19th Century German Theology

The article analyzes the concept of universal salvation-apokatastasis in the thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher especially with reference to his early Speeches on Religion and the later treatise The Christian Faith. It moves from Schleiermacher's understanding of religion per se to his soteriological and eschatological theories. He understands the nature of religion as the feeling-intuition of the Infinite and points to a certain aspect of mystery, which religion contains. He rejects in the Speeches on Religion the anthropomorphic understanding of God and speaks of God-Universum. In the treatise Christian Faith, he reinterprets the theological concept of original sin and depravation, and points to a natural process of development of humankind from Godless-consciousness to God-consciousness. From the Protestant-reformed tradition, Schleiermacher adopts the concept of predestination. However, he rejects the so-called "double predestination" of salvation and condemnation. According to him, all people are chosen to be saved "in Christ". This way, Schleiermacher continues the Reformed tradition, however, he understands the election in universal categories. He rejects God, who chooses for salvation only some people, but accepts God-Universum, who maintains the unity of creation and leads people to perfect communion. This drives the German thinker to universalistic beliefs. In the convictions pointing to the final unity of humankind, Schleiermacher exposes his deep humanism. He assumes that it is impossible to reconcile the traditional view of eternal hell with God's love. Divine punishment can serve as an aspect of overall paidagogia, leading to the maturing of humanity. However, it cannot be understood as retribution, based on God’s wrath and cruel lex talionis. Such an understanding of God is for Schleiermacher unacceptable. Understanding soteriology in these terms, Schleiermacher refers to the apokatastatic tradition of the Church Fathers and the classical concept of apokatastasis. In the modern context, he continues and develops the personal aspect of apokatastasis, but also—through his affinities to the thought of Spinoza—draws near to its macroscale, cosmological form.

In the first part, I will clarify the concepts of mediation and mediating theology, put them in historical perspective, and highlight central themes and developments. The second part sketches the theology of I.A. Dorner. The conclusion offers trajectories for further research.

John Henry Newman spearheaded one of the first modern retrievals of the Christian doctrine of the Christian doctrine of deification. This article argues that, precisely because of the early date of Newman’s rehabilitation, his treatment is not tinted by the polemics surrounding theosis that developed in the late nineteenth century between Eastern and Western Christianity. To Newman, deification is not an Eastern doctrine, it is not cause for division between East and West, and it does not supplant justification. Instead, it is arises from a broad patristic consensus, it is a tool for union among the churches, and it provides resources for understanding justification properly.

The eighteenth century was marked by a series of tumultuous social issues for Jews attempting to assimilate into German culture. Local Christian and Orthodox Jews alike mistrusted the intentions and sincerity of these “converts.” Born a Jew, the composer Felix Mendelssohn converted to Christianity and developed a unique perspective on the role of music within the spiritual life. This paper focuses on Felix Mendelssohn’s theological motivations when composing two of his most notable oratorios, Paulus and Elias. In my writing, I show the evolution of his theological thinking and the struggles he faced in order to create his own deeply spiritual experience. Using specifically the libretto from both oratorios, combined with notable Mendelssohn scholars, I suggest a synthesis of Jewish and Christian theology as a result of the composer’s upbringing and personal evolutionary growth. In many ways, Mendelssohn did not shy away from or reject Jewish ideas within his music, but actually believed them fulfilled according to Christian doctrine. Paulus shows us that Mendelssohn was familiar with Christianity’s Jewish roots, and also recalled that Jesus himself was a Jew. The oratorio Elias also expresses Mendelssohn’s fascination with Christian salvation history that was first prophesied by the Old Testament prophets. Mendelssohn’s genius as a composer drew on his ability to synthesize the two cultures of Christianity and Judaism together, and integrate them into a coherent musical clarity that drew on the theological richness of each faith tradition to complement one another, and bridge the assumed incompatible gap between the two.

