No More Learning

I47
The process of creation, which reaches its climax in the generation of rational creatures, is continued in the process of the history of civilisation and religion, which must be regarded as a continual " incarnation of God," in the sense that human nature is transformed from earthly nature to one in the image of God, and the ideal " Son-Man " is realised in the human race. The history of religion Weisse conceives as beginning in a consciousness of God, which in its essence is spiritual and with an ethical content, but vacillates between unity and plu rality, spirituality and a sensuous form. From this undeter mined beginning, either monotheism or polytheism might be developed. The fact of the priority of the latter development in heathen national religions is explained by the psychological law that the activities of the imagination and the heart are earlier in the ascendant than those of the conscious will. Pro gress in the mythological age consisted partly in the refine
? ment of the aesthetic form of the myths -- in conjunction with
the general development of each people -- partly in the ethic- ising of their religious contents. From the first the physical and ethical permeated mythology, it is true ; but while at the beginning the physical predominated, the emphasis was after wards laid on the ethical ; the sensuous materials of the intui tive imagination were more and more freely melted down into the form of their ideal content, quite independent of the direct phenomena of nature ; the gods of nature were personified and brought into connection with man's moral life. Hence we cannot deny the moral and religious value of the mythological religions, particularly the Grecian ; Weisse does not hesitate to say that in them was already at work the same power of God to save and sanctify which ecclesiastical dogmatism wishes us to regard as the sole property of the so-called revealed re ligions in the stricter sense. And he rightly adduces in favour of this broad human view the early Christian doctrine of the pre-Christian mission of the divine Logos. Though the re ligion of the Old Testament is a revelation in a higher sense, yet it is not this in such a way as to justify the exclusion of the polytheistic religions from the common idea of the incarna
tion of the divine. But what from the first distinguished the Hebrews' conceptions of God was their subordination of the imagination, the source of myths, to the ethical power of will, the source of history. The legislation of Moses was a typical act of liberation, inasmuch as it showed mankind that its
? ? ? 148 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
divine vocation was to rise above nature to a moral order of life. This conception of God was then freed from its national limitation, and the universal religious ideal prefigured in the teaching of the prophets, which may be compared to the teaching of Greek philosophy " and of the Mysteries ; for this too had risen in the Platonic Idea of the Good " to the rank of a monotheistic principle, and in the doctrine of immortality of the Mysteries to an ethical spiritualisation of religious hopes and ideals.
This universal historical process of the incarnation of God, or the realisation of the " Son- Humanity," is consummated in Jesus, who combined and gathered up the historical conditions into an act of personal consciousness. This permeation of the human nature by the divine, whereby the man Jesus became above all other mortals the instrument of the highest revelation of God, the personal " Son-Man," must not be understood mythically as a physical event, but as an ethical miracle accom plished in the soul of this unique personality. The peculiar characteristics of the personality of Jesus may be summed up by saying that he was endowed with genius in the highest sense of the word, analogous to that of all those historical per sonalities who have been originators in the realm of religion, in particular the prophets of Israel, though in the case of Jesus we must suppose an extraordinary intensification of the gifts of talent and genius. Religious experience was intensified in him to the absolute power of an inward revelation which first raised the historical revelation of God in the human race to its summit of perfection ; for this revelation, for the first time concentrating in consciousness the whole truth of the idea of God, completely permeating the heart and will of the entire personality, presented a person before the eyes of the world, who, within the limits of humanity, exhibited purely and com pletely the image of God. This is the same Christology as that of A. Schweizer and Biedermann, above described ; with the latter Weisse shares the speculative framework of his
? Christology,
and with the former the more definite delineation
of the historical character ; common to him with both is the
rejection of the mythically supernatural, and the translation of
it into ethical ideality in the domain of history.
Very closely allied to Weisse's speculations is Richard
Rothe's Theologische Ethik {isted. 1845-8
; 2nded.
His method also is deductive construction by means of specu
1864sq. ).
? ? ? Ch. III. ] SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 1 49
lative ideas, resulting in a Christian system of philosophy,
to which the supernaturalism of the Bible, the theosophy of
Schelling and Oetinger, and the theology of Schleiermacher have been made to contribute. The combination of these diverse elements in a systematic whole forms a work of art of too peculiar a character to admit of its being used as a general authority, but the charm of which consists in its being the
and reflection of a rich and noble mind, a profound thinker, a vivid imagination, and a truly devout soul.
Rothe himself describes his method as follows : speculative
thought, when engaged in speculation, closes its eye abso lutely to everything without, and looks solely into itself; it follows only the dialectical necessity under which every idea produces new ones from its own fertility. It is not till after wards, when speculation has completed its construction, that the consideration of reality has to be added, as the test of the conformity or nonconformity of the results of speculation with
product
? if the latter be the case, the mistake must be looked for in the manipulation of the ideas. Rothe therefore fully shares the formal principle of
the Hegelian school -- its dialectical method ; his results how ever differ widely from those of this school, and approximate very closely to Schelling's theosophy and Schleiermacher's theology ; and this is owing partly to the peculiar distinction drawn by him between philosophical and theological specula tion, according to which the contents and drift of the latter are from the first quite different from those of the former.
Philosophical speculation must, Rothe thinks, start from the pure consciousness of the ego, from this formal act of thinking self, abstracted from all content ; theological speculation, on the contrary, must start from the consciousness of God, which in its immediate certainty is co-ordinate with self-consciousness, and is therefore adapted to be the starting-point of an indepen dent system of speculation entirely parallel to the philosophical one ; an assertion which is exposed to the objection of being an unfounded petitioprincipii, and has nowhere found acceptance. We must however see how Rothe constructs his system on the basis of this principle professedly free from assumptions.
