Natural Theology - Emil Brunner and Karl Barth

iii
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NATURAL THEOLOGY
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NATURAL THEOLOGY
Comprising “‘ Nature and Grace” by
Professor Dr. Emit Brunner and the
reply “No! by Dr. Kart Barru
Translated from the German by PETER FRAENKEL
With an Introduction by
The Very Rev. Professor Joun BarLuiz, D.D., D.LITT,
LONDON
GEOFFREY BLES: THE CENTENARY PRESS
MCMXLVI
Fistt published 1946
Theology Library
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
AT CLAREMONT
. California
THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN

COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE
AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY J. AND J. GRAY, EDINBURGH

INTRODUCTION
By The Very Rev. Professor Joun Baituie, D.D., D.Litt.
HE remarkable pair of brochures which Mr. Peter

Fraenkel here places at the disposal of English
readers appeared in the original German in 1934 and
quickly attracted the most widespread attention. They
were accepted as giving definitive, if not classical, ex-
pression to what was at that time beginning to emerge
as a burning issue in Protestant theology, and they at
once became the subject of keen debate not only in
continental Europe but also in great Britain and America.
The English translation has been too long delayed, yet
it is likely to be greeted with hardly lessened interest,
since the controversy is still carried on with unabated
vigour.
When Dr. Barth and Dr. Brunner were first heard of
in the English-speaking world they were regarded as
representing an identical point of view—the point of
view variously spoken of as the Barthian theology, the
theology of crisis, and the dialectical theology. It would
seem that this was at the time a sufficiently correct
impression, and one likely to be assented to by the
writers themselves; for, as Dr, Barth indicates in the
present brochure, it was “roughly after 1929” that a
divergence began to manifest itself. If it be asked what
_it was which up to that time the two theologians seemed
to be saying in common, and which had not been said _
before (or was not then in the habit of being said) in
quite the same way, the answer is probably to be found
in their united insistence that not only is there no sal-
vation, but there is also no true knowledge of God,
save in and through Jesus Christ. The idea of the total
5
9
ABD 4b
6 NATURAL THEOLOGY |
corruption of human nature, strongly entrenched in
orthodox Protestantism but lately fallen into disrepute,
was now not only vigorously reaffirmed by both writers,
but was given an application even more extended than
orthodoxy had usually given it; this total corruption
being made so to cover the human reason as to render
men incapable of reaching any knowledge of God by
the exercise of their own powers of thought, or even of
bringing them to a point in their thinking such as would
enable them to welcome the Christian revelation, when
it came, as answering a question they had already
raised or meeting a need they had already felt. The
Word of God in Christ came ‘‘vertically from above”
into the existing human situation and appeared only as
foolishness to the best of human wisdom. It did, indeed,
meet with a response from those elected to respond to it,
but this.responsé was not on the ground of anything
already present in their souls; rather did the revelation
create its own response.
It is within this circle of common ideas that the issue
between the disputants is now joined. These ideas are
themselves so far from being accepted by many British
and American theologians that the difference between
Dr. Barth and Dr. Brunner may seem to some to be
of small consequence in comparison with the extensive
ground they occupy in common—an impression of a ~
kind which is very frequently received by those who
survey even the most heated controversies from a point
widely distant in time or in tradition. The very fervid
heat with which this controversy is carried on (es-
pecially in Dr. Barth’s contribution to it, from his
“Angry Introduction” onwards) will therefore be sur-
prising to many English readers. It may even be shock-
ing to them. The bitterness which has ever charac-
terised theological discussion both in Germany itself
and in1 other German-speaking continental lands has
INTRODUCTION 4
long been foreign to our English-speaking tradition. It
is to be hoped that it will remain foreign, but it is equally
to be hoped that it will not in this instance prove a
barrier to the appreciation of the importance of the
questions with which our continental friends are con-
cerned. They themselves would no doubt claim that
the difference in manner is due largely to the, difference
in our respective situations. We can afford to discuss
calmly matters which to them, living as they have
recently done in an atmosphere of religious persecution, |
have been concerns of life and death in the most literal
sense. Nor will any of us wish to deny all validity to
this claim, whether or not it be accepted as a complete
explanation. At all events the fact would seem to be
that the controversy which made its first full-dress
appearance in these pages, still rages as bitterly as ever;
and we are informed that in the Switzerland to which
both disputants are native, and in which both now
teach, there are not many students or amateurs of
theology who do not definitely know on which side they
stand. ees
In 1935 Dr. Brunner published a second and con- ~
siderably enlarged edition of his brochure, and the
question had accordingly to be faced which of the two
editions should now be translated. German-speaking
scholars in the fields of philosophy and theology are
very much in the habit of publishing successive editions
of their works, which are not merely reprints but are
marked by substantial alterations and additions. Almost
always it is the latest available edition that is chosen
for translation into other tongues, since it is naturally
taken to represent the most recent and considered
opinions of the author. In the present case, however,
another counsel had to be followed, since Dr. Barth’s
reply to Dr. Brunner was being translated as a com-
panion piece. It was the first edition of Dr. Brunner’s
8 NATURAL THEOLOGY
pamphlet that Dr. Barth had before him when he wrote
his reply, and Dr. Brunner’s second edition already
takes notice of this reply; so that Dr. Barth could not be
expected to agree to his own pamphlet appearing as a
reply to a statement which had been altered after he
had replied to it. It is therefore the first edition of
Nature and Grace which Mr. Fraenkel has here translated
for us.
Nevertheless, in fairness to Dr. Brunner, some further
explanation must be made. He was careful to let the
text of his first edition, so far as it went, stand unaltered
in the second, aside from minor corrections. Of these
minor corrections none is worthy of notice save the
footnotes giving the volume and page references for a
number of his quotations from Calvin, which were at
first given wrongly. The new references he has been
conscientious enough to mark with an asterisk to show
their divergence from those given in the first edition, but
Mr. Fraenkel has rightly substituted the correct refer-
ences for the earlier incorrect ones. What is new in Dr.
~ Brunner’s second edition is a Foreword ‘of seven pages
together with some sixteen pages of explanatory notes
at the end. In no part of this additional matter does
Dr. Brunner think of himself as countering Dr. Barth’s
charges, his professed anxiety being merely to correct
some of the latter’s misunderstandings of the words he
had used and the position he had defended; it being as
important to Dr. Barth as to himself that such verbal
. barriers should be cleared away and the real difference
between them accurately understood. Dr. Brunner
allows that he may himself have had some share of the
blame for some of these misunderstandings, but he
points out that in one important instance Dr. Barth
has been guilty of actual misquotation. In Nature and
Grace it is frequently affirmed that even fallen man
retains Wortmdchtigkeit, which Mr. Fraenkel translates
INTRODUCTION 9
as “capacity for words,’ but which might have been
translated a little less literally as ‘‘capacity for speech.”
But Dr. Barth in his reply constantly seems to attribute
to Dr. Brunner the use of the word Offenbarungsmachtig-
kett in this connection, i.e. “capacity for revelation.”
This substitution is no doubt to be explained by the
fact that ‘‘the Word” is a familiar synonym for revela-
tion, so that the two compound terms might appear to
be exact equivalents. But Dr. Brunner professes as great
a horror as had done his opponent at the idea that man
has a “‘capacity for revelation,” if this be understood
in the active sense of having any control over it, any
part (as it were) in the revealing. The capacity he
claims for man is, he explains, the purely passive capacity
to be reached by the revelation and to hear the Word
when it is uttered.
A further explanation made by Dr. Brunner concerns
his use of the term “natural theology.” He distinguishes
between an objective sense of the term, which he accepts, }
and a subjective sense, which he rejects. By the former,
nae
he means such a knowledge of God in his creation as

can come only to those who are already )
by the Christian revelation of him; by the latter he 4
means such a knowledge of God as might be supposed

to be accessible to the heathen or to independent rational |
argumentation. And he professes himself ready, in
order to avoid further misunderstanding, to drop the ||
term “natural theology” altogether, substituting for it |
such a phrase as ‘‘the Christian doctrine of general B!
revelation or of revelation in nature.”’ —_—— |
In view of Dr. Brunner’s willingness to let the first
edition of his brochure be translated instead of the
second, it is no less than just to him that these later
explanations should be at the disposal of the English
reader. Moreover it seems right also to set out in
translation the following passage from the Foreword to
10 NATURAL THEOLOGY
his second edition, though the reader should keep in
mind that it is subsequent to Dr. Barth’s reply, and should
strictly have appeared at the end rather than at the
beginning of the present volume.
Dr. Brunner asks why it is that St. Paul, who had
nothing to proclaim but ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified,”
should begin the exposition of his message in the Epistle
to the Romans by a twofold reference to the revelation
of God in nature. ‘The answer, he says, is not very
difficult.
“Before the Apostle further unfolds and elaborates
the message which he has clearly presented in the
opening verses of the first chapter like the theme of a
fugue, he settles accounts with himself and his readers
concerning the situation of the men to whom the.
message is addressed. Here he lays the foundation
stone of a Christian doctrine concerning ‘natural man,’
and of a Christian doctrine of heathen religion: For he
knows that faith inevitably forms and develops itself
in the heart of man in such a way as to constrain him
to a critical self-understanding on the part of unbelieving
‘natural’ man. This is nothing but the twofold occur-
rence of ‘repentance’ and ‘trust’; saying No to oneself
in saying Yes to the saving grace of God. The quintes-
sence of this settling of accounts thus lies in the one word
‘inexcusable’ (Romans ii. 1). Hence these two chapters
deal with the responsibility of the ungodly for their
ungodliness. But the ground of this imputation of re-
sponsibility lies in the doctrine of general revelation or
revelation in nature. The godlessness of the natural man
does not mean that God stands apart from him—for the
Creator has truly not left himself without witness
among his creatures—but consists in the fact that man
has perverted what he has and knows of God (Romans
i. 23), that he turns himself away from the God who
so mightily declares himself, and uses the revelation in
INTRODUCTION II
creation in order to reverence the creature rather than
the Creator. Accordingly ‘the heathen’ do. not stand
outside the revelation of God, or out of relation to him;
they stand rather in that alienatio originis which from the
human side must be called sin and from the divine side
the wrath of God.
“The knowledge of this fact is of decisive importance
_for this missionary to the heathen who has set the standard
for all ages; and it ought to be of decisive importance,
now as then, for all who proclaim the Gospel. It con-
cerns the responsibility, which has a double grounding !
in the revelation in creation, of the man who is to be

reached by the Gospel. This knowledge becomes prac-
tically effective! in the ‘contact,’ indispensable for every
missionary, between his proclamation of Christ and the
revelation of God (which leaves men inexcusable) in
the works of creation and in the law written in the heart.
The classical examples of this are to be found in the only
two missionary discourses which the New Testament has
handed down to us in any detail—in the fourteenth and
seventeenth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. No
missionary has ever preached, or can preach, otherwise
than thus: the God whom ye, perverted by your sinful
blindness, unknowingly worship as the unknown, him
do I proclaim to you as he who has ‘made known the
secret of his will’ to us in Jesus Christ the Crucified and
Risen.
‘*He who thinks as a missionary, understands without
further ado the central significance of this contact,
normative and productive of repentance, with the two-
fold revelation in creation; and he knows also that far
from prejudicing the sola gratia, it alone makes possible
the preaching of justification. Everything depends on
the establishment of this responsibility, which makes men
guilty; and the responsibility itself depends on the reality
of a general revelation in creation which precedes the
12 NATURAL THEOLOGY
revelation of reconciliation in Jesus Christ, and indeed
precedes all historical life.”
It remains only to add that in the years which have
passed since 1934 both disputants have taken occasion
to set out their views in much greater detail. From Dr.
Barth we have had several volumes of his monumental
Kirchliche Dogmatik, following on the rewritten first. half-
volume which was englished by Professor G. T. Thomson
in 1936—The Doctrine of the Word of God. From Dr.
Brunner we have had Wahrheit als Begegnung (1938),
translated into English as The Divine-Human Encounter by
Dr. Amandus W. Loos (1944); and, even more im-
portant, Offenbarung und Vernunft (1941), which has been
translated by Miss Olive Wyon and now awaits publi-
cation—no doubt under the title Revelation and Reason.
The study of these larger works will greatly clarify the
student’s mind as to the exact nature of the divergence
between the two disputants, and may also be expected
to contribute something to the answering of the further
and more important questions: Which of them is right?
Or, if neither is entirely right, which of them comes
nearer the truth, and where exactly does each go astray?
And may there even be something amiss with the ground
they occupy in common?
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
THE text of the essay Nature and Grace is that of the first
edition; the references to Calvin’s Institutes, however, are
taken from the revised second edition. Those marked
with an asterisk appear (thus) in the second edition
only. ;
The discussion turns in part on the meaning of the
term Offenbarungsmachtigkeit. This has been rendered by
“capacity for revelation” as being capable, like the
German, both of an active and of a passive interpre-
tation.
The usual translation of the technical term ‘‘Ordnung”’
—‘“‘order” has been replaced by “‘ordinance.” The term
_refers, of course, to the natural, not to the revealed, law.
It is much to be hoped that this usage, for which there is
precedent in the English language, will supersede the
former, for which there is none.
The translator’s thanks are due in various ways to the
Rev. H. Cunliffe-Jones, the Rev. A. Whitehouse and the
Rev. A. R. Vidler, O.G.S.; also to the two authors for
so kindly answering the questions put to them con-
cerning the text.
PIF:
13
i
NATURE AND GRACE

A Contribution to the Discussion with Karl Barth by
E. Brunner, D.D., Professor of Theology at Zurich
ie has been frequently suggested to me during recent

months that it was time for me to write a polemical
treatise against Karl Barth. And not without reason.
Even before his great purge, in which the valuable
periodical Qwischen den Keiten was eliminated, he repre-
sented me to his readers as a thoroughly unreliable
theologian who showed treacherous inclinations both
towards Thomism and towards Neo-Protestantism. This
created a painful confusion in the minds of those who
had until then believed us to be loyal comrades in
arms.!_ Our good friends abroad who were accus-
tomed to mention Barth’s name and mine in one
breath were however to hear yet stranger things. In
the work in which he disowned (we might as well
say) all other theologians, Barth’s ban struck me also.?
Now I belong to the unpleasant category of neutrals
who are neither hot nor cold, who say neither entirely
Yes nor entirely No.
In all this my fate has been rather strange. Certainly
‘what my friend Barth wrote concerning me did not
please me, yet I was quite unable to be angry with him
on that account. Not because I am such a good Christian
and bless those that curse me, but simply because in
spite of it all and above all else I was so pleased with
everything else that Karl Barth did and wrote, that I
pocketed also what he wrote against me—though of
course unwillingly. But this is not all. I feel myself so
|much an ally of Barth even in what he believed that
i he had to say against me, that I was able to take the
‘ 15
16 NATURAL THEOLOGY
misunderstanding fairly lightly. Barth appeared to me
like a loyal soldier on sentry duty at night, who shoots
every one who does not give him the password as he has
been commanded, and who therefore from time to time
also annihilates a good friend whose password he does
not hear or misunderstands in his eagerness. As far as
I was concerned he missed; but I cannot be angry at
his desired attempt, as I am unable to find any ill-will
in it. i t
Therefore it is far from my mind to write a polemical
treatise, although in itself, as some people know, this
would not be a new undertaking to me. Rather is it my
purpose to show in this pamphlet the following three
things: that what Barth really desires and intends, and
for which in this last decisive year he has so bravely and
far-sightedly contended, is what I also desire and intend,
and for which I also strove to work with my more modest
powers; but that from what he rightly desires and intends
he draws false conclusions; and thirdly, that he is wrong
in accusing of treason to the essentials those who are not
willing to join him in drawing these conclusions. In
spite of long and honest attempts I have failed to con-
vince my friend of the correctness of my tenets and
therefore I have had to have recourse to a public dis-
putation. For I am not only concerned to clear my
theology of the charge which Barth has preferred against
it, but above all to help to overcome the deadlock and
the petrifaction in false antitheses which threatens the
theological discussion because of Barth’s one-sidedness.
I
THE ISSUE BETWEEN KARL BARTH AND

MYSELF
Tue credit of having given back to Protestant theology

its proper theme and subject-matter is due, without
qualification and, if I may use the expression, without
competition, to Karl Barth.. It is not as though there
were not before him, and to some extent beside him,
men who also knew the proper theme and _ subject.
Men like Adolf Schlatter and; above all, Martin Kaehler®
did not wish to do anything but bring to bear the pure
and undiluted message of the Bible upon the doctrines
of the Church. But they were unable to break through
the front of theological modernism. A task such as this
demanded greater mental impetus and this Karl Barth
possessed. Within the space of a few years he completely
changed the Protestant theological situation. Even where
he was not acknowledged, his influence was very con-
siderable. To-day we struggle no longer, as we did
fifteen years ago, concerning “religion,” but concerning
the ‘‘Word of God”; no longer concerning the deus in
nobis, but concerning the revelation in Jesus Christ.
To put it briefly: no longer concerning the themes of
the enlightenment, but concerning the theme of the
Bible itself. We others who have assisted Barth in this
struggle have all of us first had our eyes opened by him,
even though some have never publicly acknowledged
Barth.
But the fact that we are to-day again concerned with
the message of the Bible and the Reformation is not all.
The seriousness with which Barth takes his mission is
shown by the fact that he was not satisfied with this first
B ,t7
18 NATURAL THEOLOGY
victory, but on the contrary now employed all his powers
the more. The most recent developments have shown
how right he was in regarding the general talk about
the theology of the Reformation and the general appeal
to Luther not only as of no value but as dangerous.
We are not concerned with Luther nor with Lutheranism,
but with that hard truth and message of Luther’s con-
cerning sola gratia, which is so greatly opposed to the
thought of our time—with Christ crucified as the only
salvation of the world and with justification by faith
;alone. We are concerned with the doctrine that in all
‘questions of the Church’s proclamation Holy Scripture
alone is the ultimate standard. We are concerned with
the message of the sovereign, freely electing grace of
God. Of his free mercy God gives to man, who of himself
can do nothing towards his own salvation, to man,
whose will is not free but in bondage, his salvation in the
Cross of Christ and by the Holy Spirit who enables him
to assimilate this word of the Cross. We are therefore
also concerned with the freedom of the Church, which
has its basis and its justification, its law and its possi-
bility purely and solely in this divine revelation. There-
fore it is not tied at all to nations and states. It is above
all nations and states without any possibility of accepting
from them any law or commission. We are concerned
with the fact that the proclamation of the Church has
not two sources and norms, such as ¢.g. revelation and
reason or the Word of God and history, and that eccle-
siastical or Christian action has not two norms, such as
e.g. commandments and ‘‘Ordinances.” The struggle |
against this “‘and’’4 is the struggle of Elijah on Mount
Carmel against the halting between two opinions and
therefore it is the struggle for the glory of the true God.
In all this there is between me and Barth no difference of
opinion, except the one on the side of Barth that there is
a difference of opinion. All I can say is: No, there is
. BARTH’S FALSE CONCLUSIONS 19
none. The title of my book, Das Gebot und die Ordnungen,
may seem to contradict this, but this is purely an appear-
ance and is of no more significance than Barth’s title
to an essay on an analogous theme, “‘ Kirche und Kultur.”
It is an “and” denoting a problem, a relation to be
investigated, not an “‘and”’ of co-ordination. But for the
moment we may point to the fact that there is indeed
here a serious problem, by quoting what Luther said at
the Diet of Worms: if he were not overcome ‘“‘by testi-
mony of Holy Writ or clear reason” (ratione evidente),
he would not recant. Not even Karl Barth can deny
that there is a problem concerning Christianity and
’ Culture, Commandment and Ordinances, Reason and
Revelation, and that this problem requires thorough-
going theological treatment.
II
BARTH’S FALSE CONCLUSIONS
I HAVE repeatedly pointed out that most theology is

made necessary by heretics using the terms of the true
faith, while meaning by them something other than the
plain words can signify.6 Not open heresy but hidden
heresy is the real danger in the Church; it is the internal
enemy, ever more dangerous than the external. Hence
it is understandable that suspicion belongs as it were
to the professional virtues of the good theologian. It is a
fact that he is called to be a guardian, and as the body-
guard of any great man of this world look upon every
one who is near him with suspicion until they have con-
vinced themselves of his harmlessness, so also the theo-
logian must act—not as a man but as a bearer of his
office. Therefore I cannot agree with those who reproach
‘
20 NATURAL THEOLOGY
Barth with this “‘heresy-hunting.” It is the result of his
great devotion to his subject, and this not even his most
embittered adversaries have been able to deny him. If
I reproach Barth with anything at all it is with this, that
he would like it best to carry out this guardian’s duty
alone, and that if anyone wishes to call his attention to
a mistake he is not ready to believe that he, Barth, could
be in error; and that in this matter he puts into practice
the not very biblical. maxim of William Tell that “the
strong man is strongest alone.” Apart from that the
difference between us is purely objective and theological
and can only be removed if we test it anew by that
standard which we both acknowledge.
From the doctrine of sola gratia and the position of the
Bible as the sole ultimate standard of truth Barth draws
the following conclusions:
(1) Since man is a sinner who can be saved only by
grace, the image of God in which he was created is
obliterated entirely, z7.e. without remnant. Man’s rational
nature, his capacity for culture and his humanity, none
of which can be denied, contain no traces or remnants
whatever of that lost image of God. :
(2) Since we acknowledge scriptural revelation as the
sole norm of our knowledge of God and the sole source
of our salvation, every attempt to assert a ‘“‘general
revelation” of God in nature, in the conscience and in
history, is to be rejected outright. There is no sense in
acknowledging two kinds of revelation, one general and
one special. There is only one kind, namely the one
complete revelation in Christ.
(3) Accordingly we have to draw the following con-
clusion from the acknowledgment of Christ as, the sole
saving grace of God: there is no grace of creation and
preservation active from the creation of the world and
apparent to us in God’s preservation of the world. For
otherwise we would have to acknowledge two or even
BARTH’S FALSE CONCLUSIONS 21
three kinds of grace, and this would contradict the
oneness of the grace of Christ.
(4) Accordingly there is no such thing as God’s
ordinances of preservation, which we could know to be
such and in which we could recognise the will of God
which is normative of our own action. A lex naturae of
this kind which is derived from creation can be intro-
duced into Christian theology only per nefas, as a pagan
thought.
(5) For the same reason it is not permissible to speak
of the “point of contact” for the saving action of God.
For this would contradict the sole activity of the saving
grace of Christ, which is the centre of the theology of
the Bible and the Reformation.
(6) Similarly the new creation is in no wise a perfec-
tion of the old, but comes into being exclusively through
destruction of the old and is a replacement of the old
man by the new. The sentence, gratia non tollit naturam
sed perficit, is in no sense correct, but is altogether an
arch heresy.
We could cite many similarly derived theses from other
departments of theology, e.g. from the doctrine of the
new birth, of sanctification, from the doctrine of faith
and works, etc. I confine myself to those which have
stood in the centre of the latest discussions. They are all
connected with the problem of theologia naturalis, the first
four directly, the fifth and sixth indirectly.
Karl Barth characterises the errors attacked in these
theses with various names of heretics taken from the
history of dogma. But we can sum up his characterisa-
tions under three specially significant heads: the
‘errors’? rejected in these theses are, firstly, unbiblical;
secondly, Thomistic and Roman Catholic and therefore
against the Reformation; and thirdly, derived from the
Enlightenment and Neo-Protestantism and _ therefore
against the Reformation.
22 NATURAL THEOLOGY
As Karl Barth has expounded and defended these
theses only incidentally and never systematically, or
rather has only thus attacked the counter-theses,’ we
submit these formulations of his opinions to his correc-
tion. I have formulated them as Barth’s opinions as best
I can. I am not perfectly certain, however, whether I
have hit upon every shade of Barth’s opinion. |
In what follows I set out:
(1) My counter-theses with a very brief scriptural
_ proof.
(2) A discussion of its relation in the history of
dogma to the Reformation, to Thomism and to Neo-
Protestantism.
(3) A concluding discussion of the theological and
practical significance of the controversy, 7.e. of the
interest of theology and the Church in the rejection of
the conclusions which Barth draws from his correct
fundamental position.
Ill
MY COUNTER-THESES AND THEIR PROOF
(1) THE question concerning the tmago De seems to

be ultimately nothing but a dispute about words. I agree
with Barth in teaching that the original image of God
in man has been destroyed, that the justitza originalis has
been lost and with it the possibility of doing or even of
willing to do that which is good in the sight of God, and
that therefore the free will has been lost. _Barth himself
does not deny that even sinful and unredeemed man is
|capable of doing and thinking what is reasonable, and
_that in spite of their questionable nature humanity and
|culture are not simply to be dismissed as of no value
/
MY COUNTER-THESES AND THEIR PROOF 23

