16. § 16. The Ethical-Psychological Method.
§ 16. The EthicalPsychological Method.
. Besides the historical proofs and the speculative reasoning, there exists yet a third way by which one has sought to justify the Christian faith; and that is the ethical-psychological method. This does not conceive
Christianity as a doctrine that can be demonstrated, or as a historical fact that can be proved; but as a religious-ethical power, which [445] addresses itself to heart and conscience. Therefore it also does not think that Christianity can be made acceptable to every human being without distinction and in all circumstances, but it demands in the human being a prior moral disposition, a sense for the good, a need for redemption, a feeling of dissatisfaction, etc. And when Christianity then comes into contact with such a human being, it commends itself to his conscience as divine truth without reasoning and proof. For it satisfies his religious-ethical needs, it corresponds to his higher, noble inspirations, it reconciles him with himself, it frees him from the guilt and the burden of sin, it grants him peace, comfort, blessedness, and in all this it proves itself as the power and the wisdom of God.
This proof for the truth of Christianity is also already very old. Tertullian already appealed to the testimony that the soul involuntarily renders for Christ, the test. an. 1. cf. Apol. c. 17. Arnobius, adv. gentes II, 2. With many
Apologists we find the thought that pagan philosophy and mythology are unfit to give a satisfactory answer to the questions concerning God, man, and world; to satisfy the religious needs and to cultivate a truly moral life.
Christianity, on the other hand, comprises all the true and good that was also still present, scattered, in the pagan world; it gives material for thought, it renews the heart, it cultivates all kinds of virtues; Christianity is the true philosophy. Ὁσα οὐν παρα πασι καλως εἰρηται, ἡμων των χριστιανων ἐστιν, Just. Mart. Apol. II 13. cf. Harnack, D. G. I 421 f. 436 f. Likewise
Duns Scotus points, in the prologue to his Sententiae, to the reasonableness of the content of revelation, to its moral operation, and to its sufficiency for man, in order to reach his destination. The arguments, adduced by Roman
Catholic and Protestant theologians for the truth of revelation, were not only derived from the miracles and predictions etc.; but also from the beauty and majesty of the style of Scripture, from the mutual agreement of all its parts, from the sublimity and divinity of its content, from the operation and influence that had proceeded from the Christian religion upon the intellectual, moral, aesthetic, social, and political life of the individual and of families and peoples, [446] Bellarminus, de Conc. et Eccl. lib. 4. cap
11 sq. Perrone, Praelect. Theol. I 129 sq. Jansen I 158 sq. 269 sq. Hake, Handbuch der allgem. Religionswiss. 1887 II 228 f. Calv. Inst. I c. 8.
Maresius, Syst. theol. loc. I § 31. Synops. pur. theol. Disp. 2. § 17 sq. 25.
Vitringa, Doctr. christ. relig. cap. 2 § 26-29. Hoornbeek, Theol. pract. I p.
48. Quenstedt, Theol. didact-pol. I cap. 3 sect. 2 qu. 16. Glassius, Philol.
Sacra I tract. 3. etc. Even Rousseau could not withhold his praise, in his
Emile, from the life and teaching of Jesus: oui, si la vie et la mort de Socrate sont d'un sage, la vie et la mort de Jesus sont d'un Dieu.
Supranaturalism divided the proofs for Christianity into external and internal, and by the latter understood precisely those which showed the agreement of Christianity with the rational and moral nature of man and were especially of force for his heart and conscience. The theologians of this direction also saw that the proofs were nevertheless not sufficient for every human being without distinction, that they afforded not mathematical but moral certainty, and therefore also presupposed a certain moral disposition on man's side, Knapp, Glaub. I S. 71 f. Bretschneider, Dogm. I S. 281 f. Id., Entwicklung aller in der Dogm. vork. Begriffe, 4e Aufl. S.
219-230. Muntinghe, Theol. Christ. pars theor. § 38. Vinke, Theol. Christ.
Dogm. Comp. p. 17 sq. Voigt, Fundamentaldogm. S. 269 f. Oosterzee, Dogm. I bl. 199. 234 v. 252 v. Gretillat, Exposé de theol. systém. II 163 s.
176 s. A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, Edinb. 1892 p. 42.
Above all, however, the ethical-psychological method has come into honour through Pascal and Vinet. In both, however, it was not yet in opposition to the historical demonstration. The historical proofs even form a necessary element in Pascal's apology and were by him himself very highly valued, Wijnmalen, Pascal as opponent of the Jesuits and defender of Christianity 1865 bl. 164-188. But he nevertheless assigned to those historical proofs another place and significance. His apology is anthropological, it proceeds from the misery of man, and wishes to awaken in him a need for redemption. And then it shows that that need finds no satisfaction in the pagan religions and in the philosophical systems but only in the Christian religion prepared by Israel's religion. And also [447] Vinet did not disdain the historical proofs, Discours sur quelques sujets religieux,
6e ed. Paris 1862 p. 29. Essais de philos. morale et relig. 1837 p. 36 s., but he nevertheless deems them insufficient and attaches greater value to the inward proof. He wishes that the apologist should walk the ethical path and recommend Christianity from its ethical side, as the true humanity, to the conscience of man, cf. his l'Evangile compris par le coeur in the Discours t. a. p. p. 29-41, and Le regard, in his Etudes Evangéliques 1847, cf. Dr. J.