This chapter charts the intellectual development of Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) and his school. It thus covers the time from the 1840s to the end of the nineteenth century. Initially, Ritschl's early work in the context of the Tübingen School is described, followed by an account of Ritschl's break from this group. A second part gives an outline of Ritschl's key ideas as expressed in his main work, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation. Beginning with some comments on Ritschl's reconstruction of the history of atonement theories, the account is focussed on his biblical theology, his philosophical foundations, and his remarkable views on Christian life and practice. Ritschl's relationship to Kant and Schleiermacher is considered as well as his indebtedness to mid-century philosophers, Adolf Trendelenburg and Hermann Lotze. A final part of the chapter gives an account of main developments in the academic school founded on the basis of Ritschl's theology. Wilhelm Herrmann, Julius Kaftan, and Adolf Harnack are discussed in their relationship to Ritschl's theology. A brief account is given of the importance of the Ritschl School for broader debates in late nineteenth-century German Protestantism.

In the early 1800s, two figures foundational to modern intellectual life, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Friedrich Schleiermacher, engaged in what they called a "quiet war," stemming from Schelling's famous lectures on the method of academic study and Schleiermacher's reaction. This paper argues that their "quiet war" resulted in a powerful synthesis that transformed the German university model and German Protestant and Catholic university theology until the dawn of the twentieth century. Schleiermacher sharply criticized and then in essence adopted the program of Schelling's lectures. Their disagreements masked deeper commonalities, which together contributed to the historicization of theology in the nineteenth century.

The purpose of this article is to explore an aspect of the Catholic theology of the 19th century which is relatively unknown: namely the Roman School and Carlo Passaglia’s position within it. This contribution is focused on presenting the main theological treatise of Carlo Passaglia (1812–87), De Ecclesia Christi (1853–56), an unprecedented work in the context of 19th-century theology, from which a Trinitarian ecclesiology, rooted in the economy of salvation, emerges. The article will be divided into three parts: the first will provide a brief outline of the Roman School, which played a significant role in the theology of the 19th century; the second will offer a biography of Passaglia; finally, the third will focus on the De Ecclesia and will present a basic survey of the whole monograph in order to highlight the most significant aspects of Passaglia’s ecclesiology. Moreover, this contribution will seek to emphasize that several aspects of Passaglia’s Trinitarian ecclesiology went on to be developed by the Second Vatican Council, particularly in Lumen Gentium.

An examination of the careers of nineteenth-century theologians Gottlieb Thomasius and Konrad von Hofman illustrates the revival of Lutheran confessional theology and interest in the contribution to contemporary theology of Martin Luther. While there are criticisms to be made of the appropriation of Luther by Thomasius and Hofmann, it cannot be at the cost of overlooking the contributions offered by their readings of Luther. In comparison to existing portrayals of Luther, theirs was an intentionally theological depiction—while perhaps lacking in historical contextualization—that helped rediscover Luther's unique theological voice. They took Luther's theological vision seriously. More specifically, Thomasius and Hofmann were instrumental in the recovery of the Christological center of Luther's soteriology. While Hegel had utilized aspects of Luther's Christology for his speculative philosophy, the research of Thomasius and Hofmann was instrumental in retrieving the Christological complexity of Luther's theology. The scholarship of Thomasius and Hofmann should be considered as the emergence of a path of Luther research that sought to circumvent the shortcomings of either a "neo-Protestant" or "conservative-Lutheran" rendering of the sixteenth-century reformer. Moreover, in concentrating on Luther's understanding of the relationship between justification, the atonement, and Christology, Thomasius and Hofmann were forerunners of trends in later Luther research that helped to lay the foundation for the Lutherrenaissance.

