Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn [1 ed.] 9780813218922, 9780813216751

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Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Fa i t h f u l l y S e e k i n g

Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

U n d e r s ta n d i n g

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Fa i t h f u l ly Se e k i ng U n d e r s ta n d i n g Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn  edited a nd tr a nsl ated by Gr a nt Ka p l a n

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C

The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C.

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Copyright © 2009 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved

Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kuhn, Johannes von, 1806–1887. [Selections. English. 2009] Faithfully seeking understanding : selected writings of Johannes Kuhn / edited and translated by Grant Kaplan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8132-1675-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Catholic Church—Doctrines—History—19th century.  2. Tübingen School (Catholic theology) I. Kaplan, Grant.  II. Title.   BX1751.3.K8413 2009 230´.2—dc22 2009005797

      

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Contents

Acknowledgments  vii

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Introduction to Selected Writings, Grant Kaplan  1 The False Choice between Faith and Rational Understanding  45 The Precedence of Faith over Reason  70 The Finality of Christian Revelation  84 Revelation and Its Salvific Import  101 Revelation as History  118 Grace and the Problem of Freedom  122 Neo-Scholasticism and the Misunderstanding of Grace  127 Sources of Revealed Truth: Scripture and Tradition  150 Authority and Interpretation  186 Is History Mythic? A Biblical Response to D. F. Strauss  212 (co-translated with Jonathan King) Religion as Feeling or Illusion? A Contrary Position  246 The Newness of Tradition  255 The Personhood of God  266 The Place of Theology in a University: A Response  277 Selected Bibliography  287 General Index  291 Index of Biblical Citations  299

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

Many people provided assistance throughout the production of this text. The prior editor at the Catholic University of America Press, Greg LaNave, deserves thanks for encouraging the project and facilitating a helpful blindreview process. Along those lines I would like to thank the blind-reviewers for performing their anonymous task so responsibly. James Kruggel’s professionalism and competence at CUAP made quite smooth the transition in editorial leadership. Denis Janz, my former colleague at Loyola University in New Orleans, gave sage advice about rethinking the schema of the book. Dr. Judith Hunt proofread earlier drafts of the proposal and shared helpful suggestions. The late Stephen Duffy steadily encouraged the project. Hurricane Katrina and the consequent dislocation complicated my work on this translation. The hospitality of Lisa and Larry Cahill, along with Boston College’s theology department, ameliorated my situation during the fall of 2005. Without their generosity the project would have been greatly delayed. Philip King has subsidized the project, enabling me to enlist the help of a talented student and a Germanophone colleague. The former, Andy Morgan, reviewed what were very rough translations and improved the finished product. The latter, Mark Miller, agreed to a three-week working vacation in the 2006 summer. His expertise in German, coupled with his theological acumen, advanced and facilitated the completion of several chapters.



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viii  C   Acknowledgments I would also like to thank the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University, and its chair, Wayne Hellman. He provided me a very manageable teaching load during the project’s final stages and created a genuinely pleasant work atmosphere. The graduate directors, James Ginther and Jay Hammond, also outfitted me with an able and willing graduate assistant, Jonathan King, whose help has been invaluable for completing the project. In particular, his work on “Is History Mythic?” constituted not just assistance, but scholarship that should be and has been recognized as such. Conversations over the past years with Bradford Hinze, Michael Himes, and Peter Hünermann have influenced and deepened my understanding of the Tübingen School. I am grateful to them for lending their time and expertise so liberally. Relatively recent Tübingen School translations by Michael Himes and Peter Erb provided models for how I might render many difficult German phrases. Thanks need also to be parceled to Cleve Thayer and Joachim Porzig, my high school German teacher and tutor, who instilled in me a love for the language that provided a solid basis for many future forays in Germanspeaking lands and through German texts. Despite so much assistance, any errors in the present volume are mine entirely. I dedicate this work to two unsurpassably decent mentor-friends, Stephen Duffy (in memoriam) and Philip King: priestly in office and rabbinic in disposition, who embody the Christian expression of Horace’s line from the Ars Poetica: si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Fa i t h f u l l y S e e k i n g

