JOHN KENNETH MOSS CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029308073 Cornell University Library BT75.R61 M93 Ritschlianism; an essay, by John Kenneth olin 3 1924 029 308 073 RITSCHLIANISM RITSCHLIANISM AN ESSAY By JOHN KENNETH MOZLEY, M.A. FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE LONDON JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED 22 BERNERS STREET, W. 1909 TO WILHELM HERRMANN PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG IN GRATITUDE FOR MUCH PERSONAL KINDNESS RECEIVED AND IN RECOGNITION OF ALL THAT HE HAS DONE TO ESTABLISH THE TRUE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRISTIAN FAITH I DEDICATE THIS BOOK PKEFACE The following essay divided the Norrisian Prize at Cambridge for the year 1908. The terms under which the prize is given necessitate publication, which must be my excuse for adding one more to the studies of the Ritschhan Theology which have appeared in recent years. So much has already been written on the sub- ject that it is almost impossible for a new writer to say anything very fresh. I can only hope that I may be able to direct attention rather more fully than appears to have been the case in the past, to the importance which the E-itschhan School has always attached to a true conception of the nature of Christian Faith. My general standpoint will, I trust, become clear in the course of the essay. No student of Ritschhanism can fail to acknowledge the great debt he owes to the work of Dr. Orr and Dr. Garvie. If, at times, I have felt myself bound to differ somewhat considerably from Dr. Orr's judgments, I hope I have not said anything which could be construed as a lack of respect for one who, in many ways, has served with such learning and ability the cause of Christian Theology. To Dr. Garvie, over and above his book, I am indebted for useful hints given in the course of conversation. Others to whom I owe much for valuable suggestions are my father, and Mr. H. G. Wood, Fellow of Jesus College, viii RITSCHLIANISM Cambridge. The latter deserves my especial gratitude for his work of reading through the essay before it passed into the printers' hands, and for the insight and sympathy of his criticisms. The notes, in particular, owe very much to him. I would say one last word as a member and clergy- man of the Church of England. It is noticeable how much of the best work on Ritschlianism has been done by members of the non-Episcopal churches. It is much to be desired that at a time when we hear much of theological reconstruction the Church of England should be willing to learn even from quarters from which we have, perhaps not altogether unnaturally, come to expect undermining rather than strengthening of the Christian faith. A confessional Church, like the Church of England, is especially inchned to rest content with her own position, and look askance at those who, starting from a different point, cannot find rest for their souls in the formulated orthodoxy of the past. But we have much to learn from the theologians of Germany, from their courage, sincerity, and thorough- ness. The Christian attitude may be theirs, even though it does not go on to express and justify itself by the adoption of the intellectual apparatus which past ages have bequeathed to us. I shall be content if the following pages lead any to, I will not say agree- ment with what a group of German theologians has done, but sympathy with what its members have tried to do. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I INTRODUCTORY, . . . . 1 PAGE CHAPTER II THE RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY, . 14 CHAPTER III RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD, . . .30 CHAPTER IV RITSOHLIANISM AND REVELATION, . . .46 CHAPTER V THE VALUE- JUDGMENTS, . . . .92 CHAPTER VI THE RITSCHLIAN CONCEPTION OF FAITH, . . Ill CHAPTER VII THE RITSCHLIAN CONCEPTION OF MAN'S COMMUNION WITH GOD, . . . . .134 X RITSCHLIANISM CHAPTER VIII PAGK THE KITSCHLIAN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY : (1) THE DOCTRINE OF GOD, . . . .163 CHAPTER IX THE KITSCHLIAN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY : (2) THE DOCTRINE OF MAN, .... 202 CHAPTER X APPRECIATION AND CRITICISM, . . .241 NOTES, ...... 265 INDEX, . . . .271 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The Nineteenth Century was a period of the greatest philosophical and theological activity in Germany. It was ushered in by the writings of the four great ideaUst philosophers, Kant, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel, who, though primarily metaphysicians, possessed the deepest interest in the problems of theology, and exerted a wide influence upon its development, Ger- man theology was indeed shaken out of the preciseness and placidity "VA^hich had naturally resulted from the rigidity of Lutheran orthodoxy. For the era of the speculations of the philosophers was also the era of the rise of the ffigher Criticism. Thus, while Christian doctrine was being resolved into symboHsm, the Bible, on which all Christian doctrine must ultimately*(lepend, was being subjected to a criticism which was the more ruthless because ignorant of the limits of its power, ignorant also of the extreme care necessary if its con- clusions were to stand. Of the ideahst philosophers referred to above, Kant and Hegel were unquestionably the most influential, and those theologians who broke away at all from con- fessional orthodoxy, and attempted to reconcile the Christian faith with, modern ideas, were indebted to A 2 RITSCHLIANISM the one or the other. The tendency of Kant and his followers was in the direction of an ethical rationaHsm, while from Hegehanism proceeded a speculative and mystical rationaUsm. But of the two it was Hegel who especially dominated the liberahsing theology of the first half of the century. He was obscurer than Kant and less obviously opposed to the conclusions of ortho- doxy, while the Romanticist conception of the Universe which he expounded was championed independently of his theories by Schleiermacher, a thinker and theo- logian of the very first order ; who, without founding what can exactly be called a School, impressed himself immensely upon his age. Entirely convinced of the pre-eminence and finaUty of Christianity, he devoted himself to the defence of rehgion against rationaUsm. But, since in his view religion was essentially a matter of feeling, and the unity at which it aimed romantic and artistic rather than moral, he tended towards a mystical pantheism, towards a subordination of the historic Gospel to those eternal ideas, of which it was but the most perfect temporal symbol. Hegelianism touched the high-water mark of its influence upon Christianity in the rapid rise to emi- nence of the Tiibingen School. The Hegelian philo- sophy of history was applied by Strauss, and more expUcitly by Baur, to the investigation of the facts of the Gospels and to the history of the early Church. The results were most revolutionary, but were widely accepted. The extreme right wing in the Lutheran Church of course stood firm, and there were mediating theologians like Dorner and the Danish Martensen who, without rivalling Hengstenberg in his unbending orthodoxy, refused to worship at the new shrine. But INTRODUCTION 3 the brilliance of the theologians jof Tiibingen carried, at first, almost all before it, and, naturally, the destruc- tive criticism of the School had more influence than the reconstruction of history in accordance with Hege- lian principles which Baur attempted. The general effect was to transform Christianity. Th e trust- worthiness of the Gospels_wa^_^tirely destroyed, the figure of the Saviour o bscured j_one of the few things we couId15e~sufe~orwas that^miraci^j[id.nQt_ha.ppen. The history of the early Church was practically re- written, and Early Catholicism made the outcome of a reconciliation between the Pe trine and Pauline parties. Dr. Pusey was justified in his complaint that all this might be a true view of Christianity, but most certainly it was a new one. It need hardly be said that the leaders of the School had not the smallest intention of undermining Christianity : that Christianity was undermined shows that any attempt to harmonise the Christian religion with the needs of the Hegelian dialectic and the Hegelian philosophy could only end disastrously, as Strauss finally came to recognise. The ultimate failure of the Tiibingen School, the com- plete breakdown of the sjoithesis they had constructed, sounded the knell of Hegelianised Christianity. But it was not merely by the weight of its own in- herent weaknesses that the Tiibingen position fell. In 1850 there appeared a work by a young adherent of the School, Albrecht Ritschl, on The Origin of the Old Catholic Church, It was not slavish in its acceptance of the Tiibingen positions ; yet there could be no doubt of its general support. A second edition of this work came out in 18.5Z^almost entirely rewritten. This time, instead of being a support, it was the most 4 RITSCHLIANISM formidable and effective criticism of the main positions of Baur and his followers that had appeared. Indeed, it