The rise of German academic institutions in the nineteenth century considerably altered the landscape of American higher education. American students of theology looked to Germany to develop their discipline, where they found model textbooks that gave directives in learning and piety, transforming academic and theological practice. With sensitivity to the history of the book and the history of the rich cultural traffic across the Atlantic, this article focuses on the reception in English translation of the important and widely read Swiss-German church historian Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, whose textbooks enjoyed a considerable audience in the United States by crossing ideological boundaries and unseating obdurate assumptions. By examining this reception in the United States and Britain and investigating those “transatlantic personalities” who played pivotal roles in bringing his ideas from the “Old World” to the “New,” this article demonstrates Hagenbach's lasting influence on the changing fields of history, church history, and academic theology in America. An “Atlantic” perspective on these themes offers new insights for our understanding of religion in the modern academy, the movement and translation of theological ideas in an age of steamship travel, and the surfacing of commonalities among ostensibly mismatched, if not outright conflicting, Protestant religious cultures.

Although nationalism attracts a great deal of attention in historical, political and social scholarship, the religious conceptual schemes of nationalism are not very popular in research. Gerhard Graf has pointed to the relevance of Christian imagery for understanding nationalism. According to Graf, it is necessary to study the way in which Christian concepts were used for the construction of national identities and for the justification of the existence of nations. Christian concepts of community and providence are essential for comprehending the self-understanding of nations and nationalist movements.
In this thesis, the focus will be on the period in which nationalism experienced its heyday, the nineteenth century. This “age of nationalism” is an ideal field of research for understanding the way in which a nationalist worldview is constructed. This project renders the first exploration of the way in which Christian concepts were used for designing nations. For that reason, the scope of the project is limited to a single casus, which will be studied in depth. The selected person, the German theologian Isaak August Dorner (1809-1884), was active as an academic theologian and church politician. In this way, Dorner was active in two nationalist projects of his age, the German academy and the creation of a German national church. In addition, Dorner elaborated on nationalism in lectures and speeches, which forms a valuable resource for understanding his stance towards the nation.
(Taken from the Introduction)

AUFSATZSAMMLUNG 18-2 David Friedrich Strauß als Schriftsteller / Barbara Potthast ; Volker Henning Drecoll (Hg.). -Heidelberg : Winter, 2018. -460 S. : Ill. ; 24 cm. -(Beihefte zum "Euphorion" ; 100). -ISBN 978-3-8253-6802-9 : EUR 64.00 [#5873] Der Religionskritiker und populäre Autor David Friedrich Strauß (1808 -1874) darf heute zu den eher vergessenen Schriftstellern zählen, sieht man einmal davon ab, daß ihm mit seinem Leben Jesu ein fester Platz in der Theologiegeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts sicher ist. 1 Wenn heute ein Sammelband zu Strauß erscheint, der explizit nicht theologiegeschichtlich orientiert ist oder vorwiegend von Theologen geschrieben wurde, so läßt dies aufhorchen. Denn wenn auch die theologische und kirchengeschichtliche Bedeutung von Strauß sich nicht ignorieren läßt, so ist es doch eine arge Verkürzung seines Werkes, wenn man es dabei bewenden ließe. So liest man die Beiträge diese Bandes, 2 die sich aus einer bereits 2011 in Tübingen abgehaltenen Tagung entwickelt haben, mit großem Gewinn, weil hier erstmals das Werk in seiner Breite thematisiert wird. Auch regionalgeschichtlich ist das Buch über den in Ludwigsburg geborenen Theologen und Schriftsteller von Bedeutung. 3 Weil Literaturwissenschaftler danach fragen, wie etwas geschrieben ist, wird etwa von Ulrich Gaier das Selbstverständnis von Strauß als künstlerischer