from the point of view of revelation. It might therefore
appear as of no account whether we would connect these
abilities, which even natural man has, with the original
image of God or not. Why should we be concerned to
introduce here the dangerous and vague concept of the
remnant of the zmago? We shall discuss the purpose of
this in the last chapter. Here I shall justify myself by
saying the following:
We have to consider the image of God in man in two
ways: one formal and one material. The formal sense of
the concept is the human, i.e. that which distinguishes
man from all the rest of creation, whether he be a sinner
or not. Even the Old Testament speaks of man’s likeness
to God in this sense. It signifies above all the superiority
of man within creation. Thus in the two important
passages (Genesis i. 26 and Ps. viii.) man has not, even
as a sinner, ceased to be the central and culminating
point of creation. This superior position in the whole of
creation, which man still has, is based on his special
relation to God, z.e. on the fact that God has created
him for a special purpose—to ‘bear his image. This
function or calling as a bearer of the image is not only
not abolished by sin; rather is it the presupposition of the
ability to sin and continues within the state of sin. We
can define this by two concepts: the fact that man is a
subject and his responsibility. Man has an immeasurable
advantage over all other creatures, even as a sinner, and
this he has in common with God:-he is a subject, a
rational creature. The difference is only that God is the
original, man a derived subject. Not even as a sinner
does he cease to be one with whom one can speak, with
whom therefore also God can speak. And this is the very
nature of man: to be responsible. Even as a sinner man
is responsible. Upon these two characteristics, that of
his capacity for words and that of responsibility, which in
their turn are closely interrelated, depends not only
24 NATURAL THEOLOGY
man’s special position but also the connection between
this special position and the form of the redeeming
lecvelation namely that God becomes man.
If the formal side of the imago Dei is thus conceived,
it does not in any way result in an encroachment upon
the material concept of justitia originalts, nor in a lessening
of the weight of the statement that this justitia ortginalis
is completely lost.* Therefore we do not use the question-
able concept of the “remnant”? which would suggest a
quantitative and therefore relative concept of sin. We
distinguish categorically: formally the zmago is not in the
least touched—whether sinful or not, man is a subject
and is responsible. Materially the imago is completely
lost, man is a sinner through and through and there is
nothing in him which is not defiled by sin. To formulate
it differently: as before, man is a person, 7.¢. he is in a
derived sense that which God is originally. Yet he is
not a personal person but an anti-personal person; for
the truly personal is existence in love, the submission of
the self to the will of God and therefore an entering into
communion with one’s fellow-creature because one
enjoys communion with God. This quid of personality
is negatived through sin, whereas the quod of personality
constitutes the humanum of every man, also that of the
sinner.
(2) The world is the creation of God. In every
creation the spirit of the creator is in some way recog-
-nisable. The artist is known by all his works. So much
do the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament testify
to the fact that this applies. also in our world, which is
the stage on which we sinful creatures act, that it is
unnecessary to quote any special passages in support.
The praise of God through _his-creation is.also an integral
part of the Christian liturgy from the earliest times and
throughout all centuries. Scripture itself says so and
upbraids man for not acknowledging it, and it expects
from him as a believer that he should take part in this
praise of God through his creation. Therefore it seems
to me a queer kind of loyalty to Scripture to demand
that such a revelation should not be acknowledged, in
order that the significance of biblical revelation should
not be minimised.
Wherever God does anything, he leaves the imprint —
of his nature upon what he does. Therefore the creation
of the world is at the same time a revelation, a self-
communication of God. This statement is not pagan but
fundamentally Christian. But nowhere does the Bible
give any justification for the view that through the sin ~
of man this perceptibility of God in his works is destroyed,
although it is adversely affected. Rather does it say this,
that surprisingly enough sin makes man blind for what
is visibly set before our eyes. The reason why men are
without excuse is that they will not know the God who
so clearly manifests himself to them.®
The same is true of what is usually called “conscience,” ~
i.e. of the consciousness of responsibility. Men have not
only responsibility but also consciousness of it—which
could be shown by a more detailed phenomenological
analysis to be necessarily interconnected. Only because,
men somehow know the will of God are they able to sin.|
A being which knew nothing of the law of God would!
be unable to sin—as we see in the case of animals.
Responsibility of the sinner and knowledge of the will of
God as the source of law (the knowledge also being
derived from the law) are one and the same thing. We
are not concerned here to discuss what value this legal
knowledge of God has. Scripture clearly testifies to the
~ fact that knowledge of the law of God is somehow also
knowledge of God.1® We shall discuss the revelation of
God in history later. .
The question can be raised whether it is not necessary
to modify this clear doctrine of Scripture in view of the
26 NATURAL THEOLOGY
knowledge which we have gained in these days. Just as
we are driven by St. Paul to a more profound grasping
of the problem of the knowledge of God from law and
from grace, so also we have the impression of the revela-
tion of God in Scripture as a whole, that this simple
doctrine of God as the artificer-demiurge needs further
theological treatment. But that is a separate matter,
and whatever may be the solution of the second question,
we cannot doubt that this simple, universal Christian
opinion is scriptural.
The difficult question is therefore not whether there are
two kinds of revelation. The reply to this question must
on the basis of Scripture once and for all be a positive
\one. The question—is_rather_how_the
two revelations,
\that in creation
and that in Jesus Christ, are related.
The first answer—again one which is universally Christian
and also obviously biblical—is that for us sinful men, the
first, the revelation in creation, is not sufficient in order
toknow God in such a way that this knowledge brings
salvation. Furthermore, we have to make the significant
distinction between the subjective and the objective
factor in this interrelation of knowledge. According to
St. Paul the revelation of God in his creation would be
sufficient for every one to know therein the Creator
according to his majesty and wisdom. But sin dulls man’s
sight so much that instead of God he ‘“‘knows”’ or
“fancies” gods. We may correctly characterise the
objective and subjective factors thus: man misrepresents |
the revelation of God in creation and turns it into idols.
In any case he is unable to know God, who in Jesus
Christ reveals himself to him anew according to his true
nature, which even in creation is partially hidden.
But in faith, taking our stand upon the revelation in
Jesus Christ, we shall not be able to avoid speaking of a
double revelation: of one in creation™ which only he can
recognise in all its magnitude, whose eyes have been
opened by Christ; and of a second in Jesus Christ in
whose bright light he can clearly perceive the former.
This latter revelation far surpasses that which the former
was able to show him, and moreover it points to a third
revelation, the beatific vision, which again will be
entirely different from the second and yet will not deny
it, but only confer upon it its ineffable perfection.
This means that in the phrase “natural revelation”
the word “‘natural” is to be understood in a double
sense, one objective-divine and one subjective-human-
sinful.
The term “‘nature”’ can be applied to such permanent
capacity for revelation as God has bestowed upon his
works, to the traces of his own nature which he has
expressed and shown in them. :
But the term ‘“‘nature” can also be applied to what
sinful man makes of this in his ignorant knowledge, just
as it can be applied to that which God has implanted in
human nature as an image of himself, indestructible, yet
always obscured by sin. Or it can be applied to what
man himself makes of himself through sin. Therefore
one can say in conclusion: Only the Christian, 7.e. the /
man who stands within the revelation in Christ, has the
true natural knowledge of God.
All these concepts need further theological considera-
tion. But such consideration cannot alter these funda-
mental outlines without contradicting the testimony of
Scripture. Even the most perfect theology will in the
main be unable to get beyond the double statement that
as concerns the heathen, God did not leave himself without
witness,!2 but that nevertheless they did not know him
in such a way that he became their salvation.
(3) Wherever both the omnipotent creator and sin
are taken equally seriously, there must needs arise a
third concept, that of God’s gracious preservation. God
ispresent even to his sinful creature which is far removed
28 NATURAL THEOLOGY
from him. This incongruence of divine presence and
human distance is highly important. It appears in the
double concept of nature which has already been men-
tioned. The manner in which God is present to his fallen
creature is his preserving grace. Preserving grace does not
abolish sin but abolishes the worst consequences of sin.
The grace of preservation for the most part consists in
that God does not entirely withdraw his grace of creation
from the creature in spite of the latter’s sin. In part,
however, in that, agreeably to the state of sin, he pro-
vides new means for checking the worst consequences of
sin, e.g. the State.
Preserving grace is a concept of quite undoubted
biblical dignity. It is necessary to emphasise this specially,
as it is in a manner of speaking a dangerous concept, for
from it our thinking can easily slip into a pantheistic
doctrine of immanence. What was said above of the
revelation in creation is valid here also, viz. that only
in the light of the revelation in Christ is it possible to
speak correctly of preserving grace. But the Christian is
now under the serious obligation to speak of it—by way
of thanksgiving. That God is so good that he makes his
sun to shine on the evil and on the good . . ., that he
gives us life, health, strength, etc.—in short the whole
sphere of natural life and its goods—all that must be
included in the concept of preserving grace or—as it is
therefore called—general grace. In the faith of Christ we
know that even before we knew the saving grace of
God, we lived by the grace of God, 7.e. by the preserving
grace of God, without properly knowing it.
Together with the whole of natural life’ we must
include in this sphere also the whole of historical life,
for in man these two are inseparable. In faith not only
what we derive from our parents, but also what we derive
from our people and their history, the benefits which
form the historical inheritance of the whole of mankind,
are seen to be given by the preserving grace of God.
Consequently human activity comes within the purview of
divine grace—not of redeeming but of preserving grace.
All activity of man which the creator himself uses to
preserve his creation amid the corruptions of sin belongs
to this type of activity within preserving grace. It is
from this that the doctrine of civil and secular functions
and offices is derived.
How integral a part the doctrine of preserving grace
forms in the whole of biblical theology is shown by the
fact that it is clearly and diligently taught in the Old
and even in the New Testament, in spite of the eschato-
logical high tension which emphasises above all the
present world’s need of redemption and its opposition to
God. Accordingly Christian piety has throughout all
ages praised this preserving grace of God in hymn and
prayer, and the Church has always seen in it a criterion
of true faith.
(4) Within the sphere of this preserving grace belong
above all those “‘ordinances”? which are the constant
factors of historical and social life, and which there-
fore form a basic part of all ethical problems. There
are certain ordinances, such as e.g. Matrimony and
the State, without which no communal life is conceiv-
able, that could in any way be termed human. These
ordinances vary in dignity.
Monogamous marriage, for example, is of Kighes
dignity than the State because, as an institution, as an
ordinance, it is—apart from special concrete cases—
unrelated to sin. (This is independent of the way in
which its humane necessity may be proved, i.e. is made
known to us.) Therefore it has from of old been called
an ‘“‘ordinance of creation.” This means simply that
the Christian, who recognises the creator only in Jesus
Christ, also recognises the ordinance of matrimony to
have been instituted by the creator. The distinction
30 NATURAL THEOLOGY
between this “‘ordinance of creation” from a mere
“ordinance of preservation”? relative to sin, such as the
State, is made for sound theological reasons. It is
necessary for a Christian theologia naturalis, t.e. for Christian
theological thinking which tries to account for the
phenomena of natural life. Matrimony is a “natural”
ordinance of the creator because the possibility of and
the desire for its realisation lies within human nature
and because it is realised to some extent by men who
are ignorant of the God revealed in Christ.
For this reason there lies over these ordinances a
twilight which cannot be dispelled. They are given by
God. They are realised naturally. For their realisation
not only the natural impulse is necessary but also the
humanum. They can be recognised as necessities and
as goods by natural man. But—and this is the critical
point: only by means of faith can their significance be
perfectly understood and therefore it is only by means of
faith that they can be realised according to the will of
him who has instituted them. Nevertheless, 7.e. although
they are understood correctly only in faith, they are and
remain for the believer divine ordinances of nature. This
means that they do not belong to the realm of redemp-
tion, of the Church, but belong to the realm of divine
preservation, in which natural impulse and reason are
constituent, factors. All human arts by which man, —
thanks to the divine grace of preservation, maintains
himself, are performed by instinct or by reason. Simi-
larly all these ordinances, whether they be “‘ordinances
of creation” or “‘ordinances of preservation”? in the
narrower sense, are created and maintained by instinct
and reason. Even the believer, who by reason of his
faith understands their ultimate sense better than the
unbeliever, cannot but allow his instinct and his reason
to function with regard to these ordinances, just as in
the arts. And finally it is true that only by means of
faith, z.e. through Christ, their relation to the loving will
of God can be rightly understood. Nevertheless through
the preserving grace of God they are known also to
“natural man” as ordinances that are necessary and
somehow holy and are by him respected as such. For it
is peculiar to the preserving grace of God that he does
his preserving work both by nature acting unconsciously
and by the reason of man.
(5) No one who agrees that only human subjects but
not stocks and stones can receive the Word of God and ,
the Holy Spirit can deny that there is such a thing as a!
point of contact for the divine grace of redemption. This’
point of contact is the formal imago Dei, which not
even the jsinner has lost, the fact that man is man, the ©
humaniias in the two meanings defined above: capacity
for words and responsibility. Not even sin has done
away with the fact that man is receptive of words, that
he and he alone is receptive of the Word of God. But
this “‘receptivity”’ must not be understood in the material
sense. This receptivity says nothing as to his accep eee
or rejection of the Word of God. It is the purely formal
possibility of his being addressed. 7
This possibility of his being addressed is also the pre- ,
supposition of man’s responsibility. Only a being that
can be addressed is responsible, for it alone can make
decisions. Only a being that can be addressed is capable
of sin. But in sinning, while being responsible, it some-
how or other knows of its sin. This knowledge of sin is
a necessary presupposition of the understanding of the
divine message of grace. It will not do to kill the dialectic
of this knowledge of sin by saying that knowledge of sin
comes only by the grace of God. This statement is as true
as the other, that the grace of God is comprehensible
only to him who already knows about sin. The case is
similar to that of the divine ordinances or of the law:
Natural man knows them and yet does not know them.
32 NATURAL THEOLOGY
If he did not know them, he would not be human: if he
really knew them, he would not be a sinner. This dich-
otomy is itself the essence of the state of sin. Without
| knowledge of God there can be no sin: sin is always
{ “in the sight of God.” Jn sin there can be no knowledge
i
of God, for the true knowledge of God is the abolition
of sin. This dialectic must not be one-sidedly abolished.
On the contrary it must be strongly insisted upon. For
only in this dialectic does the responsibility of faith
become clear. He who does not believe is himself guilty.
He who believes knows that it is pure grace.
It is impossible to deny this point of contact of divine
grace, 2.e. it is possible to do so only by a misunder-
standing. The misunderstanding always arises out of
the lack of a distinction between the formal and the
material definitions. We said above that materially
there is no more imago Det, whereas formally it is intact.
Similarly we must say that materially there is no point
of contact, whereas formally it is a necessary presup-
position. The Word of God does not have to create
man’s capacity for words. He has never lost it, it is the
| presupposition of his ability to hear the Word of God.
\But the Word of God itself creates man’s ability to
believe the Word of God, 1.e. the ability to hear it in
such a way as is only possible in faith. It is evident that
the doctrine of sola gratia is not in the least endangered -
by such a doctrine of the point of contact.
The sphere of this “possibility of being addressed”?
includes not only the Aumanum in the narrower sense,
but everything connected with the ‘natural’ know-
ledge of God. The Word of God could not reach a man
wh lost_hi ious entirely. A man
without conscience cannot be struck by the call ‘‘Repent
ye and believe the Gospel.” What the natural man
knows of God, of the law and of his own dependence
upon God, may be very confused and distorted. But
even so it is the necessary, indispensable point of con-
tact for divine grace. This is also proved by the fact
that on the whole the New Testament did not create
new words, but uses those that were created by the
religious consciousness of the pagans.
(6) This does not mean to say that what the scriptires
say about the death of the old man always refers to the
material side of human nature and never to the formal.
The subject as such, the fact of self-consciousness, is not
destroyed by the act of faith. That is the difference
between an act of faith and mystical ecstasy. And this
difference points to the personal character of that event,
in contrast to the impersonal character of mysticism.
The personal God meets man personally.
That involves
the continuance of self-consciousness. This finds its
classical expression in just that passage of the New
Testament which approaches most closely to the manner
of expression usual in mysticism (Gal. ii. 20): “‘Never-
theless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” The
phrase “‘nevertheless I live’’ follows upon the sentence,
“For I through the law am dead. ... I am crucified
with Christ.” It means that the formal personality
continues beyond the death of the material. But together
- with this restrictive statement about the formal element
we get, as it were by way of correction, an opposite
statement concerning the material element: yet not I
but Christ . . . in me. That is why the New Testament
never proceeds to use the expression sometimes used by
Luther: that in faith the believer becomes Christ. This
formulation is certainly not meant mystically. Never-
theless it is typically mystical and for this reason it is
consistently avoided by the New Testament.
The same could be proved about the biblical use of
terms concerning the Holy Spirit. The Bible calls faith
the work and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet it never |
says: the Holy Spirit within me has faith. But rather:
Cc
34 ' NATURAL THEOLOGY
I believe through the Holy Spirit. The passage that
comes nearest to the former assertion is 1 Corinthians 11.
10-12. It must surely be interpreted to mean that in so
far as we have the Holy Spirit, there takes place in us
an act of divine self-consciousness through the Holy
Spirit. But it always remains “within us.” It never
turns into identity. And the conclusion that could be
drawn from the analogy of self-consciousness in verse II
is not drawn. Instead it is turned round: Now we have
received . . . the things that are given to us of God. The
identity of the human subject is also guarded where the
Spirit is spoken of; therefore the important expression is:
to receive the Holy Spirit. By holding fast to the identity
of the formal personality this expression asserts personal
sobriety over against every form of ecstatic exuberance.
For this reason also the new creation is never mentioned
without the picture of reparatio, of restoration, being
used at the same time. It is not possible to repair what
no longer exists. But it is possible to repair a thing in
such a way that one has to say: this has become quite
new. Only by means of so sober or careful a manner of
expression is it possible to maintain that the act of
faith involves personality and decision. And upon this
depends the possibility of an imperative of faith, which—
as every one knows—is as characteristic of the New
Testament as the statement that faith is the gift and work
of God. I even think that a statistical survey of New
Testament usage would show that the emphasis upon
the former is even stronger than upon the latter.
These theses sum up my theologia naturalis, of which
Karl Barth is so suspicious. There was a time when—
like Karl Barth himself—I did not see the contrast be-
tween the Gospel and the natural knowledge of God as
clearly as I do at present. Anyone who will now read
the 1922 edition of Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans will
be amazed at the broad stream of platonist speculation
REFORMERS’ DOCTRINE AND ITS ANTITHESIS 35
about things divine, which has there entered the main
stream of biblical theology. The same applies also to
my own earlier writings. But I do not think that I
should be prepared to take back anything essential of
what I said in the first edition of The Mediator concerning
the natural knowledge of God. I do not wish to deny
that I am still of the opinion that there should be an
eristic theology based upon this knowledge. But long
before I made use of this concept and raised this problem
for discussion I realised that it had nothing to do with
the question of the “proof of theology.”” The problem
of the proof of theology must be clearly distinguished
both from that of eristic theology and also from the
closely allied question of “Introduction to Theology”
or ‘‘formal theology” or “‘ Prolegomena.’’* But Icannot —
treat of this more fully here.
IV
THE REFORMERS’ DOCTRINE AND ITS

. ANTITHESIS
Karu Bartu has always combined his rejection of my

theses with judgments drawn from the history of dogma,
which serve him as reasons for his rejection almost every
time that he deals with my theses. If it were possible
to show that my theses are neither Thomist nor Neo-
Protestant but adhere to the teaching of the Reformation,
not much would remain of the objections which Barth
has so far raised against them. It is not unfair to say
that “this is Thomism, that is Neo-Protestantism”’ is his
chief and practically sole argument.
I must admit that I am almost ashamed in under-
taking to disprove this. For in this my task is only too
|
36 NATURAL THEOLOGY
easy. As I cannot at this point write a monograph con-
cerning the theologia naturalis of the Reformers, I must be
content to prove the substance of my theses somewhat
from the writings of Calvin. It will be seen that Calvin
goes even further in the direction which Barth calls
“Thomism” or ‘‘Neo-Protestantism” than I should
dare to do—though Barth has never stated which
features in this theologia naturalis he regards as specifically
Thomist and which specifically Neo-Protestant. There-
fore we must formulate our verdict in advance like this:
if Brunner’s theologia naturalis is Thomist, then this applies
even more to that of Calvin. That this makes it rather
awkward to distinguish between the theology of the
Reformation and that of Thomism should be evident,
especially to those who, in using the word “‘Reforma-
tion,”’ think especially of Calvin. But it would be easy
to show that Luther’s views on this subject do not differ
essentially from Calvin’s. At some points Luther is more
‘“Thomist,” at others Calvin. In Lutheran ‘‘ Thomism”
the aristotelian element is somewhat more pronounced,
in Calvinistic “Thomism” the platonic. But the shades
of difference are so fine and the material contained in
the texts of Luther and Calvin shows such great variety
and apparent contradiction that it will be better to
leave such special questions out of account.
To understand Calvin’s theologia naturalis!® properly it —
is very important to keep in mind the distinction, which
we have already made above, between the objective and
the subjective sense of the word naturalis or natura. We shall
first treat of theologia naturalis in the objective sense, which
is by far the more important.
The word nature, as used by Calvin, means something
quite different from what it does in modern usage. Calvin’s
usage is derived from the linguistic usage of stoicism—
which dominated the theology of the Church until the
time of the Enlightenment—combined with a charac-
teristic change in content. He uses “nature” to designate
the original creation?® in so far as it is still recognisable
as such, 2.¢. the God-given form of all created being.
This is irrespective of whether it be nature in the modern
sense, 7.¢. the world of objects, plants and animals, the
human pfhysis, or the constant forms in the course of
human life, the universal orders of society, or the funda-
mental laws of cultural and mental life. Nature therefore
presents no contrast to spirit or culture, but rather to
what is not in accordance with creation, to what has
lapsed from the order of creation, to what is arbitrary
and irregular.
Therefore nature is for. Calvin both a concept of being
and a concept of a norm, and over and over again we
meet with the expression: natura docet, natura dictat,
which for him means almost the same as: God teaches—
i.e. the will of God, which has been implanted in the
world from creation, the divine rule of the world, teaches.”
It is therefore quite natural for Calvin to use the concept
of the lex naturae and also that of the order of creation
in the same sense. Both are used very frequently, but
if I am not mistaken lex naturae is used more frequently.
The will of God, imprinted upon all existence, implanted
in it from creation, can therefore be recognised as
such.
The divine order of nature—always in the very broad
sense, including all things human—is affected by sin
not only subjectively—of this later—but also objectively.
But it is not affected so much as to render the will of
God, the “rule” of nature invisible.!® On the contrary,
where Calvin speaks of nature in the objective sense, he
says but little of a disturbance by sin. The more he is
concerned with nature apart from man the less does he
say, the more he is concerned with man the more does he
say. When the centre of the person is under discussion,
the personal nucleus, the actual relation to God, then
38 NATURAL THEOLOGY
the two concepts, the objective and the subjective,
coalesce. It is at this point that sin’s destructiveness of
creation becomes most evident, or rather it is here
bound together with nature in a personal union, and
therefore the equivocity of the concept of nature—at
one and the same time positive and negative—reaches
its culmination. Calvin can say both: sin is unnatural,
against nature. Or sin is the expression of human nature
in contrast to creation and redemption.’
The theological importance of the concept of nature
is shown by the fact that God can be known from nature.”°
And this is not a confused knowledge, which can hardly
be of interest for the Christian, who knows the Word of
God. On the contrary, it is something highly important
and necessary for the Christian as well. God demands
of us that we should know and honour him in his works.”
He has set us into this “theatre”? of his glory in order
that in it we should know, contemplate and honour him
as the Lord of glory. God can be known from nature
other than man, but also from man himself. Indeed,
he is to be known especially from the latter. But above
all from expertentia,*> 1.e. from the experience of his
preserving and providential grace. This. experienttia=
knowledge of God is not made superfluous by faith in
the Word of God, but on the contrary remains an im-
portant complement of the knowledge of God derived
from Scripture.** But the knowledge of God to be gained
from nature is only partial. To put it metaphorically:
from nature we know the hands and feet but not the
heart of God.?° We can know his wisdom and omni-
potence, also his justice and even his goodness, but not
his forgiving mercy, his absolute will to bring about a
communion between man and himself. But this im-
perfection of the natural knowledge of God is no reason
for underestimating it. Not even he who has been
taught by the Word of God can dispense with it and
is bound to acknowledge it. Moreover, he is greatly
assisted by it.?6
The relation of revelation in Scripture to that in
nature is, however, not simple but twofold; through
Scripture the revelation in nature is both clarified and
complemented. Scripture serves as a “‘lens”’,?” i.e. as
magnifying-glass for natural revelation. Another image
through the revelation in Scripture the voice of God i
natural revelation is so much amplified that sleeping
man must hear it, whereas otherwise he would fail to
do so.*8 And secondly, Scripture shows us the
God, which is not_revealed in natural revelation—at
least not in its innermost secrets. But scriptural revela-
tion does not make the natural superfluous. On the
contrary: only through Scripture is the latter made
effective and only by Scripture are we properly led
to it.
This revelation applies especially also to the know-
ledge of the divine will from the /aw and the natural
ordinances. We know the law of God in our reason or
our conscience. This lex naturae is identical in content
with the lex scripta, though the lex scripta is necessary to
make again perfectly clear the writing of the lex naturae
which has, as it were, faded.°° But Calvin is concerned
to point out that the lex scripta has no other function but
to make the lex naturae effective again. For the lex
naturae is the will of God in creation.*! The same is true
also of the ordinances. The ordinances of creation and
nature are also somewhat obscured by sin and need to
be made known again by Christ. But note: They have
to be made known afresh by Christ as ordinances of
creation.22. A contemporary theologian has maintained
that a theologian who wants to build his ethics upon the
ordinances of creation and does not become a Roman
Catholic is a dilettante.23 If that is so, then Calvin is the
first to whom the verdict applies. Calvinist ethics are
*
40 NATURAL THEOLOGY
simply unthinkable without the concept of the ordinances
of creation. But before we treat of ethics we have yet to
develop a fundamental concept of Calvin’s theologia
naturalis: that of the imago Det, which also forms the
transition from natura in the objective sense to natura in
the subjective sense.
The concept of the imago Dei is fundamental to Cal-
vinistic anthropology. But in his treatment Calvin makes
the inner unity of the whole of his theology appear as
clearly as in few other places. This applies above all
to the connection of the theologia naturalis with the
theologia revelata in the narrower sense of that term. On
the one hand the imago Dei points across to christology,
since Christ is the original of that likeness,*4 the human
imago. But it points even more certainly to soteriology
since the full content of the zmago Dei can only be known
from the reparatio, from the regeneratio through Christ
and the Holy Spirit.*® Calvin likes to use the concept
reparatio imaginis to sum up the whole content of the
regeneratio which takes place through faith in Christ.
These two definitions imply that in a Christian theology
the concept of the zmago Dei can only be understood in
conjunction with that of sin as the loss of that zmago.
Apart from man the disturbance or derangement of the
natura, the order of existence created by God, is, as it
were, but a slight one. Consequently the original order
clearly shows through the sinful confusion. But here, at
the centre of creation, in the case of man, where the
personal relation of man and God is at issue, the dis-
turbance is the greatest possible. For here the soul** or
personal being is human “‘nature.” But the former is as
much defined by the concept of sin, z.e. of opposition to
what is appointed by God, as by the zmago, that which is
appointed by. God. This dualism, this inner contra-
diction in the human essence, is characteristic of man
as he is now.??
The result of this is the fact that man still and indeed
always can and must be spoken of as the image of God.
On the other hand, the imago must be described as
destroyed and spoilt,°®° thoroughly and—apart from the
redemption through Christ—irrevocably spoilt. In this
Calvin is in total agreement with the hard Augustinian
and Lutheran definitions. One should imagine that
Calvin was above the suspicion of flirting with Pela-
gianism.
Nevertheless he avoids falling into the other extreme
of saying with Flaccius that original sin is the substance
of man or—to say the same in different words—that the
imago Dei is in no sense a definition of the being of man
as he now is. Calvin’s explanations amount to more or
less what I have called the formal side of the zmago,
without, however, actually employing that term.
Instead of it he uses—like Luther—the concept of a
remnant of the zmago®® which is somewhat clumsy because
of its quantitative appearance. But however quantitative
the meaning of the word, Calvin’s meaning and usage are
strictly categorical. Calvin considers this remnant of tl
imago Dei to be of great importance. One might almost
say that it is one of the pillars supporting his theology.
For he identifies it with nothing less than the entire
human, rational nature, the immortal soul, the capacity
for culture, the conscience, responsibility, the relation
with God, which—though not redemptive—exists even
in sin, language, the whole of cultural life. And upon it
he bases considerable portions of his ethics.*°
In spite of his sin, man is the most glorious of the
creatures of God." In his nature, which is created by God
and not entirely destroyed by sin, there continues to
manifest itself the will of the Creator, which appointed
for man a destiny such as no other creature has. It is
this “remnant”? of the zmago which still distinguishes man
from the animal and from every other creature and
-?
42 NATURAL THEOLOGY
elevates him above them. Even fallen man still has—