may fairly be said that it was a de athbl ow to many of the leading positions of the^JTubi ngen S chool. C hristianity "was saved f ra m-degenerating, or, rather, from being tortured into an historical illustration of Hegelian jrinciples . The author of the criticism, with whose theology we are to deal in the present work, rose to be the most eminent and influential German theologian since Schleiermacher, the constructor of a theology which, in complete opposition to speculative liberalism, laid all its stress on the facts of history, which were no longer forcibly compelled to assume the form most calculated to constitute them fit vehicles for Hegelian ideas. Above all else, theology was brought back to see that Jesus Ch rig t is imp ortant as a Person, not merely as an illustration of a principle. And Ritschl was able so to pass on his spirit to his followers that he has rightly been spoken of as the founder of a^dipgl, which, up till quite recently, was without question the dominant theological school in Germany. Even now, though its supremacy has been threatened by the growth of the so-called Religious- Historical School, its influence is by no means spent. Up till a comparatively short time ago but little account was taken in England of Ritschl and his doctrines. As a people we have many faults, but scarcely that of the ancient Athenians, anxiety ' either to hear or to tell some new thing.' However, the labours of distinguished scholars like Dr. Orr and Dr. Garvie have introduced Ritschl, from their different standpoints, to the British theological pubHo. The translations of the works of members of the School, INTRODUCTION 5 who are, as a rule, considerably more readable than the Master himself, have further helped to an under- standing of the principles and positions of those who are in more or less close sympathy with Ritschlianism. The growing interest felt in this theology is reflected in the attention devoted to it by Professor Inge and Dr. Rashdall in recent lectures in Cambridge. Three main reasons have made it difficult for Ritsch- lianism to receive a favourable hearing in England, apart altogether from particular defects in the theo- logical method and system presented. One reason is quite general ; one has special reference to the Church of England ; one apphes more particularly to the great Nonconformist bodies. To take the general reason first, Ritschl was a German. Now there has always been a tendency in England to distrust German theology and theologians, a tendency to look upon it as anti-Christian in purpose as weU as effect. But even if the objections to his nationaUty could have been surmounted, Ritschl was not at all Ukely to appeal to theologians of the Church of England. It was known that his method of treating Christian doctrine, if not his results, was revolutionary, and a confessional Church favours revolutionary methods least of all when they touch doctrine. A Church which adheres firmly to its own creeds cannot be expected to look with any natural friendliness on a thinker who is incHned to neglect creeds altogether. Finally, up to a short time ago, the Higher Criticism found it even more difficult to make any way in the Enghsh Free Churches than in the Church of England. The aujhorityof the Bible appeared aR-in-all to the former, and incompatible with those conclusions which most 6 RITSCHLIANISM critics were inclined to draw. The fact that Ritschl, though by no means an extreme critic, held very- different ideas on Biblical authority and inspiration from those generally current in the theological circles of EngUsh Protestant Nonconformity was likely to prejudice his cause. For, by refusing to use the Bible in the traditional way, he seemed to be playing into the hands of the supporters of Church authority. But a change has come ; not only are the more moderate results of the higher criticism very generally accepted, but there is without doubt a feehng, even among theologians of unquestioned orthodoxy, that there are defects in the form in which Christian doctrine, especially with regard to the Person of Christ and His Divinity, has been constructed. So essentially con- servative a theologian as Professor Denney^ has given expression to this in his Studies in Theology^ in which he says that the formula of the Two Natures does not adequately represent the effect Christ produces upon us, does not show Him sufficiently to be an unity. More recently, Dr. Garvie in his Studies in the Inner Life of Jesus, Dr. Oswald Dykes in a series of articles in the Expository Times, and Dr. J. G. Simpson in his Fact and Faith have all let it appear that they are not satis- fied with the form which the doctrine of the Godhead of Christ has assumed. Hence an atmosphere has been and is being created in which Ritschl is much more likely than formerly to obtain at least a fair hear- ing. The necessity of acknowledging those results of criticism which are not likely to be disturbed, and of showing that these residts do not in any way impair the truth of Christianity, is increasingly viewed as a 1 See Note A. INTRODUCTION 7 duty. But to make it clear that the ChristLaxureligion isjiot_destrDyed by BiblicalTcrincrsm is just on^^ those things which Ritsch l set him self to do. It is true thaFlie is^iot primarily an apologi^^ but a very strong.^^»^getic interest runs^through his work, shown especially in his anxiety to make theology independent of science and metaphysics, and to leave it tree To jiistify itself on its own merits and in its own way. _ Ritschl's followers have exhibited the same keen desire to prove that the truth of Christianity cannot be affected by critical conclusions, w hile at the same time they have avoided the mistake of representing Christ- ianity as a reUgion of ideas rather than of historical facts. Hamack's pamphlet, Christianity and History, is extremely valuable in this connection, the more so as coming from one of the greatest living historical critics. A very short account of Ritschl's life may now be given. He was bom in 1822, and went to the Uni- versity of Bonn in 1839, where he studied under Nitzsch. In 1841 he passed on to Halle, where the spell of Hegehanism fell upon him, and Tholuck and JuUus Miiller influenced him. In 1843 he took the degree of Ph.D. The next theologian with whom he came into contact was Rothe at Heidelberg, but his interest at that time was not in the mystical exposi- tion of doctrine, with which Rothe's name is asso- ciated, but in those historical studies which the leaders of the Tubingen School were carrying on. He came into immediate touch with Baur at Tiibingen in 1845, and in 1846 published a work written under the influence of the Tiibingen view of history on The Oospel of Marcion and the Canonical Gospel of Luke, 8 RITSCHLIANISM In 1846 he left Tubingen and returned to Bonn, where he began work as a privat docent. He still adhered broadly to the Tiibingen positions, and in 1850 brought out the work on the Old Cathohc Church to which reference has already been made. In 1852 he M^as made Extraordinary Professor, and in 1859, two years after his complete rupture with Baur and his School, Ordinary Professor. He was now beginning to develop his own theology, to which a great impetus was given by his association with Lotze at Gottingen, where he went as Professor in 1864, and where he passed the rest of his hfe till 1889. In 1870 appeared the first volume of his Christian Doctrine of Justification and Recon- ciliation, containing an account of the historical development of the doctrine ; this was followed four years later by the second volume, in which the Biblical conceptions were closely examined, and the third volume, which presented his own system. The smaller work. Instruction in the Christian Religion, was published in 1875, while the three volumes of his History of Pietism were spread over the years from 1880 to 1886. In 1881 he defended himself against various attacks in a pamphlet on Theology and Meta- physics, and in 1888 the third revised edition of his great constructive work appeared. All this time his influence was increasing, and thinkers of note were attaching themselves to him, while, on the other hand, severe criticisms were passed upon his doctrine both from the conservative and the advanced liberal sides. Yet, despite these, he won a position which no German theologian had held since Schleiermacher, and when he died in 1889 he left behind him a number of followers ready and able to expound and defend his principles, INTRODUCTION 9 if not all his conclusions. Dr. Orr^ has well brought out the two main features of the earlier part of his hfe — the receptivity of his mind, and his ability to main- tain a strong and independent personality amid all the various influences which from time to time sur- rounded him. The extent to which he was indebted to other thinkers is displayed by M. Schoen in his work on Les Sources historiques de la TMologie de Eitschl, in which justice is also done to Ritschl's poAver of forming syntheses ; at the same time we may doubt whether Ritschl was not really more original than M. Schoen allows. Ritschl is not an easy theologian to classify ; but, taking into account the German theological movements of the last century, we should be nearest the truth if we spoke of -him. as a^ /mediating ' theologian. He was out of sympathy with Conservatives like Luthardt and Frank, and Liberals like Pfleiderer and Lipsius. His essential difference from these latter two Hes in this, that whereas they wished to reconcile Christianity with modern thought, and so were in line with the main Hegehan tradition, Ritschl desired to show that Christianity was independent of the modern move- ments of thought, and could watch them with equa- nimity. But if Rothe and Domer are, as is often the case, taken as types of the mediating theologians, it must be admitted that Ritschl can with difficulty obtain a place in the same category. Rothe and Domer were essentially apologists, Rothe in the in- terests of a speculative mysticism, Domer in those of orthodox confessionalism But Ritschl, as we have said above, was not primarily an apologist, and he can ^ Orr, Ritschlianism, Critical and Expository Lectures, pp. 34, 35. 