The school is frequently on this account described by the same name, of “Mediation theology,”[841] originally applied to Schleiermacher, because it attempts to unite science with faith, a true use of reason with a belief in scripture. It comprises the chief theological names of Germany, some of whom were disciples of Schleiermacher, others of the orthodox portion of the Hegelian party. Their object is not simply, like the revivers of Lutheran orthodoxy, to surrender the judgment to an external authority in the church, nor to give unbounded liberty to it like the critical school: not going back like the one to the ancient faith of the church, nor progressing like the other to new discoveries in religion, they seek to understand that which they believe, to find a philosophy for religion and Christianity.
Two theologians stand out above the others, as evincing vitality of thought, and boldly attempting to grapple with the philosophical problems;—Dorner[842] and Rothe,[843] both very original, but bearing traces of the influence of their predecessors. The former, moulded by the Hegelian school, investigates the Christological [pg 280] problem which lies at the basis of Christianity; the latter, moulded rather by the school of Schleiermacher, has attempted the cosmological, which lies at the basis of religion and providence.
The work of Dorner on “the Person of Christ” formed an epoch in German theology, by its fulness of learning, its orthodoxy of tone, and its union of speculative powers with historic erudition. The Christian doctrine of the incarnation is, that God and man have been united in an historic person as the essential condition for effecting human salvation. If the doctrine be viewed on the speculative side, the problem is to show à priori that this historic union ought to exist; if viewed on the historic, to prove that it has existed as a fact. The great aim of the Christology of the Hegelian system was to effect the former; the aim of Strauss was to destroy the latter. Dorner strove to reconstruct the doctrine, by making the historical study of its progress the means of supplying the elements of information for doing so. He commences by an examination of other religions,[844] in order at once to show the existence in them of blind attempts to realise that truth which the incarnation supplied, and to prove the impossibility that the Christian doctrine can have been borrowed from human sources, as the critical and mythical interpreters would assume. He discovers in all religions the desire to unite man to God; but shows[845] that the Christian doctrine cannot have been derived from the oriental, which humanised God; nor from the Greek, which deified man; nor from the Hebrew in its Palestinian form, which degraded the idea of the incarnate God into a temporal Messiah; nor in its Alexandrian form, which never reached, in its theory of the Λόγος, the idea of the distinction of person of the Son from the Father. Thus establishing the originality of the idea in Christianity, and exhibiting it as the fulfilment of the world's yearnings, he traces it in the teaching of the apostles, and of the apostolic age,[846] next as marking [pg 281] the different heretical sects,[847] which respectively lost sight of one of the two elements, till he finds the church's explicit statement of the doctrine in its fulness;[848] and then pursues it onwards through the course of history to the present time.[849] Though the work is to an English mind difficult, through the air of speculation which pervades it, and perhaps open to exception in some of its positions; yet, viewed as a whole, it is a magnificent argument in favour of Christianity; exhibiting the incarnation as the satisfaction for the world's wants, as the original and independent treasure in Christianity; and showing the process through which Providence in history has caused the doctrine to be evolved and preserved.
The other great problem, the origin of things, and the relation of God to the world, which is at the basis of religion, as the incarnation is at the basis of Christianity, has been less frequently handled. Originally discussed, like the latter, in controversy with the early unbelievers, it had been touched upon in the speculations of Averroes and Spinoza, in the materialism of French infidelity, and in the earlier systems of speculative philosophy in Germany itself. It was this problem which was attempted by Rothe. ([40]) Advancing beyond this first question, he has considered the scheme of Providence in the development of religion, and the theory of the Christian church in relation to political society. It is unnecessary here to explain his system: his mind is too original to admit of comparison without injustice; yet the speculations of our own Coleridge, who on philosophical principles makes the state to be the realisation of the church, will perhaps give some imperfect conception of the character of his attempts.
