The last lecture was brought to a close before we reached the final forms a.s.sumed by German theology. In the present one we must complete the narrative; and afterwards carry on the history of free thought in France, as affected by the influence of German literature, from the period at which the narrative was previously interrupted to the present time.
We have noticed the traces of the reaction in favour of orthodoxy, which was produced in Germany by the influence of Schleiermacher. We treated the philosophical side of the movement, the vindication of the distinctness of religion and ethics; and also witnessed the improved tone in the critical, tending, if not to the recognition of a supernatural character in the holy scriptures, yet to a more spiritual appreciation of their literary characteristics, and of the psychological peculiarity of the facts recorded. We adverted also, in conclusion, to a rival philosophical influence, springing from the teaching of Hegel, which a.s.sisted the reaction by seeking a philosophical reconstruction of religion, though from a different point of view from Schleiermacher.
It was this school which gave origin to the subsequent movements in Germany. The sudden alteration in German thought induced by Strauss, which ushers in the modern period, arose from the union of the philosophical principles of this school with the criticism of that of De Wette. We must therefore endeavour to understand this movement, which forms the turning point between the reaction before described, which is the second of the three general divisions made of this portion of history,(802) and the forms which succeed const.i.tuting the third division. Hegel,(803) a name almost as important in its influence on the German mind as that of Goethe, has been already mentioned(804) as the last of that band of philosophers which strove to develop the mental as distinct from the material principle, presented in Kant"s philosophy. Kant had completed the process of turning man"s search inward, which Descartes had begun. Philosophy became psychology; the discovery of the limits of knowledge, rather than of the nature of the thing known. We have seen that Fichte and Sch.e.l.ling, not content with this result, had sought, though by opposite processes, to escape from this limited knowledge; to attain an ontology as well as a psychology. All philosophy aims at attaining a knowledge of reality, either _a posteriori_ by means of generalisation, or _a priori_ from the data of mind. These two philosophers strove to attain it by the latter mode; but their method either lacked system, or failed in its results: their philosophy was poetry rather than logic. Hegel followed in their steps, but adopted a basis which admitted of being developed in a formal system. The logical rigour of his method, and the encyclopaedic grasp which it gave over knowledge, partly accounted, as in the case of Spinoza or of Wolff, for its popularity. The universe was to be interpreted from the mind; the laws of thought were the laws of things. The microcosm and the macrocosm were one; thought, and the mind that thinks; or, more truly, both were phases of the universal mind which was unfolding. The mind of man could transcend the limits of the finite and phenomenal; and, being able to apprehend the idea, the ????e???, absolutely, without condition, thus possessed the solution of any branch of universal knowledge by an _a priori_ process. The problem of philosophy was, to find the laws of this evolution in thought, to catch the ideal when it strives to become immanent and to manifest itself in the actual.
Without attempting here to explain the kind of threefold process, (35) according to which this evolution takes place, it is better, as in the case of the former philosophies named, to exhibit the influence of the general method rather than the effects of particular theories inculcated by it.
The method had many advantages, in displacing a low materialism, in stimulating loftiness of conception, and generating an historic study of every subject, by its view of the universe as a development; and also created a largeness of sympathy with differing views, by regarding all things as in transition, relative, true only in reference to their contradictory; and by considering all hypotheses to contain a germ of right, and to be the result of partial views of truth; but it will also be obvious, that the method had its evil effects. For, when applied to any department, it produced a disposition to seize the principle, the idea, of which the concrete is the embodiment; to descend from the type upon the individual. Its method was deductive and idealistic; giving being to abstractions, like the realism of the middle ages. It lost the fact in the principle; it personified the genus. Philosophy became a vast mythology.
When applied to Christianity, for example, it did not attempt to find a philosophic ground for it psychologically in the human aspirations, as Schleiermacher had done,(805) but objectively in the dogma. It discovered the ideal truth in religion, and regarded Christianity and Christ as being the manifestation of the effort of the great Spirit of the universe to convert the idea into act; the symbol which expressed the speculative truth of the essential unity of the ideal and the real, of the divine and the human. Like the ancient Gnosticism, it believed in dogmatic Christianity, because it descended upon it from an _a priori_ principle, in which it found the explanation of it. Religion and philosophy were reconciled, because religion was made a phase of philosophy.