10 RITSCHLIANISM be ascribed to the mediating school only because of his distance from " positives ' and * liberals ' alike. The explanation of this difficulty of classification is to be found in his own claim to represent and develop the true principles of the Protestant Reformation, principles which, ever since Melanchthon had led the way in the construction of a Protestant scholasticism, had become more and more obscured. But, for Ritschl, adherence to true Reformation principles entailed necessarily strenuous opposition, not only to Roman Cathohcism, but also to orthodox Protestantism and theological hberahsm, both of which had turned their backs on those principles in matters of vital im- portance, especially in the question of the meaning of faith. One of the things which makes it so hard for an Enghshman to understand Ritschl, is the necessity of appreciating his relation to the various movements of German theology : he cannot be understood at all unless proper weight is attached to his environment, and the connection of that environment with the pur- pose of his writings. In his great constructive work on Justification and Reconciliation there are often minute investigations into the doctrines of little- known Lutheran and Reformed divines. But such investigations are entirely necessary for Ritschl's object, which is to exhibit the development of Pro- testant theology, discover the cause and nature of its deflexion from the truest thought of the Reformers, and so work for a remedy. This return to the vital thoughts and rehgion of the Reformation is one of the chief characteristics of the School. Ritschl's followers are not united to him and to one another by a precise acceptance of his detailed system : what does unite INTRODUCTION 11 them is the possession of common principles and common methods. If we remember this, we shall see that at present it is impossible to say how far Ritschl's influence will really prevail. A much longer time must pass before we can judge of that. Ritschl's place in theology will not depend on how far his particular conclusions are adopted, but on how far the principles, the presuppositions, and the method, which lie behind his constructive work and are responsible for it, are adequate to the work of the constructive theologians of the future. Now in what spirit should we come to a considera- tion of the Ritschlian theology ? When Dr. Garvie pleaded for sympathetic treatment, Dr. Orr rephed that ' sympathy may require to give way to a sense of its very serious defects, and it may become a duty to speak very plainly concerning them.'^ And if the sympathy for which Dr. Garvie pleaded were merely of a sentimental kind, the natural good-will extended to those who are strangers to us in the house of theo- logy. Dr. Orr's answer would win our assent. But this sympathy is not of a sentimental nature ; it is founded — and Dr. Garvie asserts that it is founded — on the fact that the Ritschhans have reahsed the existence of a situation, which we must also come to reahse, if we do not yet. However serious Ritschl's blunders may be, however obvious his defects, he has at least attempted, in the face of a strong reaction of a con- siderable section of present-day thought from Christ- ianity, to supply what was needed. It cannot be said that the Christian Church as a whole has under- stood the meaning of the new intellectual situation. ^ Orr, Bitschlianisnii Critical and Expository Essays^ p. 80. 12 RITSCHLIANISM But if the vague talk in which we too often indulge concerning religious difficulties, as though they were a number of detached ideas without any bond of units, were to give way to a thorough appreciation of the present position, we should at once prize Ritschl's fearless honesty more highly, and also treat his failures more justly and more mercifully. No attempt is made in the succeeding chapters to deal with all those theologians who follow Ritschl more or less closely. As the movement gets further away from the founder of the School, it necessarily broadens out in various directions, and, with the rise of other theological problems than those to which Ritschl devoted most of his attention, it becomes more and more difficult to trace his direct influence. Herr- mann of Marburg, and Kaftan of Berlin, and — to a much less extent — -Harnack,^ form the direct line of descent of Ritschl's ideas, and of these a good deal has been said. But they have modified many of Ritschl's positions, or laid the greatest emphasis on other facts than those to which he attached most importance ; and the younger men, though greatly influenced by Ritschl's thought, have not tried to make his conclu- sions their own. Ritschl was a great systematic theo- logian, and the unrest of the age does not favour so vast a work of construction as Ritschl carried out. Dogma is not, on the whole, popular, and Ritschl was anything but undogmatic. We cannot, therefore, judge of the permanence of Ritschl's work by the extent to which his results have been accepted. We shall not speak with Professor Swing of his ' world- transforming views,' But if he has brought a new 1 See Note B. INTEODUCTION 13 spirit into theology, alive to the nature and urgency of its problems, a spirit of some ' divine discontent ' with those who have been no true teachers, but have lulled the Christian people into a dangerous repose, this in itself is a gift of the utmost value to the Christian Church. We must pass now to a consideration of the main features of the Ritschlian Theology, and, first of all, to see how the School conceives of the relation of theology to philosophy, by philosophy being under- stood that abstract metaphysic which many of its champions would set up as dominant and regulative for every sphere of thought. 14 RITSCHLIANISM CHAPTER II THE RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY There are few subjects more perplexing to the student of Ritschl than his philosophy, and in particular his theory of knowledge. One of the first things he learns in acquainting himself with the thoughts and writings of this theologian is his profound sense of the harm that has come to Christianity through its alliances with philosophies quite alien in character from itself, and his general distrust of all metaphysical approaches to the knowledge of God. And yet Ritschl's own system appears to be largely dependent on an epistemology which is derived from two philosophers, Kant and Lotze, and Avhich he has not succeeded in making very clear or convincing. It is true that in one place he asserts that Christianity is neutral as regards all theories of knoM ledge, ^ but this assertion loses most of its force when the earlier passage in the same treatise is recalled, in which he declares that every theologian as a scientific man must work in accordance with some definite theory of knowledge,^ a declaration which, if it is to be taken seriously, implies that any particular theology will attain to truth in proportion as its funda- mental epistemology is true. ^ Theologie und Metaphysilcy p. 46. ^ Op. cii. , p, 40. RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY I5 But though the importance Ritschl attached to his own theory — an importance which stands out the more clearly in view of his highly critical comments on those who dissented from it — may properly lead us to feel that Ritschl's severe strictures on aU speculative metaphysics, as distinct from any particular meta- physical system, are not warranted by his own practice, yet it is not quite fair to say with Professor Orr that ' Ritschlianism through its avowed dependence on a theory of knowledge is controlled at every point by metaphysics,' or with Frank, whom Dr. Orr quotes with evident approval, that ' through this loop-hole the whole of philosophy is drawn back into theology.'