today to learn that Martin Luther, John Calvin and the other reformers affirmed similar (or even the same) Marian Dogmas as the Catholic Church. Protestant Mariology has been in significant decline since the Reformation, and most protestants reject almost every Marian Dogma except for a […]
Related: Assumption of Mary, Birth of the Messiah, Christ, Christmas, Emil Brunner, Immaculate Conception, Ineffabilis Deus, Jürgen Moltmann, Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Marian Dogmas, mariology, Mary, Mary and Grace, Munificentissimus Deus, Raymond E. Brown, Rudolf Bultmann, Theological Investigations, Theological Investigations Vol. 1: God, Virgin Birth, Wolfhart Pannenberg
Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics Ended At A Single Stroke (June 23, 2017)
Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is an unfinished summa theologica, and theological summas are almost always unfinished, and end unexpectedly and abruptly. So it was with Karl Barth as well. In the Christmas season of 1964, Karl Barth suffered a stroke that robbed him of his speech for half a day. Barth […]
Karl Barth is the most famous (and infamous) opponent of Natural Theology in the world. However, in the final volume of the Church Dogmatics, Barth developed a Natural Theology of his own, that he titled "Secular Parables of the Kingdom" (c.f. CD IV/3.1, §69.2 The Light of Life). Did Barth flip-flop on Natural Revelation in […]
At the end of the Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth took a surprising turn in his affirmation of "secular parables" that made many wonder if Barth had reversed his resounding Nein! to Emil Brunner many years prior. In the Church Dogmatics Vol. IV/3.1, §69.2 "The Light of Life", Barth develops his own […]
Karl Barth believed in the Virgin Birth (December 25, 2014)
Nativity of the Lord, Icon by St. Andrei Rublev (1405), Cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow Kremlin. (source: wikipedia)
Karl Barth believed in the Virgin Birth. Barth's theological nemesis Emil Brunner did not and most all of Barth's heirs chose to follow Emil Brunner's famous rejection of the Virgin Birth. Wolfhart Pannenberg sided with Brunner and rejected […]
Jürgen Moltmann on Unfinished Summas and Natural Theology (July 15, 2014)
Unfinished Barcelona Cathedral (Sagrada)
Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is 8,000 pages and unfinished. Thomas Aquinas' great theological system, The Summa Theologica, is unfinished too. All the medieval summas are unfinished in the same way as the medieval summas are unfinished. The post-magesterial reformers of the 16th and 17th century also produced […]
Yes to Us All: Karl Barth’s Final Words to Emil Brunner (June 20, 2014)
~ Updated and Revised: February 21st, 2019 ~
Karl Barth and Emil Brunner is the greatest tragedy since Romeo and Juliet. The friendship between Barth and Brunner is nearly as famous as its tragic demise. Brunner's famous essay "Nature and Grace" was responded to with a loud "Nein!" by Karl Barth that […]
Emil Brunner and Alister McGrath on the Doctrine of Creation (January 22, 2014)
Should Genesis 1-2 be used to define our Doctrine of Creation? Alister E. McGrath's excellent three volume study on the relationship between Theology and Natural Science contained an excellent quote demonstrating that beginning with the first two chapters of the Bible, due to it's prime real estate location in the […]