History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion Part 16

He became professor there early in the century,(756) until the town pa.s.sed, as already stated, into the power of the French. He removed to Berlin when that university was founded,(757) and continued to exercise his influence there, from the pulpit and the professor's chair, for a quarter of a century, until his death.(758)

Before the conclusion of the last century, while still the literary influence of Weimar was at its height, he wrote Discourses on Religion,(759) to arouse the German mind to self-consciousness; which produced as stirring an effect in religion(760) as Fichte's patriotic addresses to the German nation subsequently in politics; and from them may be dated the first movement of spiritual renovation, as from the latter the first of German liberation from foreign control. In successive works his views on ethics and religion were gradually developed, until, in his _Glaubenslehre_ (31) he produced one of the most important theological systems ever conceived. We can give no idea of the compa.s.s exhibited in that work, nor spare time to trace the growth in Schleiermacher's own mind as new influences like that of Harms, which he rejected, indirectly influenced him; but we must be content to define his general position in its destructive and constructive aspects.

The fundamental principles(761) were, that truth in theology was not to be attained by reason, but by an insight, which he called the Christian consciousness,(762) which we should call Christian experience; and that piety consists in spiritual feeling, not in morality. Both were corollaries from his philosophical principles.

There are two parts, both in the intellectual and emotional branches of our nature;-in the emotional, a feeling of dependence in the presence of the Infinite, which is the seat of religion; and a consciousness of power, which is the source of action and seat of morality;-and in the intellectual, a faith or intuition which apprehends G.o.d and truth; and critical faculties, which act upon the matter presented and form science.(763) In making these distinctions, Schleiermacher struck a blow at the old rationalism, which had identified on the one hand religion and morality, and on the other intuition and reason. Hence from this point of view he was led to explain Christianity, when contrasted with other religions, subjectively on the emotional side, as the most perfect state of the feeling of dependence; and on the intellectual, as the intuition of Christianity and Christ's work: and the organ for truth in Christianity was regarded to be the special form of insight which apprehends Christ, just as natural intuition apprehends G.o.d; which insight was called the Christian consciousness.(764) Thus far many will agree with him. Perhaps no n.o.bler a.n.a.lysis of the religious faculties has ever been given.

Religion was placed on a new basis: a home was found for it in the human mind distinct from reason. The old rationalism was shown to be untrue in its psychology. The distinctness of religion was a.s.serted; and the necessity of spiritual insight and of sympathy with Christian life a.s.serted to be as necessary for appreciating Christianity, as aesthetic insight for art.

In its reconstruction of Christian truth, however, fewer will coincide.

Following out the same principles; in the same manner as he regarded the intuitions of human nature to be the last appeal of truth in art or morals, so he made the collective Christian consciousness the last standard of appeal in Christianity. The dependence therefore on apostolic teaching was not the appeal to an external authority, but merely to that which was the best exponent of the early religious consciousness of Christendom in its purest age.(765) The Christian church existed before the Christian scriptures. The New Testament was written for believers, appealing to their religious consciousness, not dictating to it.

Inspiration is not indeed thus reduced to genius, but to the religious consciousness, and is different only in degree, and not in kind, from the pious intuitions of saintly men. The Bible becomes the record of religious truth, not its vehicle; a witness to the Christian consciousness of apostolic times, not an external standard for all time. In this respect Schleiermacher was not repeating the teaching of the reformation of the sixteenth age, but was pa.s.sing beyond it, and abandoning its reverence for scripture.

From this point we may see how his views of doctrine as well as his criticism of scripture were affected by this theory. For in his view of fundamental doctrines, such as sin, and the redeeming work of Christ, inasmuch as his appeal was made to the collective consciousness, those aspects of doctrine only were regarded as important, or even real, which were appropriated by the consciousness, or understood by it.(766) Sin was accordingly presented rather as unholiness than as guilt before G.o.d;(767) redemption, rather as sanctification than as justification; Christ's death as a mere subordinate act in his life of self-sacrifice, not the one oblation for the world's sin;(768) atonement regarded to be the setting forth of the union of G.o.d with man; and the mode of arriving at a state of salvation,(769) to be a realisation of the union of man with G.o.d, through a kind of mystical conception of the brotherhood of Christ.(770)

Hence, as might be expected, the dogmatic reality of such doctrines as the Trinity was weakened.(771) The deity of the Son, as distinct from his superhuman character, became unimportant, save as the historical embodiment of the ideal union of G.o.d with humanity.(772) The Spirit was viewed, not as a personal agent, but as a living activity, having its seat in the Christian consciousness of the church.(773) The objective in each case was absorbed in the spiritual, as formerly in the old rationalism it had been degraded into the natural. It followed also that the Christian consciousness, thus able to find as it were a philosophy of religion, and of the material apprehended by the consciousness of inspired men, possessed an instinct to distinguish the unimportant from the important in scripture, and valued more highly the eternal ideas intended than the historic garb under which they were presented.