^ A theory of knowledge is not a metaphysic, even though Dr. Garvie is right in saying that Ritschl identified the two ; and whereas no thinker can work aFall without some conception of the relation of know- ledge to reality, it is by no means necessary that every thinker or theologian should have a metaphysic pro- perly so called. Ritschl uses his epistemology to clear the ground for the development of his own positive and unquestionably unmetaphysical system, not to construct a metaphysic of his own. There can be no guarantee that a world-view obtained through the use of metaphysical categories will be similar to, much less the same as, that derived from the Christian revelation, and the attempt to force the two into an unnatural unity may lead to the disappearance of what is dis- tinctively Christian. This was the result of the Hegehan movement, a good English instance of which can be seen in the last chapter of Dr. Edward Caird's Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers. It ^ Orr, The Ritschlian Theology and the Evangelical Faith, p. 237. 16 RITSCHLIANISM was Ritsohl's earnest wish to find such a theory of knowledge as would justify him in keeping Christ- ianity and speculative metaphysics apart, and the presence of speculation in his own theology does not convict him of failure. Any process of reasoning that is other than a series of purely logical deductions must contain speculative elements, but we mean something very different from this when we speak of a meta- physical system. The mere fact that, e.g., E-itschl deduces the Kingdom of God from God's love as its necessary object does not justify us in describing him as a metaphysician. Neither St. Paul nor St. John abstained from speculation, but of genuine meta- physics in either of them there is hardly a trace. Ritschl's epistemology is not profound, and we shall see that it really cramped his theology in certain respects instead of freeing it. But if we use the word ' metaphysical ' exactly, we must allow that the whole bias of his theory of knowledge is anti-metaphysical. There is therefore no inconsistency in the insistence on a regulative theory of knowledge by one who would allow no place to metaphysics in building up correct presentations of Christian truth. Ritschl's epistemology is constructed in opposition to Plato and Kant, and in dependence on Lotze. The Platonic theory of ideas seemed to him to imply a separation between the thing at rest, the Ding an sich, and its quahties and activities in phenomena, which kept the mind detached from reality and led to useless because insoluble speculations on the nature or essence of the thing. With Kant's agnostic attitude towards the thing itself Ritschl wholly agreed, but whereas Kant found no reahty in those phenomena to which EITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 17 alone our understanding is directed, Ritschl argued ' that the world of phenomena can be posited as the object of knowledge, only if in them something real — to wit, the thing — appears to us or is the cause of our sensation and perception.' ^ Professor Orr is therefore not justified in his statement that ' To say, as Kant does, that the *'real thing" is unknowable in itself, and with Ritschl that it is known only in the phenomenon (i.e. its subjective effect), are two expressions for the same thing.' ^ This would only be the case if Ritschl held that the phenomena in which the thing appears were mere sub] ective impressions . Ritschl follows Kant in refusing to form any conception of the thing apart from phenomena, but in his view of the pheno- mena unmistakably differs from him. It is Lotze's epistemology which gains Ritschl's allegiance. Lotze holds that * in the phenomena which in a definite space exhibit changes to a limited extent and in a determinate order we cognise the thing as the cause of its qualities operating upon us, as the end which these serve as means, as the law of their constant changes.' ^ But though there is a close verbal resemblance between Lotze's doctrine and that of Ritschl, there are in reahty important differences which account for the opinions of many critics that it would be more accurate to describe Ritschl as Neo-Kantian in his theory of knowledge than as a follower of Lotze. We have seen that Ritschl was anxious to avoid Kant's view in which phenomena become mere illusions, and therefore made the presence of the thing, the ultimate reality, in pheno- * Fecht/ertigung und Feod'Anwn^, p. 19. (English Translation.) ^ Orr, The Ritschlian Theology, etc., p, 39. ^ Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, pp. 20-21. (E. T. ) B 18 EITSCHLIANISM mena the centre of his position. Lotze, despite his behef in the action of the thing in phenomena, attached no real existence to the phenomena themselves. These impressions are indeed caused by the action of things upon uSj but we do not therefore gain any true picture of things in themselves, and we must beware of attri- buting to objects quaUties which exist only in our imaginations. Lotze accordingly falls back upon reason to tell us something of objective reahty, and through his beHef that spirit, not matter, is the essence of the world, supplements his epistemology by a meta- physic, and saves himself from falhng into pure sub- jective idealism by his doctrine of spiritual existences as causes of phenomena which are symbols, not images of reality. Neither his scepticism when he affirms the ' unavoidable and thorough-going subjectivity of our cognition,' ^ nor his positive conception of infinite spiritual beings behind phenomena, finds an echo in Ritschl. Ritschl's failure either to think out an adequate metaphysic for himseK, or thoroughly to understand the theory of knowledge which Lotze had formed, and which he, as he thought, took over in its essential points, accounts for the varjdng judgments formed of his philosophy by his interpreters. There must indeed be confusion in a thinker to whom both sub- jective ideahsm and naive reahsm have been attri- buted with some justification ! Yet it is only by exaggerating his affinity to Kant that he can be described as an idealist. His approval of that philo- sopher's position that the thing itself is imknowable, loses its appearance of an advance towards idealism ^ Lotze, Outlines of Metaphysics ^ p. 143. (E. T.) RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 19 when we remember how closely he connects the thing with phenomena, and so looks for reaUty in the world of sense rather than in the world of ideas. ' We know the subject,' he writes, ' only in its predicates. If we could leave these out of our thought or forget them, the thing also, which we have learned to know under these signs, would fall out of our knowledge.'^ All through his theology we shall find this same tendency to look for the thing in its signs and effects, and not to go beyond them. What is unfortunate in Ritschl is not any inclination on his part to throw doubt on the reality of things, but the obvious inability of his theory to apply to all cases. For cases exist in which reality is not attained to by a mere consideration of its signs, and here Ritschl is unable to help us. It is then that he seems at one with the critical idealism which can tell us nothing of the nature of ultimate reality. Ritschl's own position has been well described by Dr. Garvie as ' vulgar realism,' ^ and is essentially the same as that of ordinary non-philosophical persons. And as these latter never set themselves to solve the problem of the relations of knowledge and existence because no such problem appears on their horizon, so is it with Ritschl. It is clear that knowledge, in deal- ing with the phenomena of sense-perceptions, has material to work on which is denied it if it apphes itself to transcendental reaUties — granting that these latter exist — and it is therefore natural to invest these pheno- mena with the fullest reality attainable by us here. Idealists, from Plato to Mr. Bradley, have conceived of different degrees of reality rising away from sense- ^ Ritschl, Theologie und Metaphysik, p. 37. 2 Garvie, The Eitschlian Theology, p. 45. 20 RITSCHLIANISM impressions which are not the objects of knowledge but only of opinion. Ritschl's method is much more akin to that of modem science than to that of metaphysic : indeed, as we have seen, he has not, properly speaking, a metaphysic at all. His attention is confined to an analysis of individual particular existences, and de- preciation of these in the interests of universal formless existence, to which the name of ' reahty ' or ' God ' is quite arbitrarily attached, is simply the result of false metaphysics or Neo-platonic mysticism.