The conception of the absolute as the "self-determined" involves the distinction of potentiality and actuality. Hence we must think of pure potentiality, indeterminate and indif ferent Being, as the first thing in the Deity. From this hidden
the actual condition of the world ;
? ? ? 150
DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
source the actuality of God springs in the double form of per sonality and nature ; and originally Rothe had made nature in God the cause and therefore the antecedent of his person ality ; but in his second edition he makes God's personality rise directly from his potentiality and determine the further pro cess of his self-actualisation ; though, it must be acknowledged, that a clear conception of this is impossible, since we have no analogy in man's personality to guide us. The similarity of this speculative conception of God to that formulated by Weisse is at once evident, though Rothe does not wish, like Weisse, that the three elements or stages of the divine nature should be identified with the three Persons of the ecclesiastical dogma of the Trinity, but pronounces the con nexion to be altogether remote and unessential. From God's affirmation of himself as ego, Rothe further deduces his simul taneous affirmation of his non-ego, at first, as existing in voluntarily in thought only ; but when God actualises this imagined non-ego by a free act of will, it becomes pure matter. This is for God a limitation of his absoluteness (though created by himself), which as such he strives to abolish, but cannot simply negative, since it is necessarily implied in his ego.
Hence his active relation to matter can only consist in intro ducing spirit into thus raising to the position of his alter ego, created spirit. This fashioning of undivine matter into the organ of the divine spirit the continuous process of creation, which may be conceived as the continuous " becoming of the world " Weltwerdung), or, in relation to its goal, as more definitely " the incarnation (Menschwerdung) of God within the limits of material existence. " But inasmuch as this creative activity in organising matter at each stage dependent on the previously created things as its means, and in the last instance on matter as its substratum, cannot be purely absolute. This the ground of the want of complete ness every stage of the world, and of the imperfection of its condition at all times. All evil the world, including moral evil or wickedness, has its final source therefore, according to Rothe as well as Weisse, in the never wholly vanquished antagonism which the distinct life of matter presents to the will of God. And this true not only of the present epoch of the world, but of all future ones for every new period of creation will again have to contend with the dross of matter inherited from the one before Hence Rothe, like Origen,
? ? ? it.
;
in
is it
is
is
in
is it
(
it,
? Ch. III. ] SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. I 5 I
maintains that the end of the world is always followed by a new period of creation.
Rothe's conception of the ethical vocation of mankind is
closely connected with these cosmological speculations.
as the spiritualisation of material elements is the purpose of the perpetual creative work of God, so the ethical vocation of the personal creature is the appropriation of material nature by means of his self-determination determining nature. Man is by self-determination to become a personal character, but at the same time by cultivating nature he is to become lord of the world. Hence if God's purpose with the world is identical with the progressive civilisation of historical humanity, the normal ethical action of the latter must be identical with religion, for it is action performed in fellowship with God, who influences and directs man's growing personality, and for the purpose of God, whose will is to occupy the world as personality. From this Rothe infers that morality and piety in their normal development are co-extensive, and that a piety without morality would be an abstract, phantom piety. In particular, " Christian piety is absolutely identical with pure and complete morality," and hence its community, the Church, is identical with the ethical community, the State. At present, it is true, as the moral has not reached its true normal condition, and the ethical community has not yet fully developed into a universal organism of states, this is only an ideal to be aimed at, and not immediately realisable ; but even now it must be the final end determining our moral and religious develop ment.
These fundamental principles of his theological speculation Rothe consistently followed out in relation to practical church politics. He opposed every form of ecclesiasticism that lacks
moral stamina, that pietistically shuns the world or is hier archically hostile to and insisted on practical Christianity with fine breadth of mind he recognised all that true and good in modern culture, in art and science, in the intercourse of nations, and in cultivated society Christianity and true humanity ought not only to form a close alliance, but Chris tianity ought to become absolutely moral and human, and humanity absolutely religious and Christian. Undoubtedly noble principles, which any case retain their truth, even we object to the formula of the " absolute equivalence and coincidence of religion and morality, Church and State," on
Just
? ? ? in
if ;
;
is
it,
? 152 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
account of the psychological and social difference of the two
spheres, and though we regard Rothe's eschatological forecast of the future as a transcendental fiction.
For in spite of the rationality of Rothe's view of the moral vocation of mankind, he still distinctly accepts the super- naturalism of the Biblical and ecclesiastical doctrines. Though regarding sin as an unavoidable passage in the course of the moral development of personality out of nature, he still believes that pre-Christian humanity fell a prey to an abnormal develop ment, to sinful depravity, from which it could only be delivered and restored to its normal moral condition by a miraculous act on the part of God, resuming the interrupted creation and beginning it afresh, viz. , by the sending of the supernatural person of the second Adam in Jesus of Nazareth. This second Adam, Rothe held, had necessarily to come into the world in a purely supernatural way, springing indeed from natural humanity, yet not called into being by its own develop ment and in the ordinary way, but by a creative act of God
upon which was absolutely miraculous the Saviour had to be born of a woman, though not begotten by a man, but created by God. Only thus, Rothe thought, could he be the second Adam and begin the normal moral development of mankind. He was not indeed from the first actually a divine person, but became such the course of his life consequence of his supernatural birth. For from the first moment of his personal life God entered into a relation of real union with him, in order by means of his moral development to dwell in him in ever closer approximation to absolute unity. The
course of his life was therefore a continual process of Man
becoming God and God becoming Man. This was completed the resurrection and the elevation of Christ to the divine sovereignty of the world, which he at present exercises his
spiritual presence Christendom, until on his visible return to earth he will establish the perfect kingdom of God. Together with Christ will appear the saints, clothed then with spiritual body, the bodies of the pious upon the earth will be made spiritual, while the ungodly will be given up to
judgment, i. e. , to total destruction. Finally, the terrestrial world will also be spiritualised and placed communication with the heavenly spheres. Thus the kingdom of earth be comes the kingdom of heaven.