The ideological tendency, as it is now called,(774) the natural longing of the philosophical mind that tries to rise beyond facts into their causes, to penetrate behind phenomena into ideas, grows up in a country, as is seen by the example of ancient Greece, when the popular creed and the scientific have become discordant. Suggested in Germany by the old rationalism, it had been especially stimulated by the subjective philosophy of Kant and Fichte. Historic facts were the expression of subjective forms of thought. The Non-ego was a form, in which the Ego was expressing itself. This theory, suggested to Schleiermacher from without, fell in with his own views as above developed, and affected his critical inquiries. When he involved himself in the great questions of the higher criticism, which have been already treated in connexion with Semler, subjective criticism(775) was used in an exaggerated manner, not merely to suggest hypotheses, or to check deductions by Christian appreciation, but as a subst.i.tute _a priori_ for historic investigation. In the controversy as to the composition of the Gospels, which will be hereafter explained, he was led, by his ideological theory and his instinctive perception of the relative importance of doctrines in theological perspective, to abandon the historical importance of miracles as compared with doctrine, and also the verity of the early history of Christ's life, considered to have been communicated by tradition; while he held fast to the moral and historical reality of the latter.(776)

These remarks must suffice to point out the position of Schleiermacher. We have seen how completely he caught the influences of his time, absorbed them, and transmitted them. If his teaching was defective in its constructive side; if he did not attain the firm grasp of objective verity which is implied in perfect doctrinal, not to say critical, orthodoxy; he at least gave the death-blow to the old rationalism, which, either from an empirical or a rational point of view, proposed to gain such a philosophy of religion as reduced it to morality. He rekindled spiritual apprehensions; he above all drew attention to the peculiar character of Christianity, as something more than the republication of natural religion, in the same manner that the Christian consciousness offered something more than merely moral experience. He set forth, however imperfectly, the idea of redemption, and the personality of the Redeemer; and awakened religious aspirations, which led his successors to a deeper appreciation of the truth as it is in Jesus. Much of his theology, and some part of his philosophy, had only a temporary interest relatively to his times; but his influence was perpetual. The faults were those of his age; the excellencies were his own. Men caught his deep love to a personal Christ, without imbibing his doctrinal opinions. His own views became more evangelical as his life went on, and the views of his disciples more deeply scriptural than those of their master. Thus the light kindled by him waxed purer and purer. The mantle remained after the prophet's spirit had ascended to the G.o.d that gave it.

In strict truth he did not found a school. Though his mind was dialectical, he had too much poetry to do this. Genius, as has been often observed, does not create a school, but kindles an influence. The university of Berlin, the very centre of intellectual greatness in every department from its foundation, was the first seat of Schleiermacher's influence; and the political importance of the capital added impulse to the movement. The reaction extended to other universities,(777) and not only marked the chief theologians of an orthodox tendency which are commonly known to us,(778)-Tholuck, Twesten, Nitzch, Julius Muller, Olshausen,-but even modified the extreme rationalist party, and diffused its influence among theologians of the church of Rome.(779)