^ But any theory of knowledge, whether true or false, necessarily implies an unity in the person who knows, and we must now turn our attention from the facts of knowledge, analysed and arranged by the subject, to that subject. There are passages in Ritschl, eagerly seized upon by his critics, which appear to merge the soul so entirely in its functions that the unity of the self is endangered, and, among other results, its im- mortality becomes highly precarious. For immortahty is contingent on the self's independence of those functions which it performs on the present plane of existence, and its consequent capacity for being abs- tracted from them. Ritschl writes, ' We know nothing of a self-existence of the soul, of a self-enclosed hfe of the spirit above or behind those functions in which it is active, living, and present to itself as a being of special worth. It is a contradiction when the faculties of the soul are supposed to exercise their effects, and at the same time to constitute in repose the proper being of the soul thus cut off from its functions.' ^ And in another place he says, ' Of my metaphysical being ^ Kitschl, Theologie und Metaphysih, pp. 27, 28. ^ Hitachi, Justification and Beconciliationf p. 21. (E. T.) RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 21 (my real actual being, according to Luthardt) I know nothing and experience nothing ; and so I cannot direct myself by it. And Luthardt cannot teach me about it, since he also is quite ignorant of it.' ^ Of these positions Pfleiderer declares that ' they make the unity of the ego illusion, and reahty is to be sought only in the multi- plicity of its functions,' and asks how in that case we are to explain the actual consciousness of personal identity, the continuity of consciousness, and the fact of memory. The possibility of unity in moral char- acter, and the conception of immortality, are jeo- pardised.'- There can be no question that Ritschl in his intense preference for activity over repose, the ' " go " of the thing ' as Professor James calls it,^ to speculations on its possible self-contained nature, has verbally come very near to leaving us with a mass of attributes and no subject. He is quite right in saying that we know nothing of our real seK apart from activities mental or moral, and yet we must, in order to safeguard the per- manence of personahty, postulate an unity in which all activities are held together. This unity has had some light thrown on it in recent years through F. W. H. Myers' speculations on the subhminal self and by facts of psychical research, which prove that in the human spirit there is unconscious as weU as conscious function- ing. But we must beware of judging Ritschl by isolated statements. Neither the unity of the thing nor the unity of the soul is for Ritschl only a mental figment. In his pamphlet Theologie und Metaphysik, ' Ritschl, Theologie und Metaphysik, p. 25. ^ Pfleiderer, Die RitschVsche Theologie^ pp. 11, 12. * W. James, Fragmatifnn, p. 1. 22 RITSCHLIANISM he speaks of the thing as cause in its operations and purpose in the ordered succession of its apparent changes/ and in the same work he states distinctly that the cognising soul in the change of its corre- sponding sensations feels and remembers itself as an abiding unity. It is on the analogy of the soul that the concept of the unity of the thing is formed in our mind by the orderly arrangement of the successive appearances that we observe.^ His account of the formation of the concept of a thing in the mind through ' memory-images ' {Erinnerungsbilder) , which are the result of continued impressions in space and time, may not be psychologically correct,^ but it does not justify us in assuming that for Ritschl the thing was only a mental fiction. He has confused both himself and his readers by his neglect of the category of substance, but this is due to his practical interest in reality as manifested and actively operating in pheno- mena, which permeates his whole work, and not to the conclusions of genuine philosophical speculation. However much its sensations may change, the soul remains an unity and is conscious of itself as such ; this is Ritschl's doctrine, and in view of it he is not really open to the objections of Pfleiderer. The pre- vious statements quoted (see pp. 23, 24), on which Pfleiderer relies for his indictment, certainly do not accord well with the clear statement of the unity of the soul which appears in Theologie und Metaphysik, p. 19. But even those statements do not go beyond an insistence, even an extreme insistence, on the ^ Ritschl, Theologie und Metaphysikj p. 38. ^ Ritschl, op. cit.y p. 19. ■* Op. cit.^ p. 38 ; cf. Justification and Reconciliat^fm, p. 19. (E. T.) RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 23 unknowableness of the soul apart from its activities : they do not assert the non-existence of the soul apart from its manifestations. In his polemic against Luthardt, Ritschl allowed himself to throw greater contempt on whatever is transcendental than his own position justifies. Just as to the pragmatists the intellectualistic view of truth — that it is the corre- spondence of thought with reaUty — is unsatisfying because it is essentially static and gives no scope for the exercise of man's intellectual activities, so for Ritschl questions of the nature of the soul, of any individual thing, and, as mc shall afterwards see, of God and Christ, apart from the energies of the same, have neither interest nor value. Ritschl foreruns the whole modern pragmatic psychological movement in his exaltation of feeling and willing above the intellect. ' The elementary conception of the spiritual life as a real thing,' he writes, ' is only a preparation for man to recognise the peculiar reality of the spirit in the functions of feeling, knowing, willing, but especially in the last named.' ^ It is interesting in view of what Pfleiderer says as to Ritschl's doctrine of the soul and the belief in immortahty, and character- istic of Ritschl himself, to find him insisting against the Calvinists that eternal life must not be divested of every relation to possible personal experience." And though Ritschl has no claim to be considered an able philosopher, and his assertions do not always agree together, yet our gratitude is due to him for his wish to bring reahty into as close touch as possible with the actual experiences of man. That the key to ^ Ritschl, Theologie und Metophysilc, p. 48. ^ Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation , p. 496. (E. T. ) 24 RITSCHLIANISM truth is to be looked for in action is not only the beUef of many of the most vigorous thinkers of the present, but is the meaning of the saying in the fourth Gospel, ' If any man willeth to do my will, he shall know of the doctrine.' There is one other thing that we must remember in connection with Ritschl's epistemology, especially when we attribute to it a regulative influence over his theological system. His theory of knowledge was not formed apart from his theology, but in the closest connection with it. It is Pfleiderer's opinion,^ to which Dr. Garvie subscribes, that Ritschl did not make his theory of cognition the basis of his theology from the first, but propounded it afterwards in its defence. And if his pamphlet Theologie und Meta- physik is, considered as a philosophical writing, intrinsically worthless, it is only fair to Ritschl to keep in mind that he was forced, by the attacks made upon him by those who were the defenders of what he considered the false Platonic metaphysic, to contest these points on ground that was not his own and with weapons in whose use he was not skilled. If we now turn from Ritschl to his leading disciples, we find that whereas they agree with the master in his opposition to the Platonic metaphysic that had become traditional in Christian theology, they do not make his particular epistemology their own or represent exactly as he does the relation of theology to meta- physic. Herrmann appears to make the breach between theology and metaphysic even more complete than Ritschl. In his pamphlet Metaphysik in der Theologie, he declares that for the theologian as such ' Pfleiderer, Development of Theology, p. 183. RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 25 it is a matter of indifference whether philosophy be deistic, pantheistic, or theistic/ an assertion which, of course, does not imply that he would consider all these three solutions equally good as philosophy, but that Christianity, using other means for arriving at truth, need not look for support from speculative metaphysics. But though Herrmann will hear of no alhance between theology and metaphysics, he brings theology into the very closest connection with another great branch of philosophy — ethics. Ritschl never adequately correlated morahty and rehgion, and saw in the voice of conscience no direct, unclouded testi- mony to God. Very different is Herrmann's position. For him, as for Kant and Schleiermacher, morahty is the starting-point of religion. Morality gives a- man the sense of his freedom from the world of nature, but has in itself no power to redeem from guilt ; it is only as morality points a man to God that man can find it in God's revelation to him. For Herrmann, equally with Kant, the moral law is a priori, and the ' Christian idea of God is a function of the moral spirit, which seeks and experiences in that idea freedom from guilt and evil.' And a little further on in his pamphlet comes a passage which shows most clearly how radical is the difference which he finds between theology and metaphysics, and how inextricably at the same time is theology bound up with man's ethical convictions. ' We are forced,' he writes, ' to the conviction that what we mean by reality in Christianity is something quite different from what we mean by reahty in metaphysics. In this latter case it signifies the creative reahty by which we make ^ Herrmann, Dit Metaphysih in der Theologie, p. 21. 