This system was taught by its founder at Berlin from about 1820 to 1830, contemporary with that of Schleiermacher; and the learned theologian Marheinecke(806) is the name best known of those who applied it to theology. It was regarded at that time as an instrument of orthodoxy.(807) It had the advantage over the old rationalism, in that while using similarity of method in seeking to explain mysteries, it did not pare them down, but absorbed them in principles of philosophy; and over the school of Schleiermacher, in that it was less subjective, less a matter of feeling, supplying a doctrine and not merely a spirit; and therefore it satisfied the longing of the mind for dogmatic truth, and at the same time more readily linked itself, ecclesiastically with churchlike and corporate tendencies, and politically with conservative and autocratic ones. Yet it is easy to see that its spirit was really far less Christian than Schleiermacher"s. For it not only confused again philosophy and religion, which his system had severed, but it proudly claimed to explain doctrines rationally where his had only sought to appropriate them intuitionally. It verged towards pantheism. It was in danger of losing the historic fact in the idea; of encouraging, as it is now sometimes called, the "ideological tendency;"(808) whereas with Schleiermacher, the historic belief had only been regarded as less important than the emotional apprehension. Its _a priori_ spirit created also a depreciation of the investigations which had been pursued by the critical school. It gave encouragement to the study of history; but it was to the history of philosophy, not to the investigations conducted by historical criticism.
Such was the system which, along with those described in the last lecture, was regarded as contributing to favour orthodox reaction, and was disputing theological preeminence with that of Schleiermacher, when a work was published by one of its disciples, which was the means, through the ferment produced, of altering completely the whole tone and course of German thought. It was the celebrated _Life of Jesus_ by Strauss,(809) a criticism on the four biographies given in the gospels; a work in which the whole destructive movement was concentrated, with such singular ability and clearness, that hardly any work of theology has subsequently been written without some notice of the propositions there maintained.
It presented a double aspect: it was both philosophical and critical.
Strauss added to a general admission of the Hegelian point of view a love for the critical studies so much neglected by that party. Brought up in the moderate orthodoxy of Tubingen, he had studied at Berlin under Schleiermacher, but caught the critical rather than the philosophical side of that master"s teaching, and especially interested himself in the solution of the question relating to the origin and credibility of the Gospels, already partially considered in the critical inquiries of the old rationalism, and of the school of De Wette. It was an investigation which in its nature, in the spirit in which it was decided, and in its similarity to the contemporaneous discussions of cla.s.sical criticism, bore a close resemblance to that before described in reference to the Pentateuch. A few words of explanation concerning it are necessary, previous to the statement of the nature of Strauss"s work.(810)
As early as the last century the resemblance between the three "synoptical" Evangelists had excited attention; and examination was directed to discover the cause. Some, as Wetstein,(811) supposed that one or two of the Gospels were borrowed from the third; others, as Michaelis(812) and Eichhorn, that the three were all derived from one common original, now lost; others, as Schleiermacher, that they were composed from many detached written narratives; others, as Herder, and subsequently Gieseler, that they were the committal to writing of the oral tradition common in the church. Thus, whether the Gospels were regarded as copies, or as being composed from earlier doc.u.ments, or from primitive tradition, the effect was, that they were reduced to the level of natural testimony, and instead of being three witnesses they became one. The fourth Gospel also was involved in uncertainty. Bretschneider added the full examination of it, and provoked a discussion concerning the alleged disagreement of its tone and statements with those of the synoptists.(813) Thus a chasm was introduced between the events and the record of them; and the testimony was reduced to traditional evidence.
This alteration in the critical attempt to shake the evidence of independent authorship had been accompanied by a corresponding change in the interpretation, as seen in the a.s.saults made on the credibility of the facts narrated. In the hands of the English deists and of Reimarus this attack had been an allegation against the moral character of the writer.
In Eichhorn and Paulus the imputation of collusion had been superseded by the rationalistic interpretation, which, without denying the historical recital, denied the supernatural, and explained it away by reference to the peculiarities of time at which the events were described. The next step was to transfer the doubt to the recital itself, and to find, in the absence of contemporary evidence for the events, the possibility for legend, and, in the antecedent expectation of them, the possibility for myth.