It is impossible to specify the views of those who were the chief representatives of the effects of Schleiermacher's teaching. One however, his friend and colleague, deserves mention, the well-known church historian Neander.(780) Brought up a Jew, he pa.s.sed into Christianity, like some of the early fathers, through the gate of Platonism; and, knowing by experience that free inquiry had been the means of his own conversion, he ever stood forth with a n.o.ble courage as the advocate of full and fair investigation, feeling confidence that Christianity could endure the test. More meditative and less dialectical than Schleiermacher, and too original to be an imitator, he surpa.s.sed him in the deeper appreciation of sin and of redemption; placing sin rather in alienation of will than in the sense of discordance, and holding more firmly the existence of some objective reality in the anthropopathic expression of the wrath of G.o.d removed by Christ's death.(781) His great employment in life was history; not, like his master, philosophy and criticism. Viewing human nature from the subjective stand-point, the central thought of his historical works was, that Christianity is a life resting on a person, rather than a system resting on a dogma. Hence he was able to find the harmony of reason and faith from the human side instead of the divine, by noticing the adaptation of the divine work to human wants. The inspiration of the scriptural writers was viewed as dynamical not mechanical, spiritual not literal;(782) and Christianity as the great element of human progress, being the divine life on earth which G.o.d had kindled through the gift of his Son.(783) The great aim accordingly of Neander in his historical sketches was to exhibit the Christian church as the philosophy of history, and G.o.d's work in Christ, realised in the piety of the faithful, as the philosophy of the Christian church. The history of the church in his view is the record of the Christian consciousness in the world. The subjective and mystical spirit engendered by such a conception, was in danger of converting history into a series of biographies; but the deep influence which it possessed in contributing to foster the reaction against the old rationalism will be obvious. It becomes us to speak with reverence of the writings of a man whose labours have been the means of turning many to Christ. Though lacking form as works of art, yet, if they be compared with works of grander type, where church history has been treated as an epic, we cannot help feeling that the depth of spiritual perception and of psychological a.n.a.lysis compensates for the artistic defects. We are conducted by them from the outside to the inside; from things to thoughts; from inst.i.tutions to doctrines; from the accidents of Christianity to the essence.

Neander's teaching, while an offshoot from Schleiermacher, marks the highest point to which the principles of the master could be carried. It advances farther in the hearty love for Christ and for revelation, and bears fewer traces of the ancient spirit of rationalism; being allied to it in few respects, save in the wish constantly exhibited to appropriate that which is believed; but the wants of the heart, not the conceptions of the understanding, are made the gauge of divine truth, and the interpreter of the divine volume.

We pointed out that the great reaction in the present century was marked not only by the philosophical and doctrinal school just described, but by a contemporaneous one, which employed itself on literary and critical inquiries in reference to the Bible, and was the continuation of the earlier rationalist criticism on improved principles. The most important name representing this critical movement in the beginning of the period was De Wette. (32) Perhaps too we may without injustice mention, as a type of it at the close of the period, a theologian who is almost too original to admit of being cla.s.sified-the learned Ewald.

De Wette was nurtured amid the old rationalism of Jena, at the time of its greatest power, about the beginning of the present century; and imbibed the peculiar modification of the doctrines of Kant and Jacobi which was presented in the philosophy of Fries.(784) It was the appeal to subjective feeling thence derived which preserved him from the coldness of older critics, and caused his labours to contribute to the reaction. His works were very various; but the earlier of them were especially devoted to the examination of the Old Testament, and the later to the New.

The peculiarity of this school generally may be said to be, a disposition to investigate both Testaments for their own sake as literature, not for the further purpose of discovering doctrine. These writers are primarily literary critics, not dogmatic theologians. Like the older rationalists, they are occupied largely with biblical interpretation; but, perceiving the hollowness of their attempt to explain away moral and spiritual mysteries by reference to material events, they transfer to the Bible the theories used in the contemporary investigations in cla.s.sical history, and explain the Biblical wonders by the hypothesis of legends or of myths.

Though they ignore the miraculous and supernatural equally with the older rationalists, they allow the spiritual in addition to the moral and natural, and thus take a more scholarlike and elevated view of the Hebrew history and literature. The system of interpretation adopted is the transition from the previous one, which admitted the facts but explained them away, to the succeeding one of Strauss, which denies the facts, and accounts for the belief in them by psychological causes.

The wish to give a possible basis for the existence of legend, by interposing a chasm between the events and the record of them, stimulated the pursuit of the branch of criticism slightly touched on by their predecessors, which investigates the origin and date of scripture books.

They transferred to the Hebrew literature the critical method by which Wolf had destroyed the unity of Homer, and Niebuhr the credibility of Livy. Not a single book,-history, poetry, or prophecy,-was left unexamined. The inquiries of this kind, inst.i.tuted with reference to the book of Daniel, were alluded to in a former lecture;(785) and those which relate to the Gospels will occur hereafter.(786) At present it will only be possible to specify a single instance in ill.u.s.tration of these inquiries-the celebrated one which relates to the authorship and composition of the Pentateuch. It is the one to which most labour has been devoted, and is an excellent instance for exhibiting the slow but progressive improvement and growing caution shown in the mode of exercising them.(787)

As early as the time of Hobbes and Spinoza it was perceived that the Pentateuch contains a few allusions which seem to have been inserted after the time of Moses; a circ.u.mstance which they, as well as R. Simon, explained, by referring them to the sacred editor Ezra, who is thought to have arranged the canon: but about the middle of the last century a French physician, Astruc,(788) pointed out a circ.u.mstance which has introduced an entirely new element into the discussion of the question; viz. the distinction in the use of the two Hebrew names for G.o.d,-Elohim and Jehovah. It will be necessary to offer a brief explanation of this distinction, in order that we may be able to perceive the line at which fact ends and hypothesis commences, and understand the character of the criticism which we are describing.

