History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

Previously to the publication of Dr. Pusey's treatises, a work had been written with a purpose less directly controversial, by Tholuck: Abriss Einer Geschichte der umwälzung, welche seit 1750, auf dem Gebiete der Theologie in Deutschland statt gefunden, now contained in his Vermischte Schriften, 1839, vol. 2.[51] It is valuable for the earlier history of Rationalism. The spirit of it is very similar to that of Dr. Pusey's work. Indeed the latter author, though not aware of the publication of Tholuck's work, was cognisant of his views on these questions, through lectures heard from him abroad.

These works however were all previous to the great agitation in German theology, which ensued in consequence of Strauss's [pg xxiv] Leben Jesu, in 1835. After the first excitement of that event had passed, we meet with three works, two French and one German, in which the history is brought down to a later period. The French ones were, the Histoire Critique du Rationalisme, 1841, of Amand Saintes, translated 1849; and the Etudes Critiques sur le Rationalisme Contemporain, of the Abbé H. de Valroger, 1846; the latter of which works the writer of these lectures has been unable to see. The German one was, Der Deutsche Protestantismus, 1847,[52] and is attributed to Hundeshagen, professor at Heidelberg.

The Critical History of Amand Saintes, though thought by the Germans[53] to be defective, in consequence of want of sufficiently separating between the various forms of rationalism, is more replete than any other book with stores of information, and extracts arranged in a very clear form.[54] It is very useful, if the reader first possesses a better scheme into which to arrange the materials. It is written also in a truly evangelical spirit.

The work of Hundeshagen had a political object as well as a religious. It was composed just before the revolution of 1848, when Germany was panting for freedom; and its object was to defend the position of the constitutional party in church and state; and with a view to establish the importance of their moral and doctrinal position, he surveyed the recent history of his country.

Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte (translated), which was published nearly about the same time, also contains a very interesting sketch, with valuable notes, of the chief writers and works in the movement of German theology.

The view of the history given in Tholuck and Hundeshagen [pg xxv] is that which is taken by the school called the “Mediation school” in German theology.[55] The general cause assigned by them for scepticism was the separation of dogma and piety; the recovery from the rationalistic state being due to the reunion of these elements, which Hundeshagen shows to have been also the great feature of the German reformation.

After an interval of about ten years, when the tendencies created by Strauss's movement had become definitely manifest, the history was again surveyed in two works, the one, Geschichte des Deutschen Protestantismus, by Kahnis (translated 1856), who belongs to the Lutheran reactionary party; the other, Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, 1856, by C. Schwarz, whose work is so candid and free from party bias, that it is unimportant to remark the party to which he belongs.[56]

The narrative of Kahnis, originally a series of papers in a magazine, is very full of facts, and generally fair; but it wants form. The author's view is, that the sceptical movement arose from abandoning the dogmatic expression of revealed truth, contained in the old Confessions of the Lutheran church; and he considers the reaction of the Mediation school in favour of orthodoxy to be imperfect; the true restoration being only found by returning to the Confessions.

The work of Schwarz is restricted to the latest forms of German theology, and goes back no farther than the circumstances which led to the work of Strauss. It is unequalled in clearness; bearing the mark of German exactness and fulness, and rivalling French histories in didactic power. These two works differ from most of those previously named, in being histories of modern German theology generally, and not merely of the rationalist forms of it.

Such are the chief sources in which a student may learn the view taken by the German critics of different schools, concerning the recent church history of their country at various moments of its progress. The fulness of this account will be excused, if it [pg xxvi] provide information concerning works to which reference is made in the foot-notes of those lectures which treat of this period.