This was the state of the critical question with regard to the Gospels when the work of Strauss appeared. The Hegelian philosophy gave him the constructive side of his work, and criticism the destructive. Setting out with the preconception which had lain at the basis of German philosophy and theology since Kant, that the idea was more important than the fact,(814) the mythical interpretation of history furnished to him the medium for applying this conception as an engine of criticism.
The mythical system of interpretation, though slightly suggested by his predecessors in criticism, was Strauss"s great work. The difference between allegory, legend, and myth, is well known. Our blessed Lord"s miracles would be allegories, if they were, as Woolston claimed, parables intentionally invented for purposes of moral instruction, or facts which had a mystical as well as literal meaning: they would be legends if, while containing a basis of fact, they were exaggerated by tradition: they would be myths if, without really occurring, they were the result of a general preconception that the Messiah ought to do mighty works, which thus gradually became translated into fact. A legend is a group of ideas round a nucleus of fact: a myth is an idea translated by mental realism into fact. A legend proceeds upwards into the past; a myth downwards into the future.(815) Strauss"s peculiarity consisted in trying to show that if a small basis of fact, heightened by legend, be allowed in the gospel history, the influence of myth is a psychological cause sufficient to explain the remainder. The idea is regarded as prior to the fact: the need of a deliverer, he pretends, created the idea of a saviour: the misinterpretation of old prophecy presented conditions which in the popular mind must be fulfilled by the Messiah. The gospel history is regarded as the attempt of the idea to realise itself in fact.
The fundamental fallacy of the inquiry is apparent from one consideration.
Legends are possible in any age; myths, strictly so called, only in the earliest ages of a nation. Comparative philology has lately shown that mythology is connected with the formation of language, and restricted to an early period of the world"s history.(816) But the encouragement offered to the mythic interpretation by Hegel"s philosophy will be apparent. The mythus embodying itself in the facts of the gospel was the miniature of the process of universal nature. Everywhere the idea strives for realisation.
The scheme of Strauss formed the link between philosophy and criticism.
Philosophy had explained the doctrines of Christianity, but not the facts of Christian history. Criticism had explained the facts by historical examination, but not by philosophy. Strauss attempted, for the first time, to present the philosophical explanation of facts as well as doctrines. He explained them, neither by charge of fraud, nor by historical causes, but by reference to the operation of a psychological law, the same which the Hegelian philosophy regarded as exemplified universally. Early Christian fiction was resolved into a psychological law, regulated by a definite law of suggestion, of which plausible instances were traced. The gospel history was regarded to be partly a creation out of nothing, partly an adaptation of real facts to preconceived ideas. This same philosophy, which thus contributed to the critical or destructive side of the theory, also furnished the reconstructive. The facts in Christianity were temporary, the ideas eternal. Christ was the type of humanity. (36) His life and death and resurrection were the symbol of the life, death, and resurrection, of humanity. The former were unimportant, the latter eternal. An exoteric religion for the people might exhibit the one: the esoteric for the philosopher might retain the other.(817)
This is Strauss"s system and position. The book itself comprises three parts;-first, an historic introduction, in which the history of previous criticism and of Hermeneutics, and of the formation of the mythical theory is most ably presented:(818)-secondly, the main body of the work, which consists of a critical examination of the life of Christ,(819) subdivided into three parts; viz. an examination of the birth and childhood of Jesus,(820) of his public life,(821) and of his death;(822) the object of which is to point out in the narrative the historic or mythic elements:-and thirdly, a philosophical conclusion,(823) in which the doctrinal significance of the life is given. As a specimen of didactic and critical writing it is perhaps unrivalled in the German literature. The second part is the embodiment of all the difficulties which destructive criticism had presented. If the historic sketches captivate by their clearness, the critical do so by their surprising acuteness and dialectical power; and the philosophical by the appreciation of the ideal beauty of the very doctrines, the historic embodiment of which is denied.