Cramer, Alex. Vinet, Leiden, Brill 1883 bl. 99 v. 117 v. Since then this method, with neglect and sometimes even with contempt of the historical proofs, has been adopted and honoured by Astié, De theol. des verstands en de theol. des gewetens, from the French by D. Ch. de la Saussaye 1866.
Pressensé, Les Origines, Paris 1883 p. 114-128. Sécrétan, La civilisation et la croyance, Paris, Alcan 1887, Saussaye, my Theol. van d. l. S. bl. 55 v. 64 v.; and furthermore we find this same demonstration for Christianity in Delitzsch, System der christl. Apol. Leipzig 1869 S. 30, 34 f. Baumstark,
Christl. Apol. auf anthropol. Grundlage I 1872 S. 34-36. Köstlin, Die Begründung unserer sittlich-relig. Ueberzeugung, Berlin 1893 S. 58 f. etc.
2. Related to this method is the moral proof, as it was advanced by Kant.
Kant assumed two sources for our knowledge, sensibility for the matter, and the understanding for the form of our knowledge. But above that there now still stands reason, pure Vernunft, whose a priori synthetic Grundsatz is this, that it ascends from the conditioned to the unconditioned, Kr. d. r. Vern. ed.
Kirchmann 5te Aufl. S. 300, cf. 310, 312, 319, 347. By virtue of this peculiarity the theoretical reason forms various Grundsätze or ideas, ib.
308, which are absolute, unbedingt, transcendent and are produced by reason not arbitrarily, but in accordance with its nature, ib. 312 f. Those ideas are especially threefold, God, freedom and immortality, ib. 317 f.
These ideas, however, cannot be demonstrated in their objective truth, but
can only be derived subjectively from the nature of reason. The objects of those ideas are not perceptible, and thus not knowable. We arrive at those ideas only through a necessary Vernunftschluss, ib. 321. They are all three theoretically unprovable. [448] They do not increase our knowledge, but only regulate and order it, and make us view and consider everything thus,
"asob" those ideas had reality, ib. 337, 425, 512, 530, 535, 537, 539, 540 f.
That they have reality and what they are, the theoretical reason cannot teach us. But now reason is not only theoretical but also practical. That is: it bears a moral law, a categorical imperative, within itself and holds duty before us.
And it demands that we shall fulfil that duty unconditionally, without ulterior intention, solely out of respect for that duty as such. It thus reveals that the human being still belongs to another order than that of nature, namely to a moral world-order; that he has to strive after a highest good, which far surpasses the sensible goods of life and consists in nothing else than in the unity of virtue and happiness. If this command of duty is now no illusion but practicable, and the highest good, the unity of virtue and happiness, will indeed once be attained; if, in other words, the moral worldorder in us and outside us will once triumph over the order of nature; then
God, freedom, immortality must exist. These three are thus postulates of practical reason, their reality is demanded by the moral law, practical reason has need of their existence, Kr. der prakt. Vernunft, ed. Kirchmann, 3e Aufl.
1882. S. 159 f.
That is in the main Kant's famous theory of postulates. But it is not above criticism. In the first place it is not clear who derives these postulates from practical reason. Kant seems to think that practical reason itself does this.
But then there are two practical reasons, a preceding and a following one, one that holds up duty and one that from that by reasoning concludes to the
existence of the ideas. Practical reason then itself becomes theoretical again, Rauwenhoff, Wijsb. v. d. godsd. 325, 328. Of greater weight is another objection, namely the ground on which theoretical or practical reason concludes to the existence of those ideas; what is the urgent motive for those postulates? If that ground, that motive lies in practical reason in itself, in the categorical imperative, in the command of duty as such; then even the most immoral person can from the phenomenon of that practical reason conclude to the reality of these three ideas. Now it sometimes seems as if Kant really [449] means this. He repeatedly gives the impression as if practical reason in itself, without more, in order to be able to realize itself, must posit these postulates. He says not only that every morally developed human being is authorized to postulate thus, but that it is unavoidable for every rational being to conclude thus; that the assumptions of the existence of God, freedom and immortality are just as necessary as the moral law itself, Kr. d. pr. V. 173 note; and he argues precisely S. 146 f. 149 f. that the moral law, in order to be practicable, must assume those three ideas as existing. But, if this is Kant's meaning, then we are not dealing with psychologically mediated but with objectively logical postulates; and the question arises, why is such a logical postulate then nevertheless not knowledge, not an element of theoretical reason? Why does Kant call this knowledge only practical? Therefore there is more in favor of thinking that the ground and the motive for these postulates does not lie in practical reason in itself, but in the moral disposition, in the moral will of the human being, who seriously, be it also with weakness, tries to obey the duty which practical reason prescribes to him. Therefore he declares in the Kr. d. r.
Vernunft S. 638 f., that the moralische Glaube is a holding-for-true on psychological, moral grounds; therefore this moral faith does not say, it is
certain, but I am morally certain; therefore it rests on the Voraussetzung moralischer Gesinnungen, ib. 639. And likewise he says, Kr. d. pr. V. S.