It is now generally admitted that the word _Elohim_ is the name for Deity, as worshipped by the Hebrew patriarchs; _Jehovah_, the conception of Deity which is at the root of the Mosaic theocracy.(789) El, or the plural Elohim, means literally "the powers," (the plural form being either, as some unreasonably think, a trace of early polytheism, or more probably merely emphatic,(790)) and is connected with the name for G.o.d commonly used in the Semitic nations. Jehovah(791) means "self-existent," and is the name specially communicated to the Israelites. The idea of power or superiority in the object of worship was conveyed by Elohim; that of self-existence, spirituality, by Jehovah. Elohim was generic, and could be applied to the G.o.ds of the heathen; Jehovah was specific, the covenant G.o.d of Moses. (33)

In this age, when words are separated from things, we are apt to lose sight of the importance of the difference of names in an early age of the world. The modern investigations however of comparative mythology enable us to realize the fact, that in the childhood of the world words implied real differences in things; not merely in our conceptions, but in the thing conceived.(792) But the explanations above offered will show that, independently of the general law of mind just noticed, a really different moral conception was offered by Providence to the Hebrew mind through the employment of these two words.

Nor was the difference unknown or forgotten in later ages of Jewish history. The fifty-third Psalm, for example, is a repet.i.tion of the fourteenth with the name Elohim altered into Jehovah. In the two first of the five books into which the Psalms are divided, the arrangement has been thought to be not unconnected with the distinction of these names.(793) In the book of Job also the name Jehovah is used in the headings of the speeches of the dialogues; but in the speeches of Job's friends, as not being Israelites, the name Elohim is used.(794) In the book of Nehemiah the name Elohim is almost always used, and in Ezra, Jehovah; and in the composition of proper names, which in ancient times were not merely, as now, symbolical, the names El and Jah respectively are employed in all ages of the Hebrew nation: and, though no exact law can be detected, it seems probable that in the great regal and prophetic age the name Jehovah was especially used. (34)

These remarks will both explain the difference of conception existing in the Hebrew names of Deity, and show that the Jews were aware of the distinction to a late period. When we advance farther, we pa.s.s from the region of fact into conjecture.

The distinctness of conception implied in the two names has been made the basis of an hypothesis, in which they are used for discovering different elements in the Pentateuch. Throughout the book of Genesis especially, and slightly elsewhere,(795) the critics that we are describing have supposed that they detect at least two distinct narratives, with peculiarities of style, and differences or repet.i.tions of statement; which they have therefore regarded as proofs of the existence of different doc.u.ments in the composition of the Pentateuch; an Elohistic, in which the name Elohim, and a Jehovistic, in which the name Jehovah was used; upon the respective dates of which they have formed conjectures.

Though we may object to these hazardous speculations, we shall perceive the alteration and increasing caution displayed in the criticism, if we trace briefly the successive opinions held on this particular subject.

Astruc, who first dwelt on the distinction, regarded the separate works to be anterior to Moses, and to have been used by him in the construction of the Pentateuch.(796) Eichhorn took the same view, but advanced the inquiry by a careful discrimination of the peculiarities which he thought to belong to each. Vater followed, and allowed the possibility of one collector of the narratives, but denied that it could be Moses. Thus far was the work of the older critical school of rationalists. It was purely anatomical and negative. It is at this point that we perceive the alteration effected by the school which we are now contemplating.

De Wette strove to penetrate more deeply into the question of the origin, and to attain a positive result. His discussion was marked by minute study; and he changed the test for distinguishing the doc.u.ments from the simple use of the names to more uncertain characteristics, which depended upon internal peculiarities of style and manner. The conclusion to which he came was, that the ma.s.s of the Pentateuch is based on the Elohistic doc.u.ment, with pa.s.sages supplemented from the Jehovistic; and he referred the age of both to a rather late part of the regal period. Ewald, with great learning and delicacy of handling, has reconsidered the question(797) and, though arriving at a most extraordinary theory as to the manifold doc.u.ments which have supplied the materials for the work, has thrown to a much earlier period the authorship of the main portion; and the views of later critics are gradually tending in the same direction.