We shall not here inquire how far these doctrines are con
? ? ? in
a
it,
in
by
in
in
in
;
? Ch. III. ] SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 1 53
sistent with the speculative premises of the system. It is certain that Rothe's heart and imagination clung as firmly to this miraculous world of faith as his energetic ethical mind insisted on moral action and the reconciliation of Christianity with the culture of our time. We may say there dwelt two souls within his breast ; yet the two were united in him so as to form a complete harmonious personality, and it was just this which enabled him to generously tolerate and acknow ledge the very various tendencies of the Christianity of to day. " To the pure all things are pure," and Rothe was one of the purest.
? s
? ? ? CHAPTER IV.
ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS.
Under this head I include a series of theologians, belonging to the most recent past and the present, who in spite of the difference of their results possess the common characteristic of trying to reconcile the faith of the Church with their own thought and that of their contemporaries, without making their faith dependent upon the hypotheses and formulae of a definite philosophical system. At this point I wish expressly to pre mise that I do not in any way use the adjective " eclectic " in a derogatory sense. In philosophy, it is true, the word has usually such a sense, because from a philosopher we are wont to demand a harmonious system based on a definite funda mental principle, and giving a scientific account of the world, and hence we regard the eclectic method of philosophising, which tries to combine thoughts derived from various quarters, as defective. Even in the case of philosophy, however, we might object, that precisely the most important and fruitful contributions to it have derived the most varied elements from previous philosophers, and have never been more than partially successful in thoroughly combining them ; so that even in philosophy our unfavourable judgment ought not to condemn the eclectic method as such, but only unsatisfactory attempts to reconcile contrary modes of thought. Much more will this hold in the case of theology, which is not intended to construct systematic scientific explanations of the world, but to exhibit the belief of a particular Church for the practical purposes of its ministers at a particular time. If we consider that the theology of the Church is the product of its history
? during eighteen
centuries, enriched with contributions from
the most various minds, we must admit at all events that here,
in a much greater degree than in philosophy, systematic unity
can never be more than an approximately attainable ideal. If we further consider that the needs of the Church of to-day, for which the theologian must work, are of the most various
? ? ? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 1 55
kinds, and that their variety grows with the Church's wealth
in individual religious life, we shall come to the conclusion,
that a theology sacrificing this diversity of religious interests and forces in an attempt to work out in systematic form a definite and limited principle, fulfils its task worse than a
In proportion as a theology is dependent upon one particular philosophical system, it is certain to be wrecked upon the limitations of the latter, for its influence is confined to the narrow circle of the adherents of the system, and to the short period it is in vogue. The more, on the other hand, the theo
logian succeeds in giving expression to the religious and ethical ideal existing in the mind of the Church with a breadth of view and a freedom of treatment which recognises fully the (relative) justice of the claims of the various existing modes of thought and belief, the greater will be his success in pre
to extended circles the means of a common religious understanding, a symbol therefore of the community of faith, which always exists in spite of all differences. It however, evident that the theological works which aim at eclectically reconciling the old and the new, according to the needs of the Churches of to-day, must not be measured by the standard of
strict theological science. These theologians are right in so far as they succeed in finding for the faith of the fathers an
expression intelligible and acceptable to the present genera tion where they are wrong when any of them confounds the conditional truth of his dogmatic statements with an uncon ditional and universal truth, and in his dogmatic arrogance disputes the equal justification of other presentations of it. shall therefore, think, be justified in confining myself to an objective review of the characteristic opinions of the individual theologians of this class, without attempting a critical estimate of them. also purposely refrain from arranging them ac cording to their dogmatic schools the only difference of general nature among these mediating eclectics that with some of them conservative fear of breaking with ecclesias tical tradition predominant, and with others a free recasting
and development of this tradition. But this an altogether
an eclectic attitude towards the various
theology maintaining
philosophical systems, and contenting itself with rendering the Church's belief intelligible and useful to the general edu cated thought of the day. This is confirmed by experience.
? senting
indefinite distinction for even the conservative
reproduction
? ? ;
is a
I
is
is
is,
:
I
aI
;
is
? 156 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
of ecclesiastical dogma necessitates in some measure a recast ing of its original meaning, and even the liberal development of it is not intended to break the continuity of the historic growth of the Church's creed, and involves therefore to some extent an " accommodation " to tradition. I shall begin with
those mediating theologians who have the greatest affinity with the speculative theologians already discussed, while
differing from them in that their speculative thinking is not so much an end in itself as the form in which the given ecclesiastical dogmas can be best exhibited with such modifi cations as the times demand.
