In the midst of a time when there are wars and rumors of war, of international competition and conflict between opposing religions, ideologies and political views there are voices that cry out for peace when there is no peace. Perhaps such conflict is the norm in a world that has rebelled against God and his revelation, that has rejected biblical morality and instead seeks satisfaction in selfish indulgence. The following is an excerpt from the writing of Emil Brunner who experienced both world wars and saw the evil that men do.

“The recent terrible years of the world war and of the preceding totalitarian revolutions have shown us that the understanding of man is the basis of all social order and of all culture. The acknowledgment of a human dignity which is not from man but is bestowed by God is the presupposition of all political and social justice and freedom. The denial of this dignity is equivalent to the total abandonment of man to the power of the state and is in principle identical with the principle of the totalitarian states. The totalitarian state can arise, and is bound to arise, wherever the idea of human dignity has been lost. The idea of human dignity, however, is historically and in principle none other than the idea of man’s being created in the image of God….

The picture which the New Testament gives of the historical process until the day of Christ is in exact concordance with historical reality as we know it, and therefore in strictest opposition to the modern idea of progress, even in its pseudo-Christian form which mistakenly sees the New Testament gospel of the coming kingdom as an immanent upward movement. Nowhere does the New Testament promise an earthly state of peace, of social justice, or universal international relationships conforming to the idea of justice and humanity….Every conception of the time-process influenced by the idea of progress is unmasked as utopian, contradicted by reality just as much as by biblical doctrine….The perspective of the gospel is eternity. Anything perfect cannot be brought about in the narrow frame of temporality and terrestrial life. Resurrection is eternal life breaking up the framework of historical existence.

That is why utopias of historical progress cannot seduce those who believe in Christ. Utopias are the straws to to which those cling, who have no real hope; utopias are as unattractive as they are incredible for those who know what real hope is. Utopias are not a consequence of true hope but a poor substitute for it and therefore a hindrance and not a help. The hope that is in Jesus Christ is different from all utopias of universal progress.

The foolishness of the gospel is divine wisdom to all who have been healed of the perversion which consists in making man’s reason and goodness the judge of all truth, that perversion which places man instead of God in the center of the universe. The gospel is identical with the healing of this perversion, which in its depth and real significance is diabolical. It is the victory of God’s light over the powers of darkness.”

(Emil Brunner, The Scandal of Christianity, 1948)