172: der Rechtschaffene darf sagen; I will that there is a God, I do not let this faith be taken from me, my moral interest demands the existence of God; and S. 173: moral faith is not a command, a faith that is commanded is an absurdity; and S. 173-175: the consciousness of duty is objective and likewise the possibility to act morally and to be happy; but whether that connection between virtue and happiness is now established by a personal
God or by the coherence of nature, we do not know. The moral interest here gives the decisive factor; it stands in unserer Wahl, but practical Vernunft decides for faith in a wise Creator of the world. Indeed, in Kant a double striving is noticeable, on the one hand to maintain the rationality and on the other hand the freedom of faith. Faith in God, freedom and immortality is in so far objective as it is postulated by [450] the practical reason that is proper to all, but nevertheless also again depends on the moral disposition of the individual human being. Cf. on practical Vernunft and Kant's theory of postulates inter alia Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,
6e Aufl. I 610-625. J. Gottschick, Kants Beweis für das Dasein Grottes 1878. E. Katzer, Der moralische Gottesbeweis nach Kant und Herbart,
Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1878 S. 482-532, 635-689. B. Pünjer, Gesch. der christl. Religionsphil. II S. 19-30. Fr. Paulsen, Was uns Kant sein kann,
Separat-Abdruck aus der Vierteljahrsschrift für wiss. Philos. V S. 57 f.
Rauwenhoff, Wijsbeg. v. d. godsd. 321 v. Leendertz, The ethicalevangelical standpoint and the Christian-religious faith 1891 I 215 v.
3. The significance of Kant for theology consisted chiefly in this, that he made a separation between phaenomenon and noumenon, erklärbare and erlebbare Wirklichkeit, world of being and of values, knowing and
believing, science and religion, theoretical and practical reason. Religion came to stand alongside and outside science, and rested on its own foundation, on that of man's moral nature. Already at once the influence of Kant's philosophy on theology was noticeable. Supranaturalism argued, on the ground of the unknowability of the supersensible, the necessity of revelation. Rationalism attached itself to Kant's rational morality and moralistic religion. Schleiermacher adopted Kant's doctrine of the unknowability of the supernatural and his separation of religion and science, but sought for religion a safe refuge in feeling. But especially after the vanity of the historical-apologetic and of the speculative proof had become apparent, many went back to Kant. In this country this already took place through Hoekstra. Dissatisfied by the intellectualism and determinism of Scholten, he sought the foundation of religious faith with Kant in practical reason and its postulates. Faith is according to Hoekstra a moral act of the will, a postulate of our inward spiritual man over against the experiences of life; it rests on faith in the truth of our own inner being. That worldview is alone the true one, which corresponds to our inner being, to our moral needs, Bronnen en grondsl. van [451] het godsd. geloof 1864 bl.
23 v. 45 v. Later Hoekstra in an article in the Theol. Tijdschr. 1872 bl. 1 v. has specified his thought more precisely, and grounded religious faith not on our needs, ideals, aspirations in general, but specifically on the unconditional sense of duty, ib. 32, cf. Wijsgeerige Godsdienstleer I 220. In connection with Hoekstra, Ph. R. Hugenholtz, Studien op godsdiensten zedekundig gebied, Amst. 1884-89, e.g. II 142 v. Rauwenhoff, Wijsb. v. d. godsd. 335 v. Leendertz, Het ethisch-evang. standpunt en het christ. godsd. geloof. Rott. 1891 I 7, 10, 57 v. and others let religious faith take root in moral self-consciousness. The ethical moderns have gone one step further;
refraining from the attempt to arrive at a philosophical system, they have separated faith and science as sharply as possible and have limited religion to the domain of the moral. Religion is moral idealism, devotion to the moral ideal, faith in the power of the good, which power then according to most still indeed has an objective existence, but with some is nothing but a conception of the human spirit. Cf. Rauwenhoff, Wijsb. v. d. godsd. bl. 116 v., 366 v., who on bl. 116 also indicates litt. Furthermore still J. W. v. d.
Linden, in de Gids, Dec. 1883 and Bijblad van de Herv. 9 Sept. 1887. Dr. A.
Bruining, Verschillende schakeeringen van modernen, Bijblad v. d. Herv. 10
Febr. 1885. De Bussy, Ethisch idealisme 1875. Id. Over de waarde en den inhoud van godsd. voorstellingen 188O. Id. De maatstaf van het zedelijk oordeel, enz. 1889. Id. Theol. Tijdsch. Jan. 1895 bl. 1-14. A similar dualism is also found with Dr. J. H. Gunning, Overlevering en wetenschap 1879, Dr.
Gunning, in the introduction before Christendom en Natuurwetenschap, eight lectures of Fred. Temple, Haarlem 1887, and likewise with Doedes, when he makes a separation between faith, which rests on grounds, and science, which rests on proofs, Inl. tot de Leer van
God 1880 bl. 7 v.
4. In Germany the return to Kant dates from Liebmann's book on Kant und die Epigonen 1865 and F. A. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus
1866. Cf. Hans Vaihinger, Hartmann, Dühring und Lange, Iserlohn 1876 S.
f. usw.