The most important of these theologians, and the type of the whole school, was indisputably Isaac August Dorner, who possessed a deeply reflective Swabian nature, profound religious earnestness, and a vivid sense of the need of sounding by thought the depths of the truths of Christianity dear to his heart. His youth was passed during the time of the great disturbance in the Church created by Strauss's Leben Jesu. While he was repelled by the negative result of this criticism, his love of truth and fairness was equally opposed to the tumultuous mode in which its opponents replied to with their superficial apologies, or even appeals to ecclesiastical and political force. His view was that the business of scientific theology to bring the Christological problem, propounded
Strauss, nearer to a solution. From the historical re
searches undertaken for this end came his great contribution
to the history of Christology, Entwicklungsgeschichte der
Lehre von der Person Christi (1856), a work in which the
author's profound learning, objectivity of judgment, and fine appreciation of the moving ideas of history were shown, as was universally acknowledged. This book was followed later by another important historical work, his Geschichte der pro- testantischen Theologie (1867). Like Alexander Schweizer, Dorner developed and elaborated his own convictions by his diligent and loving study of the history of the Church's thought and belief. He gave these convictions permanent form in his two principal treatises, Christliche Glaubenslehre, and Christliche Sittenlehre, the former of which
? by
appeared shortly before his death 879-8 1), while the latter was post
humously edited by his son (1886).
Dorner's Glaubenslehre a work extremely rich in thought
and matter. takes the reader through mass of historical
? ? It
a
(1 is
is
it,
? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 1 57
material by the examination and discussion of the various opinions of ancient and modern teachers, and so leads up to the author's own view, which is mostly one intermediate be tween the opposite extremes, and appears as a more or less successful synthesis of antagonistic theses. Of his method,
Dorner speaks as follows: "The method of Christian dogmatic
theology must be not simply productive, but rather reproduc tive ; still it must not be merely empirical and reflective, but also constructive and progressive. When the enlightened Christian mind is in harmony by its faith and experience with objective Christianity, which faith knows to be its own origin, and which is also attested by the Scriptures and the scriptural faith of the Church, then such a mind has to justify and develop its religious knowledge in a systematic form. " This is practically the same principle as that adopted by Alexander Schweizer ; and the considerable difference in the results of the two men only proves that this method, while a very valuable one, allows great latitude of individual opinion as to what constitutes objective Christianity, and from the nature of the case must always do so. The arrangement of
Dorner's book is singular. After a lengthy introduction, a
kind of religious phenomenology, leading successively through the different points of view of doubt and of hesitation to that of Christian faith, there follows, in the first part, the discus sion of the general fundamental Christian doctrines -- God, his nature and relation to the world ; man, his nature and original condition ; and finally, religion, as the unity of God and man, resting on divine revelation, realised in the his torical religions, and perfected in the historical appearance of the God-man Christ. Then comes, in the second and special part, the doctrine of sin, its nature and origin, and its con nection with the devil and death, and of Christian salvation, based on Christ's person and work on earth and in heaven, realised in the Church or the kingdom of the Holy Spirit, and to be consummated in the eternity beyond. It is character istic of Dorner that he treats the doctrine of Christ as the God-man among the general fundamental doctrines, placing it before the special doctrines concerning the historical Christ and his work of salvation. The incarnation of God (Gott-
? he regards as a speculative idea of the nature of an a priori truth, following from the nature of God and man, which would necessarily have been realised in history, if there
menschheit)
? ? ? 158
DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
had been no abnormal development of mankind in sin, which was not therefore the condition of the appearance of Christ the God-man, but only of his historical mission of salvation.
This arrangement has, however, the disadvantage of breaking up the doctrine of man, the accounts of his original state and of his sin being separated by the description of the historical
development of religion and revelation until the appearance of the God-man.
The doctrine of God is treated by Dorner with special
thoroughness, and contains valuable thoughts. He rejects the idea of the complete cognisability, as well as of the abso
lute incognisability of God ; our knowledge of God is always incomplete, growing, and relative, but is not therefore untrue. Again, the scientific examination of our belief in God is neither impossible nor unnecessary ; what is indeed primarily an immediate religious certainty, can and ought to be raised to a conviction with a scientific justification. This falls to be done in the section treating of the so-called proofs of the existence of God, though these must be so presented as to contain at the same time the doctrine of the divine nature and attributes. At each stage of the line of proof the idea of God is enriched with some new element, from the metaphysical at tributes of infinitude, omnipresence, and eternity, to the wisdom involving moral purposes, while each successive aspect thus gained of our conception of God is also shown to be the determining principle of some particular religion --the pro cesses of dialectic and history being thus made to run parallel, evidently owing to Hegelian influences. Of the details we must notice Dorner's view of the eternity of God, which he says must not be so conceived as to imply that for God time does not exist, making history a mere semblance without truth ; but the unchangeableness of God's nature does not exclude a changed relation to changes in time, a variation of his knowledge in the course of time ; the immutability
? of God must not be understood in so abstract a sense as to negative his life. Of the spiritual attributes of God justice is placed first, and defined as
God's maintenance of his honour, which, as the absolute standard of all value, is the source of right in the world ; God's justice consists in the ethically good as the absolutely valuable, and secures for it its absolute and unique rights. Absolute intelligence, or omniscience and wisdom, is repre
(Sichselbstgleichkeit)
? ? ? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 1 59
sented as derived from ethical perfection, to indicate that, like everything else, intelligence in the last resort is only a subordinate instrument of moral goodness. The question as to the compatibility of God's self- maintenance, as absolute intelligence and personality, with his self-impartation and immanence in the world, leads to the doctrine of the divine Trinity, which is precisely the Christian synthesis of this antithesis of transcendence and immanence, or of God's just self-maintenance and his loving self-impartation to the world. The essence of every religion is expressed in its conception of God, and thus Christianity by its doctrine of the Trinity has secured itself against both the abstract monotheism of Judaism and the polytheism and pantheism of heathendom. The two Unitarian heresies, Arianism and Sabellianism, were the effects of the imperfections of Jewish deism and heathen poly theism, the former denying the true communion of God and man, the latter the holy exaltation of God above the sinful world. Christian Gnosis rose above both these errors by its conception of the holy love of God, of which the doctrine of the Trinity is the exposition.