26 RITSCHLIANISM the possibility of all being and becoming intelligible to ourselves ; in the former case it certainly stands in relation corresponding to the incommunicable experience of the worth of Christian goodness. The attempt to mix up these two involves the denial of the view that the'ethical fact in which the world-view has its roots Js a separate thing entirely neutral as regards the general forms of being and becoming, and one with which metaphysics cannot deal at all.' ^ Continually in Herrmann's works this insistence on the importance of the moral personaHty for a true judgment of reHgion reappears. In distinction from Herrmann, Kaftan is generally classed as an empiricist. This is true in relation to his method, which is to be distinguished from Herrmann's faithful following of Kant as to a priority and autonomy of the moral law,^ but Kaftan did not think that ultimate problems could be solved along the hnes of empirical knowledge. The first part of his second volume on the Truth of the Christian Eeli- gion is devoted to a proof that such problems can be solved neither along the hnes of empirical knowledge, nor along those of the traditional ideahstic speculation, but that it is our duty to start with the primacy of the will in our self-conscigusness, and of the practical reason in our philosophical speculations. Kaftan's whole spirit is less hostile to any mixing of rehgion with metaphysical speculation than is either Ritschl's or Herrmann's, The possibility of the extremest possible antithesis between the world- view of the ^ Herrmann, Die Metaphysik in der Theologies p. 17. Herrmann, Die Religion im Verhdltniss zu^n Wclterkennen und zur Siitlichkeit, pp. 162-164. W'- RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 27 metaphysician and the theologian, which in Herrmann's opinion would rightly leave the latte/quite imdisturbed, would not be contemplated equally easily by the Berlin theologian, ' The sphere of thought peculiar to the Christian faith, and the sphere of thought identified with the rational knowledge of things, cannot be wholly apart from one another : it must bepossible to combine them so as to make a whole.' ^ So he writes in the introduction to his Truth of the Christian Religion, Yet in a previous statement that ' knowledge never appHes to God as He is in Himself, but always to God as He reveals Himself,'"^ we find him treading closely in Ritschl's footsteps. The truth is that the E-itschUan dishke of meta- physics, and the anxiety of the School to bring reality down into the phenomena of the world, where it can be the object of man's more certain knowledge, is due in very large measure to pure theological interest. The common insistence on the revelation of God in the historic hfe and work of Christ, the attacks upon the traditional dogmatic as having buried the Gospel, God's power toward men, beneath an edifice of doctrines reared by the help of Neo-platonic forms, the aversion from mediaeval mystical piety and its prolongation in certain types of Protestant orthodoxy, left the School no choice but to adapt their principles in metaphysics and epistemology to the needs of both their positive and negative theological position. So far nothing has been said concerning the much \ challenged dualism of the Ritschlian theology, the i entire separation of the domains of nature and spirit, \ ^ Kaftan, The Truth of the Christian Religion ^ p. 11. ' Kaftan, op. cit., p. 3. 28 RITSCHLIANISM which finds its subjective expression in the distinction made between theoretical judgments and judgments of value. We have seen that the School connects reality as closely as possible with phenomena in the world of sense, and we have seen also that the charge brought against Ritschl of allowing to the soul no existence independent of its activities, is not justifiable, despite rash language on his part ; but we have not yet investigated the relation which in the Ritschhan view exists between the thinking, feeling, willing subject and the objects of knowledge, and the method by which he apprehends them. A special chapter must be devoted to this difficult question, but it may be said here that it is the present writer's opinion that there would be far less misunderstanding of what the Ritschlians mean by judgments of value (Werth- urteile), if they were considered more in the light of Ritschhan positive principles as to the Christian revelation, and less by means of formal logical deduc- tions of their supposed implications. We should certainly hear fewer charges of subjectivism directed against Ritschl and his disciples. To anticipate what must be gone into more fully later, value- judging is not something which acts as it were in vacuo, and constructs its articles of faith as it pleases. It is the method by which man grasps and appreciates aright objective God-given revelation. It deals with truths for faith and not with illusions of faith. ^ It is best, therefore, to discover wherein the Ritschlians find definite revelation and what may be its content, to deal with them just as we should deal with any other theological school, bringing ourselves face to * See Garvie, 7^he Ritschlian Thtology^ p. 408. RITSCHLIAN ATTITUDE TO PHILOSOPHY 29 face with those truths of rehgion on which they lay all possible emphasis. And if we find ^at the Ritschlian School insists on things which are true and Christian, the fact that its members find the approach thereto in judgments of value rather than in judgments from which all considerations of value, weal, and woe, are eliminated,^ will not prevent us from testifying to the good to be found in their positive doctrine. Doubtless it is important that men should arrive at truth by the right method, but it is more important that they should arrive at the truth. It is the object of the next chapters to show that even if the Ritschhans have exaggerated the importance of value-judging, some of their critics have still more exaggerated the place which value- judging holds in that system. Finally, our view of the value- judgments themselves, and of the unquestionable difficulty inherent in their application to certain doctrines, will gain in accuracy if we look at them in the light of those positive truths which Ritschlianism maintains in union with the whole Christian Church. ^ Herrmann, Die Mttaphysik in der Theologie, p. 8. 30 RITSCHLIANISM CHAPTER III RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD There is no study that has grown more rapidly or with more fruitful results of late, than that of the origin and evolution of religions. Though concerned with the most fiercely contested question that divides men, it is capable of treatment apart from dogmatic prejudices and with reference to scientific interest alone. Though men may insist on the pre-eminent or even exclusive character of the religious revelation of God to Israel and afterwards in His Son, the problem of the universal quest for religion, among however primitive peoples and in however degraded a form, remains the same. Whence arises this universal instinct ? How has it developed ? Answers that may be given to these questions from a consideration of the facts of the past, which we call history, or from an investigation of the hidden recesses and complex workings of the human spirit, which we call psychology, can be without prejudice to the belief that among all nations and in every individual, God has not left Himself without a witness, so that the craving for some rehgion is itself a witness to His existence. Nor is it any sign of treachery to such a behef to try and indicate the circumstances under which, and the RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD 31 means whereby, religions have sprung up and taken their varying forms. No modern school has laid more stress than the Ritschhan on the God-given revelation which is necessary for man's religious Hfe, and none has viewed with more disfavour the attempt to discover some universally-valid rational natural religion on which the facts of revelation can be superimposed. But Ritschl and his followers had to recognise the fact of the constancy and universality of the religious instinct. The religions of savages both long ago and to-day, tribal and national religions, religions characterised by the lowest kinds of idolatry and sensuahty, or by the loftiest and most esoteric of philosophies, have developed and grown up apart from the Christian revelation, and with no dependence on the faith of Israel. Humanly speaking, some adequate cause must be discovered for all these in the mind of man. Ritschl's solution of the problem has this merit, that it recognises the place external nature had in determining human conceptions. Anthropology and the study of early religions show us how intensely man was affected by natural phenomena. The powers of nature were the very first to be deified or, perhaps we should rather say, spiritualised. Man living among natural forces, some of which were friendly, some