The Theology of Ernst Troeltsch

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This thread will be a series of essays and comments taken from my study of Christian Theologian, Ernst Troeltsch. I'm very interested in discussing what Christians think about his work.

The theology of Ernst Troeltsch is a product of 19th century liberal Protestantism, what Troeltsch called neo-Protestantism. It was distinctly separated from the world-denying Puritan movements that leapt from Europe to America and from the strict biblically based theologies of Calvin and Luther, which Troeltsch refers to as old Protestantism. In his book, The Christian Faith, a series of dictations and lectures, he begins by letting go of what he feels have become irrelevant dogmas contradictory to human experience, objectivity, and scientific inquiry.

“The dogmatics of bygone days was on quite familiar terms with two presuppositions that are no longer with us today. The first was the presupposition of a universal, rational knowledge of God. Its disappearance coincided with the disappearance of a universal normative philosophy… The second was the presupposition of the inspiration of the Bible. The Bible used to yield a supernatural knowledge of God that could be unproblematically tacked on to that prior rational knowledge”.

Troeltsch argues that the dogmas of an inerrant, God-written Bible and the faith in Man’s irrefutable and absolute knowledge of God are no longer necessary or productive to the Christian faith. However, like Hegel, Troeltsch maintains a strictly historical view on religion, and therefore does not reject the importance of these dogmas at their foundation. For Troeltsch, Christianity is not written in stone and is a living, growing, evolving religion whose truth is grounded in the Personality of God, not in the Bible, not in the Church, or in the opinion of any one Man.

Many of today’s modern, liberal Christians won’t be surprised Troeltsch’s notice that such dogmas are “still to be found in America…” and, “that America now constitutes the best market for the older European textbooks of dogmatics”. While Troeltsch believes that Christianity is and will remain the highest expression of divine understanding and truth, he does not hold that it is the only legitimate expression of divine understanding and truth. “Christianity is rich in majesty, but also in mediocrity and even caricature. If we look at Christianity, we see the great confessions of the Catholic and Protestant churches, the sects, and , finally, the vaguely religious attitudes – indifferent to institutions- characteristic of the modern world”. Yet, in Troeltsch’s point of view, the religious characteristics of the modern world that pertain to the lives of the Christians living in it, are as valuable and important a religious reality, as the Bible itself.

So how does Troeltsch define Christianity without dependence upon the Bible (like the old Protestants) or upon the Church (like the Catholics)? That will be the subject of my next post on Troeltsch.

 

[robtex]

this guy is bound to be Nate's and Ken's hero!!

 

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So how does Troeltsch define Christianity without dependence upon the Bible (like the old Protestants) or upon the Church (like the Catholics)? He rejects the three prominent positions. First, the Catholic position that the essence of Christianity and divine truth comes from the apostolic succession, founded in Holy Mother Church, and overseen by the Pope. Second, the Lutheran based, old Protestant idea that the Bible is essentially the Pope. Third, the Puritan-based Protestant idea that the truth of Christianity rests in the Bible and in the personal experience of Salvation through Christ. The last being quite popular today. “One side turns to the pope and the church, the other to the Bible, but both sides turn to a clearly circumscribed object” (18).

Troeltsch writes, “But if we follow Schleiermacher, we turn to the totality of Christianity. All that then remains is to identify the essential, basic elements within the whole, and to isolate and exclude the misshapen, accidental, and changeable. Schleiermacher did this in his famous definition: ‘The essence of Christianity is redemptive, moral monotheism.’ Hegel found the essence of Christianity in the redemptive perception of the eternal God. For Harnack, it is the forgiveness of sins and the works of the Kingdom of God that makes possible. But in our Glaubenslehre, we will seek to determine the essence of Christianity on the basis of the totality of its historical development” (18).

Troeltsch then goes on to discuss the virtues and vice of the early Christian church, Catholicism, and finally old Protestantism. In these discussions, Troeltsch identifies the importance and necessity of particular dogmas that we can now do without. However, even after praising the work of the Catholic Church and the immense importance of the Reformation, Troeltsch concludes that, “this altered conception of the church inexorably leads us to the conclusion that there is no longer any uniform, authoritative truth, but that all partake of it… This development logically leads to the separation of church and state, something which is already a reality in some places. What really concern people are the fruits of the moral life, while everything else is tolerated” (20-21).

This is the foundation of modern liberal Christianity. Troeltsch writes, “Another result of this development is the increasing impact that not only tolerance, but also relativism and subjectivism have had on the churches themselves”. This is a reality that is vigorously being fought against in America today, and is blamed for the decline of Christianity in Europe. However, it is important not to disregard the importance and good of these changes in the face of impending failure of their application in Europe. Because Troeltsch places Christian identity and authority in the Personality of God, he destroys the legalism of institutionalized Christianity, leaving individuals to either pursue a faithful relationship with the Personality of God, or having to face the shallow pointlessness of dogmatic religious tradition. “Each person has the right to go their own way. Hence this decidedly new form of Glaubenslehre (faith teaching) implies the independence of religious communities” (21).