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U n d e r s ta n d i n g

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Introduction to

Selected Writings

Grant Kaplan

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T

h i s v o l u m e gives the first published translation into English of any of the writings of Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn (1806–1887), long considered the greatest speculative and systematic mind of the Catholic Tübingen School. Spanning Kuhn’s academic career, the texts offered here yield a representative illustration of one of the nineteenth century’s most compelling theologians. Reading Kuhn allows one the possibility to observe not only key nineteenth-century themes, but also to locate earlier inklings of the central questions that have remained prevalent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In order to put these texts in their proper context, the following introduction explains the immediate and broader arena in which Kuhn wrote his theology. The tumult with which the eighteenth century came to a close offered a certain promise for theological exploration in the nineteenth century. Radical shifts in culture and media, discoveries in natural science, and advances in complementary fields of study cleared the way for perhaps the most revolutionary century in theology since the thirteenth. Yet, as the story is frequently told, the nineteenth century’s theological triumphs— which included critical biblical scholarship, a theology of religion, and, perhaps most importantly, the integration (into Christian theology) of

1

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2  C   Introduction such modern philosophical insights as historical consciousness and the turn to the subject—have been generally acknowledged as Protestant areas of triumph. Catholics, meanwhile, missed the boat by flinching at this moment of crisis, which both was caused by and resulted in an increased authoritarianism and a return to Thomism (not Thomas).1 Excepting John Henry Newman and his theology of development, the most noteworthy Catholic theologians from this century are remembered for their perceived lack of orthodoxy (Louis Bautain, Georg Hermes, Anton Günther, Ignaz von Döllinger), eccentricity ( Joseph de Maistre, Franz von Baader, Antonio Rosmini, Franz Brentano), or neo-scholasticism ( Joseph Kleutgen, Johannes Franzelin, Matteo Liberatore, perhaps Matthias Scheeben). The theology from this period failed in large measure to convince Catholic ecclesial structures to adopt a more conciliatory role toward secular politics and modern culture. Regardless of how unfair this intellectual battle may have been, historical judgment must concede that Catholic theologians did not prevent the Church from the anti-modernism that, while surely justified in its worries, was too indiscriminate in its scope. As the dark fog of anti-modernism slowly lifted, Catholics frantically scrambled to play catch-up, the major result of which was the triumphant Second Vatican Council. And those looking back in search of a prophetic voice who prepared the way almost inevitably turned to Newman. The preceding narrative offers a paradigm that is helpful and true in the way that most paradigms are helpful and true. Paradigms approach largely inchoate entities in ways that enable us to integrate this knowledge into other areas of knowledge, and, in the face of reams of data, to make sense of the world. Here it must be acknowledged that the above paradigm does little to make sense of the “school” to which Kuhn belonged. Within 1  Thomas O’Meara provides a similar framework when he chronicles the following assumptions about the nineteenth century: “(1) Nineteenth-century theology and philosophy of religion is, above all in Germany, a Protestant enterprise; (2) Schleiermacher is the most typical example of a Christian theologian using the philosophy of early idealism and Romanticism; (3) examples of nineteenth-century Catholic thinkers are most easily found outside Germany—Newman or de Lamennais; (4) Roman Catholicism after Luther and Trent was neoscholastic up to the theological agitation leading to Vatican II; (5) the very few Roman Catholics who struggled with the thoughtforms of the modern world [.....] had inevitably failed and had earned well the label ‘modernist’ for their deployment of philosophy after Kant” in Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism: Schelling and the Theologians (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), 10–11.

