and the historic form of them in particular. When Boyle(650) at the end of
the seventeenth century, and Bampton and Hulse in the latter half of the
eighteenth, established their respective lectures, they looked forward to
the probability of the occurrence of new forms of doubt, and to the
importance of reasoning as the weapon for meeting them. In more recent
times evidences have been undervalued, through the two opposite tendencies
of the present age, the churchly and corporate tendency on the one hand,
which rests on church authority, and the individualising tendency on the
other, which rests on intuitive consciousness.(651) Evidences essentially
belong to a theory, which places the test of truth objectively in a
revealed book, and subjectively in the reason, as the organ for
discovering morality and interpreting the book.(652) While evidences in
general have been undervalued for these reasons, the historic branch of
them has been regarded as obsolete, because having reference only to an
age which doubts the documents and charges the authors with being
deceivers or deceived, and unavailing, like an old fortification, against
a new mode of assault. This latter statement is in substance correct. It
lessens the value of this argument as a practical weapon against the
doubts which now assail us, but does not detract from the literary value
of the works in the special branch to which they apply. If the progress of
knowledge be the exciting cause of free thought, a similar alteration in
the evidences would be expected to occur from causes similar to those
which produce an alteration in the attack, independently of the change
which occurs from the necessity of adjusting the one to the other.
Abstract questions like this concerning the value of evidences find their
solution independently of the human will. The human mind cannot be
chained. New knowledge will suggest new doubts; and if so, spirit must be
combated by spirit. Defences of Christianity, attempts to readjust it to
new discoveries, must therefore continue to the end of time. In reference
to the minor question of the value of the historic evidences, it is
important to remember that these grand works are not simply refutative;
they are indirectly instructive and didactic. Just as miracles are a part
of Christianity, as well as evidences for its truth, so apologetic is a
lesson in Christianity, as well as a reply to doubt.(653) It happens also
that the most modern doubt of Germany has assumed the historic line, has
become critical instead of philosophical; and, though the criticism is
primarily of a different kind, it ultimately becomes capable of refutation
by the very line of argument used in the eighteenth century.(654) We
cherish therefore with devout reverence the memory of those writers who
employed the power of the pen to defend the religion that they loved. They
joined their intellectual labours to the spiritual earnestness which was
the other weapon for opposing unbelief. Providence blessed their work.
They sowed the seed of the intellectual and spiritual harvest which this
century is reaping. “And herein is that saying true, One soweth and
another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour:
other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. And he that
reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both
he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.”(655)
LECTURE VI. FREE THOUGHT IN THE THEOLOGY OF GERMANY FROM 1750-1835.
PHIL. iv. 8.
_Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there
be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things._
We are about to study the history of the movement in German theology,
which is usually described by the vague name of Rationalism,(656)—a
movement which, whether viewed specially in its relation to theology, or
to literature generally, must be regarded as one of the most memorable
efforts of human thought. It was one aspect of the great outburst of
mental activity in Germany, which within the last hundred years has
created a literature, which not only vies with the most renowned of those
which have added to the stock of human knowledge, but holds a foremost
rank among those which are characterised by originality and depth. The
permanent contribution made by it to the thought of the world is the
creation of a science of criticism,—a method of analysis, in which
philosophy and history are jointly employed in the investigation of every
branch of knowledge. If however it be viewed apart from the question of
utility, the works produced during this period, in poetry, speculation,
criticism, and theology, must ever make it memorable for monuments of
mental power, even when they shall have become obsolete as sources of
information.
The theological aspect of this great period of mental activity, which we
are about to sketch, has now probably so far assumed its final shape, and
given indications of the tendencies permanently created by it for good or
for evil, that it admits of being viewed as a whole, and its purpose and
meaning observed.(657)
We shall deviate slightly from the plan hitherto pursued, of selecting
only the sceptical form of free thought, and shall give an outline of
German theology generally; partly because the limits that sever orthodoxy
from heresy are a matter of dispute, partly in order that the movement may
be judged of as a whole. The size of the subject will preclude the
possibility of entering so fully into biographical notices of the writers,
or into the analysis of their writings, as in former lectures. We must
select such typical minds as will enable us to observe the chief
tendencies of thought.
As the stages of history are not arbitrarily severed, but grow out of each
other, we must briefly notice the mental conditions of the period in
Germany which preceded the rise of rationalism; next indicate the new
forces, the introduction of which was the means of generating the
movement; and then explain the movement itself in its chief phases and
present results.