For Troeltsch, it is the incessant and ignorant bickering over irrelevant dogmas and doctrines that destroys organized Christianity. “Freedom is not as dangerous as many believe, but conflict certainly is. And behind that conflict stands politics” (23). In America, we are constantly bickering over what defines the separation of church and state, with regard to the state. But what about the separation of church and state with regard to the church? Why are we so permissive of Churches being consumed and divided by political opinion? Troeltsch inspires us to greater unity through tolerance and freedom. Mainly, the freedom of the individual to pursue the personality of God and a tolerance of the pursuit of others. Certainly Americans can sympathize with such an ideal. Did not such an ideal inspire our Declaration of Independence and Constitution?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

this guy is bound to be Nate's and Ken's hero!!

Not exactly I don't think. (If by 'Ken' you mean No*s, who is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church).

I'm not exited to see a "Christian movement" that is based neither on the Church nor the Bible... I can't see how this movement could be called Christianity at all.

 

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I'm not exited to see a "Christian movement" that is based neither on the Church nor the Bible... I can't see how this movement could be called Christianity at all.

Because it is. The Bible is the original religious artifact. According to Troeltsch, it is in the Old Testiment that we discover the Personality of God in the Psalms and Prophecies. Then, in the New Testiment, we discover the Personality of God in Christ. But God's personality and interaction with the world didn't stop there. Christ offered Mankind the ability to have a personal relationship with God, and through 2,000 years of human evolution, things have changed. The myths and superstitions that existed two thousand years ago seem laughable now. Now does that mean God is laughable? Of course not. So where is God? Certainly not in the Church. Certainly all the people slaughtered by Christianity over the years were not slaughtered on behalf of God. God is obviously not innate to the Church.

So where is He? According to Troeltsch, he is in the redemption and grace offered to man through Christ by God, and in our personal experience of the Personality of God.

 

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For Troeltsch, the appearance and clarity of the personality of God in the objects of faith remains paramount. Whether speaking about the Bible, of the scriptural Jesus, of the evolution of Jesus throughout Christian history, or of religious dogma, it is the demonstration of the personality of God that makes these things significant. “What finally counts”, he writes, “what the Bible means to us, is chiefly a matter of the personality. We see authentic revelation not in sacred doctrines, but in the strengthening of the God-consciousness communicated to us by the great personalities of the Bible as they dynamically agitate and excite us” (29). It is impossible to understand Jesus or the Bible in isolation. It is only when seeking out the personality and character of God, and its historical demonstration, that one can view Christ and the Bible in proper context.

Bickering amongst the faithful creates the false faith that there is an obvious empirical truth to be gleaned from the Scripture. While many Christians see no difference between seeking the personality of God and seeking the truth, there are often vast differences between the two. It is easy to read the Bible as a way to support and improve our own previously existing assumptions, and therefore to interpret the Bible in a spirit of selfishness, as opposed to a spirit of seeking the truth of God.

“It is not necessary to have a theory of the Bible. The main thing is that the Bible is there and that we learn to read it properly, i.e., without any critical or dogmatic anxiety and without any scientific interference, but simply as religious people. Even theologians must learn to do this. Whoever seeks life from the book of life must find the passages that resonate within their own soul. Hairsplitting may be left to the appropriate specialists” (30).

But even as we learn to reflect on Christ and on the Bible and to seek out the Truth of God in the scriptures, we must still learn to recognize God in the modern world. To ignore the 4,000 years of history after the Torah, and the 2,000 years of history after the death of Christ, is to limit God to the relics.

“Now we must ask: Shall we accept the modern world-which has already imperceptibly extended its influence everywhere into the most personal and private elements of our life-as a source for our theology? The answer is yes, and we will do so openly, not in secret like the orthodox dogmatics that sought to preserve the miracle at Cana by explaining it as the fabulous acceleration of a natural process! We will pay the modern world the compliment of taking it seriously. We will investigate it critically, but criticism always implies a prior, conditional acceptance. We will be cautious, but also quite open” (33). If only this were applied by the major Christians today. What a different world we’d be living in!

Christianity is not a religion of “the Law”, as Judaism and Islam are. Nor is it a religion of the Earth, as are the myriad pagan traditions. Christianity is a religion of personality, of the uniting of personality between Man and God. Such that, God comes further into Man as Man pursues God, and is thus elevated from both the Earth and the Law. This only works when the Christian God is viewed as both transcendent and immanent. When faith leans too far to one direction they lose sight of the reality of God, according to Troeltsch. Thus, in recognizing the immanence of God, “We hold that it is fundamentally wrongheaded to take a merely negative approach to modern life” (33) “Immanence and humanity, for example, are two importance and widespread concepts that belong to the modern world” (33).

In the next post, we’ll look at the nine ways in which Christianity has been impacted by the modern world.