This second school that we have been considering, though approximating extremely nearly to orthodoxy, and furnishing the works of most value in the modern theology, yet seeks to approach religion from the psychological or philosophical side. It speculates freely, [pg 282] and believes revelation because it finds it to coincide with the discoveries of free thought. But there is a third tendency, which believes revelation without professing to understand it; which rests on the revelation in scripture as an objective verity, and believes the Bible on the ground of evidence, without questioning its material.[850]
The first germ of this reaction in favour of rigid orthodoxy was observable in the feeling aroused by the theses of Harms, in 1817, already named, on occasion of the celebration of the tricentenary of the Reformation; but it was quickened by the attempts, initiated by the Prussian king, between the years 1821 and 1830, to unite the Lutheran and Calvinistic branches of the Protestant church.[851]
The time seemed then to thoughtful men a fitting one, when doctrines were either regarded as unimportant or superseded by the religious consciousness, to unite these two churches under the bond of a common nationality, and the practice of a common liturgy. But the old Lutheran spirit, which still survived in the retirement of country parishes, was aroused, and some pastors underwent deprivation and persecution rather than submit to the union.[852] This new movement at first caught the spirit of pietism, just as had been the case with that of Schleiermacher; but gradually abandoned it for a dogmatic and churchlike aspect, as he for a scientific expression. Its aim was to return to the Lutheranism of the sixteenth century, and to rally round the confessions of faith of that period. Hengstenberg[853] [pg 283] at Berlin, and Hävernick,[854] are the names best known as representing this party at the period of which we speak. Their efforts were directed to criticism rather than to doctrine, to reconstruct the basis for Christianity in Judaism by defending the authenticity and credibility of the ancient scriptures. In doctrine and the canon, they reverted to the position of the Reformation. But the alarm ensuing upon the work of Strauss, in 1835, invested this movement with a more reactionary character; and the journal[855] which gave expression to Hengstenberg's views, gradually assumed the character of an ecclesiastical censorship, frequently marked by defiance and severity, like the tone of Luther of old.
The panic caused by the revolutions of 1848 gave increased stimulus, by adding a political reaction to the religious. The extreme rationalist party had favoured the Revolution, and the school of Schleiermacher had supported the schemes for constitutional government. In the suppression of liberty which ensued for about ten years, the orthodox movement in theology united itself with the reaction in political. Absolute government was not merely a fact, but a doctrine. The theological reaction was no longer the spiritual aspiration of Germany seeking repose after doubt, but a political movement veiled under an ecclesiastical colour. The result has been, the creation of a Lutheran party far more extreme in its opinions than the one just described;—the political leader of which in the Prussian parliament was the jurist Stahl;[856]—intolerant towards [pg 284] other churches, suspicious of any independent associations for religious usefulness in its own, disowning pietism because of its unchurchlike character, and in its principles going back beyond the Reformation, discarding the subjective inward principle, and reposing on the objective authority of the church. Taking a political view of religion, it does not so much ask what is truth, but what the church asserts to be true. Though not offending popular prejudices by the introduction of Romish doctrines or rites, it really reposes on the Romish principle of a visible authoritative church with mystical powers, upholding a rigid sacramental theory and the doctrine of consubstantiation. Extending the sacramental efficacy to the ministerial office, and denying communion between God and the individual soul independently of the church as the element of communication.[857] Yet it contains many honoured names, and has produced many instructive works. The movement in English theology, which originated a generation ago in the panic caused by the liberal acts of the [pg 285] government which was introduced by the reform act,[858] offers a parallel; with the exception that the ecclesiastical principles then advocated had always had supporters in the English church, whereas they were nearly new in the Lutheran. The Lutheran movement too, only proposes to go back to the Reformation, the English ecclesiastical movement professed to go back to the early fathers. ([41])
While the church has thus attempted a renovation of itself in doctrine, the value of which some will dispute, all will allow thankfully that there has been a deep increase of spiritual life throughout the German churches. Religion indeed had never died out; but in the retirement of country districts[859] the flame of divine love still burned with unextinguished glory. This spiritual fire has now spread, and expressed itself in acts of earnest life. Foreign missions have been promoted;[860] an inner or home mission established for schools, and other religious agency;[861] and an annual ecclesiastical diet[862] constituted, for promoting co-operation and ecclesiastical improvement.[863]
These three separate movements of the present age, even when incorrect, have contributed something to form a perfect theology. In the orthodox school we see the attempt to return to the Bible, as interpreted by the Reformation; in the mediation school, as interpreted by the religious consciousness; in the critical school, as interpreted by historic and critical methods.