The Christians Knowledge of God [Paperback] Walter W. Bryden

The Canadian theologian’s classic exposition on the knowledge of the Divine, challenging prevailing orthodoxies in early twentieth-century Protestantism.


2012 will mark 60 years since the death of Walter Williamson Bryden. This reprint of his bold 1940 publication, featuring a new introduction by Dr John A. Vissers, Principal of Knox College, Toronto, celebrate the work of this eminent Presbyterian theologian.

Best known for bringing Karl Barth to Canada, W.W. Bryden predicted the decline of Idealism and liberal theology in Protestantism at the start of the twentieth-century. When that crisis hit the Canadian Protestant Churches he was ready with this book.

The Christian’s Knowledge of God is a re-examination of Reformation teachings with particular focus on the revelation of God, by God through Christ. Bryden challenges his readers to question their blind acceptance of Christian doctrine and to reconsider what it means to have knowledge of the Divine and with it “the power to confront the world, no longer as those seeking, but as those having found God”.

Although the book concludes “Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis”, we have not changed so much with the times as to make this book less relevant today than it was when first published. Indeed those seeking for knowledge of God today could do well to be reminded of Bryden’s message.

Professor Walter Williamson Bryden taught at Knox College, Toronto, from 1925 until his death in 1952, and became the College's sixth Principal in 1945. Bryden wrote many books including The Spirit of Jesus in St. Paul, Separated Unto the Gospel and The Significance of the Westminster Confession of Faith, as well as many articles and pamphlets. His Why I Am A Presbyterian continues to be an inspiration to members of the Presbyterian Church. Dr John A. Vissers is the Principal of Knox College, Toronto. His The Neo-Orthodox Theology of W.W. Bryden is also being published by James Clarke and Co Ltd to coincide with this republication of The Christian's Knowledge of God.