Both study the Pentateuch as uninspired literature; but De Wette absurdly regarded it as an epic created by the priests, in the same manner as the Homeric epic by the rhapsodes: Ewald on the contrary considers it to be largely historic.(798)

This statement of mere results, too brief to exhibit the critical ac.u.men shown at different points of the inquiry even where it is most full of peril, will show the increasing learning displayed, and the appreciation of valuable literary characteristics. It will be perceived that prepossessions still predominate over this criticism; but they are of a different kind from those which existed earlier. They are not the result of moral objections to the narratives, but of the contemporary critical spirit in secular literature. The discrepancy of result obtained by the process is a fair practical argument which proves its uncertainty; but its adherents allow that both in art and literature internal evidence admits of few canons, and consequently that the result of criticism could only admit of probability.

The general summary of the movement shows a steady advance in criticism, as was before shown in doctrine, toward a higher and more spiritual standard. It is not the recognition of the inspired authority of scripture, but it is some approach to it. Instead of the hasty denunciation of narratives or of books as imposture, seen in the Wolfenb.u.t.tel Fragments, or the merely rationalist view of Eichhorn and Paulus, we perceive the recognition of spiritual and psychological mysteries as subjects of examination; and even when the result established is altogether unsatisfactory, valuable materials have been collected for future students. If we were to abandon our position of traditional orthodoxy, and accept that of Schleiermacher in doctrine, or of De Wette in criticism, it would be a retrogression; but for the Germans of their time it was a progress from doubt towards faith. It was not orthodoxy, but it was the first approach to it.

This double aspect, philosophical and critical, of the reaction, brings us to the end of the second period in the history of German theological thought.

It has already been stated that the elements of other movements existed, which were hereafter to develope; and that one of these was an attempt, originating in the philosophy of Hegel, to reconstruct the harmony of reason and faith from the intellectual, as distinct from the emotional side. It bore some a.n.a.logy to the gnosticism of the early church; and the critical side of it gave birth to Strauss.

We have traced the antecedent causes which produced rationalism, and two out of the three periods into which we divided the history of it. We are halting before reaching the final act of the drama; but we already begin to see the direction in which the plot is developing.

It is when a great movement of mind or of society can be thus viewed as a whole, in its antecedents and its consequents, that we can form a judgment on its real nature, and estimate its purpose and use. As in viewing works of art, so in order to observe correctly the great works of G.o.d's natural providence, we must reduce them to their true perspective. It is the peculiarity of great movements of mind, that when so viewed they do not appear to be all shadow and formless, nor acts of meaningless impiety.

They are products of intellectual antecedents, and perform their function in history. In nothing is the Divine image stamped on humanity, or the moral providence of G.o.d in the world, more visible, than in the circ.u.mstance, of which we have already had frequent proofs, that thought and honest inquiry, if allowed to act freely, without being repressed by material or political interference, but checked only by spiritual and moral influences, gradually attain to truth, appropriating goodness, and rejecting evil. Thought seems to run on unrestrained, stimulated by human caprice, sometimes by sinful wilfulness; yet it is seen really to be restrained by limits that are not of its own creation. In the world of conscious mind, as in unconscious matter, G.o.d hath set a law that shall not be broken. Reason, which creates the doubts, also allays them. It rebukes the unbelief of impiety, making the wrath of man to praise G.o.d; and guides the honest inquirer to truth.

A period of doubt is always sad; but it would be an unmixed woe for an individual or a nation, if it were not made, in the order of a merciful Providence, the transition to a more deeply-seated faith. It is a means, not an end.

You tell me, doubt is devil-born.

I know not; one indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who touch'd jarring lyre at first, But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but not in deeds, At last he beat his music out.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts, and gathered strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own.(799)

Religious truth is open to those who will seek it with humility and prayer.

In addition to the natural action of reason, the fatherly pity of G.o.d is nigh, to give help to all that ask it, and that endeavour to sanctify their studies to His honour. Even though the search be long, and a large portion of life be spent in the agony of baffled effort, the mind reaps improvement from its heart-sorrows, and at last receives the reward of its patient faith. "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."(800) If we are thankful to be spared the sorrows of the doubter, let us admire the wisdom and mercy shown in the process by which Providence rescues men or nations from the state of doubt. "The Lord G.o.d omnipotent reigneth;"(801) and He shall reign for ever and ever.

LECTURE VII. FREE THOUGHT: IN GERMANY SUBSEQUENTLY TO 1835; AND IN FRANCE DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY.

MATT. xiii. 52.

_Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old._