From this point of view Dor- ner constructs an ethical Trinity : the ethically Necessary, the ethically Free, and the Love uniting both, form the three aspects of the one absolute Personality ; each of these three " modes of being " participates in the personality of God, but is not itself a separate personality, for the absolute personality can only be one. In this way the ecclesiastical dogma of the Trinity is interpreted from the point of view of a speculative theism, bearing the closest resemblance to that of Weisse.
The eternal love of God creates a free world, distinct from God, to establish a communion of love with itself. Being an organism with varied elements, this world is
intended to be the copy of the triune life of God. The creation out of nothing means that the matter and form of the world are alike wholly derived from God ; but this derivation must not be conceived as having had a beginning in time. The conceptions " creation " and " preservation " must neither be confounded nor separated from each other. Preservation is the continued action of the divine creative
will, though in such a way that the secondary causality imparted to the creature itself becomes the means for its own self-reproduction, so that the created world, by reason of the
? all-pervading omnipotence,
is also the cause of itself. If we
? ? ? l6o DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
define creation and preservation teleologically, they lead to the conception of a Providence partly ruling existing things, partly creating new ones. Its final end is a kingdom of moral spirits, governed by holy love ; the freedom of the creature, not fettered by the universal plan, but, as foreknown, is made a part of that plan. Man, on the one hand belonging to nature, and on the other rising above nature as an immortal
spirit, is in the image of God. partly as his original birth right, and partly as his true destination ; he cannot therefore be a mere product of nature, but his existence presupposes a fresh creative act of God. Man, though good by his original creation, became the cause of evil by an act of freewill, of which no further explanation can be given ; the evil became the permanent corruption of human nature, and as such was by the laws of heredity transmitted from the first parents to all mankind. This inherited racial sin involves a general
? need of salvation, but is not personal guilt, and does not decide a man's definitive merit or final destiny, which depends upon his personal decision. The restoration of the image of God, marred by sin in the human race, was only possible by the incarnation of God in the Son.
But this incarnation, as the completion of the revelation of God, was also necessary in itself independently of sin, since mankind was from the first created to arrive at perfection by communion with God. Hence Dorner had previously con nected with the doctrine of man's nature, as created in the image of God, the doctrine of the unity of God and man in religion. God being love, imparts himself to man, and man is spiritually able to receive the communication ; the reality of this impartation and reception affirmed as a unity is religion.
Religion is primarily realised not in one of the spiritual faculties, but in the man as a whole, or in the heart ; as Dorner
very characteristically seeks to prove, not by psychological considerations, but from the fact that God as personality is an indivisible spiritual whole. To God's manifestation of himself in his sovereign power and his will, there corresponds on man's side a primary consciousness of absolute dependence upon God and devotion to him, by reason of which man is filled with divine life in knowledge, freedom, and blessedness. Since religion is not simply a subjective action, but pre supposes an approach of God to man, it implicitly contains the idea of revelation. Revelation is a creative act of God
? ? ? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. l6l
upon the human heart, and its distinctive marks are originality or novelty, constancy and universality, positiveness and
gradual growth. The ideas "supernatural" and "natural," "immediate" and "mediate" in relation to revelation must not be thought of as exclusive and contradictory, but, as from Schleiermacher's point of view, as the two aspects of
every revelation. As regards its form, revelation is partly the outward manifestation of the divine power as interfering in the system of nature (miracles), partly its inward working upon the human spirit (inspiration). The possibility of miracles must be conceded for the sake of the freedom of God in relation to the world, and in virtue of the breadth and elasticity of natural law ; their necessity follows from their importance in authenticating revelation. Very characteristic of Dorner's mode of thought, which is emotional and poetical rather than strictly intellectual, is the sentence, " Every uncorrupted soul rejoices in the miraculous. It is the part of prose to hate the miraculous, of poetry to love it ; of true poetry, of course, which does not create vain phantoms of the imagination, but loves to contemplate the realised ideal, the higher, more perfect, and therefore poetical stage of spiritual freedom, when it is in harmony with nature :"--a sentence which reminds us of the utterances of Romanticism, e. g. , the " magical idealism " of Novalis. Inspiration is the spiritual miracle performed on the spirit as a whole, increasing its strength and purity, or, more particularly, it is enthusiasm (Begeisterung) and enlightenment with regard to truth, for the purpose of establishing permanent religious fellowship. The primary seat of inspiration must not be sought in books, but in men, and must not be separated from the general history of revelation. But though no specific difference can be proved between men endowed with the spirit and inspired men ; still of the latter it is a distinctive and indeed unique characteristic, by virtue of their being vehicles of revelation, that without being personally absolutely incapable of error, they are yet preserved from it in their teaching and preaching, and
? truth, even in historical details, as the word of God. Thus after approaching a freer rational view, Dorner returns to the old ecclesiastical doctrine of the absolute
proclaim only unerring
and infallibility of the Bible, a concession to eccle siastical dogma which was fatal to his position with regard to scientific Biblical criticism.