Ed. von Hartmann, Neukantianismus, Schopenhauerianismus und [452] Hegelianismus, 2e Aufl. 1877 S. 1-118. In theology Kantianism was renewed by Ritschl and Lipsius. The principia of the theology of Ritschl and his school are these: first of all a separation must be made between metaphysics and religion (theology). The metaphysical concept of the Absolute has nothing to do with the religious
idea of God, Ritschl, Theol. u. Metaph. 1881 S. 13. Rechtf. u. Vers. III2 201 f. 211 f. 221 f. Herrmann, Die Religion im Verhältniss zum Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit, Halle 1879 carried the separation through still further, and made a distinction between the object of metaphysics and of religion, ib. S. 100, between the explainable and the experienceable Wirklichkeit, S.
100, 107, between the natural and the moral world, S. 269, 355. Cf. also Kaftan, Das Wesen der christl. Religion, Basel 1881 S. 200. Subsequently theology has not to take its standpoint before faith, in a theologia naturalis, which does not exist, but in the faith of the congregation. From there it must proceed and consider and appraise everything, Ritschl, Theol. u. Metaph. S.
11 f. 61. Rechtf. u. Vers. I2 364 III 2-8, 13, 32, 162, 165, 198, 304, 356 f.
Orthodoxy did indeed still let the fides historica, the assensus, precede the fides salvifica, i.e. the fiducia, but that was in conflict with the original doctrine of the Reformation in Luther, Melanchton and Calvin. In that way faith would always again depend on external proofs, consist in accepting some truths, and be deprived of all freedom, independence and certainty,
Ritschl, Fides implicita, Bonn, 1890 S. 69. Gottschick, Die Kirchlichkeit der sogenannten kirchl. Theol. Freiburg, 1890 S. 11-53, 69 f. Traub, Glaube u. Theol., Stud. u. Krit. 1893, 3tes Heft S. 568-588. Herrmann, Die
Gewissheit des Glaubens und die Freiheit der Theol., Freiburg 1887, 2e Aufl. 1889. Id. Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott, Stuttgart 1886 S. 18 f. 83 f. 92 f. 2e Aufl. 1892. Id. Der evang. Glaube und die Theol. Albr. Ritschls
1890. Id. in Beweis des Glaubens 1890. Kaftan, Brauchen wir ein neues Dogma, 1890, S. 37. Id. Glaube u. Dogma. Zeits. f. Theol. u. Kirche v.
Gottschick 1891 S. 478 f. cf. 1893 S. 427 f. Kattenbusch, Ueber religiösen Glauben im Sinne des Christ. Giessen 1887. In the third place the theology of Ritschl attempts to bind saving faith to the historical revelation in the
person of Christ. Faith is precisely as fiducia [453] not acceptance of a doctrine but trust in a person. But then faith naturally does not arise of itself from man, but presupposes an object and some prior knowledge of that object. Herrmann even acknowledges that the notitia is a Vorbedingung des
Glaubens, Verkehr des Christen mit Gott, 2e Aufl. S. 182. Zeits. f. Theol. u.
K. von Gottschick IV, 4tes Heft S. 273. On what ground does that object, that historical revelation in Christ, now stand firm? From where comes the certainty concerning its reality? The answer that is given to that important question by the Ritschlians is very different. Ritschl himself actually gives no answer. He refers the individual man to the congregation, which has the experience of the forgiveness of sins and of the sonship of God, but does not say what must compel the individual man to join that congregation.
Only he grounds the existence of God and the reasonableness of the Christian worldview on the self-appraisal of the spirit, Rechtf. u. Vers. III2
200 f. 209 f. 573 f. His followers, however, usually take other paths and let the truth of the revelation in Christ rest on inner experience. The contemplation of Christ strikes us by his moral greatness; He makes a deep impression on the unprejudiced mind, humbles but also raises up to the confidence that God is our Father, Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mit
Gott 1886 S. 18 f. 26 f. Beweis des Glaubens 1890 S. 81 f. Gottschick, Die Kirchlichkeit der sogen. kirchl. Theol. 1890 S. 222, 226. Traub, Stud. u.
Krit. 1893, S. 577. cf. Köstlin, Die Begründung unserer sittl. relig.
Ueberzeugung 1893, S. 98 f. Frank, Dogmatische Studien 1892, S. 46 f.
Herrmann combats as strongly as possible that historical proofs can convince us of the truth of the person of Christ; he also leaves historical criticism completely free and withholds nothing from it, but he nevertheless says that the Christus extra nos is the ground of his faith, Zeits. f. Theol. u.
K. 1894, IV 4tes Heft S. 281; he speaks of a zweifellose Thatsache, S. 280; finds that the basic features of the image of Jesus allow no doubt about the historical reality of Jesus, S. 285, and acknowledges this objective truth not on the ground of proofs, but because he has felt and lived through the power of the life of Jesus over himself, S. 288; because Jesus' life has the power, sich unserm Gewissen als eine wirkliche Thatsache [454] zu bezeugen, S.
293. And only that is content of faith which has the power sich dem Gewissen als wirkliche Thatsache zu bezeugen, S. 293. A deeper analysis of the truth and certainty of faith is not given to us in the school of Ritschl; the impression that the person of Christ makes on us, the power that proceeds from the gospel in our mind, the moral experience of humility and joy, the agreement of the idea of the kingdom of God with our needs and demands,
Kaftan, Die Wahrheit der chr. Relig. Basel 1889 S. 537 f., seems to vouch for the truth of the revelation in the person and the life of Christ. Finally the content of faith in the theology of Ritschl is reduced to a minimum. Ritschl said, Rechtf. u. Vers. III2 369 cf. 191 f. alle Erkenntnisse religiöser Art sind directe Werthurtheile. Philosophy also does appraise. But there the Werthurtheile are incidental and accompanying. In religion they are independent; they rest on man's pleasure or displeasure, on his weal or woe; they have reference to his relation to the world, and are independent of science. If science therefore keeps to its own terrain and does not attempt to build up a worldview, then no conflict is possible, Ritschl, Theol. u.
