generally known by the name of “accommodation.”(685) He felt a strong
reaction against the forgetfulness shown by the old dogmatic orthodoxy,
which had regarded the Bible as one book, instead of a collection or
historic series of books, and had confounded together the Jewish and
Christian dispensations, and taken no cognizance of the development of
religious knowledge in scripture. Accordingly he desired to remove the
deist difficulty by separating the eternal truth in scripture from what he
considered to be local(686) that the Mosaic law of divorce was an
adaptation to the particular needs of the age, seemed to establish the
validity of the principle that revelation was an accommodation to be
judged of by the historic circumstances of the age for which it was
intended. The principle had been applied by English theologians:(687) but
it needed a delicate insight to apply it safely. Semler introduced it
indiscriminately into prophecy, miracle, and doctrine; and stated his
views in a form which, though well meant, is certainly most repulsive. We
may cite an instance in the case of his view of the demoniacal possessions
of the New Testament.(688) Not denying them, Semler probably considered
them to be nothing but the diseases of epilepsy and madness. But he did
not ridicule the narrative as a deist would, nor explain the facts away as
legends or myths, as is the plan of the later schools, nor account for
them by the supposition that the apostles were left in ignorance about
physical science, and inspired only in religious knowledge; but he
regarded the narrative as an intentional accommodation on the part of the
teachers to their hearers, and consequently stated his views in a form
which is the more repulsive as seeming to impute dishonesty.(689) He went
so far as to consider some of the doctrines of the New Testament to be an
accommodation on the part of our Lord to the Jewish notions; and regarded
Christ’s work as the compromise between the Mosaic and philosophical
parties in the Jewish church, which afterwards were represented in the
Christian by St. Peter and St. Paul respectively.(690) Though he himself
held the apostles’ creed, and was shocked at some later developments of
unbelief,(691) yet he seems to have considered practical morality to be at
once the sole aim of Christianity, and the supreme rule of doctrine.(692)
He founded no school; but his influence decidedly initiated the
rationalist movement within the church; one peculiarity of which will be
found to be, that it was professedly designed in defence of the church,
not as an attack upon it.
The tendency which we have just studied was within the church. The two now
about to be named were external to it. The one, earnest and scholarlike,
formed chiefly on the model of English deism, is represented by Lessing.
The other, modelled after Rousseau, was practical rather than
intellectual, and aimed at remodelling education as well as altering
belief.
Lessing,(693) a name honoured in the history of literature, is little
known in England, save by his exquisite comparison of art and poetry,
called the Laocoon.(694) He was one of those whose labours remain for the
benefit of other ages, like that of the coral worms, which die, but leave
their work. That a native German literature exists, is the work of Lessing
as pioneer; that it is worth studying, is the result of his criticism and
influence. Finding literature just arising, and the dispute still raging
between the Saxon and Swiss schools, whether it should model itself after
reason and form like the French literature, or after nature and the soul
like the English, (28) he showed the true mode of uniting the two by
turning attention to Greek models; and, in conjunction with Nicholai and
the Jewish philosopher Mendelssohn, established a critical periodical,
which became the agency for a literary reformation. But the point of
interest, in relation to our present subject, is his influence on
religion. Availing himself of the right which his position as librarian of
Wolfenbüttel, a small town near Brunswick, gave him to publish manuscripts
found in the library, he edited, in 1774 and the four following years,
several fragments of a larger work, which he professed to have found. They
are usually called the Wolfenbüttel fragments. (29) Till recently their
authorship remained a secret. They are now known to have been written by
the learned Hamburg philosopher, Reimarus.(695) They treated very nearly
the same subjects, and in much the same tone, but with consummate skill,
as the English deists. Reimarus, as is now known, in the introduction(696)
to the larger unprinted work from which they were extracted, gave his own
intellectual history, his early doubts on the doctrines of the Trinity,
and the destruction of the heathen; and also on the history of the Old and
New Testaments; and ends, like the English deists, with resting in natural
religion.