destructive, had to adjust his position with regard to them. Here then Ritschl finds his starting-point. ' In every rehgion,' he writes, ' what is sought, with the help of the superhuman spiritual power reverenced by man, is a solution of the contra- diction in which man finds himself, as both a part of 32 RITSCHLIANISM the world of nature and a spiritual personality claiming to dominate nature. For in the former r61e he is a part of Nature, dependent upon her, subject to and confined by other things ; but as a spirit he is moved by the impulse to maintain his independence against them. In this juncture, religion springs up as faith in superhuman spiritual powers, by whose help the power which man possesses of himself is in some way supplemented, and elevated into an unity of its own kind, which is a match for the pressure of the natural world.' ^ The fact that primitive man invested with supernatural powers the very agencies whose workings he feared, does not overthrow Ritschl's conception, for these could be propitiated when once it was believed that they were not blind and unbending forces, but spiritual powers having an intent toward man even if for his harm. And Ritschl goes on to point out that man regards these powers as personal on the analogy of his own personality. Thus the root- instinct of primitive man is seK-preservation ; and that his path through life may be smooth, not beset by perils and fears of suffering, loss, and premature death, he postulates spiritual powers, of which some as malignant and evilly disposed to him must be appeased by offerings, while the good spirits watch over and protect him. This account of the origin of religion given by Ritschl is not complete, and is open to objections which have been brought against it, but it must be remembered that he repudiates any idea of formulating a general conception of religion, and indeed gives excellent reasons why any attempt at such a formulation must ^ Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation^ p. 199. (E. T.) RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD 33 be attended by great difficulties.^ We must content ourselves with considering whether, so far as it goes, it gives a true account of the rise of early religious ideas. But in order to appreciate his position fairly, it is best first to supplement it with the ethical interest which Herrmann imports into the upspringing of every religion, and to set alongside Kaftan's criticism and restatement. Herrmann's intense ethical feehng is prominent in his treatment of this question : he agrees with Ritschl in his view of the contradiction which man finds between himself as an element in the world of nature, and his superiority to it as a conscious spiritual being, but he deepens man's motive for desiring freedom over against the world by introduc- ing the conception of the highest good and the necessity for its realisation, which can only be secured through, religion.^ ' Rehgion arises,' he writes, ' when man> tells himself that he exists for the eternal.' ^ In one ofl 1 his latest published works — an essay entitled The Religious Question of the Present, which with writings by other theologians goes to make up the little book Das Christentum — we find the same stress laid on man's moral sense as the door through which he cornea to rehgion, that appears in Die Metaphysik in derTheologie, pubhshed more than thirty years ago. ' The reaUties of God and the soul are not to be found in the natural order.' * And he goes on to show that the beginning of piety is industry, and that moral earnestness alone ^ Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, p. 195, (E. T.) ^ Herrmann, Die Metaphysik, u.a.io., p. 8. 3 Herrmann, Warum bedarf unser Qlauhe geschichtlicher Thatsachen ? p. 22. ■* Herrmann, Essay in Das Christentum, p. 106. C 34 RITSCHLIANISM can be the way to life. In thus connecting rehgion at its outset with the moral consciousness of man, Herr- mann has not only corrected Ritschl's position, which was in danger of looking at rehgion as a matter of mere utihtarianism, but has done good service to the cause of rehgion itself. It is in man's ethical sense, in the feeling of a claim upon him of a moral law which is not open to entire scientific analysis, that he will, if any- where in himself, find the signs of God. No modem theologian has done more than Herrmann to insist on the centrahty of the moral and all that that imphes. The desire for self-preservation is Ritschl's explana- tion of the origin of religion, and Herrmann, though supplementing him by the introduction of the moral factor, yet foUows faithfully in the master's steps. Kaftan, however, in his work on The Essence of the Christian Religion, argues that it makes God a means for man's own ends, and that in fact any such feeUng on primitive man's part of his own specific dignity as a spiritual being was quite wanting. Rehgion, in his opinion, rises in man's desire for self-satisfaction, and the highest religion will be that in which moral and not natural goods are sought. This view of Kaftan's has recently been put forward as a part-explanation of religion by Bousset, who also was at one time under Ritschl's influence. He, in his What is Religion ? says of religion that it is a ' striving after hfe,' though as a second determining factor he finds in all rehgions except Buddhism the behef in God or gods.'^ Kaftan, who carries Dr. Garvie with him in his criticism of Ritschl, imputes to Ritschl's thought too exclusively anthropocentric a character. His objections would 1 Bousset, What is Religion? p. 12. (E. T.) RELIGION AND THE IDEA OP GOD 35 only be true if Ritschl were describing the ideal religious feelings of a man, and this is far from his pur- pose. Religion, faith in God, may begin with man calling in God to redress the balance of his own dis- tressed Ufe ; thus, persons who are generally worldly and irreligious turn to God in their troubles — not for His own sake, but that their affairs may be bettered. And in such a turning there may be the beginnings of true religion, so that he who would have used God but as a means to his own end comes to find that God Himself is for him the supreme End. It is inconceiv- able that Ritschl, who, as Herrmann tells us in his rectorial address on ' The Evangelical Faith and the Theology of Albrecht Ritschl,' thought of faith as unconditional submission to the revealed power of God,^ should have intended to approve of any such relation between God and man's own ends as that which Kaftan condemns. But in the early stages of religion, whether in a nation of old or in an individual to-day, we do not expect to find man subordinating himself and his own ends to God. If Kaftan merely intends to imply that in primitive times man had no such thought of his own dignity and value as would cause him to feel hampered and cramped in a world where the forces of nature appeared all-powerful, we may point out that Ritschl does not commit himself to any extravagant statements as to primeval man's sense of his own worth, but is justified by the study of early i religion in his opinion that it was the forces of nature, j and particularly the destructive ones, which turned j man's mind towards religion. As a matter of fact, ' Kaftan's and Ritschl's views do not exclude each other, ' Herrmann, Faith and MoralSf p. 34. (E. T. ) 36 RITSCHLIANISM and there is no reason to give one a decided preference over the other. At the head of all religious ideas stands the idea of God, and no system of thought which omits this idea is rightly spoken of as a religion, while only as the con- ception of God is true will the religion that enshrines that conception be able to maintain itself. Now it is clear that a mere disposition towards religion, which takes the form of a hope that man may be able to depend upon the assistance of supra-sensual powers as he goes through life, is so far from necessarily con- taining a true doctrine of God that it is not even obviously theistic. Theism has more affinities with polytheism than it has with atheism, but its hving interest and power is almost as e£fectively destroyed by the one as by the other. Man therefore needs means whereby he may come to know the truth about God, and may be able to sustain himself in the face of oppos- ing theories. Ritschl's doctrine of God must now claim our attention. The doctrine of God, as Ritschl saw, is the one where theology comes most directly into touch with meta- physics. ' Apart from the doctrine of God,' he says, ' the Christian dogmatic affords no opportunity for the distinct setting up of a metaphysical thought as theological.' ^ And when philosophy deals directly with this thought it has and must have its own method of setting it forth and explaining it in complete inde- pendence of theology and religion. To a certain ex- tent thesephilosophical conceptions maybe of use to the theologian, but rather because they encourage him with the knowledge that thinkers in another field of thought ^ Ritschl, Theologie und Metaphysik^ p. 40. RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD 37 agree with him in his belief that