We have previously had occasion to imply, that the Protestant reformation
of the sixteenth century contained both an intellectual and a spiritual
element.(658) The attempt to reconcile these has been the problem of
protestant theology in Germany ever since. The intellectual element, so
far as it was literary, soon passed into the hands of lay scholars:(659)
the spiritual became a life rather than a doctrine, and the polemic or
dogmatic aspect of the intellectual movement alone was left. The time from
the passing of the Formula of Concord and the Synod of Dort(660) to the
beginning of the eighteenth century, a period nearly corresponding with
the seventeenth century, was in Germany an age of dogmatic theology. It
was scholasticism revived, with the difference that the only source for
the data of argument was the Scripture, not philosophy. But there was an
equal absence of inquiry into first principles, an equal appeal to
authority for the grounds of belief, and equal activity within these
prescribed limits. It was marked, as among the contemporary puritans in
England, by the most extreme view of biblical inspiration.(661) Not only
was the distinction of law and gospel overlooked, and the historic and
providential development in revelation forgotten; but Scripture was
supposed to be in all respects a guide for the present, as well as a
record of the past. Infallible inspiration was attributed to the authors
of the sacred books, not merely in reference to the religious instruction
which formed the appropriate matter of the supernatural revelation, but in
reference also to the allusions to collateral subjects, such as natural
science, or politics; and not merely to the matter, but to the smallest
details of the language of the books.
Contemporary with this scholastic spirit was an outburst of the living
spiritual feeling which had formed the other element in the Reformation.
This religious movement is denominated Pietism. (27) Its centre was at
Halle; and the best known name among the band of saints, of whom the world
was not worthy, was Spener. Soon after the time when the miseries of the
thirty years’ war were closing, he established schools for orphans, and a
system of teaching and of religious living which stirred up religious life
in Germany. These two tendencies—the dogmatic and the pietistic—marked the
religious life of Germany at the opening of the eighteenth century. The
inference has been frequently drawn by the German writers, that they
ministered indirectly to the production of scepticism; the dogmatic
strictness stimulating a reaction towards latitude of opinion, and the
unchurchlike and isolating character of pietism fostering individuality of
belief. This inference is however hardly correct. Dogmatic truth in the
corporate church, and piety in the individual members, are ordinarily the
safeguard of Christian faith and life. The danger arose in this case from
the circumstance that the dogmas were emptied of life, and so became
unreal; and that the piety, being separated from theological science,
became insecure.
During the first half of the century, certain new influences were
introduced, which in the latter half caused these tendencies to develope
into rationalism. They may be classed as three;(662)—the spread of the
speculative philosophy of Wolff; the introduction of the works of the
English deists; and the influence of the colony of French infidels
established by Frederick the Great in Prussia. We shall explain these in
detail.
The philosophy of Wolff was an offshoot directly from Leibnitz, indirectly
from the Cartesian school. It is hardly necessary to reiterate the remark
that the revolution in thought wrought by Descartes was nothing less than
a protest of the human mind against any external authority for the first
principles of its belief. Two great philosophers followed out his method
in an independent manner; Spinoza, who attempted to exhibit with the
rigour of deduction the necessary development of the idea of substance
into the various modes which it assumes; and Leibnitz,(663) who, with less
attempt at formal precision of method, starting with the idea of power,
endeavoured, by means of the monadic theory, which it is unnecessary here
to explain, to exhibit the nature of the universe in itself, and the
connexion of the world of matter and of spirit. Wolff was a disciple of
Leibnitz; great as a teacher rather than an inventor, who invested the
system of his master slightly modified, with the precision of form which
raised it to rivalry with the perfect symmetry of Spinoza’s system.
Adopting his master’s two great canons of truth, the law of contradiction
as regulative of thoughts, and the law of the sufficient reason as
regulative of things,(664) he attempted in his theoretic philosophy to
work out a regular system on each of the great branches of
metaphysic,—nature, the mind, and God; by deducing them from the abstract
ideas of the human mind.(665) The true method of conducting this inquiry
would be strictly an _à posteriori_ one, an analytical examination of our
own consciousness, to ascertain what data the facts of the thinking mind
furnish with respect to things thought of. But without any such
examination Wolff, assuming in reference to these subjects the abstract
ideas of the human mind as his data, proceeded to reason from them with
the same confidence as the realists of the middle ages, or as
mathematicians when they commence with the real intuitions of magnitude on
which their science is founded. Thus his whole philosophy was form without
matter; a magnificent idea, but not a fact. Yet though really baseless, it
was not necessarily harmful.
