Note 40. p. [281]. The German Theologian Rothe.
Concerning this theologian, now Professor at Heidelberg, see C. Schwarz's Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, p. 279 seq. The cause why the remarks in the text are so brief in regard to Rothe is, that the writer has not been able to see his more important works, which are out of print; and accordingly he derives his knowledge of him at second hand.
Rothe's two most important works are, Die Anfänge der Christlichen Kirche, 1837, and Theologische Ethic, 1845. An account of the former is given in the often-quoted article by Scherer (Rev. des Deux Mondes, Feb. 15, 1861), pp. 848-860. It appears to view the Christian church from its ideal side, to absorb the individual in the constitution, to show that Christendom is the object of Christianity, an institution the great means of embodying the doctrines; but that, as society becomes fermented by its spirit, the office of Christianity is fulfilled by the state, and the beau ideal would be a society where the church is the state. It is a view similar to that of Coleridge in his Church and State, or of Dr. Arnold in his work on the Church. Mr. F. C. Cook, in Aids to Faith (p. 159), has given some interesting illustrations of this point.
The second of Rothe's works, the Ethic, is briefly described in a previously-cited article in the Westminster Review for April, 1857. Like the former it starts with the idea of the identity of ethics and religion. Regarding personality or the moral relations as the central fact of existence, it surveys material creation under this aspect. Next it discusses the moral and religious history of man, as means of enabling the personal being to subordinate to himself all the forces without or within him. The object apparently is to show, that the spiritual element is not an intrusion, but the normal development of nature or providence; and the moral society, the State, the normal development of the religions society, the Church. Rothe's later views have hardly been developed in system. According to him theology is theosophy; philosophy can work out a theology from the consciousness.
It is probable that the writer of these lines is unintentionally doing injustice, through having to trust to secondhand information, to one who is regarded in Germany as belonging to the highest order of scientific theologians; though perhaps the interesting account of C. Schwarz leaves little to be desired.
Rothe, in accordance with his wish to strengthen orthodox theology by an independent philosophy, and not to support it by material agency, has lately taken part politically on the liberal side, in some questions connected with the church constitution of Baden. (See Colani's Nouvelle Revue de la Theologie, Aug. 1862.)
Note 41. p. [285]. The Most Modern Schools Of Philosophy And Theology In Germany.
The object of this note is to carry on the history of philosophy and theology to a more recent date than was necessary in the text.
The idealist school of philosophy reached its highest point with Hegel; and subsequently there has been as great a reaction against this mode of speculation, as the contemporaneous theological one in religion.