From the Preface by Emil Brunner
“The doctrine of Creation and Revelation here offered is based upon the conviction that sound criticism and genuine Christian thinking are not incompatible. Those members of the Church who passively accept what they have been taught as ‘revealed truth’ seem to be unaware of the fact that their view of ‘faith’ is hampered by an age-long tradition which has misunderstood the meaning of ‘faith,’ regarding it not as ‘encounter’ with the Living Christ, but as the acceptance of ‘revealed truths.’ The truth which broke through at the Reformation….of the personal character of faith as ‘encounter’ with Christ, means liberation from the rigidity and ethical sterility of orthodoxy, and sets us free to have a faith which is based on nothing save the Love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. This truth alone can preserve us from sterile ‘theologizing’ and from clericalism, and awaken in the Church a missionary and pastoral spirit. This is the fundamental aim of the present work.”
