Nitzsch is also a disciple of Schleiermacher, and his doctrinal system bears distinct traces of the master's instructions. But it is a bold work, and has inflicted great mischief upon the doctrinal claims of the later Rationalists, who betook themselves to theory after their exegesis and history had failed them. The scope of his system is broad and clear. He commences by assigning Christian doctrine its proper place in theological study, a definition of the general idea of Christianity, a statement of the laws by which a knowledge of Christianity is acquired, and a history of the Christian system and its exhibition in the purest form. The three parts constituting the substance of Nitzsch's opinions, are The Good, the Bad, and Salvation. Christianity is a determinate mode of man's life, and is so determined by conscious dependence on God, but in no wise by knowledge, conception, action, or the will. Religion does not arise from experience and sensation, but from an original self-consciousness. There is an intimate connection between doctrine and practice, truth and holiness. Redemption is not merely a restoration, nor a mere perfected creation, but one through the other. It is related to an original good, apart from which the bad itself would have no place, opportunity for existence, or continuance; since redemption is so closely connected with evil. Moreover, the good—in which evil has found opportunities for manifestation—cannot be the same which caused redemption. Hence, we safely presume the existence of an eternal God. This being is the foundation of Christian faith and life. A belief in the Redeemer cannot be separated from that in the Creator. But it is through a knowledge of the Redeemer that the Creator, with all his work, first becomes known in his perfect goodness and truth. The doctrine of salvation is more closely related to the degenerated condition of the world than to the original good, or to the right conduct of the creature towards God. Evil became possible with the creation of personality, though without being necessary. But it has become so very real that the heavenly Adam must needs come into the world to destroy the works of the devil,—which are sin and death,—and to renew the communion of the creation with the Creator. The effectuating cause of man's permitting himself to be seduced into sin, was not any fixed purpose or predestination of God, but man's perfect moral freedom. He chose the evil, and hence he inherits sin with all its dire results. Since then, sin has become a bias and righteousness requires an effort for its performance. But man is accessible to divine legislation by being the subject of fear, shame, and punishment. The church is an abiding testimony and a continued means for the redemptive ministry of Christ. It is the congregation of the sanctified.[74]
From these two useful professors in Berlin we pass southward to Heidelberg, and delay a moment with the celebrated Rothe. In his work on the Primitive Church he endeavors to explain the philosophy of the whole ecclesiastical system. He views the elements of the church in solution, and thence tries to deduce general principles. He advances the view, with Coleridge and Arnold, that the church will not be complete until absorbed in the state. Its present separate condition is provisional, and can only last during the time that Christianity is being developed. This period may be of long duration, but the development of our race is ever progressing. The church must exist on its own basis during the interval. Human deeds of righteousness tend toward the perfection of the church. Then will religion permeate the world. Yet it will not exist as something separate, but all-penetrative. It will not be absolutely divine, but superlatively human. Thus will the dualism of the human and divine, the religious and the moral, be destroyed. When the day of ecclesiastical perfection—which is really civil perfection—arrives, the state will perform the functions of the church. It will exercise church discipline for the purpose of religious and moral training. The divergence between religious and worldly science will be abrogated, and there will be no longer any conflict between the worship of God and nature. It is plain that these views are based upon those of Hegel, who said of the state, that "it is the totality of moral purposes."[75]
The ethical system of Rothe is one of the most original and profound pieces of devout and reverent speculation in the entire range of theological literature. It has been termed "a work of art as well as of science; and the several stones of the ethical system are reared up here into a magnificent gothic cathedral by the skill of a master architect." It is based on the unity and identity of religion and morality. Here, as in the theory of the relations of church and state, the Hegelian philosophy is very perceptible. God's love is manifested in creation, and there existed the necessity of his creative activity in order to communicate himself to others. Hence, God's love is not a mere attribute, but one of the necessary conditions of his being. Creation is a necessary act of God. God is as truly creator as he is benevolent. There is, therefore, a correlation of God and the world. There is no God without also the world. God's creative activity is still continued by his providential movements, and these are the steps of man's development. Man's complete character is in some measure dependent on his discipline, and sin is the necessary ordeal or process through which he must pass in order to arrive at the highest development.[76]
Rothe has very recently published a volume of his essays, entitled A Contribution to Dogmatic Theology. It is occupied mostly with the consideration of the Scriptures. The author thus states his opinion: "The matters I handle in this volume inevitably place me in a most unfavorable position. The question is one in which I find myself in direct conflict with both the leading parties in the theology of the present day. My mode of regarding Holy Scripture runs directly counter to modern orthodoxy. My supernaturalism and firm belief in revelation are no less opposed to theological liberalism. This very antagonism encourages me to hope that I may be found to have spoken a word in season. On the one hand, it is my belief that the consciousness of the age will never thoroughly reässimilate Christianity till it can take courage to believe again in miracle and supernatural influence. I am no less firmly convinced, on the other hand, that miracle and supernatural influence will never find their way into the conscious belief of Christians in the form in which church-theology has allowed those ideas to be inoculated into it. That which is passed can never be recalled to life after history has once buried it. But there are not a few persons who long for the reconciliation of the old and the new. These are the persons to whom I would gladly be useful according to my small measure."[77]