Metaph. 7, 9. Rechtf. u. Vers. III2 189-197. Fides implicita S. 68, 70.
Herrmann went still further and even expressed that the reality of faith for science was an imagination, Die Religion usw. S. 108, 112. But nevertheless Ritschl and Herrmann held fast to the historical revelation of God in Christ as foundation and source of religious faith and in so far let
religion consist not only in Werthbut also in Seinsurtheile. It was also all too clear that religious knowing just as much includes the conviction of the reality of its object as scientific knowing. Werthurtheile are dependent on Seinsurtheile or else nothing but imagination. Kaftan, Das Wesen der christl. Religion S. 35 f. 41 f. 55 f. accordingly also acknowledges that the Werthurtheile presuppose objective truth, even though in erkenntnisstheoretischen sense he also lets this depend on those. And Häring, Die Theol. und der Vorwurf der doppelten Wahrheit 1886 does say that practical, moral grounds move us to faith, but nevertheless adds that the Christian faith does not carry the guarantee for the truth of what is believed in [455] itself, for wishing is no proof for the fulfillment of the wish; but that it finds that guarantee in the historical fact of the revelation of God in Christ, cf. Häring also Zur Lehre von der h. Schrift, Stud. u. Krit. 1893, 1es
Heft S. 177-212, especially S. 199 f. Hence that others point out that, even if so much in Scripture may succumb for criticism, yet enough still remains standing. Die ganze Erscheinung Christi can nevertheless not be unhistorical. Faith is independent of the supernatural birth of Christ,
Harnack, Das apost. Glaubensbekenntniss, Berlin, 1892, of the resurrection, Harnack, Dogmengesch. I2 73 f. Gottschick, Die Kirchlichkeit usw. S. 90, of the miracles. Only if historical-critical research would want to take from us that Christ is our Lord, then Christian faith would come into resistance against that, cf. Otto Ritschl, Der histor. Christus, der christl. Glaube u. die theol. Wissenschaft, Zeits. f. Theol. u. Kirche v. Gottschick III 4, 5tes Heft
S. 371 f., Traub, Stud. u. Krit. 1893, S. 577 f. Erich Haupt, Die Bedeutung der h. Schrift für den evang. Christen, 1891. Max Reischle, Der Glaube an Jesus Christus und die geschichtliche Erforschung seines Lebens, Leipzig
1893. Of the rich litt. on the theology of Ritschl and his school there are
only mentioned Stählin, Kant, Lotze, Albr. Ritschl 1888. Pfleiderer, Die Ritschl'sche Theol., Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. April 1889 S. 162 f., also published separately at Braunschweig by Schwetske. Id. on Herrmann,
Kaftan and Bender, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1891 S. 321-383. Id. Entw. der prot. Theol. 1891 S. 228 f. Flügel, Die spekul. Theol. der Gegenwart 1888
S. 230 f. Frank, Die Theol. A. Ritschl's 3e Aufl. Erl. 1891. Flügel, Ritschl's philos. und theol. Ansichten, 2e Aufl. 1892. G. Mielke, Das System A.
Ritschl's dargestellt, nicht kritisirt, Bonn Marcus 1894. Saussaye on Ritschl, Theol. Stud. by Dr. Daubanton 1884 p. 259 ff. and my art. there 1888 p. 369 ff.
5. Ultimately the same standpoint is also adopted by R. A. Lipsius, Lehrbuch der ev. prot. Dogm. 1876, 2e Aufl. 1879, 3e Aufl. 1893.
Dogmatische Beiträge, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1878, also published separately Leipzig, Barth, 1878. Neue Beiträge, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1885, and published separately under the title Philosophie und Religion, Leipzig 1885.
[456] Die Hauptpunkte der christ. Glaubenslehre, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1889
S. 1-41, and published separately Braunschw. 1889, 2e Aufl. 1891. Lipsius too limits science to the domain of inward and outward experience, Lehrb. der ev. prot. Dogm. § 1. Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1885 S. 181 f. 1889 S. 1 f. But now Lipsius nevertheless acknowledges, in distinction from Ritschl and Herrmann, still some right of metaphysics. Our reason feels need and impulse to ascend from the world of experience to an unbedingten Grund, and thus forms the concepts of the Absolute, the soul, etc., Jahrb. 1885 S.
200, 278 f. 372, 395, ib. 1889 S. 3. Our spirit strives for unity, Jahrb. 1885
S. 283. But this metaphysical or philosophical thinking is no longer science proper, it produces no positive content, it does not increase our possession of truth, as Biedermann thinks; it yields only Formbestimmingen,
Grundbegriffe, regulative Prinzipien, Jahrb. 1885 S. 275-283. When we nevertheless want to put some content into it and want to obtain transcendent knowledge by it, then we transfer sensible forms onto it, and entangle ourselves in an antinomy. The logical and the symbolic conception of the metaphysical struggle with each other, Jahrb. 1885 S. 281-283, ib.