The first two(697) fragments, published by Lessing, touched only upon the
question of tolerating deists, and on the custom of declaiming against
human reason in the pulpits. The third referred to the impossibility that
all men should be brought to believe revelation on rational evidence. The
fourth and fifth attacked the Old Testament history, such as the passage
of the Red Sea. The sixth directed an assault against the New Testament;
pointing out with unsparing severity the discrepancies in the accounts of
the resurrection. The concluding one was on the object of Christianity, in
which our blessed Lord’s life and work were represented as a defeated
political reform.
These views however were not professedly sanctioned by Lessing, for he
added notes in refutation of them, and stated his object to be merely to
stimulate free inquiry.(698) His wish was gratified in the tremendous
effect which the publication produced. In the literary controversy which
ensued, and which embittered his few remaining days,(699) he explained
himself to be a doubter rather than a disbeliever; and defended himself by
urging the distinctness of the religious element in scripture from the
scientific; asserting that, as Christianity existed before the New
Testament, so it could exist after it. The Christian religion is not true,
he said, merely because evangelists and apostles taught it; but they
taught it because it is true. And in order to restore Christianity to its
true place in the estimation of thinking men, he composed or edited a
well-known work(700) on the Education of the World,(701) which became a
fertile source of thought for the philosophy of history, and was designed
to explain the function of the Jewish religion in reference to the
Christian, and to the world. The theology of Lessing’s coadjutors however,
if not also that of Lessing himself, did not rise higher than that of the
more serious among the English deists.(702)
The other tendency, more decidedly sceptical even than that of Lessing,
gave definite form to the extreme sceptical opinions excited by French
philosophy, which had been fermenting in German society, and had earlier
expressed themselves. It is best represented by Edelmann,(703) and by the
unhappy Bahrdt, who passed gradually from Semler’s school into this. Its
religions tenets were simple naturalism, moral as distinct from positive
religion; and it was connected with the attempt by Basedow,(704)
patronised by Frederick, to establish educational institutions on the
model proposed in Rousseau’s Emile. The name which it gave to the movement
was, the Period of Enlightenment (Aufklärung-zeit),(705) which expressed
the consciousness of illumination, and the yearning for deliverance which
was finding its expression in France; and this name therefore has been
usually adopted among foreign writers to describe this period of the
history.
Such are the historical tendencies from about 1750 till about 1790—cold
but learned orthodoxy; the commencement of critical rationalism, and open
deism. About that time new influences came into operation, the effects of
which are at once evident. Without taking account of the excitement caused
by the political events of the French revolution, we may name two such new
causes of movement—the literary influence of the court of Weimar, and the
philosophy of Kant.
The centres of intellectual activity in Germany now changed. We are so apt
to forget that Germany, especially at the end of the last century, formed
a set of independent principalities, which varied in taste, in belief, and
in literary tone, that we fail to realise the individuality of the scenes
of literary activity. At the end of the last century there was one spot
which became the very focus of intellectual life. The court of Karl August
at Weimar, insignificant in political importance, was great in the history
of the human mind.(706) There were gathered there most of the mighty
spirits of the golden ago of German literature,—Herder, Wieland, Goethe,
Schiller, Jean Paul; a constellation of intellect unequalled since the
court of Ferrara in the days of Alphonso.(707) The influence made itself
felt in the adjacent university of Jena; and this little seminary became
from that time for about twenty years,(708) until the foundation of
Berlin, the first university in Germany. In it alone the philosophy of
Kant became naturalized.(709) Some of the ablest men in Germany were its
Professors; and about this time Jena and Weimar became the stronghold of
free thought.
Except in the case of Herder,(710) the literary influence was not directly
influential on theology. But it gave moral support to theological
movement; though ultimately, by introducing a truer and more subjective
appreciation of human nature, it was the means of generating the deep
insight in the critical taste of thinking men which furnished the
death-blow to rationalism. The same remark is true of the effects of the
philosophy of Kant.(711) Its ultimate result was valuable in removing the
eudæmonism common in ethics, and turning men’s attention to the moral law
within. But its immediate effects were to reinforce the appeal to reason,
and to destroy revelation by leaving nothing to be revealed.