thanks to the “portion”? of the zmago that he has retained
—an immortal soul,*2 a conscience,** in which the law of
God is indelibly and irremovably implanted.“ But he
also has an inclination towards truth and a capacity for
recognising truth. Calvin is not afraid to relate this
lumen naturale directly to the Spirit of God. Especially is
he fond of using in this sense the passage in the prologue
of the fourth Gospel, “the light (of the Logos or of
Christ) shineth in the darkness.”4° Wherever a man of
science investigates the divine laws of the starry heavens,
wherever an artist creates any great works, there the
Spirit of God is active in him, there he is in relation with
divine truth.
Therefore it is not permissible to deprecate or abuse
man. Even in his sin man is yet honourable, since he
still bears the image of God within him, even though it
be obscured and ‘“‘painted over.”#”
The divine objective and the human subjective factors
show themselves to be different in that the zmago gives
man occasion to misinterpret himself. One may call to
mind Hamann’s famous saying concerning the mis-
understanding between reason and itself. The zmago
gives man occasion for false idealistic speculation, 2.¢. for
an immanentist interpretation of what can be rightly
understood only transcendentally, z.e. if the divine act —
of creation is taken into consideration.*® The imago is
the seat of responsibility. Similarly it is the seat of
religion, of the knowledge of God and of God’s worthiness
to be worshipped. Apropos of these thoughts Calvin
touches upon the distinction between the formal and the
material factors: the zmago is just sufficient to enable man |
to know God but not to know his How, to urge him
towards religion without, however, making a true re-
ligion possible for him.*® Thus also the imago is necessary
for any knowledge of God in nature. Here, therefore,
the objective and the subjective concepts meet. The
imago, which man retains, is the principle of the theologia
naturalis in the subjective sense, i.e. of that knowledge of
God derived from nature, of which man is capable apart
from revelation in the Scriptures or in Jesus Christ.5° It
is hardly necessary to say that Calvin always treats this
theologia naturalis, in the subjective sense of natura, as a
side-issue. For it is of no practical import for us. It has
altogether become unnecessary and invalidated through
the better knowledge which we have gained in Christ.
The subjective natural knowledge of God is not only
imperfect but always disfigured by untruth. But in its
stead Christ gives us the true theologia naturalis, the true
knowledge of God in his works in the same way in which
he gives us a new knowledge which goes beyond all
knowledge that is natural and which is in this sense
supernatural.51
The interrelation of the two can be seen in the use
which Calvin makes of the zmago in his ethics. Prima facie
it seems as if Calvin’s ethics were based entirely upon the
thought of the zmago still present in sinful man. One
might call them purely humanistic ethics. For the
object of ethical action is always man or the human
community. And this man is—even as a sinner—the
image of God. Therefore his life has to be respected.
He has the same rights as yourself and you must be just
and fair towards him, because he bears the image of God
like yourself.5? Therefore you ought to help him. Especi-
ally the idea of the universal relationship of mankind,
which is based upon this zmago, is of importance to
Calvin. He who does injury to his neighbour, does injury
“to his own flesh.” The destruction of the community is
the destruction of the body of which we are members.*?
On the one hand Calvin has no scruples in recognising
this ethos as one which it is possible within limits for the
heathen to achieve as well.°4 (In this matter, as also in
‘
44 NATURAL THEOLOGY
his judgment of pagan philosophy, he allows for a
variety of degrees.*®) On the other hand he shows that
the sense both of the imago and also of this universal
relationship can ultimately only be understood in Christ.
The true ethica naturalis, like the theologia naturalts, finds
its perfection in Christ alone.™
The only thing possible to unregenerate man is a
righteousness which amounts exactly to what is other-
wise known as justitia civilis. It is hardly necessary to say
that this righteousness does not count as such before God,*”
though Calvin leaves room for the thought that some
few pious men among the heathen might have known
the true God and might thus have attained to that
righteousness which counts before God.** This is possible,
because Calvin believes in an original revelation from
the time of creation. Its relation to the lex naturae is not
made clear. But it has never been altogether lost to
mankind and has maintained itself especially pure in
the case of some few elect.*®
But let us in conclusion demonstrate the importance
of theologia naturalis for Calvin by the example of the
ordinances. Among the ordinationes Det or creationis,
matrimony is of special importance to Calvin; among the
ordinances of preservation instituted in view of sin,
especially the State. All that Calvin says concerning the ~
ethics of matrimony® and of the State® is derived from
his theologia naturalis. After what has been said, this means
that it is derived from that knowledge of the ordinances
of creation which only a Christian can have. The pagan
theologia naturalis no longer counts. This is to say that
Calvin is altogether dependent upon the concept of the
lex naturae which he derives from creation. This applies
at least wherever he is concerned with the problems of
the communal life of man, or, as we should say, with
social ethics. He is the “dilettante” who bases his ethics
upon the ordinances of creation without becoming a
Roman Catholic. It goes without saying that the love
which can be rightly understood only through Christ, and
which is given by him, is not become invalid. But not
even Calvin is prepared to attempt to construct his
ethics with that concept alone. The meaning of love in
matrimony and in the State has to be seen from the
special functions which God has appointed for matrimony
and for the State.®* Both matrimony and the State are
instituted by God, though in different senses.** Both are
under preserving grace and therefore man and his actions
are in both instrumental for God.** Thus he likes to call
those responsible for the State the “lieutenants” or
“‘officers”’ of God.® He even goes so far as to see proof
of the divine dignity of the State in the fact that the
Scriptures call its officers ‘‘gods.”®* Only so can it be
understood how Calvin is able to see the two ordinances,
the State an ordinance of preservation and the Church
an ordinance of redemption, together in one unity in
Christ and yet assigns to each not only a totally different
function but a totally different law.®
‘This is, roughly speaking, Calvin’s theologia naturalis.
In all essentials it is also that of Luther.6® There can be
no question as to whether this is the doctrine of the
Reformation but merely whether at this point there is
any difference between the Roman Catholic Thomist
doctrine and that of the Reformers. In no case can the
difference be where Barth sees it; for Barth considers the
characteristic of the Reformers’ theology to be the denial
of the theologia naturalis. But there is a difference, and
even a very considerable one, only it is at quite a different
point. After what has been said we can summarise this
difference as follows: in Roman Catholicism the objec-
tive and the subjective conceptsof nature coalesce, they
coincide, as it were,completely. The reason for this is
the doctrine of the zmago Dev.
According to Roman Catholic doctrine man has not
‘
46 NATURAL THEOLOGY
lost the imago through sin at all, but only the dona
superaddita, the justitia—or, more properly, the perfectio—
originalis. Sin has, as it were, nothing to do with this
question. This means that there is an unrefracted theologia
naturalis. There is a system of natural theology, a self-
sufficient rational system, detachable from theologia
revelata and capable of serving it for a solid foundation .
That is the great contrast to the theology of the Re-
formers. Thanks to: the undamaged imago the theologia_
naturalis is derivable from reason alone. It_is_purely
rational and as such complete. There is such a thing as
rational theology and therefore also rational ethics or
moral philosophy is possible. Nature, z.e. the divine
order of creation, is entirely accessible and adequately
intelligible to reason, since the two concepts of nature,
the objective and the subjective, coincide completely.
Reason is competent and adequate in dealing with
“nature.” Only supernature, that which bears upon
redemption, is reserved for faith.®
Thus the natural knowledge of God is freed from the
twilight that lies upon it in the doctrine of the Reformers.
There is no antinomy in it. A dichotomy has taken the
place of the antinomy. On the one hand nature, on the
other grace, on the one hand reason, on the other
revelation. Both are neatly divided by a horizontal line, —
distinguished from one another like the first and second
storeys of a building. For the Reformers no statement
concerning nature can be quite correct unless Christ be
taken into account. Even in matters of natural revelation
the lumen naturale is sufficient only up to a certain degree,
which is never capable of being accurately fixed. But in
Roman Catholicism the lumen naturale is co-extensive with
nature itself. Or, to put it differently: the theologia naturalis
is for the Reformers dialectical, for Roman Catholicism
undialectical. The Reformers did not pay much attention
to this question. Their interest in this matter was con-
centrated upon one point: justitia, free will, the intactness
of human reason in questions of ethics and religion. The
idea that the ¢mago Dei in man is intact provokes their
wrath. They follow up the consequences of this idea and
of its opposite, as it were, only upwards, in the direction
of soteriology but not downwards, in the direction of
theologia naturalis. This is why hardly one Protestant
theologian is properly informed on this subject.
But the fault of this lies above all in the fact that the
concept of nature, which was common to all theology
until the time of the Enlightenment, had been lost and
was therefore not understood by the theologians of the
nineteenth century who went back to the Reformers.”°
It need hardly be said that the concept of nature which
gained currency at the time of the Enlightenment was
completely different both from that of Catholicism and
from that of the Reformers. If one wanted to put it
metaphorically, one would have to say that for the
Reformers the light of the revelation in Christ must shine
into nature in order to light up this foundation. The
Roman Catholics separate them by a neat horizontal
line. For the Enlightenment the light of reason reaches
upwards into the sphere of redemption to the extent of
doing away completely with the distinction between the
lumen naturale and the revelation in Christ. The lumen
naturale now becomes itself a revelation, indeed the only
one that there really is. Thus the whole of theology
becomes theologia naturalis, or at least the distinction
between the revelation in Christ or in the Scriptures and
rational knowledge becomes blurred and uncertain.
Rationalism proper is the complete abolition of the
distinction. But what Barth means by Neo-Protestantism
is this confused mixture of both principles. In the
Reformers’ theology the independence of the natural
knowledge of God is, as it were, rightly threatened by
revelation. But here, on the contrary, the independence
48 NATURAL THEOLOGY
of revelation is threatened by rational knowledge. Roman
Catholicism, with its neat line of demarcation between
reason and revelation, stands in the middle.
As regards the controversy between Barth and myself,
the picture would have to be completed thus: in Barth’s
theology theologia naturalis is not only threatened and
restricted by revelation but it is altogether done away
with. My theses aim at strengthening the movement of
the Reformers, which diverges from the Roman Catholic
horizontal line, without going beyond it—or, in terms of
our metaphor, below it—as does Barth’s complete denial.
Therefore my theology can be accused as an “‘approxi-
mation to Roman Catholicism” from Barth’s point of
view but not from that of the Reformers’ teaching.
It is possible to agree to some extent with this proof
from the history of dogma, as Barth has done recently,”
and to maintain that the Reformers’ doctrine of the lex
naturae and natural theology is obscure and not clearly
thought out and that they failed to assert the contrast
with sufficient sharpness. If that is so, then it is hardly
right to characterise those that hold the doctrine of the
Reformers rather than that of Barth, as Thomistic and
opposed to the Reformation, though they may objectively
be wrong in so doing. But the Reformers’ teaching on
this point is perfectly clear and consistent, though it may —
not be thought out so thoroughly as at other points. Nor
is it objectively wrong. That has been discussed in
section ITT.
We may ask why Barth should so violently and
brusquely deny a doctrine which is obviously in accord-
ance with the Scriptures and the Reformation, in spite
of his being otherwise so loyal to Scripture and being so
seriously concerned to recapture the message of the
Reformation. I believe that the answer lies in a one-sided
concept. of revelation. Barth refuses to recognise that
where revelation and faith are concerned, there can be
Nd Aaunht Di neol
Vo np
anything permanent, fixed, and, as it were, natural. He
acknowledges only the act, the event of revelation, but
never anything revealed, or, as he says, the fact of
revelation. The whole strength of Barthian theology lies \
in the assertion of the actual. It is here that revelation
in the ultimate, fullest sense can only be an act, God |
speaking to me here and now. But that is only one side \
of the biblical concept of revelation. The other side is its /
very opposite. It is the fact that God speaks to me here \
and now because he has spoken. Above all, that he speaks /
to me through the Holy Spirit because he has spoken in
Jesus Christ. This “has” is maintained in the concept
of the Canon. The Bible is the “fact of the revelation” of
God. It is true that the Scriptures become the Word of
God for me only through the Holy Spirit. But they become
the Word of God for me and they become it because they
already are it. They become it through that, which is
written, the solid body of words, sentences and books,
something objective and available for every one. If I
may use this trivial comparison, the relation of the Bible
to the actual revelation of God is like that of the gramo-
phone record to the sounding music, which has been
engraved upon it and is again taken out of it. It is a
~**record,”? an action become substance. It is fixed and
unalterable. It is a pieceofworld at anyone’s disposal,
even though the fact_of its being a revelation is not at_
anyone’s disposal. That which is at anyone’s disposal,
this Book of books with its fixed text, is what God uses in
order to speak his personal Word to me to-day. That is
his will. Only through that which is fixed and given
does he will to give me his direct personal Word.
Once we have understood this, it is not difficult to
acknowledge the fact that God speaks to us through his
work in nature, in the wide sense of the old usage. The
whole arrangement of the world, with its fixity and the
permanency of its being, is a manifestation of God. It
D
50 ; NATURAL THEOLOGY
does not bear this function “‘in itself’’—any more than
‘
the Scriptures—but only because to this Word is added

an ear that hears it, to this manifestation an eye that
sees it. This expression of God is also subject to the
subject-object correlation. An expression is only an
expression where there is an impression to correspond to
it. It is impossible to see the expression of God without it
making an impression. Where that is so, the Scriptures
speak of sin and unbelief both where natural revelation
is concerned and also where scriptural revelation (or
prophetic revelation or revelation in Christ) is concerned.
God does not speak to us except by signs and pictures.
By the picture-language of the order of the world and by
that of the prophetic and apostolic word. Even Jesus
‘Christ is a piece of picture-language or, as Kierkegaard
puts it, an “indirect communication.” For direct com-
munication is paganism. Direct communication cannot
communicate the message of God, but only that. of an
idol. That is the reason why it is not possible to deny the
“fact of revelation” of God in the order of the world or
of nature for the reasons which Barth gives, e.g; in the
context of his rejection of the analogia entis. For if one
did so, one would also have to abandon the fact of the
revelation of God in Scripture, and would thus lapse
into an enthusiastic idea of revelation. But this parallel
with Scripture does not by any means exhaustively show
the significance of natural revelation and therefore of
theologia naturalis for the Church and for theology.
Vv
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THEOLOGIA NATURALIS