1889 S. 4. Along this path, therefore, no knowledge of the supersensible is to be obtained. But there is still another path, that of practical, sittliche
Nöthigungen. Man namely is a thinking but also a willing and acting being, and he feels himself compelled, as such, to maintain himself over against the world. From the Widerspruch between man's spirit and nature religion is born in him. This is a practical matter of the spirit, and arises not first of all from theoretical but from practical needs. The practical, ethical impulse, to maintain himself in his existence, urges man to faith in God, to the postulating of a supersensible world. Faith thus begins where science ceases, Jahrb. 1885 S. 377 f. 557 f. This faith brings with it a certainty of its own, not a scientific but a moral certainty, a certainty of experience, resting on the erlebte Gewissheit of my own person, Jahrb. 1885 S. 385 f. 438 f.
For another this certainty may perhaps be nothing but imagination, but for the subject himself it is certain, ib. 387 f. Such experience is also the only criterion for the truth of the Christian [457] religion, of revelation in Christ.
The appropriation of the historical revelation into personal possession is the only direct proof for the truth of the Christian religion. The personal experience of believers confirms the historical revelation, just as the latter awakens and strengthens the former, Jahrb. 1885 S. 600 f. And the Christian, thus believing, then makes confession of supersensible realities; in the dogmas he gives not a description of states of mind and Werthurtheile, but Seinsurtheile concerning the relation of man to God and
of God to man and world. These religiöse Aussagen are objectively true, if they stand in unbreakable, logically necessary connection with the realization of our highest destination of life. Not accidental, but indeed necessary Werthurtheile prove the objective truth of the religious utterances,
Jahrb. 1885 S. 440, 445. For the believer himself these proofs are sufficient; and over against non-believers he still has an indirect apologetic proof in this, that practical Nöthigungen compel man to religion; religion is no compulsion, no natural power, but is practically, psychically necessary, and is in so far grounded in man's being, Jahrb. 1885 S. 627 f. 639 f.
Dogmatically the believer moreover still has the task, to combine the content of faith with all his knowledge of the world into one whole.
Herrmann has kept believing and knowing as strictly as possible and to the end separated. But Lipsius lets the content of both indeed arise from a source of its own, but then nevertheless wants finally to combine it into a einheitliche Weltanschauung. Dogmatics cannot indeed prove the content of faith and elevate believing to knowing, but it can and must bring the Christian, the teleological world-view into connection with the causal world-view, with the knowledge of the world obtained from elsewhere, and it then has to show that there is no conflict, that the conflict is only apparent, that there is in fact unity. Even if the dogmas contain no scientific truth, no theoretical Erkenntnisse; even if they are all figurative and anthropomorphistic; they nevertheless may not be in conflict with the firm results of science. The unity of our spirit forbids the acceptance of a double truth. The religious idea of God and the concept of the Absolute, freedom and necessity, teleological and causal world-view etc. must be compatible
[458] with each other, Jahrb. 1885 S. 648 f. 658 f. 662 f. ib. 1889 S. 6.
Dogm. § 3. Cf. concerning Lipsius inter alia Ed. von Hartmann, Die Krisis
des Christ. in der mod. Theol. Berlin 1880 S. 69 f. Biedermann, Christl.
Dogm. 1884 I 58 f. 160 f. Flügel, Die spekul. Theol. der Gegenwart 1888 S.
95 f. Pfleiderer, Entw. der prot. Theol. 1891, S. 241 f. Bruining, Theol.
Tijdschr. Nov. 1894 etc.
6. This ethical, practical method of justifying religion and Christianity certainly deserves far preference over historical and speculative argumentation. It does not conceive religion merely as doctrine, which must be justified for the understanding, nor as a condition of the subject, which must be analytically dissected by thought. But it sees in religion a historical, objective power, which corresponds to the moral constitution of man and finds therein its proof and its justification. But yet this method too is subject to serious objections. In the first place, the agreement of a religion with the moral needs of man is most certainly of great significance. The satisfaction of heart and conscience is the seal and the crown of religion. A religion which cannot comfort in mourning and sorrow, in life and in dying, cannot be the true religion. Of other sciences, logic, mathesis, physics, etc., we do not expect that they will offer comfort to the guilty conscience and the saddened mind. But a religion which stands helpless at the sickand deathbed, which cannot confirm the doubting and cannot raise up the downcast, is not worthy of that name, Gottschick, Die Kirchlichkeit usw. S.
4 f. The so often made antithesis between truth and comfort does not belong in religion. A truth which contains no comfort, which is not connected with the religious-ethical life of man, thereby also ceases to be a religious truth.
Just as medical science in all its parts is governed by the healing of the sick, so in religion man is concerned with peace and blessedness. But however highly this comfort in religion may be esteemed and however much it may, together with other proofs, be taken into consideration as a powerful
motivum credibilitatis; yet it, alone and set by itself, is insufficient as proof.