It is the work of a mind endowed with remarkable a.n.a.lytical power; in which the force of reflective theory has overwhelmed the intuitional perception of the personality and originality of the sacred character which is the subject of his study.(824)
The effect of the publication of the work was astonishing. It produced a religious panic unequalled since the Wolfenb.u.t.tel fragments. The first impulse of the Prussian government was to prevent the introduction of the book into the Prussian kingdom; but Neander stood up to resist the proposal, with a courage which showed his firm confidence in the permanent victory of truth; saying that it must be answered by argument, not suppressed by force; and forthwith wrote his own beautiful work on the life of Christ in reply to it. Yet neither the peculiarity of Strauss"s theory nor the nature of the work gave ground for the panic. For the book was in truth not a novelty, but merely a fuller development of principles already existing in Germany; and Schleiermacher, before his death, when contemplating the tendency of religious criticism, had predicted(825) the probability of such an attempt being made. Nor was the work irreligious and blasphemous in its spirit, like the attacks of the last century. It professed to be executed solely in the interests of science; and, though subversive of historic religion, to be conservative of ideal. The critical part was only a means to an end; its real basis was speculative. But the literary aspect of the question was lost sight of in the religious. The heart spoke forth its terror at the idea of losing its most sacred hope, the object of its deepest trust, an historic Saviour. The alarm had not been antic.i.p.ated by the author of the attack. He is described by a hostile critic(826) as a "young man full of candour, of sweetness, and modesty, of a spirit almost mystical, and as it were saddened by the disturbance which had been occasioned." But he became a martyr for his act, and an outcast from the sympathy of religious men. Unable to exercise his singular gifts of teaching in any professorship, he has continued to write from time to time literary monographs of more defiant tone; proofs of his ability, but vehicles for the expression of his opinions. (37)
The effect on the different theological critics throughout Germany, both friendly and hostile, was so remarkable, that the year 1835, in which the book was published, is as memorable in theology as the year 1848 in politics. The work carried criticism and philosophy to its farthest limits, and demanded from theologians of all cla.s.ses a thorough reconsideration of the subject of the _origines_ of Christianity.(827) The ablest theologians either wrote in refutation of it, or reconsidered their own opinions by the light of its criticisms. (38) The alarm at the loss of the historic basis of Christianity created a strong reaction in favour of the Lutheran orthodoxy, the commencement of which has already been named;(828) and gave the death-blow, not only to the Hegelian school, but almost to the pa.s.sion for ontological speculation in Germany. While some thus a.s.sumed a churchly and conservative aspect, others outstripped Strauss, and, uniting with French positivism, advanced into utter pantheism and materialism.
The Hegelian party, to which Strauss belonged, and which would fain have been excused from this _reductio ad absurdum_ of its principles,(829) became split into sections through the various attempts made to parry the blow, and reconstruct their system on the philosophical side. The critical tendency had now too found a home, by means of Strauss"s work, among the Hegelians; and this led to the creation of a new school of historical criticism to be hereafter described, which arose in Strauss"s own university of Tubingen.(830)
We have now explained the circ.u.mstances attending the change which closed the second and introduced the third period in German theology.
In this third period, which is that of contemporary thought, we may distinguish four broadly marked tendencies; three within the church, and one directly infidel in character outside of it.(831)
The last named, which we shall describe first, started from Strauss"s position, and advanced still farther. It sprang from the destructive side of the Hegelian philosophy, and has sometimes been named the young Hegelian school. From the first it lacked the air of respect toward religion which Strauss did not throw aside in his work; and it also extended itself from theology to politics.
Bruno Bauer,(832) a Professor at Berlin, by turning suddenly round from the most orthodox to the most heterodox position in his school, may be cla.s.sed with Strauss in his method, though not in his spirit. He carried out Strauss"s critical examination of the Gospels with a coa.r.s.e ridicule; and extended it by denying the historic basis of fact, and imputing the myth to the personal creation of the individual writer. But his successors advanced even farther. As Bauer developed the critical side of Strauss, Feuerbach(833) and Ruge(834) developed the philosophical, and destroyed the very idea of religion itself, by showing that the idea of G.o.d or of religion is of human construction, the giving objective existence to an idea. The aspiration, instead of guaranteeing the existence of an object toward which it is directed, is represented as creating it. This was the final result of the subjective point of view of the Kantian philosophy, and of the idealism of Hegel. Reason must, it was pretended, be followed, to whatever extent it contradicts the feelings. Theology becomes anthropology; religion, mythology; pantheism, atheism; man, collective humanity, becomes the sole object of the belief and respect which had been previously given to Deity; religion vanishes in morality. The love of man becomes the subst.i.tute for the love of G.o.d. This was a position a.n.a.logous to that which positivism reached in France, but from a mental instead of a physical point of view. This form of thought found expression in literature through the poetry of Heine,(835) and linked itself with political theories of communism more extreme than the contemporary ones in France.