The nature of this system, so far as is necessary for our purpose, may be
soon told. Kant, dissatisfied with the distrust in the human faculties
induced by the scepticism of Hume, and the one-sided sensationalism of
Condillac, carried a penetrating analysis into the human faculties;(712)
attempting to perform with more exactness the work of Locke, to measure
the human mind, which is the sounding-line, before fathoming the ocean of
knowledge. Like Copernicus inverting astronomy, he reversed metaphysics,
by referring classes of ideas to inward causes which before had been
referred to outer.
He detected, as he supposed, innate forms of thought(713) in the mental
structure, which form the conditions under which knowledge is possible.
When he applied his system to give a philosophy of ethics and religion, he
asserted nobly the law of duty written in the heart,(714) but identified
it with religion. Religious ideas were regarded as true regulatively, not
speculatively. Revelation was reunited with reason, by being resolved into
the natural religion of the heart. Accordingly, the moral effect of this
philosophy was to expel the French materialism and illuminism,(715) and to
give depth to the moral perceptions: its religious effect was to
strengthen the appeal to reason and the moral judgment as the test of
religious truth; to render miraculous communication of moral instruction
useless, if not absurd; and to reawaken the attempt, which had been laid
aside since the Wolffian philosophy, of endeavouring to find a philosophy
of religion.(716) From this time in German theology we shall find the
existence of the twofold movement; the critical one, the lawful descendant
of Semler, examining the historic revelation; and the philosophical one,
the offshoot of the system of Kant, seeking for a philosophy of religion.
During the next twenty years, from 1790 to 1810, when so many influences
were operating in common, it is not easy to measure the effect of the
speculative philosophy upon particular minds with such exactness as to
ascertain which ought properly to be classed in the destructive tendency,
and which gave signs of the reaction. We must however be careful to
exclude those younger minds(717) that were already appearing on the field,
to become the heroes of the subsequent history, whose tone was so
decidedly affected by new influences as to belong to the age of reaction.
In this sub-period we may name three tendencies: (1) the continuation of
the Exegesis inaugurated in the last epoch by Semler, until about the end
of the century it found its utmost limit in Paulus,(718)—the result of the
age of illumination; (2) a dogmatic tendency, more or less the growth of
new influences introduced by the new philosophy, which attempted to
reconcile reason with the supernatural, and may be represented in its
nearest approach to orthodoxy, at the end of this period, by
Bretschneider;(719) and (3) the awakening of a distinct expression of the
appeal to the supernatural which had never quite died out in the church,
in the Arminianism of Reinhardt in the north, and of Storr in the
south.(720) The last needs no further investigation; but we shall consider
briefly the other two.
The exegetical method which formed the first was that which is now usually
called the old or common-sense rationalism.(721) This form of rationalism
differed from the English deism and French naturalism, in not regarding
the Bible as fabulous in character, and the device of priestcraft;(722)
but only denied the supernatural. By them the apostles had been regarded
as impostors; and scripture was not only not received as divine, but not
even respected as an ordinary historical record; whereas rationalism was
intended as a defence against this view. It denied only the revealed
character of scripture, and treated it as an ordinary history; and,
distinguishing broadly between the fact related and the judgment on the
fact, sought to separate the two, and explained away the supernatural
element, such as miracles, as being orientalisms in the narrative, adapted
to an infant age, which an enlightened age must translate into the
language of ordinary events.
Eichhorn at Göttingen(723) applied this view to the Old Testament. Deeming
miracles impossible, he did not regard them as fraud, but admitted on the
contrary that the agents or narrators honestly believed them. The
supernatural was not imparted to deceive, but was the result of oriental
modes of speech, such as hyperbole, parable, or ellipsis, in which the
steps by which the process was performed were omitted. The smoke of Sinai
was considered a thunderstorm; the shining of Moses’s face a natural
phenomenon.