FOR THEOLOGY AND THE CHURCH
SOME years ago I ‘had a discussion with. Karl Barth

concerning theologia naturalis which I shall not easily
forget. In it he pointed out to me the political danger of
Gogarten’ s doctrine of the ordinances. His verdict was
that in that concept there was hidden a whole political
and cultural programme of a distinctly authoritarian
stamp. Events have proved how right he was. Even then
—long before the publication of my book, The Divine |
Imperative (E.T.)—I tried to show that there are two
possible ways of conceiving of orders. One of these is
strictly conservative and authoritarian. The other, which
might be called revolutionary or conservative with equal
justification, is a “‘refracted’’ concept of orders, corre-
sponding to the refraction in the theologia naturalis of the
Reformers. But Barth was then as little interested in this
distinction as he is now.
That much is clear: the theologian’s attitude to
theologia naturalis decides the character of his ethics.
Historically it may be said that the concept of the
ordinances of creation has been regulative for Christian
ethics from the beginning to the time of the Enlighten-
ment, in all matters connected with the problem of
society as such, i.e. in the doctrines of the ministry,
secular vocation, matrimony, the State, etc. Christian
social ethics throughout the centuries may be defined
as the doctrine of the love founded in Jesus Christ and
of its function in society according to the divine institution of
the latter. Social ethics are therefore always determined
as much by the concept of the divine grace of creation and
51
52 NATURAL THEOLOGY
preservation as by that of the redeeming grace of Christ. —
The point at issue between the primitive and reformed
doctrine on the one hand and the Roman Catholic and
Thomist doctrine on the other is not whether the idea of
the ordinances of creation and preservation should
determine the behaviour of Christians, but how it should
do so. Only the individualism and the rationalism of the
Enlightenment destroyed the appreciation of this central
idea and the nineteenth century regained it only in some
rare instances, even where theologians were determined
to return to the Bible and the Reformation.”?
The result of this abandonment is an invincible
individualism. All attempts to operate with the concepts
of love or with those of “law” or ‘‘commandment”’
without the help of the concept of the ordinances, lead
either to rationalistic social constructions (liberalistic
doctrines of the State and matrimony) or to an uncertain
attitude towards the ordinances of society as given factors,
vacillating between acknowledgment and rejection. But
we have to acknowledge the fact that God has not simply
put
us into a “world,” but into his creation, whose laws
can be known in spite of sin, by those who know God in
Jesus Christ. This means that we have to acknowledge
divinely appointed objective limits to our freedom and
objective guides to the ordering of our society. That is
the only way out of this chaos—the way which gives to
the Reformers’ ethics on the one hand their assurance,
and on the other hand their realism. Luther’s distinction
between office and person, his entire doctrine of vocation
and status, is informed by the idea of preserving grace and
of the ordinances of creation and preservation which are
its instruments. The same is true of his clear distinction
between Church and State.’ All those who—quite
irrespective of their motives—act in accordance with the
laws of these ordinances, do the works of God. They are
not thereby justified before God—that can happen only
SIGNIFICANCE OF THEOLOGIA NATURALIS 53
by faith, ze. by doing these works in the knowledge of
divine grace, in obedience to and confidence in God—but
i they do “right.”
In so doing they can claim that they have fulfilled
civil justice, without thereby being justified in the sight
of God. The same applies to all those who fulfil the law
of God—whether the written or the lex naturae—in any
way whatsoever. The ordinances—e.g. the ordinance of
matrimony, 7.¢. the demand that man should live in
monogamous marriage, and the ordinance of the State,
1.é. the obedient acknowledgment of civil authority—
are a part of the divine law. The law—whether it be
written law or the lex naturae or one of these ordinances—
is the form in which the divine will is revealed, which
only through the Holy Spirit becomes a concrete divine
commandment, governing my existence here and now.
Only the Holy Spirit teaches us to know the law and
the ordinances truly, in accordance with the needs of
the moment. Moreover, he alone gives the strength to
obey them in such a way that the will of God is done
not only outwardly but inwardly also. It would yet
have to be seen what a system of biblical or reformed
ethics would look like which dispensed with this central
doctrine as taught by the Reformers. I, for one, would
not be: prepared to prophesy any success for such an
experiment.
But theologia naturalis, in the sense in which I haveper
defined it, is significant not only for ethics but for \\»» é"
dogmatics also. This is the place for a few words con-
cerning the principle of analogy and Barth’s polemic
against it. Barth is the first theologian to see in the use of
the principle of analogy a—or even the—contrast between
Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. For Barth holds
the strange doctrine that there is no creature which has
in itself any likeness to God. Rather is it raised to this
status by the revelation in Christ and through the Holy
eo
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54 NATURAL THEOLOGY
Spirit.74 This is a piece of theological nominalism, in
comparison with which that of William of Occam appears
harmless. For this would mean that we call God
“Father,” ‘“‘Son,’” “Spirit,” that we speak of the
“Word” of God, etc., not because God is more like a
father than anything else, but simply because God says
so in the Scriptures. God does not say it because by
his creation and from his creation it is so, but, on the
contrary, it only becomes so by the Word of God in
Scripture.
In fact and in truth Barth is not able to maintain this
extreme nominalism consistently. Barth’s Dogmatics, like
all others, are of course based on the idea of analogy,
even though he does not acknowledge this. The passage
where this becomes visible is the one in which he says
the following concerning the Word of God: The form in
which reason communicates with reason, person with
.person, is language, so, too, when it is God's language.
Of course it is divine reason that communicates with
human reason, the divine person with the human person.
The complete inconceivability of this event confronts us.
But reason with reason, person with person, primarily in analog y
with what happens in the spiritual sphere of creation, not
primarily in analogy with what happens in the corporal or natural
sphere. The Word of God is a rational and not an ir-
rational event. (Dogmatics, E.T., p. 152 ff.) But this
means that at least at this point the principle of analogy
is used in the sense in which Barth otherwise rejects it:
Human reason is in itself—z.e. by divine creation—more
suitable for a definition of the nature of God than stocks
or stones. And in the same way the word is in itself—z.e.
by divine creation—a suitable means of establishing
relations between two subjects, not only between man
and man but also between God and man. The fact that
man is a subject is in itself analogous to the fact that God
1s a subject. Hence we must exclude all other analogies
and make the fact that God isa subject the governing
thought in our theology—as Barth quite rightly does.
But this means that the whole Barthian theology rests
de facto upon the doctrine of the formal imago Dei, which
he so much dislikes, z.e. upon the doctrine that man as
we know him, sinful man, is the only legitimate analogy
to God, because he is always a rational being, a subject,
a person. To put it differently: man’s nature as imago Dei
determines that he should not speak of God except by
way of human metaphor. Father, Son, Spirit, Word—
these all-important concepts of Christian theology, of
the message of the Bible, are concepts derived from
personality. They are not set apart for this purpose
from all concepts derived from nature (in the modern
sense of the word), because God—incomprehensibly—
wants it to be so, but rather because in man God has
created a being like to himself, the only being like to
himself, whose likeness to him (2.e. the fact that he is a
subject and a person) is not destroyed even by sin.
Consequently his likeness is, in contrast to all analogies
from nature, confirmed by revelation. Thus without
knowing it and without wishing it, Barth himself argues
in favour of theologia naturalis and of its fundamental
significance in theology. In the same way he contradicts
by his theology his programme “Against the analogia
entis!”? The analogia entis is not specifically Roman
Catholic. Rather is it the basis of every theology, of
Christian theology as much as of pagan. The character-
istic of Christian theology, and somehow also the differ-
ence between Roman Catholic and Protestant theology,
is not the issue whether the method of analogy may be
used, but how this is to be done and what analogies are
to be employed. The determining factor in Christian
theology is the energy with which the fact that God isa
subject is—in contrast to other analogies—maintained in
theology. This determining factor rests upon the doctrine
56 NATURAL THEOLOGY
of the imago Dei, which can be adequately understood only
in the incarnation of God.
Let me also point out briefly the practical ecclesiastical
significance of theologia naturalis. The task of the Church
is the proclamation of her message. The Church can
effect this proclamation in various ways—by preaching,
by teaching, by pastoral work, by theology, by personal
witness, etc. But wherever the Church proclaims the
Word of God in human words, she must choose from
amongst human words those that somehow correspond
adequately to the divine Word. The objective reason for
this correspondence, 7.e. for the possibility of speaking of
God and of proclaiming his Word at all, is the fact that
God has made us in his image. The subjective reason is
the revelation of this fact made to us in Jesus Christ.
The incarnation is the criterion of the knowledge of the divine
likeness of man, of its truth and of its profundity. But
man’s undestroyed formal likeness to God is the objective
possibility of the revelation of God in his “‘ Word.”
The Church could not proclaim her message but for
the creaturely relation between the word of man and the
Word of God. The fact of the Church’s message rests
upon this “remnant” of the zmago Dei. The contents of
this message rest upon the restoration of the image in
Christ. The Church also is dependent upon the possibility
“of speaking.to man of God at all.” That is the “point
of contact”: capacity for words and responsibility. But
the effectiveness of the Church’s proclamation does not
rest on this general possibility alone, but also upon
whether this contact is made in the right way or the
wrong way. The Church’s proclamation must be
comprehensible else it is useless, however true its contents.
The Holy Ghost alone can open man’s heart for the
Word of God, so that he can understand and accept it.
This must not make us indifferent towards the contents
of our human words in which we proclaim the Word of
God. We believe that there is a close relation between our
pure doctrine and the activity of the Holy Spirit. But
neither must it make us indifferent towards the form of
our proclamation.
No less a man than Luther, the protagonist of the
objective Word of God, related the attention to be paid
to the manner of our proclamation with the core of the
contents of our preaching, with the doctrine of the
incarnation of the Son of God. In the place in the
“German Mass,” where he gives simple rules for
the Christian instruction of children, he continues:
‘And let no one think himself too wise and despise such
child’s play. When Christ was desirous of instructing
men, he must needs become a man. If we wish to instruct
children (viz. in Christ) we must needs become children
with them. I wish to God such child’s play were well
played. We should soon see great treasure come from
Christian men and perceive souls grow rich in Holy Writ
and in the knowledge of God.... Grown-ups also
should use such pedagogic helps for themselves, “else
they will go daily to hear a sermon and come thence as
they have gone. For they think that they need do nothing
but pass time in hearing it, neither do they propose to
profit therefrom or to keep it. Upon this wise not a few
_hear sermons for three or four years, yet do they not learn
enough that they might give account of any part of the
creed. It is true there is enough of it written in books.
Nevertheless it is not yet written into the hearts.”
(Vide Weimar Edition, XIX, 78.)
A true appreciation of theologia naturalis and of its
relation to the revelation in Christ is a presupposition for
all kinds of Christian education both in the widest and
in the narrowest sense of the word, i.e. for every knowledge
of the right method of proclamation in relation to the
right substance. Experience teaches that wherever
theologia naturalis ig despised, there also the pedagogic
‘
58 NATURAL THEOLOGY
factor is despised—which necessarily has disastrous
consequences in the Church. We are certainly not
concerned here with a question of “mere psychology.”
What I should say to a man upon his death-bed is a
holy matter; but it is a matter no less holy how I am
to say it to him in such a way that he shall understand
and appreciate it. A pastor might—to put it somewhat
strongly—go to heaven on account of the What but go
to hell on account of the How. To despise the question
of the How is a sign, not of theological seriousness but |
of theological intellectualism. The What is, as it were,
guarded by faith, but the How has to be guarded by love.
But where the How and therefore love is lacking, there
faith must be lacking also. }
But theologia naturalis is also of decisive importance for
the dealings of Christians with unbelievers. At this point
there is a danger of the true principles being betrayed.
_As early as the second century the Apologists did this,
and since then it has happened again and again. But
the task remains. The fact that there is a false apologetic
way of making contact does not mean that there is not a
right way. The wrong way of making contact is, to put
it briefly, to prove the existence of God. For this pre-
supposes the Roman Catholic view of theologia naturalis, a,
self-sufficient rational system of natural knowledge of
God. But though proof is excluded, this does not exclude
the possibility of a discussion pointing towards such
evidence of the existence of God as we have. The
decisive factor will always be the simple proclamation of
the Christian message. But there is such a thing as
theological work done upon the message, i.e. intellectual
work in the realm of concepts, which can and is intended
to serve the proclamation of the message. Similarly there
is such a thing as an intellectual and conceptual work of
preparation, which clears obstacles out of the way of
proclamation. Every one who carries on pastoral work
among intellectuals or has the task of instructing modern
youth, knows the significance of this. But the centre on
which everything turns is the centre of the theologia
naturals: the doctrine of the imago Dei and especially of
responsibility. The explication of the concept of responsi-
bility is the subject-matter of theologital eristics. It can
easily be seen from what Calvin says concerning this
subject how far this is possible by way of theologia naturalis.
But complete isolation would soon—and nowadays more
so than ever—result in the Church despising all theologia
naturalis. What is central is not dogmatics, nor eristics,
nor ethics, but solely the proclamation of the Word of God
itself. But a true understanding of theologia naturalis is of
decisive importance for all three and also for the manner
of proclamation.
I do not wish to blame Karl Barth for neglecting and
discrediting theologia naturalis. God uses the genius of
one-sidedness—which is perhaps a pleonasm—as much
as the spirits of moderation. He made use of Luther’s
one-sidedness, monstrous though it was at some points,
as much as the comprehensive and balanced thought
of Calvin. It may be Barth’s special mission to serve at
this point as a counter-weight to dangerous aberrations.
‘There really can be no difference of opinion between us
that a false natural theology did great damage to ‘the
Protestantism of the last century—or should we say of the
last three centuries? And a false theology derived from
nature is also at the present time threatening the Church
to the point of death. No one has taught us as clearly as
Karl Barth that we must here fight with all the passion,
strength and circumspection that we can muster. But
the Church must not be thrown from one extreme to the
other. In the long run the Church can bear the rejection
of theologia naturalis as little as its misuse. It is the task of
our theological generation to find the way back to a true
theologia naturalis. And I am convinced that it is to be
60 , NATURAL THEOLOGY
found far away from Barth’s negation and quite near
Calvin’s doctrine. If we had enquired from the master
earlier, this dispute amongst us disciples would not have
arisen. It is high time to wake up for the opportunity
that we have missed. i
: FOOTNOTES
1 This was already clearly apparent in the essays, ‘‘Das erste Gebot als
theologisches Axiom,” Zwischen den Zeiten, 1933, Pp. 311 ff., and somewhat
less bluntly in the preface to the English edition of the Epistle to the Romans,
and in the Church Dogmatics, p. 27 ff.
2 Zwischen den Zeiten, last issue identical with Theologische Existenz heute,
ING 71D 39: :
31 must here, as I have done in my “Ethik,” call to mind the forgotten
though most important representative of a truly Lutheran theology in the
nineteenth century, A. von Oettingen and his Lutherische Dogmatik in three
volumes. This distinguishes itself from the Lutheranism of Erlangen by its
complete freedom from the influence of Schleiermacher and from that of
Saxony and Prussia by its very much greater flexibility. But I must also
reckon Kaehler among the truly biblical theologians who did much to
prepare the way for the dialectical theology. As regards the question here
at issue, my position is nearer to Kaehler than to Schlatter. Altogether
Kaehler has anticipated most of the questions which occupy us nowadays.
4JIn the essay concerning the first commandment, which I have already
mentioned, Barth makes his polemic against me—and also against Gogarten
and Bultmann—easy by taking the phrase ‘‘and reason” to mean a second
source of theological knowledge independent of biblical revelation. The
basic thought of my book is, as will be shown below, that only through
Jesus or Holy Scripture do we properly understand these ordinances which
are given by God and thus understand them to be the divine rule for our
activity in society (“in office and calling’’). These divine ordinances also
make life possible for the heathen who, however, do not recognize their
origin or their meaning clearly.
5 E.T.: The Divine Imperative (Tr.).
: ae gah my essay ‘‘Theologie und Kirche,” Zwischen den Zeiten, 1930,
P. 397 HU.
’ His polemic has become more and more pronounced since his lecture
“Zur Lehre vom Heiligen Geist” (E.T.: ‘‘ The Holy Ghost and the Christian
Life”). Important above all is what he says in the Church Dogmatics, the
es:ay on the first commandment, and the latest “‘Gottes Wille und unsere
Wiiensche,” Theologische Existenz heute, No. 7.
* Schumann’s essay: “Jmago Dei” in the volume of collected essays of the
theologians of Giessen (under the same title; pub. 1932), shows the struggle
FOOTNOTES 61
of “Old Lutheran” theology with the two senses of the doctrine of the
imago. Schumann rightly says there that the doctrine of the remnant of the
imago “does not derive in any way from a semi-Pelagian dilution of the
doctrine of original sin,” but “from a genuine and original dogmatic
necessity.”” Schumann’s solution, however, does not seem to mé to be
satisfactory.
® The reason why Barth has nowhere dealt with the important passages
Romans i. and ii.—for he himself would surely agree that the relevant
passages in his Epistle to the Romans do not count in this connection—is no
doubt that Barth simply refuses to follow St. Paul here, and in addition
regards these passages as an hapax legomenon. But in reality they are a clear
reminder that St. Paul always presupposes the Old Testament and with it
8 “yi aawitness to the glory of God as Creator which finds expression in
is works.
10 As far as I know, Barth has nowhere discussed the question what,
according to his view, is the theological significance of the general human
ethical consciousness, the consciousness of responsibility towards a holy law
or a holy will. For Luther the significance is quite clear: habent cognitionem
legalem. The fact that the cognitio legalis is not saving knowledge of God
never means for Luther that it is no knowledge of God at all. The contrary
is clearly to be seen from hundreds of passages. On this depends the whole
dialectic of Luther’s theology; compare the excellent discussion in Th.
Harnack: Luthers Theologie, Vol. 1, especially chapters 10 and 11.
11 It is not permissible to abolish the duality of the revelation of God in
creation and in Jesus Christ by saying that creation is only known in Christ
—as Barth has often done since writing his work on the Holy Spirit. Rather
’ do we know through Jesus Christ that God has revealed himself to us before,
but that we did not properly admit this revelation: cf. what I have said
below concerning Calvin. Actually Barth knows this too. On p. 508 of
the Church Dogmatics (E.T.) he says that the Word of Christ is none other
than that by which we also were created. “The same Jesus Christ through
whom God binds us to himself while yet enemies, the same has already
bound himself to us, as those who belong to him, because he alone has called
us out of nothingness. And by this our first bond with him, as it becomes
manifest to us in the second and through the second, through his revelation
is measured the meaning which this second bond itself must have for us.”
Barth is right in deducing responsibility from this. Barth therefore agrees
with the Epistle to the Hebrews that the Word of Christ as the Word of
creation upholds and preserves us all. This means that objectively we
somehow live by the Word of God even as sinners. But Barth rejects the
idea that Godin any way testifies to himself as creator outside the revelation
in Jesus Christ. In this respect his doctrine departs as much from the
Bible as it does from the Reformation. He acknowledges here only a general
grace, but not a corresponding general revelation.
12 Cf, Acts xiv. 17.
ng
18 There is also a type of human activity within the sphere of redeetni
grace. We call it the activity of the Church.
what I
14 Barth’s misunderstanding (Church Dogmatics (E.T.), p. 28) that due tou the
y is a foundati on of theolog y is no doubt
mean by eristic theolog (‘The other
fact that in my essay “Die andere Aufgabe der Theolog ie”
=
62 NATURAL \THEOLOGY
task of Theology”’), wischen den Zeiten, 1929, p. 273, I assign to it a pre-
paratory function. Such theological work can indeed be a preparation for
the hearing of the Word of God.
15In the following paragraphs I owe many references and some new
Ppieces of insight
& into 0 the ramifications of Calvin’s theologia naturalis to:
the (as yet unprinted) work of my pupil, G. Gloede, Theologia Naturalis bet
Calvin. In it he has collected an enormous number of references from the
complete works of the Genevan Reformer and has impressively set out
Calvin’s natural theology in relation to his doctrine of creation and revela-
tion. The references are all to the Corpus Reformatorum. (The work referred +
to above has since appeared in the Tibinger Studien zur systematischen Theologie,
Stuttgart, 1935—Tr.)
.
16 Vol. XLVII, p. 5, line 2; Vol. XXXVIII, p. 77, line 11.

17 Vol. XXIV, p. 657, line 48*; p. 662, line 44; Vol. XXIII, p. 51,
line 12*; p. 368, line 8.
18 Vol. XXIV, p. 603, line 31; Vol. XXIII, p. 141, line 39.
19 Vol. XXIII, p. 141, line 39; Vol. II, p. 212, line 55.
2° Vol. XXIII, pp. 11-12; Vol. XLV, p. 182, line 32; Vol. XLVII, p. 7,
ie 3 i Vol XXXII, p. 572, line 24*; Vol XXXI, p. 88, line 6; p. g1,
ine 3.
_# Vol. IT, p. 47, line 48*; Vol. XXIII, pp. 9-10; Vol. XLVIII, p. 328,
line 42; Vol. XLVII, p. 59, line 7; Vol: XXIII, p. 23, line 40.
* Vol. XXIII, p. 11, line 12; Vol. XLVIII, p. 328, line 42; Vol. XXIII,
p. 9, line 18*; Vol. II, p. 47, line 11.*
*° Vol. XXXI, p. 88, line 6; Vol. II, p. 43, line 44; Vol. XLIX, p. 340,
line 37*; Vol. XLVII, p. 5, line 29.* a ee
4 Vol. XXIII, p. 584, line 24; p. 210, line 41; p. 584, line 24.*
%5 Vol. XXIII, p. 11, line 4.
*6 Vol. XLIX, p. 326, line 1, and No. 3.
*? Vol. XXIII, pp. g-10; Vol. II, p. 53, line 27.*
2° Vol. XXXIITI, p. 604, line 13.
*°Vol. XXXIII, p. 423, line 31; Vol. XLIX, p. 326, line 1; Vol. II,
p. 267, line 23*; Vol. XXIV, p. 627, line 23.*
5° Vol. II, p. 267, line 5; Vol. I, p. 29, line 18.
_ Vol. I, p. 29, line 1; Vol. X, p. 236, line 40*; Vol. XXXII, p. 86,
line 54.*
* Vol. XLVIL, p. 7, line 10; p. 5, line 7*; Vol. XX XVIII, Pp. 77, line 11.*
°° Froer, Was ist evangelische Erziehung? 1933, p. 12.
74 Vol. XXIII, pp. 11-12.
5° Vol. XXIII, p. 26, line 41,
*° Vol. XXIII, p. 27, line 5; Vol. LV, p. 411, line Bas
*7 Vol. II, p. 176, line 11; Vol. XXIII, p. 118, line 29; Vol. II
line 55; Vol. XLVII, p. 57, line 38. . apes is
*° Vol. XXIII, p. 52, line 42; Vol. II, p. 179, line 44; p. 138, line 27.
39 Vol. XXXII, P- 92, line 20*; Vol. XXVIII, p. 488, line 52*; Vol.
XLVII, p. 57, line 33*; Vol. XXIII, p. 26, line 38.*
FOOTNOTES 63
so Vol. XXXI, p. 92, line 20; Vol. XXIII, p. 100, line 3; Vol. XXXV,
P. 74, line 42*; Vol. XXVI, p. 438, line 35.* :
“Vol. XX XIII, p. 662, line 16; Vol. VIII, p. 348, line 22; Vol. XXVI,
Pp. 255; line 44; Vol. II, p. 149, line 26; Vol. XXXI, p. 94, line 11; and 33;
Vol. II, p. 133, line 29.
“ Vol. XLIX, p. 558, line 17; Vol. VII, p.\112, line 24.
a Vol. XXIV, p. 662, line 44*; Vol. XLIX, p. 129, line 48; Vol. II,
p. 267, line 5*; Vol. I, p. 29, line 18.*
44°Vol. XXIV, p. 725, line 7; Vol. XLIX, p. 38, line 10; Vol. XXIII,
p- 431, line 24. .
45 Vol. XLIX, p. 344, line 44; Vol. XLVII, p. 7, line 10*; Vol. XXIII, i
p. 39, line 1*; Vol. XX XIII, p. 489, line 41*; Vol. II, p. 198, line 32.
46 Vol. XX XVIII, p. 59, line 5; Vol. XX XIII, p. 422, line 32.
47 Vol. IT, p. 196, line 7*; Vol. LV, p. 411, line 36.
48 Vol. XXIII, p. 39, line 40*; Vol. II, p. 43, line 48; Vol. II, p. 196,
line 29.* :
49 Vol. XLIX, p. 38, line 35; Vol. LI, p. 204, line 52.*
50 Vol. V, p. 180, line 42*; Vol. XLIX, p. 326, line 1.
51 Vol, XLVII, p. 7, line 3; Vol. XXII, p. 26, line 38.
52: Vol. XXII, pp. 42-43.
58 Vol. XXVI, p. 304, line 19*; Vol. XXV, p. 180, line 16*; Vol. XXIII,
p. 488, line 44.
54 Vol. XXIII, p. 291, line 23; Vol. XXIV, p. 679, line 32.
55 Vol. XXIII, p. 46, line 21*; p. 85, line 22*; Vol. II, p. 49, line 30*;
p. 38, line 12.*
56 Vol. XLIX, p. 53, line 43; p. 477, line 46.
5? Vol. II, p. 212, line 31.
58 Vol. XX XIII, p. 27, line 6; Vol. XXYV, p. 266, line 31.
59 Vol. XXIV, p. 30, line 39*; Vol. XLIX, pp. 207-208; Vol. XXV,
p.-267, line 45*; p. 277, line 24.*
60 Vol. XLV, p. 528, line 29; Vol. XXIII, p. gg, line 32*; Vol. XLIX,
p. 410, line 11.* "i
61 Vol. XLIX, p. 249, line 36; Vol. LIII, p. 143, line 43; Vol. LV, p. 245,
line 10; Vol. XXIV, p. 354, line 47.
6 Vol, XLIX, p. 422, line 20*; p. 474, line 17; Vol. XXIII, p. 50, line 38.*
63 Vol. XXIII, p. 49, line 37.
64 Vol. XLIX, p. 187, line 54; Vol. XXIII, p. 44, line 32.*
8 Vol, XXIV, p. 187, line 25; Vol. LIII, p. 138, line 44.
66 Vol. VII, p. 83, line 22. 5
87 Vol. LIII, p. 137, line 13; Vol. VII, p. 89, line 1; Vol. XLVII, p. 7,
line 3*; Vol. VII, p. 89, line 1.*
68 Cf, Lau, ‘“‘Ausserliche Ordnung” und ‘‘Weltlich Ding” in Luthers Theologie
(‘External Order” and ‘‘Worldly Matter” in the theology of Luther),
not
1933. Protestant theologians frequently maintain that Luther did
State,
acknowledge any rule of natural law concerning matrimony, the
64 NATURAL THEOLOGY \
the Law, etc.’ But this assertion rests upon the equation of natural law with
its Thomist interpretation. According to Luther society is regulated only by
natural law. But the application of this law of nature is historically variable.
There is no a priori or rigid subjection to natural law.
6° Cf, my excursus concerning Roman Catholic natural law in The
Divine Imperative (E.T.), p. 627.
70 Thus also the discussion between Holl and Troeltsch suffers from this
lack of understanding of the universal ecclesiastical concept of the lex -
naturae and its modification through Luther. The same is true—in contrast
to the above-mentioned work of Lau—of H. Steubing’s monograph, Naturrecht
und natiirliche Theologie im Protestantismus (Natural law and Natural Theology
in Protestantism), 1932.
71 Theologische Existenz heute, No. 7, p. 25, and similarly in his Barmen-
lecture. :
72 Lutherans like von Oettingen and Vilmar, whom not even Barth would
dare to reckon among the “‘Neo-Protestants,” have brought out the sig-
nificance of the ordinances of creation in their ethics. The same is true of
such Dutch Calvinists as Kuyper and Bavink.
73 Luther’s doctrine on this topic is certainly ‘‘unequivocal’’ (Barth):
‘The government of the world is full well appointed by God, so that it was
not needful that God should send down his beloved Son into our miserable
flesh into the world so that he might shed his blood for the bodily and
worldly governing thereof. For that very same law was before established
through those in the estate of matrimony and through the government of
the State” (vide Luther’s works, Weimar Edition, Vol. XLVII,, p. 242).
Luther’s whole social ethics are based on that ‘“‘Word of God” of which
Luther said: ‘‘Ideo enimD eus nobiscum loquitur et agit per . . . parentes, per
magistratus . . . sive sum pater, sive mater, sive filius, audio verbum.. .
Deus enim mecum loquitur in ipso statu vitae in quo vivo’? (Weimar Edition, Vol.
XLIII, p. 478). For a description of the manner in which this idea runs
through Luther’s whole social ethics and forms their basis, cf. Lau, of. cit.
™ Barth, Church Dogmatics (E.T.), pp. 134 f., 274 f., 383 f.
Kart BarRTH
NO!
Answer to Emil Brunner

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PREFACE
] AM by nature a gentle being and entirely averse to

all unnecessary disputes. If anyone, faced with the
fact that he is here reading a controversial treatise,
should suggest that it would be so much nicer if theo-
logians dwelt together in unity, he may rest assured
that I heartily agree with him. Let me also impress upon
him that, humanly and personally speaking, I have
nothing against Emil Brunner. On the contrary I
greatly appreciate him, just as I am prepared to be
humanly and personally on the best of terms with many
another opponent. Emil Brunner is a man whose
extraordinary abilities and whose determined will-power
I have always sincerely respected. I should like nothing
better than to walk together with him in concord, but in
the Church we are concerned with truth, and to-day
with an urgency such as probably has not been the case
‘for centuries. And truth is not to be trifled with. If it
divides the spirits, then they are divided. To oppose this
commandment for the sake of a general idea of “peace”
and “‘unity”’ would be a greater disaster for all con-
cerned than such division. Nor must it be a matter for
wonder that when this division comes about it appears
irrespectively of our formations and groups and appears
exceptionally acutely and painfully where before there
seemed to be unity, perhaps even far-reaching unity,
where perhaps unity really did exist or really can exist.
I can hardly say a clear “No” to Hirsch and his associ-
ates, but close my eyes in the case of Brunner, the
Calvinist, the Swiss ‘‘dialectic theologian.” For it seems
clear to me that at the decisive point he takes part in the
false movement of thought by which the Church to-day
is threatened. Is it not true that the danger is greatest
67
68 NATURAL THEOLOGY
where it appears to be least, where error combines with
the presentation—a very thorough and skilful presenta-
tion—of so many “truths” that at the first, and even at
the second and third, glance it looks like the truth itself ?
My polemic against Brunner is more acute than that
against Hirsch because his position is more akin to
mine, because I believe him to be in possession of more
truth, z.e. to be closer to the Scriptures, because I take’
him more seriously—because for that very reason he
seems to me just now to be much more dangerous than
a man like Hirsch. The heresies of our time which can
be recognised as such at the first glance are, if I am not
mistaken, about to go as they have come. Sometimes I
am myself amazed that one ever had to defend oneself
so explicitly and so decidedly as has been the case in
these years. Throughout the struggle which we carried
on in these years I have again and again pointed out that
the real danger was not to be found in the adversary
against whom our struggle was primarily directed. This
did not always please the strategists and technicians of
the confessional front. The real danger seems to me to
lie in a future attitude of the Church and of theology
which is informed by the spirit of many on both sides
to-day who are undecided and ready for compromise
and which might stand at the end of all that we are now
going through. Such an end would mean that we would
continue comfortably or even busily along the very road
which has led us to the present catastrophe and upon
which we might meet even greater catastrophes in future.
The structure of the Church’s proclamation must not
remain the sort of thing that it became through the
developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Especially as regards the problem “‘Nature and Grace,”
a breath of fresh air must make an end to the com-
promises by which we have now lived for so long and
from which we had almost died. The Evangelical Church
PREFACE 69
and her theology must emerge from the present suffering
and strife purer, more united and more determined than
when she entered it. Otherwise she has lost the battle
in the midst of which we are standing to-day. Even the
blatant abuses which are current to-day will not trouble
her any more. The reason why I must resist Brunner so
decidedly is that I am thinking of the future theology of
compromise, that I regard him as its classical precursor,
and that I have heard the applause with which all who
are of a like mind have greeted his essay, Nature and
Grace. His essay is an alarm signal. I wish it had not
been written. I wish that this new and greater danger
were not approaching or that it had not been Emil
Brunner who had crossed my path as an exponent of
that danger, in a way which made me feel that for
better or for worse I had been challenged. But all this
has now happened, and seen in some greater context it
probably has its sense. But I hope that since it has
happened I shall not be misunderstood if I act according
to the use of our times and treat his doctrine of “ Nature
and Grace” without much ceremony as something which
endangers the ultimate truth that must be guarded and
defended in the Evangelical Church.
30th October 1934.