Still the lowest point was not reached: religion was treated as a psychological peculiarity, and the virtue of benevolence recognised. But when religion was felt to be only an idea, and the belief of the supernatural to be the great obstacle to political reform, an intense feeling of antipathy was aroused; and Schmidt,(836) under the pseudonym of Stirner, reached the naturalistic point of view held by Volney, the worship of self-love. This new school, which had arisen in the few years subsequent to Strauss"s work, mingled itself with the revolutionary movements of Germany in 1848, and was the means of exciting the alarm which caused the suppression of them. Since that date the school has been extinct as a literary movement.
The tendency just described was entirely destructive. The three others, which remain for consideration, exist within the church, and are in their nature reconstructive, and aim at repelling the attacks of Strauss and of other previous critics. The one that we shall describe first is that which is most rationalistic, and approaches most nearly to Strauss"s views; and is frequently called, from the Swabian university which has been its stronghold, the Tubingen school.(837) It is a lineal offshoot in some slight degree from the school of Hegel, and more decidedly from the critical school of De Wette, before named. But it stands contrasted with the latter by caution, as marked as that which separates recent critics(838) of Roman history from earlier ones, like Niebuhr. Like Strauss, it restricts its attention to the New Testament; but it is a direct reaction against his inclination to undervalue the historical element. The great problem presented to it is, to reconstruct the history of early Christianity, to reinvestigate the genesis of the gospel biographies and doctrine. Declining to approach the books of the New Testament with dogmatic preconceptions, it breaks with the past, and interprets them by the historic method; proposing for its fundamental principle to interpret scripture exactly like any other literary work.
Pretending that after the ravages of criticism, the Gospels cannot be regarded as true history, but only as miscellaneous materials for true history, it takes its stand on four of the Epistles of St. Paul, the genuineness of which it cannot doubt, and finds in the struggle of Jew and Gentile its theory of Christianity.(839) Christianity is not regarded as miraculous, but as an offshoot of Judaism, which received its final form by the contest of the Petrine or Judaeo-Christian party, and the Pauline or Gentile; which contest is considered by it not to have been decided till late in the second century. By the aid of this theory, constructed from the few books which it admits to be of undoubted genuineness, it guides itself in the examination of the remainder, tracing them to party interests which determined their aim, p.r.o.nouncing on their object and date by reference to it.(840) In this way it arrives at most extraordinary conclusions in reference to some of them. Not one single book, except four of St. Paul"s Epistles, is regarded to be authentic. The Gospel called that of St. John is considered as a treatise of Alexandrian philosophy, written late in the second century to support the theory of the ?????. It will thus be perceived that the inquiry, though it professes to be objective, yet has a subjective cast.
The leader of this school was Christian Baur, (39) lately deceased; a man of large erudition; a wonder of acuteness even in Germany; distinguished for the extraordinary ability displayed in his reply to the attacks made on Protestantism by the celebrated Roman catholic theologian Moehler: and though the doctrinal result of the school is ethics or pure Socinianism and naturalism, and the critical opinions obviously are most extravagant, the sagacity and learning shown in the monographs published by it make them some of the most instructive, as sources of information, in modern theology, to those who know how to use them aright. From an orthodox point of view the effect of the school is most destructive; but, if viewed in reference to the preceding schools, it manifests a tenacious hold over the historic side of Christianity, and has affected in a literary way the schools formerly described, which claim lineage from the older critics.
As the tendency just described is the modern representative of the older critical schools; so the next holds a similar position to the philosophical.
The school is frequently on this account described by the same name, of "Mediation theology,"(841) originally applied to Schleiermacher, because it attempts to unite science with faith, a true use of reason with a belief in scripture. It comprises the chief theological names of Germany, some of whom were disciples of Schleiermacher, others of the orthodox portion of the Hegelian party. Their object is not simply, like the revivers of Lutheran orthodoxy, to surrender the judgment to an external authority in the church, nor to give unbounded liberty to it like the critical school: not going back like the one to the ancient faith of the church, nor progressing like the other to new discoveries in religion, they seek to understand that which they believe, to find a philosophy for religion and Christianity.