Schleiermacher's system of liberal-naturalistic theology considers religious experience as a natural aspect of human life, consisting mainly in an opening of the individual being towards wider and wider levels of being, the highest one being that of the Divine Universality. Therefore, religious experience is to be found, in certain degrees, in every act of opening towards the Universe, starting with the very common and unsophisticated experience of sensory contact. One of the most intense such experience is the opening of the human being towards his fellows, namely the social experience. For Schleiermacher, socializing already represents a form of " religion " , since it involves the individual's stepping out of himself. Even in the most common acts of sharing, such as hospitability, Schleiermacher sees religious behavior. Therefore, Schleiermacher's theology puts forward a kind of " ordinary/common spirituality " , a natural religiosity that characterizes even the most common human experiences. Religion does not involve any supernatural factor or anything higher than human nature. The sacred does not oppose the profane but is simply a particular tendency within the profane namely the tendency of connecting the individual to the universal. Religious gathering is not a mere contingency but it belongs to the very essence of religion. Confessional brotherhood is not much different from any other kind of human gathering, such as family or nation grouping. All these communal entities are based on the inborn human opening towards the others, towards the totality, which only takes a more conscious form in case of religious behavior. Through this approach, Schleiermacher opposes a very frequently met tendency to consider religion as pertaining mainly to the individual subjectivity. To him, religious life is always collective; people are engaged in religious life not as individuals but as communities, as persons bound together through the specific requirements of a confession.

Bibliotheca Sacra and Biblical Repository, Vol XX. Edward A. Park and Samuel H. Taylor Editors.  Warren, W.F.  - Biblical Cosmology and the Doctrine of the Fall of the World. London:1863

An excellent analysis of the changes made to ancient cosmological concepts and the damaging results to a clear understanding of the Universe based on modern scientific theories.  Very obscure historical accounts of the Fall and how science has disconnected us from a clear understanding of things that were written by Moses, the Prophets and Paul.  This will open your eyes to many missing details.....

„So ging unser Freund raschen Schrittes vorwärts auf der Bahn des Zweifels. Oft schwindelte ihm, wenn er von der steilen Höhe, aus welcher er fort wandelte, hinabschaute in das enge, stille Thal des einfältigen Jugendglaubens, in welchem er so ruhig und so glücklich gelebt hatte. Aber es zog ihn eine geheime Gewalt unwiderstehlich fort, und ein kühner Muth hob sein Herz.“
Neuausgabe zum 200. Jubiläum des 1822 erstmals erschienenen Lehrromans „Theodor oder des Zweiflers Weihe“ von W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1849), dessen an seinen Zweifeln wachsender Held auf einzigartige Weise die religiösen, theologischen, philosophischen und gesellschaftlich-kulturellen Strömungen seiner Zeit durchwandert.

My article offers a critical review of current strands and problems in the historiography of nineteenth century theology. This history is usually written by systematic theologians and has thus often been rather disconnected from the wider developments in the historiography of the period. The article suggests that the current crisis of 19th century historiography (as diagnosed by Nolte, Marchand and others) offers an opportunity for the theological historiography which can, however, only be grasped if a number of issues are successfully tackled. I discuss three such issues: (1) the coincidence of crisis and vitality in 19th century theology; (2) the occurrence of theological reflection outside of institutionalised theology; (3) the global range of theology in the 19th century.

Draft of my contribution/chapter in the forthcoming 3 Vols.-project "Oxford History of Modern German Theology":
Mysticism and Religious Intuition. The Rediscovery of the ‘Inner World of Religion’ around 1900, in: CHAPMAN,  MARK D. (ed.): Volume 2: 1848–1918, in: The Oxford History of Modern German Theology, eds. Johannes Zachhuber/Judith Wolfe/David Lincicum. [forthcoming OUP 2022/2023]

Despite his ambivalent commemoration of his recently defunct master, the option of the ‘first’ Tillich for a theonomous metaphysics, as an alternative for an exclusively heteronomous approach of theology and an exclusively autonomous approach of culture, reflects many similarities with Troeltsch’s option for a metaphysics of history, by means of which he hoped to overcome both the absolutizing of religious truths in supernaturalist apologetics and the relativizing of religious truths in historicism.

A review of David Scaer's treatment of Baptism among 19th and earthly 20th century Lutherans. He explores how those who tended to deny the miraculous powers of the means of grace (that is to say, rejected the truth of infant faith) still practiced and defended infant baptism.