The principles which Eichhorn applied to the Old Testament, Paulus of Jena
extended to the New.(724) The miraculous cures were explained by an
ellipsis in the omission of the natural remedies; the casting out of
devils as the power of a wise man over the insane; the transfiguration as
the confused recollection of sleeping men, who saw Jesus with two unknown
friends, in the beautiful light of the morning among the mountains: nay,
trespassing on still more holy ground, he dared impiously to explain away
the resurrection of our blessed Lord by the hypothesis that his death was
only apparent. These are a specimen of the mode of exegesis adopted in
this school, which is usually specifically called Rationalism. In this
mode Jesus appeared to be merely a wise and virtuous man; and his miracles
were merely acts of skill or accident. Paulus presented this as the
original Christianity. The theory did not last long, save in the mind of
its author, who lived until a recent period, to see the entire change of
critical belief. Attributing the supernatural to ignorance, it did not
even propose, like the later schools, to explain the marvellousness of the
phenomena, objectively by so plausible a theory as legends, nor
subjectively by myths:(725) it was too clumsy, not to say irreverent, an
explanation of the facts to satisfy a people of deep and poetical soul
like the Germans.
While this is a specimen of the critical side of rationalism, its dogmatic
side varied from natural ethics to a kind of Socinianism. But in all
alike, as its name would imply, it not only asserted that there is only
one universal revelation, which takes place through observation of nature
and man’s reason; but that Christianity was not designed to teach any
mysterious truths, but only to confirm the religious teaching of reason;
and that no one ought to recognise as true that which cannot be proved to
him rationally. The doctrine of a Trinity was necessarily disbelieved; the
death of Christ regarded as an historic event, or a symbol that sacrifices
were abolished. Holiness was reduced to morality. Extreme veneration for
the Bible was called Bibliolatry.(726) Religion was represented as acting
by natural motives: the ethical superseded the historic. The early
theologians of this dogmatic branch of the school are now little known;
but we may name Bretschneider(727) as the type of the least heretical
portion of it at the close of this period, who believed Christianity to be
a republication of natural religion, supernatural but reasonable: and, as
the literary tendency of this school continued to exist in Röhr,(728)
after the movement had become extinct in other minds, so Wegscheider,(729)
until a recent period, was the solitary instance of the dogmatic position
slightly modified.
This completes the history of the first of the three movements, the
destructive action of rationalism. The most flourishing period of this
form of it was about the beginning of the present century. We have seen it
originating in the rational tone of Wolff’s philosophy, and the well-meant
but ill-judged exegesis which Semler exhibited under the pressure of
sceptical difficulties. Stimulated by critical investigations, and by the
strong wish which operated on our own theologians, to find the cause of
everything, its adherents were led into a disbelief of the supernatural,
and ended in explaining away the miraculous, and reducing Christianity to
natural religion. The movement, it will be observed, was professedly not
intended to be destructive of Christianity. Instead of being inimical, it
originated with the clergy, and aimed at harmonizing Christianity with
reason. But it contained its own death. The negative criticism is
essentially temporary.
The activity of thought was already producing change. We have previously
stated that even the Kantian philosophy itself, though at first
stimulating the appeal to reason, fostered a deeper perception of duty,
and thus prepared the way for a moral reawakening.(730)
We shall accordingly now proceed to state the causes which introduced new
elements into the current of public thought; and then describe the gradual
progress of the reactionary movement which ensued from them.
Four causes are usually assigned. The first of them was the introduction
of new systems of speculative philosophy.
It is not unusual, in those who have no taste for speculation, and who
understand only the prosaic, though in some respects the truer, philosophy
of Scotland, to despise the great systems of German speculation. Yet, if
the series be measured as an example of the power of the human mind,
whatever may be the opinion formed in respect to its correctness, it
stands among the most interesting efforts of thought. Though the writers
can be matched by isolated examples in former ages, perhaps no series of
writers exists, hardly even the Greek, certainly not the Neo-Platonist nor
the Cartesian, which, in far-reaching penetration, in minuteness of
analysis, in brilliancy of imagination, in loftiness of genius, in poetry
of expression, in grasp of intellect, in influence on every branch of
thought or life, approximates to the series of illustrious thinkers which
commenced with Kant and ended with Hegel.(731) The two philosophers at
this time whose teaching formed a new influence, were Fichte(732) and
Jacobi.(733) Details in reference to their systems must be sought
elsewhere.(734) It is only possible here to indicate their central
thought, in order to notice their effects on theological inquiry.