Two theologians stand out above the others, as evincing vitality of thought, and boldly attempting to grapple with the philosophical problems;-Dorner(842) and Rothe,(843) both very original, but bearing traces of the influence of their predecessors. The former, moulded by the Hegelian school, investigates the Christological problem which lies at the basis of Christianity; the latter, moulded rather by the school of Schleiermacher, has attempted the cosmological, which lies at the basis of religion and providence.
The work of Dorner on "the Person of Christ" formed an epoch in German theology, by its fulness of learning, its orthodoxy of tone, and its union of speculative powers with historic erudition. The Christian doctrine of the incarnation is, that G.o.d and man have been united in an historic person as the essential condition for effecting human salvation. If the doctrine be viewed on the speculative side, the problem is to show _a priori_ that this historic union ought to exist; if viewed on the historic, to prove that it has existed as a fact. The great aim of the Christology of the Hegelian system was to effect the former; the aim of Strauss was to destroy the latter. Dorner strove to reconstruct the doctrine, by making the historical study of its progress the means of supplying the elements of information for doing so. He commences by an examination of other religions,(844) in order at once to show the existence in them of blind attempts to realise that truth which the incarnation supplied, and to prove the impossibility that the Christian doctrine can have been borrowed from human sources, as the critical and mythical interpreters would a.s.sume. He discovers in all religions the desire to unite man to G.o.d; but shows(845) that the Christian doctrine cannot have been derived from the oriental, which humanised G.o.d; nor from the Greek, which deified man; nor from the Hebrew in its Palestinian form, which degraded the idea of the incarnate G.o.d into a temporal Messiah; nor in its Alexandrian form, which never reached, in its theory of the ?????, the idea of the distinction of person of the Son from the Father. Thus establishing the originality of the idea in Christianity, and exhibiting it as the fulfilment of the world"s yearnings, he traces it in the teaching of the apostles, and of the apostolic age,(846) next as marking the different heretical sects,(847) which respectively lost sight of one of the two elements, till he finds the church"s explicit statement of the doctrine in its fulness;(848) and then pursues it onwards through the course of history to the present time.(849) Though the work is to an English mind difficult, through the air of speculation which pervades it, and perhaps open to exception in some of its positions; yet, viewed as a whole, it is a magnificent argument in favour of Christianity; exhibiting the incarnation as the satisfaction for the world"s wants, as the original and independent treasure in Christianity; and showing the process through which Providence in history has caused the doctrine to be evolved and preserved.
The other great problem, the origin of things, and the relation of G.o.d to the world, which is at the basis of religion, as the incarnation is at the basis of Christianity, has been less frequently handled. Originally discussed, like the latter, in controversy with the early unbelievers, it had been touched upon in the speculations of Averroes and Spinoza, in the materialism of French infidelity, and in the earlier systems of speculative philosophy in Germany itself. It was this problem which was attempted by Rothe. (40) Advancing beyond this first question, he has considered the scheme of Providence in the development of religion, and the theory of the Christian church in relation to political society. It is unnecessary here to explain his system: his mind is too original to admit of comparison without injustice; yet the speculations of our own Coleridge, who on philosophical principles makes the state to be the realisation of the church, will perhaps give some imperfect conception of the character of his attempts.
This second school that we have been considering, though approximating extremely nearly to orthodoxy, and furnishing the works of most value in the modern theology, yet seeks to approach religion from the psychological or philosophical side. It speculates freely, and believes revelation because it finds it to coincide with the discoveries of free thought. But there is a third tendency, which believes revelation without professing to understand it; which rests on the revelation in scripture as an objective verity, and believes the Bible on the ground of evidence, without questioning its material.(850)
The first germ of this reaction in favour of rigid orthodoxy was observable in the feeling aroused by the theses of Harms, in 1817, already named, on occasion of the celebration of the tricentenary of the Reformation; but it was quickened by the attempts, initiated by the Prussian king, between the years 1821 and 1830, to unite the Lutheran and Calvinistic branches of the Protestant church.(851)
The time seemed then to thoughtful men a fitting one, when doctrines were either regarded as unimportant or superseded by the religious consciousness, to unite these two churches under the bond of a common nationality, and the practice of a common liturgy. But the old Lutheran spirit, which still survived in the retirement of country parishes, was aroused, and some pastors underwent deprivation and persecution rather than submit to the union.(852) This new movement at first caught the spirit of pietism, just as had been the case with that of Schleiermacher; but gradually abandoned it for a dogmatic and churchlike aspect, as he for a scientific expression. Its aim was to return to the Lutheranism of the sixteenth century, and to rally round the confessions of faith of that period. Hengstenberg(853) at Berlin, and Havernick,(854) are the names best known as representing this party at the period of which we speak.
