532 - Emil Brunner-Teacher Unsurpassed

Emil Brunner-Teacher Unsurpassed
By J. Robert Nelson

THE name of Emil Brunner has been a most familiar one to students of theology in many countries for nearly forty years. Thanks to a little lady of Oxford, Olive Wyon, his great works of theology have been known to British and American seminarians as standard-setting treatises on the major doctrines. Thanks to Adolf Hitler, whose censors found Brunner's books objectionable, he has not been so influential in Germany as one would expect of a German-speaking theologian of his stature, nor so much as fie has been in Anglo-Saxon theology. But the very titles of his books have left their indelible stamp upon twentieth century theology. When Christians talk of the "divine-human encounter," or "man in revolt," or "the divine imperative," they are unconsciously paying tribute to this molder of theology and supporter of faith.

What sort of man is Brunner? The hundreds who know him well can give their appreciative estimates. But his own city of Zürich provides a good parable to describe him. Situated at the end of a long lake, Zürich is one of the world's shining cities. At least in summer it is. But when winter comes, the city is shrouded in fog; and the lack of visibility, day after day, makes one think that the world is confined to these few square kilometers. On a few days, however, little signs are posted around the city, announcing Uetliberg hell. This implies no damnation for anyone. It means that the Uetliberg, a nearby mountain, is clear of fog that day. Then the people of Zürich swarm out of their cold houses to ascend the mountain by foot or train in order to see the almost-forgotten sun again, and to behold the inspiring view of the distant Alps.

I

The majority of men spend their lives under the fog of ignorance, provincialism, or insensitivity. Brunner is a signal exception. He has spent his life on the heights where feeling, thought, and vision

533 - Emil Brunner-Teacher Unsurpassed

are as unobstructed and undefiled as the Alpine air. On his mountaintop he has looked out upon the whole world as the sphere of Christ's church and the vast home of men and women who need to hear and believe the Gospel.

His mountaintop has been his lecture room at the university. Since 1924, when as a man of thirty-five he was appointed professor of systematic theology, he has taught and discussed with students the vast range of theological and ethical questions with which he was eminently competent to deal. He has been best known for his Dogmattik, of course. But his teaching and writing on ethical, cultural, and political issues are widely respected. And those who have never attended the University of Zürich are astonished to learn that he was for many years the main teacher of homiletics and Seelsorge, or pastoral care. His credentials for teaching men to preach were seen in his own superb sermons preached to overflow congregations in the ancient Fraumunster Church. Normally on Sundays the pews were empty except for the handful of black-clad women; but when Brunner was scheduled to preach, one had to come early to find a seat. Likewise, he has been a pastor with profoundly personal concern for the burdens, well-being, and faith of many people of his city.

II

My own Testatheft for 1948-1949, or enrollment book, shows that I attended three of Brunner's courses. So far as tuition goes, they were a rare bargain. Seelsorge and Gerechtigkeit (justice) cost only five francs apiece, or about $1.15 for the semester. And the great, solid course of lectures on dogmatics ran to a mere sixteen francs! This was less than the cost of one volume of the three-volume series which eventuated from the lectures.

Striding briskly into the lecture room shortly after 7:00 a.m., the professor greeted the students who had risen in their seats in due Continental respect, and led them promptly in a rousing hymn, such as All Morgen ist ganz frisch und neu. He lectured in the clearest, most precise German one can hope to hear, making it especially easy for us foreign students to understand. And when necessary, he could switch readily to flawless French or English, or back to the peculiar Zürich dialect which was his language at home and among friends,

534 - Emil Brunner-Teacher Unsurpassed

The orderly clarity of his lectures is known to anyone who has read his books. Yet he was not trapped by his notes, and often took flight on an impromptu excursus, Moreover, he seems to have been one of the first Swiss professors to use class time for free discussion with students, perhaps because of his teaching experience in America, at Princeton Seminary in 1938.

The German-speaking Swiss are often stolid, silent types, with few lapses into levity. But Brunner's friendly humor and sharp wit were well known to friends and students. Occasionally he chided his rival in Basel. In distinguishing between theology and faith, he declared that the devil himself could earn a D. Theol. under Karl Barth summa cum laude. Once he described how the small river flowing through Zürich, the Limmat, was fresh and clear at its source, but by the time its waters had joined the Rhine and were flowing past Basel they were dirty and polluted. It seemed the pun on his name (Brunnen = fountain) came unexpectedly to his lips as he counseled the students to drink deeply of Brunnenwasser. When discussing the Pastoral Epistles, which he disliked intensely because they set the pattern for hardened dogma and order in the church, Brunner said he had his own reason for suspecting their author was not Paul: he had been able to learn all of the New Testament by heart, except for the Pastorals!

Once each week about a dozen foreign students came to Brunner's modest home at Hirslanderstrasse 47 for two hours of free theological discussion in English. These evenings he enjoyed as much as the students, and often he broke off the serious discussion in order to lead parlor games or improvise with skill on the piano. One evening I brought up the matter of the open debate by correspondence between Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr, following the Amsterdam Assembly of the World Council of Churches. Inadvertently I spoke of Barth and Brunner. He corrected me: "You mean Barth and Niebuhr, don't you?" I replied, "Oh yes, but you know the names Barth and Brunner come together automatically, like ham and eggs." "Really?" said Brunner instantly. "Which is the ham?"

III

Brunner has always had an earnest concern about the church. Some readers of his book, The Misunderstanding of the Church, may wonder at this, because the. thesis he has pressed in that book,

535 - Emil Brunner-Teacher Unsurpassed

as well as in Volume III of the Dogmatik, is the radical difference between the New Testament ecclesia and the institutional churches. However debatable this thesis may be, it has not deterred him from exemplar), service in various circles of church life. His favorite project has been a kind of lay academy at Boldern, near Zürich, which he helped to establish. In and out of class he protested violently against the excessive institutionalism of the cantonal church which is traced back to Zwingli. In the old days, he fumed, it was polizeilich forbidden not to belong to the church. Now all one needs to do to be a member is pay his taxes. Out of his sense of exasperation with this kind of church, Brunner has perhaps overstated the case for a free church. He rejected infant baptism entirely, but later changed his mind. He claimed to have found the real church in the Oxford Group Movement, until Frank Buchman allowed it to lose its Christological basis, at which time Brunner withdrew. He gave much time to the Y.M.C.A. and, at John R. Mott's invitation, became its theological adviser. Traveling to Japan, he rejoiced to find his ecclesiological thesis virtually incarnated (which means the church dis-incarnated) in the Mukyokai, or No-Church Movement of Christians. And he pays such tribute to America's typically congregational churchmanship that many of us are embarrassed by his words.

As other major theologians have done, Brunner has made much use of the familiar I-Thou category of Ebner and Buber. Those who have known him well will agree that with Brunner this is more than an idea about personal relation. It is a characterization of his own life in relation to the hundreds of friends and students who, have known him, and to the God whose deeds and purposes he has faithfully expounded.