We have seen that Kant had reconsidered the great problem, commenced by
Descartes and Locke, concerning the ground of certitude, and the nature of
knowledge; and had revolutionised philosophy, by attributing to the
natural structure of the mind many of those ideas which had usually been
supposed to be derived from experience. In his system he had left two
elements, a formal and a material; the formal, or innate forms, through
which the mind gains knowledge, and the material, presented from external
sources. It was the former or ideal element which was examined by Fichte;
the latter by Jacobi.
Fichte began to teach at Jena soon after 1790. Grasping firmly Descartes’
principle, “Cogito, ergo sum,” he conceived that, as we can only know
ourselves, there is no proof that the datum supposed to be external is
anything but a form of our own consciousness; and thus he arrived at a
subjective idealism not unlike that of bishop Berkeley.(735) Under his
view God was only an idea or form of thought; a regulative principle of
human belief, the moral order of which the mind was conscious in the
universe; and, as atheism was suspected to follow as an inference from his
views, he became the subject of persecution. But the instincts of the
heart, as well as the arguments of the understanding, were too potent for
him; and when he had thus as it were shut up man within the circle of his
own finite self, he strove to find a logical passage into a knowledge of
the infinite by a principle analogous to that of Spinoza; viz. by
regarding both self and the outer world, the subjective and objective, to
be identified in some absolute self-existence, of which they were
respectively phases.(736)
This aim was only partially effected by Fichte, and was completed by his
distinguished successor, Schelling.(737) Schelling saw that the subjective
tendency had been pushed too far; and, relying on the spiritual sense
through which men of all ages have conceived that they saw the infinite,
the reality of which accordingly seems to be attested by a universal
induction, he tried to grasp the idea of the self-existent One, who is the
one absolute Reality, the one eternal Being, the eternal Source from which
all other light is derived, and from which all things develope.
“Intellectual intuition” he thought to be the means by which we have this
knowledge of the infinite, and are able to trace the development of it
into its limitations in nature and in the mind. The method is analogous to
that of Spinoza, save that the infinite is studied dynamically instead of
mechanically, as a movement not a substance, in time not in space.
The roll of these great thinkers, whose speculations were suggested by the
formal side of Kant’s philosophy, is not yet full. But the two which have
been named wrote and affected thought, the one before, the other soon
after, the commencement of the present century. Hegel followed in the same
track, but influenced thought at a later period.(738) He too aimed at
solving the same problem as Schelling: he too sought to transcend the
conditions of object and subject which limit thought; but it was by
assuming a representative or mediate faculty that transcends
consciousness, and not, as Schelling, an intuitional or presentative.(739)
Such were the philosophers who aimed at solving the problem of knowledge
and being from the intellectual side. Jacobi on the other hand attempted
it from the emotional. Perceiving the necessity of finding some
justification for the material element which Kant had assumed in his
philosophy, he sought it in faith, in intuition, in the direct inward
revelation of truth to the human mind. He thought that, as sensation gives
us an immediate knowledge of the world, so there is an inward sense by
which we have a direct and immediate revelation of supernatural truth. It
is this inward revelation which gives us access to the material of truth.
His position was analogous to that of Schelling, but he asserted the
element of feeling as well as intuition.
These philosophies, of Fichte, Schelling, and Jacobi, formed one class of
influences, which were operating about the beginning of the century, and
were the means of redeeming alike German literature and theology. Their
first effect was to produce examination of the primary principles of
belief, to excite inquiry; and, though at first only reinforcing the idea
of morality, they ultimately drew men out of themselves into aspirations
after the infinite spirit, and developed the sense of dependence, of
humility, of unselfishness, of spirituality. They produced indeed evil
effects in pantheism and ideology;(740) but the results were partial, the
good was general. The problem, What is truth?—was through their means
remitted to men for reconsideration; and the answers to it elicited, from
the one school,—It is that which I can know:—from the other,—It is that
which I can intuitively feel:—threw men upon those unalterable and
infallible instincts which God has set in the human breast as the
everlasting landmarks of truth, the study of which lifts men ultimately
out of error.