Their efforts were directed to criticism rather than to doctrine, to reconstruct the basis for Christianity in Judaism by defending the authenticity and credibility of the ancient scriptures. In doctrine and the canon, they reverted to the position of the Reformation. But the alarm ensuing upon the work of Strauss, in 1835, invested this movement with a more reactionary character; and the journal(855) which gave expression to Hengstenberg"s views, gradually a.s.sumed the character of an ecclesiastical censorship, frequently marked by defiance and severity, like the tone of Luther of old.
The panic caused by the revolutions of 1848 gave increased stimulus, by adding a political reaction to the religious. The extreme rationalist party had favoured the Revolution, and the school of Schleiermacher had supported the schemes for const.i.tutional government. In the suppression of liberty which ensued for about ten years, the orthodox movement in theology united itself with the reaction in political. Absolute government was not merely a fact, but a doctrine. The theological reaction was no longer the spiritual aspiration of Germany seeking repose after doubt, but a political movement veiled under an ecclesiastical colour. The result has been, the creation of a Lutheran party far more extreme in its opinions than the one just described;-the political leader of which in the Prussian parliament was the jurist Stahl;(856)-intolerant towards other churches, suspicious of any independent a.s.sociations for religious usefulness in its own, disowning pietism because of its unchurchlike character, and in its principles going back beyond the Reformation, discarding the subjective inward principle, and reposing on the objective authority of the church.
Taking a political view of religion, it does not so much ask what is truth, but what the church a.s.serts to be true. Though not offending popular prejudices by the introduction of Romish doctrines or rites, it really reposes on the Romish principle of a visible authoritative church with mystical powers, upholding a rigid sacramental theory and the doctrine of consubstantiation. Extending the sacramental efficacy to the ministerial office, and denying communion between G.o.d and the individual soul independently of the church as the element of communication.(857) Yet it contains many honoured names, and has produced many instructive works.
The movement in English theology, which originated a generation ago in the panic caused by the liberal acts of the government which was introduced by the reform act,(858) offers a parallel; with the exception that the ecclesiastical principles then advocated had always had supporters in the English church, whereas they were nearly new in the Lutheran. The Lutheran movement too, only proposes to go back to the Reformation, the English ecclesiastical movement professed to go back to the early fathers. (41)
While the church has thus attempted a renovation of itself in doctrine, the value of which some will dispute, all will allow thankfully that there has been a deep increase of spiritual life throughout the German churches.
Religion indeed had never died out; but in the retirement of country districts(859) the flame of divine love still burned with unextinguished glory. This spiritual fire has now spread, and expressed itself in acts of earnest life. Foreign missions have been promoted;(860) an inner or home mission established for schools, and other religious agency;(861) and an annual ecclesiastical diet(862) const.i.tuted, for promoting co-operation and ecclesiastical improvement.(863)
These three separate movements of the present age, even when incorrect, have contributed something to form a perfect theology. In the orthodox school we see the attempt to return to the Bible, as interpreted by the Reformation; in the mediation school, as interpreted by the religious consciousness; in the critical school, as interpreted by historic and critical methods.
We have now completed the history of the great movement in German theology, in its two elements, doctrinal and critical. Commencing in the first period,-in doctrine, with the disbelief of positive religion, replacing dogma by ethics; and in criticism, supplying a rationalistic interpretation: in the second, it was improved on the doctrinal side by the separation of religion and ethics; and on the critical by a spiritual acknowledgment of the literary characteristics and psychological peculiarities of revelation: in the third, by a total reconstruction of both inquiries, in a more historic and orthodox spirit; and by the creation of a traditionalist position in reference to each. The solution of the problem how to reconcile faith and reason, was attempted in the first by obliterating faith; in the second by uniting them; in the third by separating them. The whole movement stands remarkable, not only as being the most singular instance in history, where the action of free thought can be watched in its intellectual stages, disconnected in a great degree from emotional causes, and where the effort was exercised by the friends of religion, not by foes; but also in the circ.u.mstance that though referable to the influence of similar intellectual causes as former epochs of free thought, it is characterised by wholly different forms of them.
