Brunner on Creation

The so-called “Mosaic” story of Creation is not only a wonderful testimony to the divine revelation, but it is also the product of a very primitive view of the world. Hence it tells the story of Creation with the aid of conceptions which, without ceasing to be vessels of divine revelation, are such that their intellectual outlook is in conflict with modern knowledge. The Biblical story of Creation is bound up with the picture of the world current in antiquity, which no longer exists for us. The failure to distinguish between a particular world-view and religious truth has made ecclesiastical theology first the enemy, and then the laughing-stock of science. At the present time theology as a whole usually fails to recognize the significance of these facts for modern man. This whole conflict might have been avoided if the Church had known how to make a distinction between the vessel and its content, between the view of the world and the statement of faith. Since even down to the present time the Church is still out-of-date on this point, we must try to give at least in outline some indications for the solution of this problem; the fact that it has been neglected for far too long, has been, and still is, a serious hindrance to the faith of countless men and women.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 28–29