I
ANGRY INTRODUCTION
“Tr is the task of our theological generation to find the

way back to a true ¢heologia naturalis.’ Thus Emil
Brunner in his essay Nature and Grace: a Contribution to
~ the Discussion with Karl Barth.
‘Tf this is Brunner’s opinion—and how can I, how can
anyone, doubt any longer that this is indeed the case?—
then I fail to understand among many other things the
following: how can he think that, in spite of this opinion,
he has a right to be mentioned “‘in one breath”? with—of
all people—me, to be my “ally,” my “good friend,” and
that I have merely failed to understand him and therefore
have in error shot at him by night? For we ought at least
to be at one in defining “the task of our theological
generation”’ if we intended and desired the same thing
in the way in which Brunner seems to assume this.
‘How could I deny that I, too, have, as a matter of fact,
repeatedly practised “‘true theologia naturalis’’ in his sense
—Brunner has pointed this out—still rather obviously
in the essay Kirche und Kultur (Church and Culture),
1927, and in some passages of my “‘Prolegomena”’ which
“s.appeared in the same year? It may be possible to convict
me of many atavisms and relapses in this matter, and I
am certain that it is not easy to get rid of the demon here
in question. But my soul is innocent of ever even having
dreamt of the idea that it was a task of our theological
generation to find the way back to a “‘true theologia
naturalis’’! Whether this was the way in which Brunner
understood the common origin of our teaching in that
of Kutter and Blumhardt, and whether this was his
opinion even at the time when I wrote my Epistle to the
70
ANGRY INTRODUCTION 71
Romans and he his book about Schleiermacher, or
whether this became Brunner’s opinion later—in either
case both we and ourtheological contemporaries on both
sides of the ocean have been terribly deluded in thinking
that we were “loyal comrades in battle.” Ever since
about 1916, when I began to recover noticeably from
the effects of my theological studies and the influences of
the liberal-political pre-war theology, my opinion con-
cerning the task of our. theological generation has been
this: we must learn again to understand revelation as
and therefore turn away from
( grace and grace as revelation
_ all-“‘true”?_or-“false””..theologia_naturalis.. by.ever_making
.. new decisions and being ever controverted anew. When
(roughly since 1929) Brunner suddenly began to proclaim
openly “the other task of theology,” the “point of con-
tact,”’ etc., I made it known that whatever might happen
I could and would not agree with this. How could this
have been some error occurring at night? IfI got rather
lively, it was only because I really thought that there was
some unity between Brunner and myself and that I could
and should warn him against wantonly leaving the
strait and narrow path. He may have been astonished
at this, .but I can tell him now that I then thought that
he was still curable. If he knew me—and he must have
known me!—he ought not to have been astonished that
objectively I could but contradict him. Least of all ought
he to try, now that he has made it plain to every eye who
he is and what he wants, to continue the “discussion”
in the form of an amica exegesis and to pretend to the
unsuspecting reader that it is really only my genial
*one-sidedness,”’ my lack of knowledge of Calvin and my
idea that, like William Tell, I am strongest alone, which
stands in the way of mutual understanding, 7.e. of my
\. adhering to Brunner’s doctrine. In his essay Brunner has
‘proved that all that he seemed to have learnt fifteen
years ago together with me has merely enabled him to
’
72 NATURAL THEOLOGY
return with all the more impetus to that theology of
compromise which has shown itself as the cause of the
present unhappy state of the Evangelical Church in
Germany and which, if things continue in this way, will
also bring the other Evangelical Churches to a similar
path. The loud applause of K. Fezer, O. Weber, P.
Althaus and all the other half- or three-quarter “German
Christians’? was the thanks he earned for this. The
Deutsche Pfarrerblatt (German Pastors’ Journal) (1934, No. 30,
p- 377) has called this pamphlet ‘‘a mine of treasure,
a veritable gold-mine” (‘‘eine Fund—ja geradezu eine
Goldgrube’’). I am “angry” with Brunner because
on top of all this he did not refrain from showering me
with love and praise and from maintaining that the
matters in which I differ from him are mere “false
“sconclusions.” Now I have to reply with a “No!” to
Brunner and the whole chorus of his friends and disciples
and those who share his opinions. And what a wicked
man I appear to be, lacking all communal spirit and
stubbornly refusing to allow even the least correction!
Brunner might have known how necessary this “No”
was and how thorough it had to be. If he considered a
debate”? between himself and myself necessary and
promising, he might have lent it dignity and status by
addressing me from that distance which does as a matter
of fact exist between us—however great “a pity” one
may consider this. It has happened before that another
man at Zurich provoked someone out there in Germany
terribly by almost the same methods that Brunner is
using now, and he managed to make that man appear for
centuries as an intolerant disrupter of Christian unity.
I do not wish to compare myself with that man, but when
my thoughts go to Zurich I find that I can understand
his anger remarkably well. Brunner does not understand
or will not understand, or does not wish to show and to
say that he understands, that the issue between himself and
' ANGRY INTRODUCTION 73
myself is such that to-day it can only be decided openly
and consciously. Since he has thus joined the crowd and
has therefore actually become so far removed from me,
he might in the name of his Christian profession do me
the favour of leaving me in my “isolation” and refrain
from informing the world about me in the attitude and
_ tone of a “good friend.” It is this obscuring of the
situation which makes it so difficult for me to reply to
Brunner, that I should like it best to save both my
readers and myself the trouble of replying at all. I
certainly do not like the réle of the wicked man which ~
now, for better or for worse, I have to assume. But this
unnecessarily complicated aspect of the situation seems
to have confused quite a large number of people. It has
_been impressed upon me from various quarters that I
must not keep silent. Someone wrote in the Bund of
Berne (3rd June 1934) that until Barth replies, “the
question of this important discussion flies about like
Noah’s dove, not knowing where to settle.” I do not know
whether I shall be able to do anything towards pacifying
this dove. But evidently I cannot escape the obligation
of doing my utmost. But it should not be held against
me if in these pages I appear in a thoroughly exclusive
and unfriendly attitude; if the reader now sees an
unedifying disruption where before he thought to see
unity ;and if my answer lacks that ‘“‘elegance”’ for which
Brunner’s essay is praised. At the moment I am not
worried about elegance. I have quite different worries.
I must become clear and explicit.
II
WHERE DO WE REALLY STAND?
BRUNNER’s “‘counter-theses,” in which he develops his

view of a “true” natural theology positively, refer to a
series of “‘theses” in which he attempted with great
succinctness and lucidity to explain to himself and to his
readers my view of the matter as he understands it and
as he wishes to correct it: (the image of God in man is
totally destroyed by sin. Every attempt to assert a
general revelation has to be rejected. There is no grace
of creation and preservation. There are no recognisable
ordinances of preservation. There is no point of contact
for the redeeming action of God. The new creation is
in no sense the perfection of the old but rather the
‘replacement of the old man by the new.
That is where I am supposed to stand and to receive
Brunner’s exhortation and instruction. If I attempt to
do this Icome immediately upon a fundamental difficulty
(quite apart from all the details in which I fail to recog-
nise myself). Not only have I, as Brunner says, never
“expounded and defended these theses . . . systematic-
ally,” but I have never put them forward and do not
propose to do so in the future.
By ascribing these theses to me, Brunner imputes to
me, apart from all discussion of the pros and cons, a
fundamental attitude and position with regard to the
whole problem which may be his but is not mine. For
I can see no sense in giving to the denial of ‘natural
theology”’ such systematic attention as appears in these
theses. By “‘natural theology” I mean every (positive
or negative) formulation of a system which claims to. be
theological, z.e. to interpret divine revelation, ‘whose
“4 =
WHERE DO WE REALLY STAND? 75
subject, however, differs fundamentally from the revelation
- inJesus Christ and whose method therefore differs equally —
from_the exposition.of Holy.Scripture. Such a system is
contained not only in Brunner’s counter-theses but
also in the theses ascribed by him to me. Their wording
may here and there recall my thoughts and my writings.
But this does not mean that I am prepared to accept
paternity and responsibility. For they represent—even
though negatively—an abstract speculation concerning
a something that is not identical with the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ. Brunner failed to see that he made
a fatal mistake in his initial definitions of my position by
ee
i
treating me as one of his kind. This has made debate

difficult, for my first step has to consist in emphasising
the distance between us. Or did he want to set me a
trap by inviting me to expose myself that way to his
counter-theses and thus to make my position as funda-
mentally questionable as his? However that may be, I
do not think of exposing myself like that. For “natural.
f theology” does not exist as an entity capable of becoming
a separate subject within what I consider to be real
\ . theology—not even for the sake of being rejected. If one
occupies oneself with real theology one can pass by so-,
called natural theology only as one would pass by an
abyss into which it is inadvisable to step if one does not
want to fall. All one can do is to turn one’s back upon
it as upon the great temptation and source of error,
by having nothing to do with it and by making it clear to
oneself and to others from time to time why one acts that
way. A real rejection of natural theology does not differ
from its acceptance merely in the way in which No
differs from Yes. Rather are Yes and No said, as it
were, on different levels. Really to reject natural
/
theology means to refuse to admit it as a separate
X problem. Hence the rejection of natural theology can
only be a side issue, arising when serious questions of
76 NATURAL THEOLOGY
real theology are being discussed. Real rejection of
natural theology does not form part of the creed. Nor
does it wish to be an exposition of the creed and of
revelation. It is merely an hermeneutical rule, forced
upon the exegete by the creed (e.g. by the clause natus ex
virgine) and by revelation. It is not possible to expand
and compound it into a system of special tenets explicat-
ing and defending it. Rather does it appear necessarily,
but with the same dependence as that of shade upon light,
at the edge of theology as its necessary limit. If you really
reject natural theology you do not stare at the serpent,
with the result that it stares back at you, hypnotises you,
and is ultimately certain to bite you, but you hit it and
kill it as soon as you see it! In all these matters rejection
of natural theology differs from its acceptance even
before the rejection takes place. Real rejection of natural
theology can come about only in the fear of God and
hence only be a complete Jack of interest in this matter.
If this matter is allowed to become of interest, though
but in order to be rejected, then interest is no longer
centred upon theology. For this rejection cannot within
theology be made for its own sake. For it is not by this
rejection that truth is known, the Gospel is expounded,
God is praised and the Church is built. If all this is to
happen at all, then purely and solely by what must take
place within the limits set by this rejection. If I were in
a position to put forward a series of theses like those
attributed to me by Brunner, I should prove thereby
that my rejection is not a real rejection at all. Funda-
mentally I should then have joined Brunner in asserting
an “other” task of theology. I should then no longer
hold steadfastly to my position. The drawing of the limit
would then be important to me as such. And if that were
the case then I might just as well join Brunner in ¢rans-
gressing the limit. I could imagine the contrary also,
namely that Brunner might be concerned, not. with
|
WHERE DO WE REALLY STAND? 77

transgressing the limit but with drawing it, and that he
might therefore join me in rejecting natural theology.
But I fear—in face of the theses ascribed to me I must
really fear—that even then we would from the very
start stand in different places and would mean and
intend quite different things. In those statements Brunner
/ makes me much too straightforward and doctrinaire, too
\ confident and lacking in reserve. Hence I cannot imagine
that Brunner—even a Brunner who might join me in
rejecting natural theology—could see how terrible and
yet how ineffective this enemy is. Nor could he decide
to concentrate upon the one task of true theology which
is of paramount concern to me. I fear that, even as an
adversary of natural theology, he would always be
addicted to an “other” task of theology in addition to
that one task and hence he could not be taken seriously
as an adversary of natural theology. For of what use
/ would be the purest theology based on grace and revela-
tion to me if I dealt with the subjects of grace and
revelation in the way in which natural theology usually
deals with its sot-disant data derived from reason, nature
and history, z.e. as if one had them pocketed, as if one
had the knowledge of them below one instead of always
behind and in front? Could knowledge of them be in
that case true, strict, necessary knowledge? Couldn’t
one in that case afford oneself a little undisguised natural
theology? Brunner’s explanation of my position would,
in my opinion, make me suspicious of him, even if he
shared my views. On top of that he thought that he
might afford himself a little undisguised natural theology.
He maintains and defends it against me. But those who
want to be clear as to where he and I really stand and
what the issue between us really is, should not rest
content with noticing this secondary difference. Our
positions differed even before he came to his Yes and I
to my No in this matter.
III
BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY
In order to form a judgment concerning the positive exposi-

tion which Brunner gives to his essay of what he means by
natural theology, it is indispensable to consider that under
the title of “‘The issue between Karl Barth and myself”’:
‘We are concerned with the message of the sovereign,
freely electing grace of God. Of his free mercy God gives
to man, who of himself can do nothing towards his own
salvation, to man, whose will is not free but in bondage,
his salvation in the Cross of Christ and by the Holy Spirit
who enables him to assimilate this word of the Cross. We
are therefore also concerned with the freedom of the
Church, which has its basis and its justification, its law
'and its possibility purely and solely in this divine
revelation. Therefore it is not tied at all to nations and
states. It is above all nations and states without any
possibility of accepting from them any law or commission.
We are concerned with the fact that the proclamation of
the Church has not two sources and norms, such as, e.g.,
revelation and reason or the Word of God and history. . . .”
Well, let us proceed. The issue now is this: can the
natural theology put forward in Brunner’s counter-theses
be maintained if measured by the yardstick of his own
words? Can these words be taken seriously if viewed
against the background of that natural theology?
In order to orientate ourselves provisionally we set
over against these words the quintessence of what Brunner
wants to teach as “natural theology’: there is such a
thing as a “capacity for revelation” or “capacity for
words” or “receptivity for words” or “possibility of
being addressed” which man possesses even apart from
78
BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY 79
revelation. It would seem that even the first naive
impression would be that either the first or the second
pronouncement has to be strangely watered down if they
are to be able to stand side by side. What is the meaning
of “sovereign, freely electing grace of God ” if without it
there is a “‘capacity for revelation” in man, which is,
merely supported by grace? What is the meaning of
“receptivity for words” if man can do nothing of himself
for his salvation, if it is the Holy Spirit that gives him °
living knowledge of the word of the Cross? But let us
_ turn to Brunner’s own thoughts:
(1) Man’s capacity for revelation means, according to -
Brunner, his “likeness to God.” ‘‘Man’s undestroyed
|formal likeness to God is the objective possibility of the
/\revelation of God.”? Brunner points out that what matters
is the purely formal factor distinctive of man within
creation, the “‘humanum,” the fact that man is a subject,\
his rationality, his responsibility, which is the pre- /
supposition of his ability to believe as well as to sin.
This presupposition, the “quod of personality,” is not
abolished by sin. In this formal sense the original image
of God in man is not destroyed. Indeed not, we may well
say. Even as a sinner man is man and not a tortoise.
But does this mean that his reason is therefore more /
“suited”? for defining the nature of God than anything,
else in the world? What is the relevance of the “capacity
for revelation” to the fact that man is man? The
impression given by Brunner’s essay has been described/.
roughly like this. If.aman_had just. been saved from |
drowning by a competent swimmer, would it not be
very unsuitable if he proclaimed the fact that he was a.
man and not a lump of lead as his “‘capacity for being
saved’?? Unless he could claim to have helped the man
who saved him by a few strokes or the like! Can Brunner
mean that? Surely not, for we heard of ‘‘man of himself )
can do nothing for his salvation.” And according to ,
‘
‘
80 NATURAL THEOLOGY
Brunner, “‘the possibility of doing . . . that which is good
in the sight of God”’ is also lost. One would have thought
that this included the possibility of receiving the revelation
of God. ‘‘Materially the imago is completely lost, man
is a sinner through and through, and there is nothing in
him which is not defiled by sin.’’ In face of these strong
_words it would seem that we have no right to ascribe to
(-/)\Brunner the view that the “capacity for revelation”
means that man, as it were, works in concert with the
grace which comes to him in revelation. But if he does
not mean that, what does he mean bya ‘capacity for
revelation”? ? It is obvious that manis a responsible
person, even as a sinner. If it is honestly not proposed to
go beyond stating this formal fact, how can the assertion
of this fact serve at all to make revelation something more
than divine grace? Is Brunner able to say one word
beyond what is so obvious, without involving himself in
‘ contradiction with his unconditional acceptance of the
\ Reformers’ principle of sola scriptura—sola gratia?
(2) Brunner next asserts that the world is ‘“‘somehow
recognisable’ to man as the creation of God, that ‘‘men
{somehow know the will of God.” ‘The creation of the
world is at the same time revelation, self-communication
of God.” And the possibility of recognising it as such is
‘ adversely affected but not destroyed by sin. It is not
enough to give such knowledge of God as will bring —
salvation. Moreover, the revelation of God in nature can
be known “‘in all its magnitude” only by him “whose
eyes have been opened by Christ.’ But it is “somehow”
‘recognisable—though but distortedly and dimly—even
by those of whom this cannot be said. The idea that
revelation is ‘recognisable’? dominates the beginning of
that section. But Brunner also says that surprisingly
\enough“‘sin makes man blind for what is visibly set before
‘our eyes.”” This makes it not quite clear whether Brunner
‘does not wish to speak of a purely formal possibility of
=

knowing God through his creation, which is not
actualised. But I think that I understand Brunner
rightly when I assume that the affection of the eyes, of
which he speaks, is, according to his opinion, very acute,
but not to the extent of resulting in total blindness.
“Hence real knowledge of God through creation does
take place without revelation, though only “somehow” }
_and “‘not in all its magnitude.” I think this interpretation|
is correct. If it is not, I cannot think what Brunner’s
\. exposition of the matter intends to convey. Therefore
in view of what was said above about the total loss of
the “material”? imago, one is tempted to think that when
in this context Brunner speaks of “God” and _ his
‘revelation’? he means one of those creatures of man’s
philosophical phantasy, one of those principalities and
powers of the world of ideas and demons, which most
certainly do exist and which reveal themselves and are
known to us quite concretely. For if*man ‘“‘can do
nothing of himself for his salvation,’
they alone.can_be
the objects
of his de facto knowledgeof God through...
“nature! But what Brunner says and means is different. »
What would be the significance of the assertion of such
a knowledge of ‘‘God” for his thesis concerning man’s
capacity for revelation? It would mean that the God)
revealed in nature is not known to, but rather is very
much hidden from, man. What would then become of)
the theologia naturalis? All that would be left would be a
systematic exposition of the history of religion, philosophy
and culture, without any theological claims or value.
No, when he speaks of the God who can be and is
“somehow” known through creation, Brunner does
unfortunately mean the one true God, the triune
creator of heaven and earth, who justifies us through
\ Christ_and_sanctifies us through the Holy Spirit. It is
he who is de facto known by all men without Christ,
without the Holy Spirit, though knowledge of him is
F
.
82 NATURAL THEOLOGY
distorted and dimmed and darkened by sin, though he is
“misrepresented” and “‘turned into idols.” There are
two kinds of revelation, both revealing the one true God.
This is to be affirmed once and for all (on the basis of
Scripture!). Only after that may it be asked “how the
two revelations, that in creation and that in Jesus Christ,
~. are related.” But if that is Brunner’s opinion, shall we
~ be able to understand him otherwise than ‘‘somehow’’
distortedly, dimly and darkly? Is it his opinion that
‘idolatry is but_a somewhat imperfect preparatory stage
yof the service of the true God? Is the function of the
‘revelation of God merely that of leading us from one
step to the next within the all-embracing reality of divine
evelation? Moreover, how can Brunner maintain that
a real knowledge of the true God, however imperfect it
may be (and what knowledge of God is not imperfect?)
/does not bring salvation? And if we really do know the
\ true God from his creation without Christ and without
< the Holy Spirit—if this is so, how can it be said that the
) imago is materially‘‘entirely lost,” that in matters of the
/¥proclamation of the Church Scripture jis the only norm, .
_ and that man can do nothing..towards.his salvation?
Shall we not have to ascribe to him the ability to prepare
himself for the knowledge of God in Christ at least
/negatively? Shall we not have to do what Roman
' Catholic theology has always done and ascribe to him a
potentia oboedientialis which he possesses from creation
i \and retains in spite of sin? Has not Brunner added_to
AN man’s_ “capacity for_revelation,”’ to what we have been
assured is purely “formal,” something very_ material:
man’s practically proved. ability to..know..God,.imper-
fectly it may be, but nevertheless really and therefore
surely not. without relevance to salvation? Perhaps he
can swim a little, after all? Ifhe has really done this, we
\ are happy to know now more clearly what he means by
“capacity for revelation.” But how can Brunner wish
to do this? The echo of his audible confession of the
Reformers’ doctrines of original sin, justification and the
Scriptures is still sounding in our ears! Then he does not
_ want to do it? But if not, then what ‘does he want to do?
‘No, after all, we still remain rather unhappy.
(3) Next, Brunner asserts a special“‘preserving grace,”
i.e. the preserving and helping presence which God does
not deny even to the fallen and estranged creature. We
could easily understand this if Brunner meant to say
that it is due to grace that after the fall man and his
world exist at all or do not exist in a much worse state of
disruption than is actually the case. Creation is the
work of the truly free, truly undeserved grace of the one
true God, both as an act and in its continuance. All very
well, we can say. But by what right and in what-sense rd
does Brunner speak of another.special (or rather “ '