We have found, on nearer inspection, as might be antic.i.p.ated in any great movement of mind, that instead of being without purpose, and a mere heap of ruins, there was a plan and method in it. It is a history which offers much cause for sorrow and much for joy. Though, as has been before remarked, a period of harrowing doubt in the life of an individual or a nation is a melancholy subject for consideration, yet when it is not induced by immorality, but produced, as in this instance, by the operation of regular causes, and is the result of the attractiveness of new modes of inquiry which invited application to the criticism of old truths, to be accepted or rejected after being fully tested; there is something to relieve the dreariness of the prospect. And when we look to the result, there is abundant cause for thankfulness. The agitation of free thought has produced permanent contributions to theology. Extravagant and shocking as some of the inquiries have been, and injurious in a pastoral point of view, being the utterance of men who had made shipwreck of faith; yet in a scientific, hardly one has been wholly lost, and few could be spared in building up the temple of truth. In criticism, in exegesis, in doctrine, in history alike, how much more is known than before the movement commenced: and what light has been thrown on that which is the very foundation problem, the just limits of inquiry in religion. Each earnest writer has contributed some fragment of information. At each point error was met by an apologetic literature, rivalling it in learning and depth; reason was conquered by reason; and though we cannot help rejoicing that we are able to reap the results of the experience, without undergoing the peril of acquiring it, yet we must acknowledge that the free and full discussion has in the end resulted in truth: the very error has stimulated discovery. So far from being a warning against having confidence in the exercise of inquiry, it is an unanswerable ground for reposing confidence in it.
Christianity is not a religion that need shrink from investigation.
Christians need not tremble at every onset. Our religion is vital, because true; and we may place trust in the providence of G.o.d in history, which overrules human errors and struggles for the permanent good of men; and, extricating the human race from the follies of particular individuals, makes the antagonism of free discussion the means to conserve or to promote intellectual truth.
In concluding this sketch however it is proper to make a few remarks, as hints to theological students, in reference to the study of works of German theology. Many such works are translated, and many more exist in the original, which are of the highest value,(864) and are likely to be read, and indeed may justly be read, by all students of large cultivation.
The works of Schleiermacher or Dorner in doctrine, of De Wette or Ewald in criticism, of Neander or Baur in history, are works of power as well as erudition, and contain a treasure-house of information and suggestion for those who know how to use them wisely, and separate the precious from the untrue. While I have endeavoured to present a fair history of the whole movement, I should feel inexpressible pain if these remarks were the means of leading unwary students to plunge unguardedly into the study of many parts of it. Its original connexion with the deist and ethical points of view, and the constant sense of living in an atmosphere of controversy, have impressed even some of the more orthodox writers with a few peculiarities, of which a student ought to be made aware:-for example, with a slight tendency to a kind of Christian pantheism; a disposition to reduce miracle to a minimum; and in the department of Christian doctrine to consider Christ"s life as more important than his death, and to regard the atonement as an effect of the incarnation, instead of the incarnation being the means to the atonement.
If then a young student would avoid a chaos of belief, and pursue a healthy study of the German writers, there are two conditions which he ought to observe. First, care should be taken to understand the precise school of thought which his author represents, in order to be able to allow for the possibility of prepossession in him;-a remark true in reference to all literature, but especially important in that which marks a particular phase of controversy. Secondly, a student"s duty to English society, and to the church of which he is a member-as also, I humbly venture to think, to his own soul-requires that he shall first listen thoughtfully to the vernacular theology of England. Let him learn the chief affirmative verities of the Christian faith before meddling with the negative side. Let him master the grand thoughts or solid erudition of Hooker and Pearson; of Bull, and Bingham, and Waterland; of Butler and Paley;-the seven most valuable writers probably in the English church;-and then reconsider his opinions by the light of foreign literature. Each one of us is on his intellectual as well as moral trial. None whom duty calls need be afraid to encounter it in G.o.d"s strength, and with prayer to Christ for light and truth and love.
It remains to mark the influence produced by German theology on free thought in other countries. (43)