For some comfort and satisfaction is to be found in all religions; the experiences of [459] misery and guilt, of doubt and trust, of patience and hope are present not only among Christians, but also to a greater or lesser degree among Mohammedans, Buddhists, etc. A religion which offers no comfort and grants no satisfaction to the moral needs of man is certainly false; but conversely not every religion is yet the true one in which man seeks his comfort and his satisfaction. Further, the needs of heart and conscience, to which some religion or other corresponds, are either themselves awakened under the influence of that religion, and then their satisfaction is fairly natural and a proof of little force; or they have arisen outside that religion, under other influences and under the operation of another religion, and then precisely that peculiar need which this religion presupposes is not present and the satisfaction is entirely lacking. Of an unconscious aspiration of the soul toward Christianity, in reality almost nothing is found. Of a ripeness of the peoples for the Gospel, the history of missions teaches bitterly little. The Gospel is not according to man, not according to the needs, as man himself imagines them. Outside revelation man does not know himself either. The oft-repeated assertion that Christianity corresponds to man's needs brings with it the serious danger that the truth is made ready-made for human nature. The proposition that the truth is genuinely human because it is divine so easily turns into the opposite, that it is only divine because it is human. Preaching to please, instead of to the heart of Jerusalem, is not uncommon even on Christian pulpits. Next, the experience in which the proof for the truth of religion is sought is a very floating concept. What then is there in a historical religion that can really be content of experience? Experienced are some religious-
ethical emotions of guilt, remorse, forgiveness, gratitude, joy, etc. But all the rest that occurs in a historical religion falls outside experience. For not a single one of the twelve articles of faith can the "I believe" be replaced by the "I experience". That God is Creator of heaven and earth, that Christ is
God's only-begotten Son, conceived by the H. Spirit, born of Mary, etc., etc., is of course not susceptible of any experience. On the foundation of religious-ethical experience the truth of historical Christianity can [460] never be built. The consequence of this elevation of experience to principium cognoscendi is then also only that the content of faith and dogmatics is more and more detached from all that is historical and is restricted to the so-called religious-ethical. That, however, is nothing other than a new form for the already repeatedly attempted in vain separation between idea and fact in Christianity. The fruit, however, can no longer be plucked when the tree is cut down; and the fresh, clear water no longer flows when the spring is stopped.
7. Instead of in the satisfaction of heart and conscience, others have sought the content and the proof of the Christian religion in so-called
Werthurtheile. Yet this is only another name for the same thing. If by that nothing else were meant than that a dogma must always contain a religiousethical value, no one could raise any objection to these Werthurtheile. In every dogma one must, as was already said earlier, hear the heart of religion beat. But in the theology of Ritschl these Werthurtheile acquired a wholly different meaning. Detached from all the metaphysical, they became the foundation and the content of dogmatics. And that is impossible. Religion includes the conviction of the reality of its object. Religious and ethical valuation presupposes the truth of the person or the thing to which it relates.
Werthurtheile are therefore dependent on Seinsurtheile; they stand and fall
with these. If the valuation of an object is not grounded in its reality, it becomes nothing but an imagination, a creation of fantasy or an idealformation in the sense of Lange and Pierson. It is therefore not admissible to say: let the facts be thus or otherwise, the valuation decides; for with the facts this too changes. If Israel's people and religion has developed as the more recent criticism represents it, the valuation of the Old Testament must in principle be altered. A modern view of history and an orthodox valuation fit poorly together. If Christ is not truly God, then he also cannot have for the Christian the value of God. And so it is with all dogmata. Religious valuation stands in the closest connection with objective truth in the [461] closest connection. Many a mist would disappear if, according to Biedermann's wish, the fashionable word: Werthurtheile were banished. Cf. also Scheibe, Die Bedeutung der Werthurtheile für das relig. Erkennen,
Halle 1893. O. Ritschl, Ueber Werthurtheile, Freiburg Mohr 1895.
Gradually the conviction gains ground that religious-ethical experience and valuation, however great their weight, nevertheless cannot guarantee the truth of their object nor can they be the standard for the content of dogmatics. Psychologically too this conception is not to be justified. For the decision about the reality of things does not belong to will or feeling, to heart or conscience, but to consciousness. Only when the reality of a thing is established for consciousness can the other faculties of the soul become active with it. Wishing, feeling, experiencing, imagining in no way includes the reality of their objects. The way to the heart is paved by the head.
Yet many, although seeing the weakness of the experiential and evaluative proof, have still tried to salvage something of it by means of Kant's postulate theory. One then indeed concedes that the moral nature of man may not lead one to conclude to the reality of all kinds of religious
representations or also to the truth of the Christian religion; but nevertheless from it the right is derived to postulate the actual existence of all that which is necessarily connected with that moral nature, and without which it is undermined and destroyed. But wherein this consists, no one can indicate; the feelings diverge widely. Who can, in the abstract, determine what is immediately and directly given with the moral nature of man? In each person that moral nature is different according to the environment in which it has been formed. Each postulates precisely as much as he has enough of for his religion. Kant derived from practical reason that which constituted the content of his moralische Vernunftreligion, the existence of God, freedom and immortality. Fichte had enough with the moral world-order.
And Rauwenhoff asserts that faith in ourselves necessarily postulates faith in such a constitution of the world that the law of the sense of duty can rule therein, Wijsb. v. d. godsd. bl. 343. Wherein this constitution consists is not further told us. The moral world-order, postulated by [462] Rauwenhoff, is nothing other than the good in us, bl. 536 v. But with that we do not get a step further. For this power of the good is also already present in man now and coincides entirely with that moral nature on which precisely the postulate was built. Whether the postulate includes something more, e.g. that the good will triumph, that one day all men will be able and willing to accomplish it, about that silence is maintained. Rauwenhoff expects this triumph of the good, but on what ground, he does not say. If, however, the present constitution of the world is compatible with the dominion of the moral law in us, why should it then also not be able to be so in the future?