This philosophy at first met with much opposition from the pietistic party
of Halle.(666) The opposition was not due to any theological
incorrectness, for Wolff was an orthodox Christian; but arose from the
narrow and unnecessary suspicions which religious men too often have of
philosophy, and the sensibility to any attempt to suggest a
reconsideration of the grounds of belief, even if the conclusion adopted
be the same. But the system soon became universally dominant. Its orderly
method possessed the fascination which belongs to any encyclopædic view of
human knowledge. It coincided too with the tone of the age. Really
opposed, as Cartesianism had been in France, to the scholasticism which
still reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such external
similarity to it, that it fell in with the old literary tastes. The evil
effects which it subsequently produced in reference to religion were due
only to the point of view which it ultimately induced. Like Locke’s work
on the reasonableness of Christianity, it stimulated intellectual
speculation concerning revelation. By suggesting attempts to deduce _à
priori_ the necessary character of religious truths, it turned men’s
attention more than ever away from spiritual religion to theology. The
attempt to demonstrate everything caused dogmas to be viewed apart from
their practical aspect; and men being compelled to discard the previous
method of drawing philosophy out of scripture, an independent philosophy
was created, and scripture compared with its discoveries.(667) Philosophy
no longer relied on scripture, but scripture rested on philosophy.
Dogmatic theology was made a part of metaphysical philosophy. This was the
mode in which Wolff’s philosophy ministered indirectly to the creation of
the disposition to make scriptural dogmas submit to reason, which was
denominated rationalism. The empire of it was undisputed during the whole
of the middle part of the century, until it was expelled towards the close
by the partial introduction of Locke’s philosophy,(668) and of the system
of Kant, as well as by the growth of classical erudition, and of a native
literature.
The second cause which ministered to generate rationalism was English
deism. The connexion of England with Hanover had caused several of the
works of the English deists to be translated in Germany,(669) and the
general doctrines of natural religion, expressed by Herbert and Toland,
were soon reproduced, together with the difficulties put forth by Tindal.
But the direct effect of this cause has probably been exaggerated by the
eagerness of those who, in the wish to identify German rationalism with
English deism, have ignorantly overlooked the wide differences in
premises, if not in results, which separated them, and the regular
internal law of logical development which has presided over the German
movement.
A more direct cause was found about the middle of the century in the
influence of the French refugees and others, whom Frederick the Great
invited to his court. Not only were Voltaire and Diderot visitors, but
several writers of worse fame, La Mettrie, D’Argens, Maupertuis,(670) who
possessed their faults without their mental power, were constant
residents. Their philosophy and unbelief were the miniature of that which
we have detailed in France. They created an antichristian atmosphere about
the court, and in the upper classes of Berlin; and even minds that were
attempting to create a native literature, and to improve the critical
standard of literary taste, were partially influenced by means of it.(671)
We have now seen the state of the German mind in reference to theology at
the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the three new influences
which were introduced into it in the interval between 1720 and 1760. The
dogmatic tendency became transformed by the Wolffian philosophy; the
pietistic retired from a public movement into the privacy of life; while
the minds of men were awakened to inquiry by the suggestions of the
English deists, or the restless and hopeful tone of the French mind. It
was a moment of transition; the streaks of twilight before the dawn. Yet
the signs of a change were so slight, that few could as yet discern the
coming of a crisis, none predict its form.
We may now proceed to give the history of the theological movement which
sprang up, commonly called Rationalism. It admits of natural division into
three parts. The first, a period destructive in its tendency, extending to
a little later than the end of the century, exhibits the gradual growth of
the system, and its spread over every department of theology. The second,
reconstructive in character, the re-establishment of harmony between faith
and reason, extends till the publication of Strauss’s celebrated work on
the Life of Christ in 1835; the third, containing the divergent tendencies
which have created permanent schools, reaches to the present time.(672) In
all alike the harmony of faith and reason was sought: but in the first it
was attained by sacrificing faith to reason; in the second and third, by
seeking for their unity, or by separating their spheres. A distinguished
name stands at the commencement of each period, representing the mind
whose speculations were most influential in giving form to the movements.