“seneral’ *) grace which as it were precedes the grace
of Jesus Christ? If this were not so (but as Brunner
‘wishes to obtain a separate theologia naturalis it has to be
so), one could come to an understanding with Brunner.
_ We could agree that the grace of Jesus Christ includes
the patience with which God again and again gives us
time for repentance and for the practice of perseverance,
the patience by which he upholds and preserves man and |
his world, not for his own sake but for the sake of Christ, |
for the sake of the Church, for the sake of the elect |
children of God. We have time, because Christ ever
intercedes for us before the judgment-sseat of God. Be
can the preservation of man’s existence and of the room}
given him for it be understood as the work of the one\
true God unless one means thereby that man is preserved|
through Christ for Christ, for repentance, for faith, for <
obedience, for the preservation of the Church? How can }
it be understood unless baptism is taken into account? /
How can one speak of these things unless the one
revelation of Christ in the Old and New Testaments
84. NATURAL THEOLOGY
is taken into account? And how can one carry the
\ severance of creation and reconciliation into the Bible?
[Doe not the Bible relate all that Brunner calls a special
“preserving grace’? to prophecy and fulfilment, to law
\and gospel, to the covenant and the Messiah, to Israel
and to the Church, to the children of God and their
future redemption? Where did Brunner read of another
abstract preserving grace? But since he insists on itwe
must go on to ask how far his‘‘preserving grace”? is
grace at all. We are ever and again allowed to exist
under various conditions which at least moderate the
worst abuses. Does that deserve to be called “‘grace’’?
Taken by itself it might just as well be our condemnation
to a kind of antechamber of hell! Ifit is anything else—
as indeed it is—then not on account of our preservation
as such! We must go on to ask: Can we really know that
our preservation as such, ¢.g. “‘what we derive from our
people and their history,” is a special grace of the one
true God? Does this not mean that the principle sola
scriptura which Brunner accepts, most inopportunely
blocks an important source of knowledge? Does it not
mean that the Church cannot possibly have her basis
and her justification, her law and her possibility, purely
and solely in divine revelation? Does it not mean—am I
dreaming?—that the poor “German Christians’? may
have been treated most unfairly? We must go on to ask:
are not both the preservation of our existence as such
and its conditions—Brunner mentions, ¢.g., the State—
so much bound up with our own human possibilities
'that it cannot be said of this “grace” that man can of
|himself do nothing towards it? Brunner himself declares:
NeeConsequently human activity comes within the purview
of divine grace—not of redeeming but of preserving
gtace. All activity of man, which the creator himself
‘uses to preserve his creation amid the corruptions of sin,
belongs to this type of activity within preserving grace.
Human activity which the creator uses to carry out the -
work of his grace? This concept is intelligible on. the
basis of the Augustinian idea of the indirect identity of
human and divine activity or of the Thomist idea of the
co-operation of the divine causa materialis with a human \
causa instrumentalis. It might be favourably understood
if Brunner were speaking of the one justifying and
sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ. For in that case also
human activity “comes within the purview of divine :
grace.” But that is not what Brunner wants. He wishes
to speak of a special “preserving grace’?! Has he not by
so doing included in his doctrine an entire sphere (one
which is, as it were, preparatory to revelation in the
proper sense) in which the Reformers’ principle of sola
gratia cannot possibly be taken seriously? If there really
is such a sphere of preparation, will this leave the under-
standing of revelation proper unaffected? Once Brunner
has started to deal in abstractions such as these, will he
be able to refrain from joining the Romanists, enthusiasts
and pietists of all times in teaching also a special grace of
life, a. special grace of realisation, etc., for which God
‘uses’? man no less than in the sphere of preparation?
‘And where is all this going to lead us?
(4) Brunner’s fourth assertion is partly an exposition
of the third. It treats separately of the “ordinances,”
the “constant factors of historical and social life...
without which no communal life is conceivable, which
could in any way be termed human.” But among them
he wishes to ascribe to matrimony as an “ordinance of
creation” a “higher dignity” than to the State which is a
_ mere “‘ordinance of preservation” relative to sin. @f the
“ordinances of creation” it is said that “through the
preserving grace of God they are known also to natural
man as ordinances that aré necessary and somehow holy
and are by him respected as such.” Of matrimony in
particular it is said that “it is realised to some extent by
86 NATURAL THEOLOGY
men who are ignorant of the God revealed in Christ.”
The believer understands these ordinances of creation
“better”? than the unbeliever; he even understands them
“rightly” and “perfectly.” Nevertheless even the believer
cannot but allow his instinct and his reason to function
with regard to these ordinances, just as in the arts.” What
can one say to that? No doubt there are such things
as moral and sociological axioms which seem to underlie
the various customs, laws and usages of different peoples,
and seem to appear in them with some regularity. And
there certainly seems to be some connection between
these axioms and the instinct and reason which both
believers and unbelievers have indeed every reason to
allow to function in the life of the community. But what
are these axioms? Or who—among us, who are “‘sinners
through and through”’!—decides what they are? If we
‘consulted instinct and reason, what might or might not
‘be called matrimony? Do instinct and reason really tell
us what is the form of matrimony, which would then have
to be acknowledged and proclaimed as a divine ordinance
of creation? If we were chiefly concerned with the clarity
and certainty of knowledge, would not the physical,
biological and chemical “‘laws of nature” or certain
axioms of mathematics have a much greater claim to
being called ordinances of creation than those historico-
social constants? And who or what raises these constants
to the level of commandments, of binding and authorita-
tive demands, which, as divine ordinances, they would
obviously have to be? Instinct and reason? And what
yardstick have we for measuring these sociological
“ordinances of creation,’ arranging them in a little
hierarchy and ascribing to one a greater, to the other a
lesser, “dignity”? Do we as “believers” sit in the
_ councils of God? Are we able to decide such a question?
On the basis of instinct and reason one man may pro- -
claim one thing to be an “ordinance of creation,” another
another thing—accordingto the liberal, conservative or
revolutionary inclinations of each. Can such a claim
be anything other than the rebellious establishment of
some very private Weltanschauung as a kind of papacy?
Do theologians do well in taking part in one of these
rebellions and in giving their blessing to them by pro-
claiming them to be divinely necessary? But let us
assume for the moment that Brunner is right and that
we possess some criterion for establishing here and there’
divine “ordinances of creation” on the basis of instinct
and reason. What are we then to think of Brunner’s
assertion that these ordinances of creation are not only
_known but also respected and ‘“‘to some extent realised”’
by men who do not know the God revealed in Christ?
Of what Christian, however faithful, can it be said that__
he “‘to some extent realised” the ordinances of God?
Is he not “‘a sinner through and through”—who would
be lost if the law were not realised—but not merely “to
some extent’ but completely, finally and sufficiently for
us all!—in Christ? Ifman can realise the law “‘to some.
extent”? without Christ, how much more must “capacity
for revelation”? mean than merely the formal fact of man.
being human, i.e. a responsible and rational subject!
- Where, where has the distinction of the formal and the’
material imago got to? It is now purely arbitrary to\
continue to say that only holy Scripture may be the |.“
standard of the Church’s message, that man can do |
nothing for his salvation, that it takes place sola grata,|
that the Church must be free from all national and
political restrictions! If man is from the start, and
without the revelation and grace of Christ even “to some
extent” on such good terms with God, if he can swim
enough to help his deliverer by making a few good
strokes—if all this is so, why are we suddenly so exclusive? _
( (5)\ The pot is boiling. over. Brunner’s aims in the
whole matter are beginning to show up: there isa “point
fo ose
88 NATURAL THEOLOGY
of contact” for redeeming grace. What is meant is
\ evidently the “capacity for revelation,” which is anterior
to, though it only comes alive through, revelation.
Brunner proceeds to discuss this “capacity for revelation”’
from the point of view that it is the basis on which the
Word of God ‘“‘reaches’”» man. Thus Brunner returns |
to his original definition: the point of contact is “the
formal imago Dei which not even the sinner has lost, the
fact that man is man, the humanitas.” In order to be
responsible and capable of making a decision—as is
v presupposed by revelation—man must have “the formal
possibility of being addressed.”” We have already pointed
out how unsuitable this definition is for what Brunner
wishes to prove. If we are prepared to call the fact that
j man is m “nol eer
ae objectiv en n_all
“Sx | objection t is schist For this truth.
“is incontrovertible. Even so, it would
be advisable to be
careful about statements such as that man alone is
_ capable of receiving the Word of God, because this leaves
the angels out of account, because there might, after all,
exist beings that are unknown to us, and because we have
no revelation but only conjectures concerning receptivity
or lack of receptivity on the part of such non-human
beings as we do know. But be that as it may: what is
(ifthe relevance of the formal responsibility and ability to
make decisions to a “capacity”? which man possesses
_and_which-exists in him anterior to divine revelation?
, Is the revelation of God some kind of “‘matter”’ to which '
| man stands in some original relation because as man he
) has or even is the “form” which enables him to take
as responsibility and make decisions in relation to various
‘kinds of “matter”? Surely all his rationality, responsi-
bility and ability to make decisions might yet go hand in
hand with complete impotency as regards this “‘matter”’!
And this impotency might be the tribulation and
BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY _ 89
affliction of those who, as far as human reason can see,
possess neither reason, responsibility nor ability to make
decisions: new-born children and idiots. Are they not
children of Adam? Has Christ not died for them? The
fact that God “‘reaches” man with his Word may well
be due to something other than the formal possibility of
his being addressed and his humanitas. If we are going
tostick to the statement that man is(‘materially’) “a_
| sinner through and through,” then the “formal factor”
be anything
canno t like a remainder of some original
righteousness, an openness and readiness for God. The
concept of a “capacity”? of man for God has therefore
to be dropped. If, nevertheless, there is an encounter v’
and communion between God and man, then God himself
imust have
created-for -it-conditions-which-are-not-in-the
least supplied (not even “‘somehow,”’ not even “‘to some
extent’’!) by the existence of the formal factor. But we /<\\ 7
have seen that Brunner unfortunately has no intention
of stopping at this formal factor. The reason for this is
that he departs from the statement that man is “‘a sinner
through and through,” thus contradicting the exposition
which precedes it. For he has by now also “materially”’
enriched and adorned man in his relation to God to an
amazing extent. ‘‘The sphere of this possibility of being
addressed”? includes not only the humanum in the.
narrower sense, but everything connected with the
“natural” knowledge of God. Moreover, “the necessary,
“indispensable point of contact,” which before was defined
-as the “formal imago Dei,” has now, as it were, openly
become ‘“‘what the natural man knows of God, of the
/law, and of his own dependence upon God.” From afar
“there sounds across to us like the last echoes of thunder
when a storm has passed by without doing harm: ‘This
quid of personality is negatived through sin.” No doubt
the distinction between the ‘‘formal”’ and the “material”’
imago Det, which at first sight was so impressive, was not
go NATURAL THEOLOGY
meant all that seriously, even in those early passages.
The form was probably quite a well-filled form even
there. Evidently the “‘formal zmago Det”? meant.that.man
can.‘‘somehow”’ and “to some.extent.”’?_ know and do
the will of God without revelation. If we had been acute
enough to know that right from the start, we should
‘have saved ourselves our amazement at the irrelevance
of the statement that man is man! How very relevant
and full of import it was! But we are not really guilty,
since Brunner gave‘us no indications in this direction |
and, moreover, had explicitly assured us that he would
adhere to the principle sola scriptura—sola gratia. ‘That
has not happened. Ifit had happened, it would not have
been possible to set man over against God, either
secretly or openly, as a form that is ““somehow” already
filled. In that case the purely formal statement that man
is man would have been seen to be irrelevant and—
would not have been made at all or at least not so
» solemnly! The question of the “point of contact”
might then have occurred to Brunner in the context of
_ the doctrine of Christ, of the Spirit, of the Church, but
not of man. Brunner has been unable to adhere to sola
| fide—sola gratia. He has entered upon the downward
path, upon which we find him in Nature and Grace
more obviously than in any previous pronouncement.
Why thenis he angry with me because my objection—
which indeed has a wide scope—is that I am nolonger
able to distinguish him fundamentally from a Thomist
or Neo-Protestant? In addition to the applause of the
“German Christians’ and their ilk he should make a
point of reading what my Roman Catholic colleague at
Bonn, Gottlieb Séhngen, wrote concerning his under-
taking (Catholica, 1934, No. 3, p. 113 ff.). This should
convince him that I am not wantonly branding him as
a heretic, but that this really is how the matter. stands.
(6) For a moment Brunner seems to have occupied
BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY gI
himself after all with the possibility—upon which we
have already touched—that the answer to his question
might be found in the doctrine of Christ, of the Holy
Spirit, of the Church. For he turns to the theme of the
death of the old Adam as a condition of the life of the
new Adam, to whom the revelation of God is made. |
Now he remembers Galatians ii, 20: “I live; yet not I, |
but Christ liveth in me,” and 1 Corinthians ii, 10 f.: |
“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.’
But it is now that we meet with the worst surprise. In
.the counter-theses 2-5 Brunner’s view of man’s capacity
for revelation has become perfectly clear. Moreover,
- even without revelation man somehow knows God and, ~
to some extent, fulfils his will. Might we not now expect
to be shown how this view is justified and proved when
confronted with these two texts? Instead of that, Brunner
returns to his original definition of “capacity for
revelation’? which he had since abandoned. It now
- signifies the undoubted and indubitable formal definition
of man as a self-conscious person. And he uses these
passages quite superfluously to prove that the death of the
old Adam refers always to the material but never to the.
formal aspect of human nature. The subject as such and
the fact of its’ self-consciousness are not abolished by
faith. Faith is not mysticism. The believer does not
become Christ. Through the Holy Spirit an_act_of
divine self-consciousness takes place within us,.without,
however, resulting in an identity between him and us.
We receive the Holy Spirit, but our personal identity
remains. Who would not agree with that? Though in.
contrast-tano excessively Swiss sobriety some might wish
to put in a good word for mysticism and maintain that
the act of faith sometimes has taken place and may well
take place in mystical forms of consciousness. But apart
from that, Brunner would have to be opposed _on_ the
following grounds: what he has to prove is that in these
g2 NATURAL THEOLOGY
passages the life of man in Christ through the Holy
_ Spirit is said to presuppose a knowledge of and respect for
the true God and that this presupposition forms its point
of contact in man. Where in Galatians ii and 1 Corinthians
ii has Brunner found anything of the sort? Which of the
sixteen verses of 1 Corinthians ii could be quoted to
show that St. Paul wanted to maintain and proclaim
another knowledge of God before and beside “Jesus
Christ and him crucified” (v. 2), before and beside the
“demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (v. 4),
before and beside “the hidden wisdom in a mystery”
(v. 7), before and beside the ‘“‘revelation by the Spirit”’
(v. 10)—and not merely as another knowledge beside
all these, but as their presupposition and point of con-
tact? In 1 Corinthians ii, St. Paul seems clearly to
assume that something of the sort exists. But he does
not do so in the way in which Brunner does. Rather does
he regard it as ‘‘the wisdom of men” (vv. 5 and 13), as
“the spirit of the world” (v. 12), as the ability of
“psychical (natural) man” who does not accept “the
things of the Spirit of God,”’ who instead regards them
as “foolishness” because ‘‘he cannot know them” (v. 14).
Of what use is man’s “formal personality’”—which St.
Paul does not deny—to him? What did St. Paul find in
him that might have been of interest to him as a capacity
for revelation or a point of contact? In Galatians ii, ©
15-21, St. Paul declares that he is crucified with Christ
and dead to the law and that he therefore lives but now
only in the faith of the Son of God given for him. He does
not deny the continuance of his “formal personality.”
But is it of any importance to him? Does not the context
show clearly that, in spite of this continuance, St. Paul
speaks in verse 20 not of continuity but of discontinuity,
or rather of the divine miracle of the continuity of his
existence without and with Christ, apart from and in
Christ? Moreover the text does not go on to say something
v

that it would have to say if Brunner could fittingly quote
it in his support. It does not say that though St. Paul is
crucified with Christ, but that nevertheless, together with
his “formal personality,” some general knowledge of
God derived from his conscience or from the ordinances
of creation, recognisable in the world, accompanied or
even led him into that new life which he can but try to
explain by the inexplicable expression: ‘‘Christ liveth
in me.” Does he live the life which he lives ‘in the flesh,”
the first life, crucified with Christ, in any way but “‘in the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me”? Is the change in the human situation through
the revelation of God, of which 1 Corinthians ii and
Galatians ii speak, really a reparatio, a restoration in
the sense in which Brunner employs it: “‘It is not possible
to repair what no longer exists. But it is posstble to repair
a thing in such a way that one has to say this has become quite
new’? (Italics mine.) I must confess that I am quite
flabbergasted by this sentence. Had one not better at
this point break off the discussion as hopeless? Or should
one hope for an angel from heaven who would call to
Brunner througha silver trumpet of enormous dimensions
that{2 Corinthians v, 17,)is not a mere phrase, which
might justaswell be applied to a motor-car that has come
to grief and been successfully ‘“‘repaired”’? Or should
one implore Brunner to turn his attention again to his
rejection of the doctrine of the virgin birth, in order to
see from this doctrine—which has been so much mis-
understood both by him and by others—what that
‘hidden wisdom in a mystery” (1 Cor. ii, 7) is about,
which one has to know if one wants to be able to discuss
_ nature and grace? Or should one ask him to read again
quietly the texts which he himself quotes, 1 Corinthians ii
and Galatians ii (and surely also 2 Cor. v) in order to
convince himself that that reparatio, which is mentioned
there, is one_in which there can be no question of a
94 NATURAL THEOLOGY
capacity for repair on the part of man. This is because
the “repair” consists in a miracle performed upon man,
in a miracle which makes it not a phrase but literal truth
to say that he has become a new man, a new creature—
because his “formal” aptitude for it is the most unznterest-
ing and his “material” aptitude the most impossible thing
in the world and hence they cannot be problems.
I break off. In Brunner’s theology there is as little
room for both evangelical and: natural theology as any-
where where an attempt has been made to combine
those two. And similarly, as always, so in the case of
Brunner the conflict ended unequivocally in favour of
natural theology. There is no doubt that Brunner could
and can go further on the road that he has taken, than
he has done so far. I do not know what he proposes to
do next. It seems that behind his re-introduction of
natural theology‘ a “new”? doctrine of the Holy Spirit
wants only too logically to break forth. Against this
doctrine it will be even more necessary to protest. I do
not know whether my words have the power of warning
him and making him stop. What is certain is that on
this road things can only become worse and worse, 2.e.
he cannot but move further and further away from the
postulates of evangelical thought which he himself has
set down at the beginning of his essay.
IV
BRUNNER AND CALVIN
BRUNNER is of the opinion that his natural theology