inspiration
G. T. M
? ? ? l62 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
Revelation, and therefore religion too, reaches in" the first instance perfection in a single being, who, as the absolute God-man," is the Revealer pure and simple ; but as the
man after the image of God, is the instrument of securing the perfection of the world, The necessity of the incarnation does not depend merely upon sinful humanity's need of redemption, but is demanded apart from it by the vocation of mankind to reach full communion with God, and to form a united organism under a central head ; for such a universal head, in whom all the limitations of human individuality are done away, can only be a man in whom God's communication of himself to mankind is absolutely and universally realised, or in whom God as Logos has become man. Indeed, the God-man, as the absolute pneumatic personality of universal spiritual power, is not merely the head of men, but also of angels, his kingdom includes all ranks of spirits, and perfects their conscious unity. Finally, Christianity claims to be the absolute religion, which necessitates an absolute God-man as the
centre of this religion. That this intrinsically necessary incarnation actually took place in Jesus of Nazareth is historically proved by his holy personality, his witness to himself, and his work, as well as by the changes still being wrought in mankind by his influence. The question as to the manner in which God's incarnation in Jesus must be conceived as taking place, is the business of theological speculation to answer. On the basis of the historical development of Christology, Dorner constructs a theory of his own, of which the following is an outline. The subject of the incarnation is " God as Logos," i. e. , not a personal Logos hypostatically distinct from God the Father, but God himself in his loving will to reveal and communicate himself to mankind. That
the Logos " became flesh " must not be understood to mean that he assumed human flesh as a garment, or even changed himself into a man, for he would then only have acted the part of a man, without having become a man ; it rather means that God, as Logos, bestowed not merely his own power, but his absolute self, upon the human person of Jesus, from the moment of his birth in ever-growing measure, while the personality of Jesus received this impartation of the divine life with increasing power and receptivity in the course of his free personal life, becoming ever more completely
perfect
? permanent
? ? ? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 1 63
possessed and filled by God, till his human being became at last absolutely and indissolubly one with the divine mode of being of the Logos. The conscience and the Christian witness of the Spirit -- that of course, the moral and religious consciousness its Christian ideality -- mentioned as having analogy to this union of human knowledge and will with the divine whence we might infer that the person of Christ must be conceived as the first and archetypal manifestation of the Christian ideal of piety and morality. But this inference, however natural, would not quite represent Dorner's view, according to which Christ not a mere individual like others, but differs from all empirical individuals in representing the general idea of the human race, freed not only from sin, but also from the limitations and incomplete ness of other individuals in a word, he "the central in dividual," ordained to be the centre, not only of humanity, but also of the whole realm of spirits, being in consequence the eternal celestial sovereign, and the personal judge of the world at his second coming to consummate the kingdom of God. The motives of this Christology of Dorner are plain he wishes to do fuller justice than done by the ecclesiastical doctrine to the human and ethical side of the person of Christ, and at the same time retain as much as possible of its transcendental metaphysics whether he has satisfactorily accomplished this, particular whether a central individual coincident with the idea of the race conceivable actual history, a question will in this place only suggest. The same holds good of Dorner's treatment of the doctrine of the work of Christ, in which he follows the ecclesiastical tradition still more closely than in his doctrine of Christ's person, not only formally in the doctrine of three offices, but materially, especially on the central point -- the atonement by vicarious satisfaction. Dorner teaches that when Christ put himself the place of mankind, order, his own feeling of pain, to bear the divine displeasure against the guilt of
the race, he made himself an offering for us to the punitive justice of God, and thereby became for the world the perfect surety, for whose sake God can grant, not only freedom from punishment, but even blessedness. --That Christ's three offices are perpetuated the corresponding offices of the
w
? Church, a valuable remark of Dorner's, which naturally have suggested a retrospective modification of his
might
? ? is
in
is
in
;
in
is,
in
in
is
is
in : I
is
in
(~
;
is
;
is
? 164 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
doctrine of Christ's work. -- Finally, we must mention that in
his doctrine of justification, Dorner defended the strictly
Lutheran theory against Hengstenberg's more rationalistic form of it. We can, however, trace a certain hesitation on Dorner's part with regard to the decisive question, whether the ground of justification is the objective merit of Christ to which the believer's relation is simply receptive, or not rather subjective faith itself, as the frame of mind pleasing to God, and, therefore, in principle, the beginning of a new life. Dorner's concern as a churchman for the objectivity of the work of redemption, inclines him to the former view; his
personal concern for the ethical conception of the Christian life of faith to the latter.
On the latter point characteristic words of Dorner's are found in his correspondence with Martensen : " The ethical idea is now all-important. . . . More and more I see Schleiermacher's peculiar greatness, and his unique position among modern princes of science, in virtue of his thorough blending of ethics and dogmatics. This will be a mine of wealth for the times which are now at hand. " What Dorner commends in Schleiermacher characterises also the fundamental principle of his own theology ; he tried to blend dogmatics and ethics, and renovate theology and the Church by the ethical idea of personal freedom in God. In this he is in
complete accord with Rothe. The excellence of this object, and the purity and fervour of his devotion to will keep Dorner's memory in honour, however we may judge of the success of his attempts at dogmatic mediation and the tenability
of his particular doctrinal views.