What right does the moral nature of man give to demand at the end the complete victory of the good, the harmony of virtue and happiness, the agreement of natural and moral world-order? With Rauwenhoff the
postulate theory has ended with its having returned to the point of departure; at the end it gave no more than it already contained in the beginning. But apart from its poor results, the question arises whether the foundation is reliable on which the postulate is built? For the modern philosopher of religion this is not elevated above all doubt. In religion he wants to know nothing of an original religious nature of man. That would be in conflict with a scientific explanation. Religion must be derived from factors which each in itself are not yet religious. But having arrived at the moral nature of man, he seems to forget entirely the demand of his scientific explanation. Without concerning himself with the objections, brought in from the side of materialistic science, he proceeds from the moral nature of man as from a fixed, unchangeable, original property and builds upon it the reality of a moral world-order or even of an entire metaphysical world. The right thereto should at least have been demonstrated. If this investigation had been instituted beforehand, it might perhaps have appeared that the moral nature of man itself already presupposes religion.
In erkenntnisstheoretischen sense one may, just as with the moral proof for the existence of God, ascend from the moral to the religious; logically and really, however, religion nevertheless precedes the ethical. There is no morality without metaphysics. The idea [463] of duty involves that of an absolute power that binds in the conscience. On Rauwenhoff's Wijsb. v. d. godsd. literature is given by Kuenen in his Levensbericht van R., Maatsch. v. Ned. Lett. 1889 bl. 126, and alongside that de Bussy, Gids Oct. 1889.
Cannegieter, De godsdienst uit plichtsbesef enz. Leiden 1890.
8. A final objection against the above-mentioned direction consists in this, that it must always arrive at a certain dualism of believing and knowing.
Some have expressed this very starkly. Scholasticism ended in the Middle
Ages, with some theologians, in the proposition that something in theology could be true and in philosophy false. Jacobi professed to be a heathen with the intellect but a Christian with the heart. Herrmann called the reality of faith for science an illusion. The ethical moderns demanded a complete separation between philosophy and religious life. Most, however, do not dare to go that far and see the impossibility of saying no as philosophers and yes as religious people. They acknowledge that in the end there must nevertheless be agreement between the statements of faith and the results of science. Philosophy may not be able to justify the religious representations; but it must also not be able to demonstrate their untruth. Both, the outcomes of scientific investigation and the statements of religious faith, must be able to be connected into one whole or at least be able to exist alongside one another without conflict and enmity. This agreement at the end, in the results, one then tries to obtain by making science, on the one hand, agnostic with respect to the supersensory and supernatural, and on the other hand strictly limiting the statements of religious faith to the religiousethical. But even if one tries in that way to avoid the dualism in the result, in fact one nevertheless continues to adhere to it in the organ through which and the way or the method along which one arrives at knowledge of the truth. The heart is on its terrain just as much an organ for the truth as the head. Religious-moral experience guarantees the reality of the invisible things just as strongly as sensory perception does that of the visible world.
Faith with its grounds has just as much right as science with its proofs. But it is [464] difficult to see how one can escape, in the end in the result, from the dualism that one accepts at the beginning, in principle. If head and heart have a life of their own, in the sense that they each form an independent organ for knowledge of the truth, then the unity of the truth, of the world,
indeed of God himself, is no longer to be maintained. Just as subjectively the human being falls apart into two, and on the one hand is a religionless being, enclosed in the nexus of nature, and on the other hand a religiousethical being, citizen of a moral world-order; so objectively science and religion, erklärbare and erlebbare Wirklichkeit, the world of being and of valuation, the visible and the invisible things, the absolute power of nature and the religious idea of God stand separated alongside one another and presently hostilely over against each other.
Now, undoubtedly, there lies in this dualism a certain truth, which must not be disregarded. For there is, namely, besides a logical certainty, also a certainty of faith. But this distinction is, as will appear later, a wholly different one from the separation which is represented by the dualism described above. For this twofold certainty divides neither man nor the world into two halves, but within the sphere of science itself makes a distinction between that which comes to our knowledge immediately and that which comes by means of proofs. But the dualism which has come to dominion in modern philosophy lets all that is created fall apart into two wholly separated circles, and is thereby in conflict with the unity of man's spirit, with the unity of science and of truth, with the unity of the world, with the unity of the divine Being itself. Therefore it is also not in a position to reconcile believing and knowing with one another; rather, it still increases the conflict between the two. For faith cannot be satisfied with that separation, because it sees all the historical and metaphysical, with which it is always connected in greater or lesser degree, taken away from it, and therefore either becomes wholly dependent on science or must withdraw into vague, mysterious feeling. And science can have no peace with it, because the decision about the reality of things is entrusted to a
faculty which for that purpose entirely lacks the right and the competence.
Both, faith and science, do not allow themselves to be limited in that way.
They [465] at every moment encroach upon one another. Nor can it be a good demand that the religious man cease to serve God when he devotes himself to science, or that the man of science impose silence upon his thinking when he enters the domain of religion, cf. above bl. 29, 155 v.