““adheres to the teaching of the Reformation” and is
“quite near Calvin’s doctrine,” and that conversely
Calvin’s doctrine is at least usually ‘more or less’? the
BRUNNER AND CALVIN 95
same as his own doctrine of the formal side of the imago
De. |
The place where I am writing this chapter is not a
little apt to stimulate the imagination with regard to the
perspectives which would open up to us if Brunner
were right. For I am sitting at an open window on the
Monte Pincio in Rome. Over there I can see St. Peter’s
quite clearly. Could I not, must I not—always assuming
that Brunner’s doctrine “‘adheres to the teaching of the
Reformation’’—ask, if not the analogia entis personally
then at least one of the savanis of over there, for an
interview and draw his attention to the fact that the
relation of Roman Catholic and Evangelical theology
has for all too long a time been burdened by a serious
mutual misunderstanding and that the time seems to
have come for clearing that misunderstanding away?
I would, however, have to betray Brunner in one
respect. For I would have to concede that his representa-
tion of the Roman Catholic conception of the nature and
significance of natural theology is sadly distorted. No
‘one who has even to a small extent studied St. Thomas
or the formulations of the Vatican Decree, or who has
discussed these matters with a Roman Catholic theologian
of any erudition, will be able to say that according to
Roman Catholic doctrine there is an “unrefracted
theologia naturalis”? with which sin “has as it were nothing
to do,” a. system of natural theology, a self-sufficient
rational system, detachable from the theologia revelata and
capable of serving it for a solid foundation. How can
Brunner make this out to be Roman Catholic doctrine:
“The theologia naturalis is derivable from reason alone,”
by which nature, i.e. the divine order of creation, is
entirely and adequately comprehensible and accessible?
Every Roman Catholic theologian who knows his
subject at all must and will reject Brunner’s description
of his position as a basis for discussion. He need not even
96 NATURAL THEOLOGY
be one of those who have the Protestant objection before
their eyes as clearly as is now at least sometimes the case
in Germany, France and Belgium. He will reject it
because, according to Roman Catholic theology, con-
ditioned as it is by St. Thomas (and which therefore
incorporates almost all of Augustine!), a true knowledge
of God derived from reason and nature is de facto never
attained without prevenient and preparatory grace.
There can be no question of separating nature and grace
“neatly ... by a horizontal line.” Rather does nature
presuppose grace, supernatural revelation as the sphere
of relevant theological knowledge and statements, in the
same way in which grace presupposes nature. According
to the Roman Catholic, reason, if left entirely without
grace, is incurably sick and incapable of any serious
theological activity. Only when it has been illumined, or
at least provisionally shone upon by faith, does reason
serve to produce those statements concerning God, man
and the world, which, according to Roman Catholic
doctrine, are not only articles of revelation but have to
be considered as truths of reason. Neither the doctrine
of grace which has come from the Augustinian-Thomist
school, nor the Roman Catholic doctrine of knowledge
which has been brought into accord with it, is as crudely
Pelagian as some Protestant controverialists would make
it out to be, both for the sake of simplicity and—for the ©
sake of covering their own weaknesses. Many imprudent
people on our side would do well to see to it that—within
the view of the systematic co-ordination of nature and
grace, which is common to Roman Catholics and Neo-
Protestants—they are not suddenly excelled by the
Romans in seriousness and profundity and urgency of this
or that thought. They should see to it that the truth of
predestination does not suddenly turn out to have been
much better preserved by the others than by themselves!
This would be what I should have to concede to my
vis-a-vis in the discussion. Roman Catholic theologia naturalis
in present-day authoritative Roman Catholic theology is
certainly not what Brunner and some others take it to be.
But after that the discussion could proceed very
happily and full of promise. Assuming that Brunner’s
natural theology “adheres to the teaching of the Reforma-
tion,” I could explain to the man over there that until
now he has had quite a false idea of the evangelical and
reformed doctrine of theologia naturalis.. I should say that
this false impression was probably due to certain harsh
expressions of Luther’s, e.g. in his exposition of the
Epistle to the Romans, due especially to what he had
thought he knew about Calvin, due also to certain
“one-sided”? and pointed assertions on the part of
contemporary Protestant theologians. Up to now, I
should say to him, you have no doubt thought that,
according to evangelical doctrine, there can be as little
question of a co-operation of reason in the knowledge of
the true God, as of a co-operation of the human will in
the fulfilment of the divine commandments—not even
with the proviso that the work of prevenient and pre-
paratory grace be taken into account. Until now you
honestly believed that, according to evangelical doctrine,
human reason is as blind to the truth of God as the human
will is unfree to do what is right before God and that,
according to our doctrine, light and freedom could be
found exclusively in faith, z.e. in Jesus Christ. Up to now
you have turned away from these hard words with
horror and have emphasised against them that man is
here lowered in an almost Manichean fashion and God
is in a shocking and dangerous way turned into a distant
and incomprehensible God. Now you may, and indeed
must, abandon this picture of our position and the
corresponding polemic against it. It is indeed true that
we stress the point that a “true”? theologia naturalis can
exist only where man’s eyes have been opened by Christ.
G
98 NATURAL THEOLOGY
The lex naturae has again to be “‘made perfectly clear”’
through Scripture. “The ordinances of creation and
nature are also somewhat obscured by sin and need
to be made known again by Christ.” But does not this
coincide with what you know and are accustomed to
say in this context concerning prevenient grace, concerning
the illumination of reason through grace, etc.? We are
at one in thinking of man in spite of the fall as being in
safe and continued possession of a rational nature and
of immortality, an aptitude for culture, a conscience,
responsibility and a relation to God, etc. (even though
the last does not of itself bring salvation). Hence grace
can give him real and true knowledge of God and does
give it him in such a way that apart from the new
“supernatural”? knowledge, derived from the revelation
of God in Christ, those “‘forms” are filled in such a way ©
“that one has to say: this has become quite new.”
Therefore we have after all a “true” theologia naturalis
side by side with theologia revelata as ‘‘an important
complement of the knowledge of God derived from
Scripture.”” Nor shall we miss the opportunity of putting
this complement to the widest possible use in our ethics.
You are amazed, my good Roman Catholic friend.
Perhaps you have a suspicion that these might merely
be the views of some Neo-Protestant and therefore not
to be considered binding, while the main force of |
Protestantism, supported by the Reformers themselves,
might stand in quite a different place? But abandon
your suspicions. Understand that—quite apart from the
authority of Brunner—what I have been telling you is
in the main nothing but the genuine teaching of the
fierce and terrible Calvin, whom you would hardly have -
suspected of such a thing and from whom “we” had
merely failed to enquire soon enough. But now we have
enquired! Read Brunner’s 126 quotations from Calvin
and look forward to the as yet unpublished work of his
BRUNNER AND CALVIN ~~ 99
pupil, G. Gloede, in which you will find an absolutely
“enormous number of references’ of the same kind.
See for yourself that this doctrine which appears so
terrifying at the first glance is in reality quite mild and
synthetic and neatly overlooks and systematically co-
ordinates God and man, nature and grace, reason and
revelation. And thus you may convince yourself—if even
Calvin says so, who would doubt?—that this doctrine
‘adheres to the teaching of the Reformation” and is the
genuine doctrine of the Evangelical Church. What is
there that still divides us? Certainly we are not as yet
able to express everything as completely, as clearly, as
consequently as your Przywara. When concepts fail us,
we have as yet frequently to have recourse to the word
‘““somehow.” As yet we do not understand each other
fully. But where is there any really fundamental division?
But if in the sphere of the doctrine of knowledge an
understanding between us is not impossible, surely a
similar understanding would necessarily follow in the
sphere of the doctrine of grace. Perhaps all that is
necessary in this matter also is that we should calmly
listen to one another. Might we not notice then that in
this matter too we are not so far apart? What prospects!
What hopes! Of course the ‘German Christians’ have
been very glad about the new discovery of what “‘adheres
to the teaching of the Reformation.” Ofcourse we are
now able and indeed forced to concede more to their posi-
tion than many “‘one-sided’’ people, who have not yet
understood this new discovery, are prepared to allow. But
I am sure that this will not disturb you .. .!_ That is what
I should have to say, in spirit addressing the Vatican
from the Monte Pincio, if—if only Brunner’s appeal to
the Reformers, and especially to Calvin, were in order.
But I am not able to make that speech, for Brunner’s
appeal is not in order. Of the many amazing things in
his essay this is to me one of the most amazing, that he
100 NATURAL THEOLOGY
has dared to introduce the figure of Calvin. Was it
really necessary that he should burden his thesis and our
discussion with this historical assertion, which is as
astonishing as it is confusing? Well, it has happened,
and the question which has thus arisen will have to be
dealt with, whether we like it or not. Since I am not a
Calvin scholar in, the stricter sense of the word, and
since the necessary investigation and exposition would
exceed the limit of this essay, I have asked my brother,
Peter Barth, to inform the readers of Theologische Existenz
heute concerning the problem of natural theology in the
teaching of Calvin in a separate issue, in the same way
in which Ernst Wolf has done it for Luther in No. 6.
Even now it is highly profitable to read what Peter
Brunner has written in the periodical, LHvangelische
Theologie, 1934, No. 6, p. 189 ff, under the title
‘Allgemeine und: besondere Offenbarung in Calvin’s
Institutio” (“General and particular Revelation in
Calvin’s Institutes”). This was written in view of Emil
Brunner’s thesis, although not explicitly dealing with it.
Provisionally and summarily the reasons for my own
rejection of Brunner’s appeal to Calvin are the following:
It seems to me above all to rest fundamentally upon
aninsufficient appreciation of the place ofthe Reformers
in the history of dogma. For with regard to the problem
of natural theology that place is characterised by the
fact that in their controversy with Roman Catholicism
the Reformers were, according to the former’s theological
constitution at the time (apart from the Sentences of
Peter Lombard), faced with the very questionable
pelagianising formulations of the later Nominalism.
They did not know—or knew only superficially—the
superior systematic method and harmony with which
St. Thomas Aquinas had developed the principle: Gratia
non tollit sed praesupponit et perficit naturam—Santa Maria
sopra Minerva, to let the genius loct speak once more! The
‘
BRUNNER AND CALVIN “ IOl
same historical position may also be expressed thus:
The Reformers did not perceive the extent to which even
Augustine, to whom they were so fond of appealing, has
to be regarded as a Roman Catholic theologian, and the
reserve with which he has therefore to be taken. Hence
they were not in a position to foresee all the reservations
with which Roman Catholic theology has since, 2.e.
since the rediscovery of St. Thomas, learnt to surround
its (materially unchanged) definitions. For the substance
of these definitions has since, in an idealist form, 7.e. in
that of a secularised Thomism (which has found its
mature form in Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre—E.T.
The Christian Faith), but without consciousness of its real
connections, become part of the armoury of modernist
Protestantism. If we really wish to maintain..the. Re-
formers’ position over against that of Roman Catholicism
and Neo-Protestantism, we are not in a position to-day
’ to repeat the statements of Luther.and Calvin without.at
the same time making them more pointed than they
themselves did. This applies also to the doctrine of grace,
e.g. in the definition of the relation between justification
and sanctification. But the practical non-existence of
St. Thomas in the sixteenth century has had even graver
‘consequences, in that the Reformers could not clearly
perceive the range of the decisive connection which
exists in the Roman Catholic system between the
problem of justification and the problem of the knowledge
of God, between reconciliation and revelation. They
remained essentially untouched by the great syntheses
of St. Thomas, which later gained such great influence.
Hence they «did not feel themselves called upon to clarify
the: problem of the formal relation between reason with
its interpretation of nature and history on the one hand
and the absolute claims of revelation on the other, in the
same way in which they treated the material problem of
_ the relation between the will and work of man and the
reconciliation once and for all effected in Christ. In
their controversy with Roman Catholicism they were
content, in matters formal, to indicate their new under-
standing of the grace of God by means of asserting and
working out the scriptural principle over against the
principle of tradition. Apart from a few attempts in this
direction, they did not characterise as such or emphasise
the disagreement between the Evangelical and the
Roman Catholic knowledge of God which arises out of
the former disagreement. ‘They saw and attacked the
possibility of an intellectual work-righteousness in the
basis of theological thought. But they did not do so as
widely, as clearly and as fundamentally as they did with
respect to the possibility of a moral work-righteousness
in the basis of Christian life. Thus, for example, Calvin’s
Institutes is one of the few works of the Reformers in
which the problem of knowledge is raised to any extent.
In the famous introduction to this work pagan philosophy
is said to reach, even at its best, but a false knowledge of
—
God. But we find no explicit rejection of the temptation
to look for a possible core_of truth which might yet be.
found in the pre-Christian knowledge of God and to
co-ordinate it. systematically with. the Christian _know-.
ledge. of God—by calling it a preparation or the like—
with the result that it becomes the framework and secret
( law of the latter. In order to understand that this would
\\ really be impossible for Calvin, one has to consider his
)doctrine of Christ, of the unfree will, of justification, but
‘\above all the fact that in treating of classical pagan
/ philosophy he did not make this systematic inclusion,
_that, in fact, he spoke only of the theological incapacity
\of “natural” man. It is not possible, however, to find in
those introductory chapters any direct and explicit de-
limitation of Calvin’s method against that of Thomism.
This is the little piece of truth by which Brunner lives.
It seems that Calvin did not know the Thomist method
or that it did not interest him. It is therefore not physic-
ally and mechanically impossible to precipitate oneself
into that little corner which has been left uncovered in
Calvin’s treatment, and to supplement his rejection of
Cicero’s natural theology by putting forward a dialectical
theology of nature and grace. One may furthermore
make out that this theology “adheres to the teaching of
the Reformation” because it is possible to utilise for its
construction all manner of Calvinistic fragments—sen-
tences and parts of sentences, from which it is evident
that Calvin was, as it were, not thinking of St. Thomas
at all and of Augustine only by way of seriously mis-
understanding him. That is what Brunner has done. In
this manner he thinks he can prove it. And that is what
I take so much amiss. One cannot take it amiss that
Abraham Kuyper, a child of the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries, once went a similar way in his exposition
of Calvin—more so than he himself knew. But a few
years ago Brunner wanted to be one of those who would
build something new, something ignored and neglected
by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hence one
cannot but take it amiss that he has acted thus. He did
not hesitate to put forward a doctrine which he could
distinguish from that of St. Thomas only by setting it
over against a much distorted version of the latter. He
had no misgivings in proclaiming it as the very latest
thing and as the special task of our theological generation
that we should again walk in the way upon which
Protestant theology entered in the age of “rational
orthodoxy.” He insisted on joining the most undesirable
figures of the Evangelical Germany of to-day (which are
not to be found among the “‘German Christians,” but
half way between them and the confessional front). All
this is bad enough. But in comparing his own doctrine
with that of Calvin he should have received one last
shock, since he was faced with a conception which stands
in the strongest contrast to the ellipsis of his own thought.
For in Calvin’s teaching God and his law, the mystery
of election, the incarnation and redemption, the Holy
Spirit as divine subject, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
as divine signs, justification and sanctification as divine
acts, are everything. Through the gift of revelation and
faith man as a rational creature is together with his
world miraculously included in these. But there is nothing
to justify his setting himself up over against them as the
propounder of a theme of fis own. Hence also there is
nothing to justify an “other” task of theology. The sub-
stance of the Reformers’ theology which is quite
unequivocal should have warned him, made him stop,
called him back. It should have reminded him of the
attitude of the biblical witnesses. It should have
reminded him that they uphold the idea that where God
speaks, man has to listen; where God gives, man has to
receive; where God acts, man has to be present without
considering his own importance (whether as natural or
as “pardoned”? man)—without drawing arbitrary con-
clusions and thus translating the Word of God to man
into a word of man about himself and therefore without
proclaiming the analogia entis as a common “basis” of
Christian and pagan theology. It should have reminded
him that they uphold this idea to the exclusion of all
dialectic between nature and grace. Calvin’s theology
should have challenged Brunner to use his great gifts
in the service of the task of working out and proclaiming
to-day the whole “one-sidedness”’ of the Reformers’ con-
ception over against a Roman Catholicism that has long
been renewed and refined and, above all, over against
the modernist Protestant flood which is to-day bursting
all dams. What Calvin wrote.in those first chapters of
the Institutes has to.be written again and. this time in
such a way that no Przywara and no Altha canus
find in
it material for their fatal ends. To do this woul bedto
“adher to the teaching.of
the Reformation,” and would
at the same time be..worthy of Brunner’s own. early.
intentions. But Brunner was not content merely to hunt
with the hounds and to stab me in the back by telling
_urbi et orbit that the whole dispute was caused by my
“one-sidedness.”” He has done more than that. Taking
his position exactly where Calvin left the question open,
he has gone and calmly claimed Calvin for his own;
he has turned Calvin into a kind of Jean Alphonse
Turrettini; he has confronted me together with his
“Calvin” and has patted me on the shoulder and told
me to be a good boy; he has seen to it that the “‘German
Christians” can, if they wish—what will Mr. Stapel say
to that?—quote now not only Luther but also Calvin in
their support. It is the fact that he managed to do all
these things which I am so far unable to forgive Brunner.
But Brunner’s appeal to Calvin is in itself incapable of
being upheld. Wherever I have followed up the references
which he gives, I have found thoughts quite different
from those of Brunner’s text, which they are supposed to
support. It will be the task of Peter Barth to elucidate
this side of the matter, both as a whole. and in detail.
I shall here make but a few remarks, based on my
limited knowledge of the subject:
(1) It is true that Calvin spoke of a Duplex cognitio
Domini, from creation and in Christ (cf., ¢.g., Inst., I, i, 1;
Conf. Gall., 1559, Art. 2). But in contrast to Brunner
he said about a natural knowledge of God through
creation only what is said about it in Romans i, 19 f.;
ii, 14 f.; Acts xiv, 15 f.; xvii, 24 f. He did not regard it
as_a capacity which man has retained and which has to
be reconstituted by faith, ‘asa point of contact) for
revelation and for the new life in Christ. Those passages,
the Mosaic creation-narrative and Psalms 19 and 104
did not move him as a Christian to search in reason,
history and nature for another source of revelation beside
Scripture, for one that would supplement Scripture.
Nor did he follow that up by allowing it to speak, at
least in a supplementary function, as an authority
“somehow” possessing an independent status. As with
all theologians both of old times and new, one has
constantly to ask how far he allowed his exegesis to be
positively influenced by considerations other than those
derived from the texts. But it is undeniable that he did
not try to justify such action systematically, that he
allowed neither to Christians nor to pagans any source
of revelations other than Holy Scripture, and that his
theology was as a matter of principle only interpretation
of Scripture and not also anthropology and philosophy
of history and nature.
(2) The possibility of a real knowledge by natural
man of the true God, derived from creation, is, according
to Calvin, a possibility in principle, but not in fact,
not a possibility to be realised by us. One might call
it an objective possibility, created by God, but not a
subjective possibility, open to man. Between what is
possible in principle and what is possible in fact there
inexorably lies the fall. Hence this possibility can only
be_ discussed hypothetically: s¢ integer stetisset Adam
(Inst., I, ii, 1). Man does not merely in part not have
this possibility; he does not have it at all. “We are
blind, not because revelation is obscure, but because
we are mad (mente alienatt): we lack not only the will
but also the ability for this matter’? (Comm. in 1 Cor.
i, 21; C.R. xlix, 326). That is true also of those ‘““whose
eyes have been opened by Christ”?! I cannot find any
passage which shows that Calvin followed up his dis-
cussion in the introduction to the Institutes of the
Platonic and Ciceronian philosophoumena concerning
God, the world and man, by maintaining a natural
knowledge, rectified by faith in Christ. Over against
the philosophers he sets the teaching of Scripture and
nothing else. Scripture tells him that man is created by
God and for God, that the wisdom and paternal provi-
dence of God rules over his life and that of the whole
world, that there are ordinances of God and what those
ordinances are, in which he has to honour the will of
God. Scripture moves and inspires him to praise through
the creation the God who is so completely hidden from
man, That is what man, who is reconciled in Christ,
can and must do. He cannot and must not, however,
embark upon independent speculations concerning these
things, made apart from and without Holy Scripture
or arbitrarily deduced from it.
(3) The possibility which, according to Calvin, man
in fact_has,_is to. know..and..worship.the gods of his own
heart: “The knowledge of God which now remains to
man is nothing other than the terrible source of all
idolatry and superstition” (Comm. in John ii, 6;
C.R. xlvii, 57). It is quite impossible to see how this
possibility could in Calvin’s theology gain the status
and significance of a “‘point of contact.” Between it and
the possibility of divine revelation. there.is.no..relation,
nothing common, and _ hence ‘no...inner..connection.
“Guided by their reason they do not come to God, yea,
they do not even approach him” (Comm. in John i, 5;
C.R. xlvii, 5 f.). “If true religion is to beam upon us,
our principle must be that it is necessary to begin with
heavenly teaching (a coelesti doctrina) and that_it is.
impossible
for any man_toobtain even the minutest
portion..of-right-and..sound.-doctrine...without~-being...a..
disciple_of Scripture. Hence the first step in true know-
ledge is taken when we reverently embrace the testimony,
which God has. been pleased therein to give of himself.
For not only does faith, full and perfect faith, but all
correct knowledge of God, originate in obedience”
(Instit., I, vi, 2. Beveridge’s transl.). In accordance
with this the important transitional passage between
Instit., I, v and vi, says nothing about any manipula-
tion that might in any way be regarded as a “point
of contact.” If one wanted a term to describe what is
said at that point, it would rather have to be “repulsion.”
And it is a repulsion of a kind that cannot subsequently
be re-interpreted as a contact!
(4) Calvin always used the idea of the possibility in
principle of a “‘natural”? knowledge of God (objectively
based on the fact that God is revealed in all his works)
in the sense of Romans i, 20, or rather in the sense of the
whole passage, Romans i, 18-ili, 20. It servesto demon-
strate the fact that man is without excuse. The fact that
God is revealed in all his works is God’s scriptural
testimony to us against the ignorance of man. It justifies
the wrath of God and his judgment upon man. It points
out that man’s inability to know him is his guilt. But it
does not serve ‘to praise our perverted nature”? (Comm.
in John 1, 5, Joc..cit.). We cannot make anything of it.
It is a fact that our ability to distinguish good and evil
convicts us of our guilt. But Calvin did not, any more
than St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, draw from
this the systematic conclusion that a ‘“‘natural’? know-
ledge of the law of God is to be ascribed to us and that -
this knowledge has to be put to a positive use in theology
either, antecedently or subsequently (“in faith”). On
the contrary, he plainly denied that knowledge of the -
ethical good is gained by means of an ability (facultas)
of man. He described it as a daily renewed beneficium,
even in the case of the regenerate (Instit., II, ii, 25).
There is really no need of any special exegetical virtuosity
to see that in Jnstit., II, xviii-xxv we are in quite a different
world from that of Brunner’s doctrine of the imago.
(5) It is true that, according to Calvin, the knowledge
of Godin Christ includes a_real knowledge of the true
God in creation. Includes! This means that it does not,
as Brunner seems to think, bring forth a second, relatively
independent kind of knowledge, so that the circle would
become an ellipsis after all—as if our reason, once it
had been illumined, had of itself (per se) gained the power
of sight (Jnstit., II, ii, 25)! Calvin does not mean that
room should be made after all for a Christian philosophy
of nature and history, a Christian anthropology and
psychology, a Christian—enthusiastic interpretation of
our times! Calvin says: “Christ is the imago in which
God makes manifest to us not only his heart but also
his hands and his feet.” But Calvin knows no abstraction
from this subject: ““As soon as we depart from Christ
there is no matter great or small in which we would
not give way to our own imaginations.” Knowledge of
God from creation comes to Moses, not by free speculation
but strictly in view of the history of salvation (historia
instaurationis), 1.e. of the foundation, preservation and
government of the Church (Preface to the Comm. in
Gen. C.R. xxiii, 10 f.). Those passages of Calvin (like
those passages of Scripture!), where the Reformer
consciously and as a matter of principle wanted some-
thing different, where what he says about God in nature —
and history is meant to be anything but (materially)
the proclamation of Christ and (formally) exegesis of
Scripture—those passages have yet to be found. ‘
Brunner’s interpretation of Calvin has one fault which \
vitiates everything. He has, with amazing cold blood
and consistency, left out the very important brackets ,
within which Calvin always speaks of the natural |
knowledge of God. They are the expression s¢ integer \.
stetisset Adam, which makes it a hypothetical possibility,
the reference to Romans i, 20, which makes it a sign |
of the judgment, Christ and the Church as the place \
which must not be abandoned if it wants to be under-
stood also as a sign of grace. By means of leaving all this
out, Brunner has brought Calvin over to his side. Also, /
in detail, the whole process is enough to make one weep. ”
iy
BRUNNER THEN AND NOW
BRUNNER is of the opinion that “it can easily be seen