The Danish theologian Martensen, with whom Dorner was
connected in a long and close friendship, represented a similar
? but differed from Dorner in his way of treating theological doctrines. Dorner had arrived at his results by the process of dialectical reflection upon the
various forms of doctrine of ancient and modern theologians but Martensen the historical method put quite into the background in favour of independent speculation, which indeed
everywhere presupposes the ecclesiastical dogmas, specially those of Lutheranism, but tries to skilfully combine them with the ideas of Bohme's and Baader's theosophy. The problem of dogmatic theology Martensen holds to be the synthesis of the Christian consciousness of redemption and revelation, or
mediating speculative position,
? ? in
is
;
it,
? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 165
the reproduction of revealed divine wisdom in our conception of the Christian idea of truth, which ought to comprehend the subjective and the objective, the human and the divine side of Christianity. This idea dogmatic theology has to grasp and develop, showing not only the coherence of its given matter, but also its possibility and basis, and logically recon ciling the antitheses in the unity of the idea. This method was suggestively pursued by Martensen himself, though we cannot deny that his efforts at reconciliation often suffer much from obscurity of conception, owing to the want of a rational intro ductory criticism. We often get the impression of brilliant speculative fireworks, throwing a peculiar light on the Church's dogmas, without making obscure questions really plainer. With the antitheses of nature and spirit, ethical and cosmical, personal and impersonal, he presents a dialectical exhibition which rather confuses than instructs the sober understanding. A few of the chief examples will serve to characterise this method.
On the one hand, the fact is specially emphasised that Christi
anity is an ethical, historical religion, belonging to the world
of spirit, language, conscience, freedom, and personality. Christianity is essentially Christ himself. But on the other hand, Christ must not be conceived as essentially an ethical (or, to use our author's usual term, moral) and historical being simply, not as simply the new Adam, but as the centre of the whole world, of all spirits, and of nature. Schleiermacher's error lay in overlooking Christ's trinitarian pre-existence and his cosmical position. The Logos true, primarily, Martensen as Philo, simply the ideal world of the divine consciousness but he maintains that the superiority of Christi anity lies its making this idea as thought into thinking principle side by side with God, into the second hypostatical ego of the Son just as the will, which raises the necessary content of thought to the freedom of love, must be conceived as a third ego, the hypostasis of the Spirit. Thus the Trinity
constructed by the discrimination of different elements in the divine life, and the transformation of them in the process into independent persons. Dorner had proceeded more
cautiously.
In his doctrine of the creation, Martensen well remarks that
we must combine the heathen point of view of cosmogony, or the world's evolution of itself, with the Jewish view of its free
? ? ? is
in
;
; in
a
is, it is
in
? l66 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
creation ; the world is both nature and creature ; regarded as the former, it is eternal and necessary ; as the latter, it had a beginning in time, and was the product of freedom, so that in its further development also it is exposed to the free inter ference of divine miraculous power. How this conception of the supernatural side of creation can be combined in thought with the idea of nature, or the self-evolution of the world, Martensen did not succeed in explaining.
Very characteristic is Martensen's doctrine as to angels and devils. They must not be conceived merely and primarily as personal, but as ideas and powers in the life of nature and of peoples, intermediate between imagined personifications and real personal beings, but sometimes becoming real persons, ministering spirits in the kingdom of God. In particular, the devil is really the universal principle of cosmical self-existence in its antagonism to God ; being a principle, he has not a self-existing personality, but has only a nascent personality, which "as such is intermediate between existence and non existence, personality and personification, actuality and possi bility, ' being ' and ' signification. ' " The principle only reaches personality in individual creatures, though not merely in human, but also in superhuman spirits ; among the latter is one in whom the principle of evil is so hypostatised as to make him its central revelation, and therefore the personal centre and head of the kingdom of evil -- the personal devil or Antichrist of the Bible. He may be regarded as the younger brother of the Son of God, Christ, and his personal rival throughout the history of revelation. In the snake of the Garden of Eden he was still as it were in swaddling clothes ; then his strength grew more and more, until simultaneously with the revelation of the Logos in Christ, he gained possession of the sovereignty of this world. Although already conquered by Christ, he will continue to exercise his power and craft until the last decisive struggle with the returning King of heaven. Thus our Gnostic theologian regards the personifications, by means of which the poetical imagination vividly realised the warring forces of the world's history, as objective realities, though he cannot quite forget their origin in the creative power of the imagina tion ; the " hovering " of these strange figures between personification and personality is the mark of this theology, with its oscillation between poetical imagery and really definite thought.
? ? ? ? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 1 67
The temptation of the first parents in Paradise he explains psychologically, by the antagonistic fundamental impulses of human nature, and also metaphysically, by the contrary super human powers -- God and the cosmical principle. The Mosaic account of the Fall we must regard as "a combination of history and sacred symbolism, a figurative description of an actual fact," that not merely as the symbol of a general, ever- recurring event, but as an historical fact from the earliest times though, again, not as this fact itself, as actually occurred, but only as an emblem or symbol of This justi fies the free allegorising of all the individual features of the narrative, while still preserving its character as traditional history in opposition to the mythological interpretation in
current criticism. How these two conceptions are to be united however not made clear.
In his Christology, Martensen vigorously demands the
reality of the incarnation of God and the union of the two natures in the God-man, as against all mythical and mystical rationalism and idealism. But in order to secure the unity and gradual development of the person of Christ, Martensen revises the ecclesiastical doctrine, partly by postulating Liebner) an act of self-renunciation (kenosis) on the part of the Logos, whereby his divine attributes were reduced to the measure of the human, and partly by maintaining (with Dorner) a gradual growth of the germ of divine life planted in the human child from the unconscious possibility to the conscious reality of an ego at once human and divine. This certainly avoids the stumbling-block of the ecclesiastical doc trine of the two natures, a twofold life Christ, but substitutes for a "twofold life" in the Logos, that "as the pure Logos of the Deity works throughout nature, which filled by its presence," and at the same time, as the Logos incarnate in Christ, has a humanly limited form of existence, and only gradually rises from the unconsciousness of the potential ego to the consciousness of itself. not clear how this life that
humanly developing and that life eternally existing are com bined in the unity of the same personal Logos but the pur pose of this artificial reasoning to show that we must recognise in Christ not merely an ideal man, but the " centre of the universe," the cosmical mediator of the consummation of the whole kingdom of nature and of spirits, which of
importance to our author on account of his doctrine of the
S
? (with
? ? is
is
It is
;
it.
