Revelation and Reason

Book excerpt: To many people both inside the Chruch and outside it--what goes on in the Church is either routine or irrelevant. Consequently, what the Church has to say is not very meaningful. Why should people listen to what the Church has to preach and think about it? No one is better qualified to answer this question than Professor Emil Brunner. Dr. Brunner is a teacher of theology in the University at Zurich, Switzerland, and one of the clearest and most constructive religious thinkers of our day. Any book of his is an event because he succeeds so well in combining sound learning with persuasive and readable analysis, and because he is thoroughly acquainted with both American and Continental ways of thinking. In this book, Dr. Brunner sets the claim of the widespread intellectual relativism of contemporary culture. He seeks to show that both Catholic and secular thought misunderstand the relations between reason and revelation because revelation is always subordinated to reason. Brunner reverses the position. He goes back to the Bible and the Reformers and maintains that when reason is subordinated to revelation the preaching of the Gospel is at once true to itself and intelligible. Here is a forceful and thorough volume which helps both believers and unbelievers to understand themselves. -Publisher