Rothe regards the supernatural interference of the Deity in the stream of human history as a part of that history. It is not enough that the divine interposition has incorporated itself with the traditions of the race; it must be fixed in a written narrative. Not only must there be a book or writing, but that book must be of a historical character. As the revelation did not consist in doctrines, so the doctrine we require is not a creed or compend of doctrines. Besides vouching the facts, the doctrines must represent them in a vivid manner; that is, the writing must be such as can stand for long posterior generations in the place of the original revelation, and place us in the immediate personal experience of revelation. It is part of the extraordinary operation of the Deity to provide such a writing. The document itself, as well as the facts it relates, are supernaturally produced. What the divine influences in the world are to its moral and human laws, the record of those influences is to ordinary narrative. The Bible is therefore what the old Protestant theology styled it, "The Word of God": but in a very different sense. It was meant by that phrase that the books, as we have them, were dictated by God in such a way that the sacred penmen contributed nothing but the letter-marks upon the paper. The dogma of inspiration current in the sixteenth century is not accepted. The inspiration which Rothe attributes to the Bible is the same by which he explains that peculiar impression received by the pious soul from its study of the book. It is the constant experience of the evangelical Christian, that, in his Bible, he possesses a direct means of grace. Scripture is to him an active medium of the saving work of God in his soul, and supernatural forces move within it. The Bible stands alone in all literature as this incarnation of a fresh, full, life-giving religious spirit. But the peculiar influence which it exercises upon minds indicates not merely a divine element in its pages, but a whole, complex, and sound human spirit side by side with that divine element; the two not crossing or interfering with each other, but forming together a unity of living truth. The books of the Bible must be regarded as the general product of the minds of their human authors. These authors have had their moments of inspiration, to which they owe much of the religious experience they have embalmed in their writings. But inspiration was not the normal condition of their minds, nor were their books written during the moments of such inspiration. Again, not every part of the Bible is an equally full and intense expression of this spiritual mind of the writer. We must assume degrees of inspiration according with the nature of the contents, and with their nearer or remoter bearing on the proper matter of the prophetical utterances.[78]
Passing over the names of Julius Müller, Ebrard, Hävernick, Hundeshagen, Umbreit, Gieseler, Olshausen, Hagenbach, and Jacobi, we pause at Schenkel and Hengstenberg.
Schenkel has been, until lately, a recognized evangelical theologian. The author of the Essence of Protestantism, he took his stand as an able defender of orthodoxy; and there was every reason to hope that he would be one of the chief agents in the final overthrow of Rationalism. As a proof of the high estimate placed upon his opinions, when the Baden government and church consistory were calling their strongest orthodox theologians into the various posts of prominence, after the Revolution of 1848, Schenkel was declared counselor, and director of the theological seminary of Heidelberg. From that time almost to the present his evangelical sentiments had not been questioned. But, when his Picture of the Character of Jesus appeared, the surprise was great throughout Germany. It seemed incredible that he could write a work in such direct antagonism to all his previous views. People were unwilling to censure it at first; the Rationalists rejoicing at the great accession, and the orthodox retaining too much respect for the author's past services to bestow harsh criticism upon him. But a book of importance need not wait long in Germany upon the publisher's shelf before it is weighed and assigned its proper position in literature. In due time the critics came forward, sifted its contents, and decided it to be skeptical. The theological periodicals abounded in lengthy reviews of it. Schenkel seemed as much astounded as any one else at the public judgment. He answered the charges against his orthodoxy by stoutly denying that he had turned Rationalist. He held that his critics were so obtuse that they could not understand him; and that if he were accused of heterodoxy it was their blunder and not his guilt. But it is needless to say that Schenkel makes a poor case for himself. His book stands against him. The miracles of Christ receive his severe comment. They are, in his opinion, the dark shade which has been cast upon the bright splendor of the public activity of Jesus. It was a matter of course that the idea of a life like that of the Redeemer should, soon after his death, be veiled by a multitude of tales. His disciples endeavored to represent his internal wonderful power of personal glory and greatness by the external miraculous occurrences which they ascribed to him. Their deeply excited imagination magnified the great hero whom they had loved and admired. Their enthusiastic religious fancy did him homage by ascribing to him the performance of miracles. The gift of working miracles was merely the endowment of nature. For Jesus was favored with the highest ability and rarest moral power, by which he worked beneficially upon sufferers and took them by surprise. Schenkel further rejects and denies the faith in Christ's personal and bodily resurrection from the dead, and his continuation of life in the glory of the Father. But he holds that Christ lives in his community, in which are his home and temple. The living Christ is the spirit of his community.
After the position of Schenkel's work had been fairly decided, numerous remonstrances appeared against it from the orthodox theologians. One hundred and eighteen clergymen sent in a formal protest to the consistory for his removal from his important office as director of the seminary. But the ecclesiastical council decided in favor of his continuance in discharge of his functions. They extenuated themselves by saying that the free examination of the Scriptures is the privilege of Protestant Christians. The Rationalists claim the result as one of the most signal of their recent victories.
Hengstenberg, the strongest and most heroic of the later opponents of Rationalism, commenced very early in life as both author and professor. It is now more than thirty years since he was elected professor of Old Testament exegesis at Berlin. He was chosen to that important position with a view to counteract the prevailing Rationalism, and, if possible, to raise up a new school of earnest evangelical men. He has not been without success. Having never swerved from his first avowed position, his antipathy to all kinds of skepticism is so sincere and active that he combats it without any regard to moderation or consequences.
Of all the members of the Evangelical school he takes the highest rank as controversialist, and defender of the Old Testament. He saw that it was the Old Testament which the Rationalists had assailed most vigorously, and that unless they were met upon their own ground they would claim the mastery of the field. Hence, he made the Pentateuch, Daniel, and the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah the theme of his defence[79]—for it was these that the Rationalists had long claimed as their collateral evidence. At that very time there was almost no orthodox theologian in Germany who had confidence enough to contend for them. But the greatest apologetic achievement of Hengstenberg was his christological work.[80] Here he develops his theory that the Messianic prophecies extend through the entire Old Testament; that they can be traced in Genesis; that they increase in clearness as the scriptural history advances; that they become perfectly lucid in the later prophets; and that they are finally fulfilled in the Messiah himself.