it
is
is
it
is
it
in in
;
is,
? 1 68 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Bk. II.
sacraments and his eschatology. He further teaches that Christ's birth was both truly human and also a true super human miracle ; that his life as man cannot be conceived with out a national colouring, but that he was without the natural limitation attaching to every nationality ; that, since he was subject to human temptation, we must assume the possibility of his sinning, though, on account of the divine source of his life, this possibility could never become actual, and was therefore in fact equivalent to the impossibility of his sinning. The work of reconciliation belonging to Christ's high priestly office must be interpreted not merely as a reconciliation of man to God, but as a reconciliation of God himself. Recon ciliation may be defined as the removal of an antithesis in the process of God's revelation of himself, viz. . the antithesis between his love and his justice. " Although these attri butes are essentially one, there is on account of sin a certain
? between them in the divine nature. For, in spite of God's eternal love of the world, his actual relation to it is not one of love, but only one of holiness and justice, an antithetical relation, since the unity it involves is hindered and kept down. " This contradiction can be removed only by the vicarious satisfaction of the Son of God. The necessity of such an objective vicarious expiation true, again rendered problematical by the subsequent discussion, according to which the subjective consciousness of reconciliation the effect of the new birth, and of faith, which Martensen
as the germinal beginning of the new man. Accordingly, the actual reconciliation appears as a psychological process consciousness, consequence of the ethical change in the human mind so that, after all, the necessity for a reconcilia tion once for all by Christ's satisfaction not made clear.
The same hesitation between an ethical and non-ethical
point of view recurs finally in a specially surprising form Martensen's teaching on the Sacraments. Baptism primarily the pledge of divine grace in view of future faith but more than this also, in truth, the beginning of the Christian life, since " involves, not indeed personal, but substantial and essential regeneration. " an objective mystery, which creative grace establishes a new relation being between God"and man, " incorporating " the latter's unconscious nature into Christ, not psychologically merely, but organically, not figuratively only, but essentially. " Since
disagreement
regards
? ? in
It is
is, it is
it is
: in it
; is
it
of isin in
is
is
;
? Ch. IV. ] ECLECTIC MEDIATING THEOLOGIANS. 1 69
in the case of a child this cannot, of course, be done by ethical means, a physical influence is the only remaining method, and accordingly Martensen does not hesitate to speak of "a holy nature-mystery. " How this mystery is to be con ceived without having recourse to magic is not explained.
In the same way, Martensen sees in the Lord's Supper " the inseparable union of a holy spirit-mystery, and a holy nature-
mystery," since not only Christ's spirituality, but also his corporality is offered as food, not only for the soul, but for the whole new man, accordingly for that future man of the resurrection also, who is already germinating in secret, and this food is received by all, including the unbelieving. To the old objection of the Zwinglian school, that we cannot think of Christ's body as omnipresent, he returns the not very luminous answer, that we must conceive of heaven as where the glorified Christ is ; not as a material place, a " where " according to the ideas of our present sense-perception, but still as "a more definite ' where,' " where cosmic life is com pletely filled by God.
We see that Martensen's method of speculation never belies its character ; it dazzles by its brilliant antitheses and bold syntheses, but generally leaves us wholly uncertain as to how we are actually to combine the contradictory sides in thought ; dogmatic thought and imaginative contemplation combine to form a Romantic twilight, from which the critical understanding departs unsatisfied.
Of much greater value than his Dogmatik, is Martensen's
? Ethik, in two volumes, in which the versatile
wide knowledge of life and the world is shown in an attractive form. The general lines of this book are best characterised in Martensen's own words in a letter to Dorner : " The onesided views against which we have to contend are those of onesided ecclesiasticism, and onesided individualism.
Both negative the great problem of the modern age--the living union of Christianity and humanism. For a nomistic ecclesiasticism which suppresses all intellectual, and especially all scientific freedom, and an individualism which tries to isolate Christianity, and separate it from the varied spheres of human life, are alike un-Christian and inhuman. The
will continue to be the presentation in life and doctrine of this union and combination of Christianity and genuine and free humanity. "
problem
theologian's
? s
? ? I70 DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Blc II.
From Martensen, we pass to the theologian most nearly resembling him in spirit, Johann Peter Lange, a man of rich
imagination
renovate ecclesiastical
gestive thoughts,
and varied culture, who tried to defend and
dogma by theosophical speculation. His Dogmatik (1849-51) contains many fruitful and sug
which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies, and suffer so much
from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect. He affirms the true principle that theology must start from a knowledge of man's nature. But his procedure consists rather in an ingenious playing with analogies than in logical inference from ascertained facts. In the pneumatic, or regenerate man, he finds a threefold consciousness, and therein a copy of the Trinity, the Persons of which are to be conceived as threefold forms or centres of consciousness ; each form of consciousness is the whole con sciousness of the divine nature, yet each is fundamentally different from the others ; regarded ideally, it is another person, but regarded really another form of personality. Since religion is deducible from our conceptions of God and man as their real interaction for the purpose of their union, the incarnation is an eternal truth which influenced the whole history of mankind, being as it were gradually realised, until it found its absolute reality in the individual God-man Jesus. Hence, in order rightly to understand the religious importance of this person, we must consider his historical life altogether in the light of the absolute idea.