Semler inaugurated the destructive movement; Schleiermacher, the
constructive; and Strauss precipitated the final forms which theological
parties have assumed. In the present lecture we shall treat only of the
first two of these movements.
The first of these periods, extending; from about 1750 to 1810,(673)
contains two sub-periods. Till about 1790(674) we find the growth of
rationalism. In the last decade of the century we shall meet with its full
development; but at the same time the growth of new causes will be
perceived, which prepared the way for a total alteration after the
commencement of the present century.
The sub-period extending to 1790 is one of transition, in which we can
trace three broadly marked tendencies in religion; one within the church,
two outside of it. Such classes indeed slide away into each other; nature
is more complex than man; but the use of them may be excused as
facilitating instruction.
The movement within the church verged from a literary and dogmatic
orthodoxy, which existed chiefly at the Saxon university of Leipsic,
through the purely literary tendency, of which Michaelis may be taken as a
type in the newly formed university of Göttingen, to the freethinking
method typified by Semler, orthodox in doctrine, but in criticism adopting
free views of inspiration, which mingled itself with the old pietism of
the university of Halle.(675)
The two movements outside the church were, a literary one, indicated by
Lessing, which found its chief utterance in the periodical literature,
then in its infancy;(676) and a thoroughly deist one, connected with the
court of Berlin, embodied in the educational institutions of Basedow.(677)
The movement which we have just named as existing within the church,
differed from the older dogmatic one, in being a tendency toward an
historical and critical study of the scriptures, instead of a
philosophical study of doctrines. It embraced those whose teaching was not
at variance with Christianity, and also those who manifested incipient
scepticism. Two names, Ernesti(678) at Leipsic, and Michaelis(679) at
Göttingen, represent the first class; the former applying criticism
chiefly to the New Testament, the latter to the Old. The endeavour of
both, especially of Ernesti, was to revive the grammatical and literary
mode of interpreting scripture, as opposed to the dogmatic previously in
use. Their spirit was not sceptical, but was that of men who felt the
sceptical opinions round them; ethical and cold, like that of the
Arminians of the preceding century.
Their system developed into rationalism in the hands of two of their
pupils. Eichhorn was the pupil of Michaelis, Semler of Ernesti. The name
of Eichhorn will recur later; Semler(680) must be considered now.
Semler was one of those minds which fall short of the highest order of
originality, but by their erudition and appreciation of the wants of their
time institute a movement by giving form to the current feeling of their
day. Nurtured in pietism, he always retained signs of personal excellence;
and his Christian earnestness is said not to have been destroyed by his
speculations. His autobiography furnishes us with the means for the full
comprehension of his character, and shows him to have been keenly alive to
the difficulties which the English literature had suggested. His labours
related to criticism, to exegesis, and to doctrine. As a critic he did not
restrict himself to the examination of texts, but investigated the
canonicity of the books of Scripture.(681) It is probable that the
criticism commenced by R. Simon and Spinoza furnished hints for his views.
He was one of the first to undervalue external evidence in the formation
of the canon. The determination of the canon, i.e. of the list of books
which are to be considered scripture, is a question of fact. What did the
early church pronounce to be such; and does internal evidence bear out the
idea? Semler undervalued the historical evidence of the church’s judgment,
and replaced it, not by careful study of internal critical evidence, like
later rationalism, but by an _à priori_ subjective decision, that only
such books were to be received as conduced to a religious object. But it
is in exegesis that he enunciated the principles which have left a
permanent effect. He established what is called the historical method of
interpretation.(682)
In the course of Christian history, three great methods for the
interpretation of scripture have been used; the allegorical, the dogmatic,
and the grammatical.(683) In the early church the tendency in the main was
to the allegorical; in the middle-ages to the dogmatic; at the Renaissance
and Reformation to the grammatical, which however in the seventeenth
century was displaced by the allegorical(684) and dogmatic; and it was the
work of Ernesti to restore it. Semler added the historic; by which is
meant the method, which, after discovering the grammatical sense of the
words, rests content exactly with the meaning which the circumstances of
society could permit scripture to have at that age. It declines to search
for mystical senses, or to use dogma as a clue to interpretation. This
principle, so valuable in itself, yet, when abused, so fruitful in
producing rationalism, was the discovery of Semler.