Bis 1972 ist der vollständige Texte der "Apologie" des Hermann Samuel Reimarus einem größeren Publikum nur in der ausführlichen Zusammenfassung des Skandaltheologen David Friedrich Strauß zugänglich, für den die Arbeit mit Reimarus' Texte eine wichtige Station auf dem Weg zur zweiten Fassung seines "Leben Jesu" bildet. Dieser Aufsatz fragt nach literarischen Qualitäten von Strauß' Reimarus-Buch und untersucht dessen dialogische Faktur im Kontext der Kontroverse zwischen der Tübinger Schule und dem Göttinger Orientalisten Heinrich Ewald.

"'But in our time theology tends to forget this far too easily.' David Friedrich Strauß reads Hermann Samuel Reimarus and quarrels with Heinrich Ewald."
Up until 1972 the complete text of Reimarus's famous "Apologie" isn't accessible to the public in any other version than the elaborate summary compiled by David Friedrich Strauß, who himself had scandalized Germany with his investigations into the life of Jesus. This article examines the poetic qualities of Strauß's book on Reimarus and situates its dialogical concept within the longsome controversy between the Tübingen School and orientalist Heinrich Ewald.

In 1909, the philosopher Arthur Drews unleashed a brief but furious debate when he published "Die Christusmythe," in which he denied the historicity of Jesus Christ. This article seeks to understand the origin and significance of the “Christ Myth” controversy, focusing not simply on its scholarly content, but also on the historical contexts in which it unfolded, in particular the increasingly public and popular nature of theological debate in late Wilhelmine Germany. The article examines Drews’s long-standing commitment to a monist religious philosophy inspired by his mentor Eduard von Hartmann, as well as his decision to intervene in the increasingly contentious debate around Protestant liberal theology’s view of the “historical Jesus.” It also describes Drews’s campaign to spread his views to a broader public through a series of lectures and debates, many of which were organized and promoted by the German Monist League. Although the actual theses of "Die Christusmythe" were not particularly original or well argued, the ensuing controversy placed Protestant liberal theology in a difficult position, which opponents were quick to exploit. While a wide range of Protestant theologians attempted to refute Drews, others moved away from a reliance on the historical Jesus. This shift was in part a response to intellectual difficulties in liberal theology that Drews helped expose, but it can also be seen as a reaction to the unseemly spectacle of university professors defending themselves against autodidacts and dilettantes, a situation that led some theologians to ground their positions on intellectual terrain less susceptible to such attacks.

Che rapporto esiste tra scienza e fede? È possibile una teologia "scientifica", che faccia propri gli strumenti della critica più avanzata senza rinnegare i dogmi su cui essa stessa si fonda? Come è possibile pensare, e praticare, la fede religiosa in un mondo secolarizzato e a-teo? Queste domande, di forte attualità ancora oggi, accompagnano in realtà il farsi della coscienza moderna almeno negli ultimi due secoli. Il saggio indaga con rigore filologico, attenzione per i contesti storici e una non comune sensibilità per i grandi temi filosofici e culturali, le risposte che ad esse tentò di offrire Franz Overbeck, figura volontariamente marginale del panorama teologico ottocentesco, grande amico di Nietzsche, con cui condivise la lotta contro il fariseismo della cultura guglielmina. Overbeck, di fronte al trionfo della conciliazione tra fede e scienza che caratterizzava la cultura teologica protestante nell'ultimo trentennio dell’Ottocento, affermò la radicale opposizione tra religione e cultura nel mondo contemporaneo. Una irriducibilità sostenuta facendo giocare contro le sicurezze dell’epoca proprio una delle sue conquiste e dei suoi vanti, la coscienza storica. La sua consapevolezza nel testimoniare la crisi della coscienza europea e nel far emergere in tutta la sua forza la frattura tra fede religiosa e conoscenza storica ne fecero una figura emblematica per pensatori come Karl Barth, Martin Heidegger e Karl Löwith, per i quali Overbeck non era solo un testimone della crisi ma sapeva di esserlo e di vivere in se stesso tutte le contraddizioni dello spirito del suo tempo.