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Introduction  C   3

a relatively short period of time, members of the Tübingen School were grouped (or grouped themselves) into categories both liberal and ultramontane. They opposed their bishop for being insufficiently Catholic, and had several of their own as bishop, and others rejected either by Rome for being too Febronian or by Württemberg for being too ultramontane. Their modernizing tendencies included borrowing heavily from Schleiermacher and Schelling, yet their publications at times lambasted these thinkers in print. Their theology laid some of the foundations for important developments in transcendental theology, communion ecclesiology, fundamental theology, a theology of doctrinal development, and biblical hermeneutics, but also for the organicism of Mystici Corporis and the Völkish theology expounded by their most famous twentieth-century inheritor, Karl Adam. Not only does the Tübingen School’s complexity call the accepted paradigm into question, but it has also generated reluctance about the fittingness of the term “Tübingen School.” Any introduction to Tübingen, then, must also include some justification or defense of a term, “Tübingen School,” that has long ceased to be univocal. Besides ending the long European marriage of altar and throne, the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic conquest caused massive restructuring of German principalities, resulting in a decline of Catholic political influence.2 In Swabia, wherein Tübingen lay, Catholics found themselves subject to a Protestant king, Friedrich I. The king now ruled a more substantial though still minority Catholic population as a result of this gerrymandering. In 1812, with the permission of the king, the Catholic leadership established a theology faculty in provincial Ellwangen. This location became untenable for both confessions; the king worried about the possibility of a defiant, sectarian theological center, while the Catholic faculty and students fretted over the lack of educational resources.3 Five years later the theology faculty moved to Tübingen, an old university town 2 Roger Aubert explains how these demographics shifts were disproportionately harmful to Catholics in Germany and the rest of Europe. See Aubert, The Church between Revolution and Restoration, trans. Peter Becher (New York, 1981), 40–135. For additional histories of Church-state relations and the subsequent impact on Catholic education and theology, see Owen Chadwick, The Popes and European Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), and Edward E. Y. Hales, The Catholic Church in the Modern World (New York: Hanover House, 1958). 3  For interesting description of the political and ecclesiastical intricacies involving the

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4  C   Introduction adjacent to the Catholic stronghold of Rottenburg. Catholics took up residence in the Wilhelmsstift, the only Catholic seminary in Germany named after a Protestant king. Just a short walk from the legendary Protestant Stift, the Wilhelmsstift served as a college for Catholic seminarians. Upon the arrival of the Catholic faculty, there was no Catholic Church in Tübingen, and the ethos of the town itself must have made the transplanted faculty feel as though they had moved to a foreign country. With only one or two dozen Catholic residents, Tübingen’s Catholic culture hardly bred a sense of clerical superiority in its seminarians.4 The relative youth of their faculty, when juxtaposed against a Protestant Stift that included such prominent scholars as F. C. Baur, and that one generation earlier had housed Hölderlin, Hegel, and Schelling, likely contributed to the desire to establish their academic credentials. Within two years, the faculty launched Die theologische Quartalschrift (The Theological Quarterly), which is the longest-running Catholic theological periodical in the world. The journal and the location in Tübingen would prove to be key ingredients in the concoction that would become the Tübingen School.

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Can One Still Speak of a Catholic Tübingen School? Before giving a description of the Tübingen School, it behooves us to qualify what is meant by a “school.” Any school requires a geographical locus as well as a particular quality, either formal or material, that produces a distinct and disproportionate impact on a wider intellectual milieu. One should not expect, however, to find unanimity among faculty, or a univocal response to the questions of the day. These qualifications allow for meaningful talk of a “school.” The Tübingen School’s founder, Johann Sebastian Drey, played a pivotal role in forming an agenda and employing a theological method that impacted students, the most promising of which would eventually return formation of the Catholic faculty, see Michael Himes, Ongoing Incarnation (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 28–32. 4 Reinhardt writes that in 1817 the city was inhabited by “barely more than fifteen Catholics.” See “Die katholisch-theologische Fakultät Tübingen im ersten Jahrhundert ihres Bestehens,” in Tübinger Theologie und ihre Theologie (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1977), 11.