from what Calvin says concerning this subject (cristics)
how far this is possible by way of theologia naturalis.”
Indeed it is generally not difficult to see what he is up to.
But there is one special question to be asked and in any
case a caution to be issued.
If Nature and Grace were the only pronouncement we
had from Brunner on the subject of theologia naturalis, we
should think that we were dealing with a representative
of the “‘rational orthodoxy” of the late seventeenth or early
eighteenth century who had risen again and was
speaking to us in modern terms. I am thinking of that
very influential school of thought whose leaders were
mostly very serious people and which was then felt by
a wide public to be taking a great step towards free-
_dom. Its representatives in Germany were Buddeus and
Pfaff, in Switzerland J. A. Turrettini, Osterwald and
Werenfels. The growth of the pietistic movement and
the general advance in education had woken them from
the slumber of mere theological intellectualism and with
an aim ad praxin pietatis in doctrine as well, they tried to
achieve a pious and sensible alliance between revelation
and reason. In discussing the history of dogma Brunner
mentions the Enlightenment and Rationalism—but why
not this interesting intermediary period in which took
place the essential or at least the open transition from the
old Protestantism to Neo-Protestantism, with regard
to the problem of nature and grace? Does he not know
it? Or if he does know it, where does he propose to
draw the dividing line between himself and these
110
BRUNNER THEN AND NOW Ill
“spirits of moderation”? What is it that Brunner’s
Nature and Grace does? The genius of one-sidedness
is called to account by means of that very useful dis-
tinction between the material imago Dei in man, which
has been lost, and the formal imago Dei which has not.
Brunner states that man recognises an independent
revelation of God in creation. Of course it is recognised
“in all its magnitude”’ only by those ‘“‘whose eyes have
been opened by Christ,” but the others know it too,
though only “to some extent.” Nothing now seems to
prevent us; rather are we invited, by what has been said
“from Calvin’s point of view,” to look quite simply and
directly for “the original creation, in so far as it is still
recognisable as such”; for “‘the God-given form of all
created being’’; for “the will of God imprinted upon all
existence from creation”; for man’s “‘experience of his
preserving and providential grace” as ‘‘an important
complement of the knowledge of God derived from
Scripture”; for the lex naturae which merely needs to be
brought out again through Scripture, z.e. for the “‘ordin-
ances of creation and nature’. that have been only
somewhat obscured by sin; for the Aumanum, and finally
for the rational nature of man as the imago Dei. According
to Nature and Grace we should ‘have to assume that
these are all discoverable and demonstrable data—
“only up to a certain degree never capable of being
accurately fixed.’’ Nevertheless it can be fixed! Accord-
ing to Brunner the task of our theological generation
is to find the way back to a “‘true ¢heologia naturalis.” —
And after what has been said “‘from Calvin’s point of
view,” the programme of this theology seems to be given
by a catalogue of all that is capable of being determined
within the suggested limits. The theologians of two
hundred years ago were equally far removed from the
extremes of Rationalism and the Enlightenment. They
were even further removed, fundamentally removed,
from the ‘“one-sidedness”? with which the orthodoxy of
the seventeenth century had tried to derive theological
truths only from the Holy Scriptures, given and inter-
preted by the Holy Spirit. They had the same boldness,
tempered by prudence, the same piety tempered by
morality, and with these they tried in that period of
transition to build a new bridge between revelation and
reason, faith and life, Church and culture. . If that is
Brunner’s programme, and if he succeeds in carrying it
out, then we are without doubt in a strange time, when
the history of modern theology shows itself to be a
complete circle. We have, then, to expect a new Christian
Wolff, a new Semler, a new Lessing, and at last a new
Schleiermacher, each in his own time, before the end of
the twentieth century. Then we would have a repetition
of all the mishaps of the nineteenth century until, at the
beginning of the’ twenty-second, we should again be
more or less where we are now! Joking apart, was there
no good spirit to warn Brunner, when he had that idea
about the distinction between the material and the formal
imago, that he was thereby adopting the classical scheme
of thought of the eighteenth century? And will our poor
Protestantism come safely through a second revolution
through 360 degrees, which Brunner’s programme, based
on this distinction, seems inevitably to announce?
But the question concerning Brunner’s “‘true”’ theologia
naturalis, of which we have already spoken, is the follow-
ing: Does he really mean a theologia naturalis consisting
of propositions and instruction directly obtained from
natural evidence, of the kind that was introduced into
Protestant theology two hundred years ago? Nature
and Grace would lead one to suppose so. But against
this there is Brunner’s /ast authoritative pronouncement
but one on the subject, which seems (at least at the first
glance) to point in a somewhat different direction. In
the article, “Die Frage nach dem ‘Ankniipfungspunk’
BRUNNER THEN AND NOW 113
als Problem der Theologie” (“The question of the
‘point of contact’ as a theological problem,” Zwischen den
Ketten, 1932, pp. 505 ff.), he gave his doctrine a turn which
is now conspicuously absent. But there has been no
explicit retractation, so that we have to reckon with the
possibility of its reappearing again one day. It seemed,
then, that Brunner was not speaking, as he is now, of
a directly observable continuity between nature and
grace, reason and revelation, but of a continuity which
at the same time was discontinuity, which provided
both a contact and a contrast. The latter was said to be
so great that the continuity was subordinate to the
discontinuity, the contact to the contrast.. ‘‘The Gospel
cannot be preached unless this continuity is completely
disrupted. The content of the Gospel is of such a kind
that by it this previous understanding (z.e. of God
through reason) is not merely corrected but decidedly
negatived. The natural knowledge of God is neither a
true knowledge of God nor a true knowledge of God”’
(p. 510 f.). All natural knowledge of God is—so Brunner
then said—essentially a knowledge of the wrath of God.
And being subject to the wrath of God meant the same
thing objectively as a bad conscience or despair sub-
jectively. The different degrees of the subjective con-
sciousness point to the objective side. The “contact”
made in the natural knowledge of God consists in the
fact that it involves a “‘loss of certainty.’’ The contact
is made, not with something positive or neutral but with
something negative. As regards the contents of the
relations of God and man there is a discontinuity. Only
as regards the formal fact of the relation is there con-
tinuity (p. 523 f.). Hence the proclamation of the God
revealed in Christ must always be at the same time an
attempt “‘to show to the unbeliever the true character
of his existence without faith, to show that despair is the
‘fundamental condition’ of existence.” ‘‘Humanly
H
speaking, the success of the preaching of the Gospel is
as dependent upon the contact that is made as upon true
doctrine. And this contact consists of leading man to
the place where he will know the desperate character of
his existence, not merely theoretically but in his con-
science.” For “bringing into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ”? (2 Cor. x, 5) means “that man
recognises himself in what is said to him by Christ
concerning his natural existence, so that he can identify
himself with it.” Similarly, theology has to make
contact with the natural self-knowledge of man by
elucidating and underlining its negative result from the
point of view of faith. “Eristic theology means ‘laying
bare’ the true character of existence by destroying the
fictions of every Weltanschauung. But this ‘laying bare’
cannot be performed except by using what man can of
himself know about himself” (p. 529 f.).
That used to be Brunner’s opinion. Evidently he was
going to model his natural theology on the famous
examples of Kierkegaard and Heidegger. But in Nature
and Grace there is a remarkable silence in that quarter,
although faint echoes of the idea may be discernible in
the doctrine of the formal and material zmago. ‘The word
“capacity for revelation,’ which has now become so
significant, was absent then. Perhaps that has something
to do with it. The question is this: has Brunner aban-
doned that merely indirect or negative significance of
the natural knowledge of God? The disappearance of
this matter is to be regretted, at least in the interest of
the information of the public. Brunner’s theory was very
much more interesting in its earlier form, in accordance
with Kierkegaard and Heidegger. For, in spite of its
restrained formulation, it raised the problem of a peculiar
aptitude of man for divine revelation in a much more
acute, tempting and dangerous form. I confess that
around 1920, and perhaps even later, I might still have
succumbed to it. And who knows whether one could not
find passages in the Epistle to the Romans in which I
have said something of the sort myself. According to
Brunner’s former explanation, man’s aptitude for the
revelation of God consists only in the fact that in the
rational existence of man there is a diacritical point
where this existence can become discontinuous, where it
can issue in a “negative point,” where its most essential
truth, its “fundamental condition,” i.e. despair, can
come to light, where this despair can be theoretically
described as true and felt to be so by the conscience, and
where the knowledge of God, which is bound up with it
from the start, can “‘become uncertain.” Formal and
material humanity are apparently still contrasted quite
sharply and incompatibly, like continuity and dis-
continuity or the conditioned and unconditioned (p. 525).
The ability of reason is only its ability to be negated.
All that man “‘can do”’ with reference to revelation is to
despair. Nor did Brunner fail to add that the transition
from the ability to despair to real despair is dependent on
grace. Accordingly the independent functions of natural
theology would be the following: theology and pro-
clamation of the Gospel must not confine themselves to
putting forward “true doctrine.” In, with and under the
preaching of revelation, natural theology would have to
use what man can of himself know concerning himself.
It would have to tell him about himself, 2.e. about his
deepest despair of himself. Lastly, it would have to use
the demonstration of this negative point to destroy all
the fictions of Weltanschauungen. Again we may ask: why
was Brunner silent about these things in 1934? Why
did he not leave it at that? Why has the car got out of
hand and run down to the plain where it is now much
easier to make it stop?, What is the slope that seems to
have made it run irresistibly from one place to the other?
However that may be, it is our duty to apply the brakes
to the car before it runs down the slope, although that
may be more difficult. We have to prevent it from running
down, right into the theologia naturalis vulgaris, where we
find it to-day in Brunner’s case. The ‘“‘No!” with which
we have to oppose Brunner applies even if he should
one day return to the form of his doctrine which follows
Kierkegaard and Heidegger. There is no fundamental
difference between that form and the one which he
seems to wish to adopt now. They both maintain that
man has a “‘capacity for revelation’’—there is no reason
why Brunner should not have used that term even then.
It has to be opposed even in that more refined form,
which seems to touch Evangelical truth with great pre-
cision and which, therefore, is all the more dangerous.
Brunner’s conception of the Roman Catholic doctrine
is insufficient and not authoritative. If he had derived
his information from the works of E. Przywara he would
have found that this great exponent of the doctrine of
analogy long ago used a phrase of the fourth Lateran
Council and also the whole Kierkegaardian dialectic to
interpret the ability to despair and real despair in a
Roman Catholic sense. For Przywara maintains that
this correlation is included and preserved in the
Augustinian-Thomist scheme of natura, gratia praeveniens
and gratia gratum faciens. He not only did but he could
justifiably interpret it in a Roman Catholic sense.
In speaking of a “destruction of all the fictions of
Weltanschauungen,’ of making the knowledge of God
“uncertain” and turning it into a knowledge of the
wrath of God, of the demonstration of the desperate
character of our existence, etc., Brunner was stating a
real theological problem. But this theological problem
is put to us by the truth, presented in the Scriptures,
Creeds and Confessions, that man is of himself unable
to find access to the revelation of God. Just because
Christ is born, we have to regard the world as lost in the
sight of God. The Word of God declares man to be
unfree in his relations with God. The fact that we become
hearers and doers of the Word of God signifies the
realisation of a divine possibility, not of one that is
inherent in our human nature. Freedom to know the
true God is a miracle, a freedom of God, not one of our
freedoms. Faith in the revelation of God makes this
negation inevitable. To contradict it would amount to
unbelief. But as early as 1932 Brunner showed that he
had not absorbed this piece of insight in the way in
which it is presented to us. Otherwise he could not
possibly have again at this point spoken of a “‘natural’’
knowledge of God. Nor could he possibly have said that
the state of affairs to which this knowledge relates could
be seen only by “‘utilising that which man can of himself
know about himself.” How can man ever in any sense
know “‘of himself”? what has to be known here? He may
know it himself, yes! But ‘‘of himself,” never! How could
he possibly convince himself of this negation of his
freedom? He could only do it if he thought that he could,
in advance, overlook and grasp both the Word of God |
and himself, if he thought not only that he knew the
condition of his hearing of the Word—.e. the negation of
his freedom to do so—but also that he could create it
himself. If we base ourselves upon what is possible to
us, we shall always believe in these our possibilities and
always have to believe in them. Hence we shall note ¥
able..to_ destroy.“ the. fictions of Weltanschauungen. PL ne
power to rid ourselves of these fictions and of the illusion
of our freedom..which underlies them, is in no.sense our
power,..but.solely the power of the Word itself. And in
so far as this happens to ourselves it is the power of the
Holy Spirit. All the comfort, all the power, all the
truth of the revelation of God depends on the fact that
it is God who is thus revealed to us. And all under-
standing of this fact of revelation depends on its identity
with God being understood, on all possibilities except
that of God being excluded. This applies also, or even
specially, to the “‘loss of certainty”! Also the wrath of
God is the wrath of God. Hence it is by no means
identical with any fundamental condition or “negative —
point” of our existence. The presence of Yahweh is
necessary to make man say, ‘Woe is me! for I am
undone”’ (Is. vi, 5). ‘‘The Spirit of the Lord bloweth
upon it,” therefore the grass withers and the flower fades
(Is. xl, 7). The world cannot reprove itself, but according
to John xvi, 8 f., it is the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, that
will reprove it. Similarly we “‘can”’ not of ourselves pass
through the strait gate or enter upon the narrow way
(Matt. vii, 14). We do not of ourselves “become as little
children” (Matt. xviii, 3), nor are we of ourselves “born
again”? (John iii, 3). In the same way not even the
starting-point of the way “from death to life” (John v, 24;
1 John iii, 14) lies within the sphere of what is possible
to us. For not only the resurrection and the life, but
also the death, perishing and putting off of the old man
(Luke xv, 32; Romans viii, 10; 2 Cor. iv, 16; Col. iii, 9 f.;
Eph. uu, 5; 2 Tim. ii, 11) which precede and underlie
them, take place once and for all in Christ (Romans
vi, 3 f.; 2 Cor. v, 14; Phil. iii, 10 f.) and are made fruitful
for us in the Holy Spirit (Gal. v, 16; Romans viii, 13).
According to Luther, man is not a “sinner” by nature.
He has to become one, and it is “‘a rare thing and a
hard one” to become a sinner (Comm. on Romans
1515/16, Ficker IT, Ixxi, 1 f.).. “As the righteousness of
God lives in us through faith, so it is also with sin; that
is, we must believe that we are sinners” (Ixix, 10). ‘‘We
have to give way to his revelation, that is to his Words, to
justify and confirm them, and thus on the basis of what
they say to us to confess to ourselves what we did not
know before, namely that we are sinners’? (Ixvii, 31).
flumilitas can exist only as spiritualitas (cxlv, 23). Hence
BRUNNER THEN AND NOW 11g
only the spiritual man can speak of himself as St. Paul
does in Romans vii (cxlvii, 32). If anyone is incapable
of glorying in his own power, this is a sign of election
(ccxxix, 21; ccxlix, 12). According to Calvin, true know-
ledge of selfin real humility cannot precede the knowledge
of God, it must follow the latter. We perceive how little
our eyes are able to bear the light, not when we direct
them on to the ground, but when we try to look at the
sun (Jnstit., I, 1). Therefore it is not the case that the
continuity of our human understanding could by some
inherent necessity turn into discontinuity and that
therefore our understanding could, thanks to the possi-
bility of its negation, somehow turn “‘of itself’? into an
understanding of divine revelation. Nor are we dealing
with an order which, on the basis of some synthetic
piece of insight, might just as well be reversed. It does
not matter whether the despair which we experience
and know as our own is, according to one philosophy,
the “fundamental condition’? of our existence or,
according to another, something else. At any rate that
despair is not a factor which co-operates with the judg-
ment of God and which, therefore, is indispensable for
its execution. Nor is it, as Brunner evidently thought and
still thinks, indirectly identical with the judgment of
God, as being its subjective manifestation. That sorrow
which really is possible to us is always that sorrow of
which it is said in 2 Cor. vii, 10, that it ‘‘worketh death.”
It may be.“‘shown up.” But what can here be shown up
and appear can never be the sorrow “after a godly
manner”? which works ‘‘repentance not to be repented
of,” which leads to salvation. Not even when it is in the
sphere of grace! On the contrary, even when it enters
into the sphere of grace I have to realise that in that\ ‘0°
sorrow which J experience, undergo and know as my own, )
I am still, and even all the more, my own lord and |
master. That “‘loss of certainty”’ of the natural knowledge |
of God, that destruction of the ‘‘fictions of Weltanschauun-
gen” which I can with my little piece of despair
undertake and carry out, is bound to issue in the erection
of the worst of all idols, namely a so-called ‘‘truth,”
from the throne of which I consider myself able to see
through all gods and to unmask them as idols. The
better I succeed in despairing, the more certainly this
must be the end. The world which J have cleared of
gods is truly neither the kingdom of the living God nor
even a preparation for it, but probably the worst of all
_forms of diabolism, by which I can oppose that kingdom.
What has this grasping after the judgeship of the world
in common with the obedience of Christ of 2 Corinthians
x, 5? Where is every thought brought into captivity?
Does it not triumph all the more in unmitigated hybris?
Is there any form of pride worse than that of a certain
type of Kierkegaardianism? Has there ever been a
more explicit Prometheanism than that of the philosophy
of an existence despairing of itself? How can_that
“negative point”’ be the “point of contact” for divine
revelation, since its demonstration leads necessarily to <a
triumph of reason at its most natural and unregenerate?
If our preaching is going to be dependent upon the
success of that kind of “‘contact”’ it is hardly going to be
“true doctrine.” Even at this stage it becomes evident
that the distinction between the formal and the material
personality of man and therefore also that between the
continuity and the discontinuity of our existence is
impracticable. If anyone knows of a diacritical point,
where gratia praeveniente continuity and discontinuity can
be one, he is evidently thinking of discontinuity from the
point of view of an unreal continuity or of continuity
from the point of view of an unreal discontinuity. He
knows continuity only as conditioned by discontinuity and
discontinuity as a solution of the problem of continuity.
Also the equation of this contrast with that between the
BRUNNER THEN AND NOW . TQ
conditioned and the unconditioned only goes to show
that he is thinking of a reversible and therefore im-
manent, theologically irrelevant contrast. What he calls»,
the purely formal side of humanity is evidently full of. |
material. And the material is the capacity for a sinless /
knowledge of sin, the capacity to do on earth subjectively, |
per analogiam, what God does in heaven per essentiam, 7
1.é. to sit in judgment on human existence, to inform
oneself concerning oneself, to know oneself to be punished
with despair, to destroy the fictions of Weltanschauungen,
to unmask idols, etc. If that isn’t capacity for revela- -
tion...! Again we may say: Brunner might just as
well have used that word in 1932! One may guess the
scruples he then had against doing so. But one can also
understand that these scruples could and finally must
disappear as being unnecessary. One can understand
that he could not stop at a merely negative definition
of the “point of contact.” “If the cloak falls, the duke
must needs follow.” The “point of contact” had now
to be defined positively in the same way in which it was
then defined negatively. Hence full scope is given to the
theologia naturalis vulgaris and we begin to move again
round the circle in which theology evidently has moved
for two hundred years. This depressing result could: be
achieved even via Kierkegaard. The doctrine of the
point of contact and the whole of Brunner’s teaching on
nature and grace, even in its earlier forms and irrespective
of its later developments, has to be most categorically
opposed on the score that it is incompatible with the third
article of the creed. The Holy Ghost, who proceeds
from the Father and the Son and is therefore revealed
and believed to be God, does not stand in need of any
point of contact but that which he himself creates. Only
retrospectively is it possible to reflect on the way in which
he ‘‘makes contact”? with man, and this retrospect will
ever be a retrospect upon a miracle.
VI
BRUNNER’S AIM
I ruink that I do not misunderstand Brunner if I regard

what he says under the heading, “The significance of
theologia naturalis for theology and the Church,” as the
core of his essay and of his whole undertaking. And
again I do not think that I misunderstand him in putting
in the following order of interest and urgency the things
he means when he says “theology and the Church’’:
he wishes to carry on pastoral work among intellectuals,
to instruct modern youth, to carry on the discussion with
the unbelievers. He wishes to be a Christian pedagogue
in the widest sensé of the word, a preacher, a moralist,
and lastly also a dogmatic theologian. No doubt this
describes my sphere of duty as well, and “‘somehow” also
that of every theologian active in the Church and in the
academic pursuits which she requires—though I am of the
opinion that the order ought to be somewhat different.
Again there exists no difference between Brunner and
myself in that in our activity, both as a whole and in
detail, we are constantly faced with the double question:
what has to be done? and: how is it to be done? It is
the question concerning content and that concerning
language, the question concerning revelation and the
question what I and my audience and readers ought to
“make of it.” But we are not at one as soon as Brunner
maintains that the two questions are on one level; that
they are therefore comparable; that they can therefore
be raised and answered while comfortably separated;
and when he wishes to treat the question of method, of
language, of form, separately. (He distinguishes the
latter as the question of love from the question of faith!)
122
BRUNNER’S AIM 123
When Brunner thought it necessary (<wischen den Zeiten,
1929, p. 255 f.) to proclaim “‘the other task of theology,”’
I knew that we were not at one. For I fail to see how
the abstraction which this title expresses is possible
in theology. Consequently I also fail to see it in other
contexts. If theology and. human life in general is
concerned with God, his Word, his acts and his rule,
then the question of language and form is certainly as
important as the unquestionable fact that it is we our-
selves who are occupied by this matter in one way or
another. But this means that it cannot be raised and
answered except as a peripheral question, invalid and
ever to be invalidated again. Nor can it be any care but
a care cast upon God. How could it fail to be included
in the one theme of theology? Why should it become a
separate theme beside that one? How could it become
a ‘‘decisive’”? matter? If Brunner and I did not, un-
fortunately, also differ concerning the dogma of the
virgin birth, I should now ask him whether the question
of Mary (Luke i, 34): ‘“‘How shall this be, seeing I know
not a man?” is a “‘decisive”’ question. Can this question
have any weight of its own, any importance of its own,
beside the question, to which the angel does actually
give an answer in verse 35? Is it not included and
preserved in the latter in the best manner possible?
The natural consequences of this first fundamental
abstraction is that Brunner cannot dispense with natural
theology. Whoever makes such an_abstraction will,
natural theology.
inevitably. get into some kind “of of
Brunner looks around in the sphere theological and
ecclesiastical activity and sees himself faced with the un-
questionable fact that it is everywhere concerned with
God. But it is concerned with God in the human sphere
and therefore within the sphere-of reference of the,
problems of human form and language. Probably one
should not blame him for raising the question “How?”
when faced with this spectacle. For it corresponds to the
question of Mary: ‘“‘How shall these things be?’’ and
also to the cry of the disciples: “‘Master, carest thou
not that we perish?’’ (Mark iv, 38). But his answer to
this question is not modelled on the muraculous con-
tinuation of these and many similar biblical stories.
Why not? Why is the simple adherence to the one task
of theology suddenly “individualism,” “nominalism,”
‘‘intellectualism,” “‘one-sidedness””? Why does Brunner
suddenly fear that it will be impossible to put forward
“biblical or reformed ethics’? Why does he fear a
“complete isolation of the Church” and evidently much
else besides, such as, ¢.g., to go to hell for “despising the
question of the How’’? What cares are these! And why
on earth does he not offer to us, at all those points of the
activity of the Church and her theology, a reminder of
Mark ii, 9, “‘Arise,' take up thy bed and walk!’’? Instead
he offers us his—oh, so feeble—‘“‘doctrine of the zmago Dei
and especially of responsibility” as our mainstay and
bridge and comfort. “ The Church also is dependent upon
the possibility of speaking to man of God at all.” (Italics
mine.) Is this what is meant by speaking out of faith,
out of love, out of concentration upon one’s objective,
out of knowledge of the mystery of Christ? Where in the
history or teaching of the Bible has Brunner found
the slightest support for this sentence with the fatal word
“also”? What Prophet, what apostle could—as far as
he was true to his mission—hit upon the idea that he was
dependent upon this “at all’? Does not this sentence
betray a theory which thinks that as regards theological
and ecclesiastical practice it must find help elsewhere
than in the revelation of God—and thinks that, it has
already found it? Ifwe base theological and ecclesiastical
practice upon this sentence, do we not forget entirely
that only God can be called to witness for God, that
therefore the word of man cannot witness to the Word of
BRUNNER’S AIM 125
God? Is that sentence to be understood otherwise than
as a statement of human fear, wit and agility, which
thinks that it has to improve upon what God has done
well and will/do well, which is chiefly concerned with
_ Success and not the command, the promises, and the end?
Alas for the Church, of which what that sentence says
is true! Alas for the theologians, who in order to speak
of God truly and as Christians must first strive “to
speak of God at all’! Alas for the congregations, the
“intellectuals,” the youth who sooner or later will only
hear “of God at all”! For when have things taken a
different course? Alas for the world, if in spite of the
birth, death and resurrection of Christ, ‘the Church
also” is “‘dependent”’ upon that!
In view of the fact that theological and ecclesiastical
practice is a human practice in the human sphere,
something quite, quite different would have to be said!
We should have to speak of the unconditional command
that has been issued in this sphere and is valid in it; of
the day of Jesus Christ, which makes this sphere a limited
sphere and at the same time a sphere of hope; of the
power unto victory inherent in the matter itself, for
which the Church is allowed to contend, succumbing
but never yielding an inch; of the confidence, of which
the Word and the Spirit of God and therefore also th:
Holy Scriptures and therefore the Sacraments, and
therefore also our weak and miserable preaching are
worthy, and which we owe to them, because they are
God or institutions of God; of the love which we show
to men, not by proffering them. useless bridges and
crutches but by helping them to guard the sanctuary
of God upon earth, so that it shall remain a sanctuary
and as such a place of salvation; of the perseverance
with which this task has to be undertaken, ever anew and
ever more loyally, ever better known in its peculiarity.
Have we ever said enough of this? Has it ever been said
and heard to such an extent that we might at least have
sufficient time and energy left to turn to an “‘other” task of
theology? Do we ever leave the first task behind us, so that
from it we could move to some next item on the agenda?
But what of the How? I reply: assuming that we had
put our hands to the plough, could we look back?
Assuming we were really caught by the What, te.
arrested by that command, by the knowledge of that
limit and that hope, by the knowledge of that victorious
power, by the necessity of that confidence, conditioned
by the activity of that love and perseverance—could we
even for a moment seek the How outside the What?
Could it, even for a moment, become a ‘“‘decisive”’
question for us? The How am I myself, my audience
and readers, our time, with its convictions and illusions,
the cosmos of nature and history. In short, it is man,
in whose sphere there exist, among other things, theology
and the Church. But man is a being that has to be
overcome by the Word and the Spirit of God, that
has to be reconciled to God, justified and sanctified,
comforted and ruled and finally saved by God. Is that
not enough? Is not every addition to that really a
subtraction from it? Would theology and the Church
honour man if they demanded something ‘“‘decisive”’
from him as well—a second decisive factor, a second or
first revelation? No doubt the question ‘‘How?” will
always be constituted by man, by human nature, language
and form. It will certainly be preserved. The creation
and preserving patience of God will see to it that this
little monster in me and in others and in our whole
common sphere is not deprived of its rights. Does this
mean that the question ‘‘How?’’ can and may be heard
independently, as conveying a ‘‘natural knowledge of
God”? What has man, that he has not received? Are
not both he and the question “How?” included and
preserved in the “What?”, which alone is decisive: in
BRUNNER’S AIM 127
the fact that Christ has died and risen for man? Would
not theology and the Church dishonour man
if they
addressed. him, not because..he has been addressed but
because. he.canbe addressed? By so doing they would
question or even deny the one all-important positive
good thing that can be said about him. And that they
ought not to do. It is not a practical thing to be so
unpractical for the sake of a practice.
And what of pastoral work and teaching and preach-
ing, of pedagogy, ethics and dogmatics? And the success
which Brunner evidently has in view in the argument of
the last part of his essay? We all work for success and
not for failure, and if the question is put in its right place
and duly bracketed, we may say something about it:
In my experience the best way of dealing with Le ee \\
believers” and modern youth is not to try to bring out
their “capacity for revelation,” but to treat them /
quietly, simply (remembering that Christ has died and |
risen also for them), as if their rejection of “Christianity” (
was not to be taken seriously. It is only then that they |
can understand you, since they really see you where you
maintain that you are standing as an evangelical
theologian: on the ground of justification by faith alone.
I have the impression that my sermons reach and
“interest”? my audience most when I least rely on
anything to “correspond” to the Word of God already
“‘being there,’’? when I least rely on the “‘possibility”’ of
proclaiming this Word, when I least rely on my ability to
‘“‘reach”’ people by my rhetoric, when on the contrary I
allow my language to be formed and shaped and adapted
as much as possible by what the text seems to be saying.
I should consider Christian education, in the wide
sense of the word in which Brunner is thinking of it, a
hopeful undertaking if it did not base itself upon any
“pedagogic factor,” but began at the beginning and
considered the ‘“‘education”’ of man by the Word of God.
Ethics will be quite a good and useful thing if it always
remembers the commandments of God. In contrast to
Brunner’s ethics it should not be based on a dogmatic
presupposition of those mythical “ordinances.” ‘There-
fore it should refrain from trying to turn the command-
ments of God into the commandments of men.
Finally, dogmatics will be the better and the more
instructive, the more it keeps to the rule of Hilary:
Non sermoni res, sed rei sermo subjectus est—the less it looks
for an already existing ‘“‘aptitude”’ of certain analogies.
Brunner has tried to prove that in my own dogmatics
I practise the opposite. Let the reader decide whether
he is right. It was certainly not done purposely or
consciously. Moreover, the ‘‘important passage”? which
Brunner quotes to support this contention does not bear
that meaning in its context. Brunner has misquoted it,
evidently having misread it and left out a clause.
I should like to call the theological and ecclesiastical
“successes”? which might be attained in this direction
“spiritual”? and “‘interesting.”” Those that may no doubt
be attained in the opposite direction I should call
“unspiritual’? and ‘‘ uninteresting.”
It will be best to conclude by explicitly moving away
once more from this quite secondary and unimportant
question. We are not here at all in order to gather
successes. We are commanded to do work that has a
reason and foundation. That is why there is hope in
‘that work. Natural theology is always the answer to a
question which is false if it wishes to be “decisive.”
That is the question concerning the “‘How?” of theo-
logical and ecclesiastical activity. Hence it has to be
rejected a limine—right at the outset. Only the theology
and the church of the antichrist can profit from it.
The Evangelical Church and Evangelical theology
would only sicken and die of it.
BX4827.B3 B713 1946 / copy 2
Natural theology, comprising Nature an
<
BX Natural theology, comprising "Nature and grace"

4827 by Emil Brunner and the reply "No!" by Karl
B3 Barth. Translated from the Berman by Peter
B713 Fraenkel. With an introduction by John
1946 Baillie. London, G. Bles, 1946.
128p. 23cm:
Translations of Natur und Gnade, and Nein!
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iii

THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY J. AND J. GRAY, EDINBURGH

HE remarkable pair of brochures which Mr. Peter

he means such a knowledge of God in his creation as

means such a knowledge of God as might be supposed

in the revelation in creation, of the man who is to be

NATURE AND GRACE

ie has been frequently suggested to me during recent

THE ISSUE BETWEEN KARL BARTH AND

Tue credit of having given back to Protestant theology

BARTH’S FALSE CONCLUSIONS

I HAVE repeatedly pointed out that most theology is

MY COUNTER-THESES AND THEIR PROOF

(1) THE question concerning the tmago De seems to

MY COUNTER-THESES AND THEIR PROOF 23

THE REFORMERS’ DOCTRINE AND ITS

Karu Bartu has always combined his rejection of my

elevates him above them. Even fallen man still has—

the Scriptures—but only because to this Word is added

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THEOLOGIA NATURALIS

SOME years ago I ‘had a discussion with. Karl Barth

16 Vol. XLVII, p. 5, line 2; Vol. XXXVIII, p. 77, line 11.

Answer to Emil Brunner

] AM by nature a gentle being and entirely averse to

30th October 1934.

“Tr is the task of our theological generation to find the

WHERE DO WE REALLY STAND?

BRUNNER’s “‘counter-theses,” in which he develops his

treating me as one of his kind. This has made debate

WHERE DO WE REALLY STAND? 77

BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY

In order to form a judgment concerning the positive exposi-

BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY 81

does Brunner speak of another.special (or rather “ '

BRUNNER’S NATURAL THEOLOGY 93

BRUNNER AND CALVIN

BRUNNER is of the opinion that his natural theology

BRUNNER THEN AND NOW

BRUNNER is of the opinion that “it can easily be seen

I ruink that I do not misunderstand Brunner if I regard

Natural theology, comprising Nature an

BX Natural theology, comprising "Nature and grace"

Translations of Natur und Gnade, and Nein!

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