God is, than because they necessarily support his positive theology. This fact explains Ritschl's attitude towards the specu- lative proofs of God's existence which were a legacy from early and mediaeval philosophy to the Christian theologian. Although these were severely criticised by Kant, yet they have been thought too valuable, as indicating philosophical agreement with theology, for theologians as a rule to discard them. But com- promises were not congenial to Ritschl's temperament ; for him the name of God is that which we often find in the epistles — ' The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,'^ and philosophical concepts which cannot but fall short of this have for him no value as helps to a correct theology. In this spirit he deals with the worth of the three well-known speculative arguments for God's existence — the cosmological, the teleological, and the ontological. ' It is customary,' he writes, ' to state the cosmological argument thus — that if we seek a conclusion for the series of causes and effects in which things are arranged, we must conceive the first cause as causa sui, which is not also a res causata, and which therefore is God. Now it is true that the Christian idea of God, our Father in Christ, includes in itself the ideas of First Cause and Final End, as subordinate characteristics. But, posited as independent things, the conceptions of first cause and final end fail to tran- scend the conception of the world, and therefore fall short of the Christian idea of God.' ^ Apart, moreover, from the inadequate content of the idea of God to be ^ Ritschl, Instruction in the Christian Religion, p. 182. (In Pro- fessor Swing's book, The Theology of Alhrecht Ritschl.) ^ Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, p. 215. (E. T.) 38 RITSCHLIANISM found in such proofs, they fail, ' for they are merely the expression of the idea that, if we wish to cognise the world as a whole, we must of necessity think God in addition as its First Cause and Final End. This, how- ever, gives us no guarantee that anything real corre- sponds to the thought in our minds, which is necessary on the condition stated.' ^ In other words, we cannot by these arguments rise from the existence of God for our thought to His existence as a reality. The same is true of the ontological argument, whether as stated by Anselm or Descartes : it is only able to show that the inference to a perfect and infinite Being is valid for our thought, but can never rise to certainty that this Being possesses a reahty objective and independent of our thought." Ritschl has not dealt altogether fairly with these speculative proofs of the existence of God, seeing that they do not profess to supply an adequate conception of God, but only to show that reason demands a Supreme Existence apart from and superior to the world. And though Ritschl never has anything but contempt for a definition of God which merely tells us that He is not the world, still these arguments have their value as against the dogmatic materialism which finds in the world, that is, in the totality of phenomena, its own cause and its own purpose. But these arguments are not in general use, being confined to a section of the philosophic world, and their non-use on the ground of invalidity leaves no sense of loss behind. It is different when we approach the moral arguments for God's existence, and find that in^their ^ Ritschl, Jtistijlcation and Reconciliation^ p. 216. (E. T.) "~ Ritschl, op, cit., p. 217. (E. T.) RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD 39 usual form at least Ritschl dismisses them. For these arguments can be and are appreciated by persons who have had no philosophical training, and have the more force because they spring from that moral sense which is the deepest thing in man. The fact of the presence of a conscience in man, its imperative claims, and the impossibihty of fitting it into any purely naturalistic explanation of the world, is for many the weightiest indication of God. Ritschl does not deny all truth in this, but he will not allow that it is a vahd scientific proof. To use a term which we have yet to investigate fully, the description of conscience as the voice of God is a value-judgment. But Ritschl does not see in conscience immediate coercive evidence of its divine origin. In close connection with the argument from conscience stands the argument from the moral world-order. Ritschl's method of deahng with this argument is as follows. He surveys two theories of the moral world-order which are supple- mentary to the idea of God. The one, which is the rationalistic Socinian conception, ' depends on the position that God, as the unrestricted Sovereign over all His creatures, out of His mere good pleasure treats mankind with equity, though in themselves they have no rights against Him. The other theory defines the relation of God to humanity thus — that He regulates the inter-relations of the reciprocal rights subsisting between Himself and men by a law and dispensation of justice which is a necessary outcome of His own nature.' ^ This latter is the position of Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxy. Now there is much acuteness shown in the detailed criticism of ^ Ritschl, Justification and Eeconciliation, p. 229. (E, T.) 40 RITSCHLIANISM these positions, but it is a remarkable fact that Ritschl never deals with the common form of the argument from a moral world-order to God, but argues against methods of representing that world-order which have arisen when once the idea of God has been given. The only point in his criticism where he touches the inference drawn from the moral meaning observable in the world to God, is where he says that ' the asser- tions which are made regarding God, as He was before the world and before the moral order existed for man, are either purely formal determinations, which have no force until the content of Revelation is taken into account — e.g. the conception of the personality of God — or they are words without meaning.' ^ But the whole meaning of any true argument from the moral world-order is that we are able through a consideration of the world, and by giving due weight to the centrality of the ethical therein, to rise to see behind the world an active personal Will ; this deserves a better fate than the contemptuous rejection which it experiences at Ritschl's hands in this long discussion. But what strikes us as most remarkable is that in another place Ritschl has quite incidentally, and almost as a matter of course, stated and accepted the ordinary argument from the moral order of the world. He is criticising Strauss's romantic conception of the universe as being at once cause and effect, inner and outer, and points out that such an universe ceases to be an object of scientific knowledge and becomes an object of the imagination alone. Now in this universe, according to Strauss's idea, the laws of ^ Ritschl, Jivstijlcation and jRecoiiciliationy p. 239. {E. T.) RELIGION AND THE IDEA OF GOD 41 reality are also the forces at work in reality, that is to say that there is no difference between what is passive and what is active. ' In this way of looking at things/ Ritschl continues, ' it is altogether forgotten that a law, as imposed, refers us back to a legislative and imposing Spirit and Will, and that the moral order of the world implies a Creator Who lays down laws and governs according to a fixed purpose.' Again, a little lower down he writes, ' We need not be intimi- dated by the further assurance that it is a mark of limited intelligence to demand an ordaining Will as the "prius" of a law, and from the WiU to deduce likewise the active force exhibited in the phenomena embraced by the law.' ^ There is nothing to show that Ritschl disputes Strauss 's premisses as to the existence of laws of reaUty : on the contrary, the trend of the entire argument goes to show that he accepts the premisses, but points to a quite different conclusion as resulting from them. The truth is that Ritschl found at hand a most obvious and valuable weapon for his polemical purposes, and very naturally used it. Later, when arguing against different opponents, he depreciates all assertions about God as He existed before the moral world-order as either purely formal determinations or meaningless expressions. But the imposition of a real law impHes the existence of a Being Who is prior to the law and imposes it ; and of this Being Ritschl tells us that we must think of Him as a legislative Spirit and WiU. Surely this is neither a purely formal determination nor a meaning- less expression. What often makes Ritschl's theology so difficult is that it is constructed in opposition to ^ Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, p. 231. (E. T.) 42 RITSCHLIANISM rival views and is continually determined by polemical motives. Hence arise contradictions, sometimes of a glaring nature, and his positive thought is hard to grasp. The argument for God's e xig ence wh ich carried most_ wei ght,_sdth JBdtsc hl was _the_moral argtiment as st ated by Ka ntzzzztLat the idea of God is nBcessar3r' for the imification