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Introduction  C   5

as professors. Drey taught Johann Adam Möhler (while the faculty was still housed in Ellwangen), who in a short time became a faculty member in Tübingen. Later, both would instruct Kuhn, Karl Josef Hefele, and Franz Anton Staudenmaier, important “second generation” members (Staudenmaier, it should be noted, never returned to teach in Tübingen). Tübingen also practiced a program of retrieval that extends up to the present day. Karl Adam, an important thinker in his own right, would reflect on the nature of the School and also show a clear debt to it. The same could be said of such later “members” as Max Seckler, Walter Kasper, and Peter Hünermann.5 Josef Rupert Geiselmann and Rudolf Reinhardt, the two greatest scholars of the Tübingen School, also held positions on the faculty. The Quarterly has manifested this continuity by publishing not only the most important theology by the School, but also the most important scholarship on the School. Such reputed universities as Bonn, Munich, Vienna, and Münster also have long traditions and esteemed faculties of theology. Yet one continues to talk of a Tübingen School because of the genius and impact of Drey, Hirscher, Möhler, Kuhn, and Staudenmaier. Surely one should need to account for the sheer volume of theology from Tübingen, which is the source of continued fascination and theorizing among contemporary researchers.6 Given this disproportionate contribution, it is no wonder that attempts to identify the essence of Tübingen have abounded, if for no other than heuristic purposes. Yet the term “Tübingen School” has been fraught with dispute. The first known use of the term was in a letter from the Marburg canon lawyer, Johann Christian Multer, who wrote, “Among all Catholic facul5 Kasper has written that he does his own theology in conscious continuity with that of the Tübingen founder, Johann Sebastian Drey (see Wayne Fehr, The Birth of the Catholic Tübingen School (Chico, Calif.: American Academy of Religion, Scholars Press, 1981), 1. Fehr cites from Kasper, Glaube und Geschichte (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald Verlag, 1970), 9–32. Hünermann’s and Seckler’s debt is evidenced in dozens of their writings. 6 Despite so much interest, the long paucity of English texts has limited familiarity. As late as 1985, James Tunstead Burtchael was able to state with perfect accuracy that “[n]o comparably influential group of theologians is so little accessible to those who know not the Umlaut.” See Burtchael, “Drey, Möhler and the Catholic School of Tübingen,” in Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, vol. 2, ed. Ninian Smart et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 136.

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6  C   Introduction ties in Germany, the Tübingen School produces without a doubt the most learned and excellent men.”7 Abraham Peter Kustermann, however, explains that the term Schule was not used qualitatively, but only as a neutral short-hand for “faculty.”8 The early Tübingers, however, almost never used the word to describe themselves. It was not until 1898 that Paul Schanz, himself a member, introduced the eightieth anniversary of the Quarterly with an article titled: “The Catholic Tübingen School.”9 Karl Adam later used the same term when usage reached its peak in the 1920s and ’30s. Josef Rupert Geiselmann first began publishing on the School in 1930. More than any previous scholar, he both preserved the legacy of the School and molded its image. His classic 1964 work, The Tübingen School: Its Theological Character, summarized much of his earlier research and provided the standard account of the School.10 Geiselmann understood that the School contained a plurality of voices, but he still maintained that it represented a distinct departure from older scholastic and Enlightenment models of Catholicism that had dominated the German theological scene. In addition, Geiselmann sought to disassociate the School from the stain of modernism and to show its authentic catholicity. Doing so often meant showing little patience for deviant viewpoints.11 Since Geiselmann’s death in 1971, scholars have returned to the question of defining the School, often pointing out that the break from Enlightenment Catholicism, embodied in the program of Heinrich von Wessenberg, was less decisive than Geiselmann had imagined. The mantle for such a recalibration was taken up by Rudolf Reinhardt, whose tireless archival research yielded an account involving much greater 7  The quotation comes through heavily filtered; it is found in Rudolf Reinhardt, “175 Jahre Theologische Quartalschrift—ein Spiegel Tübinger Theologie,” Die theologische Quartalschrift (hereafter abbreviated ThQ) 176 (1996): 104. Reinhardt exports the citation from Franz Xaver Linsemann. Sein Leben. Band 1: Lebenserinnerungen, ed. Reinhardt (Sigmaringen, 1987), 169. Geiselmann also produces plentiful references to early attempts to capture the essence of the School. See Die Katholische Tübinger Schule. Ihre theologische Eigenart (Freiburg: Herder, 1964), 11–15. 8  Abraham Peter Kustermann, “Katholische Tübinger Schule: Beobachtungen zur Frühzeit eines theologiegeschichtlichen Begriffs,” in Catholica 36 (1982): 66. Reinhardt reaches the same conclusion (“175 Jahre,” 104). 9  Paul Schanz, “Die katholische Tübinger Schule,” ThQ 80 (1898): 1–49. 10 Geiselmann, Die Katholische Tübinger Schule. 11  Michael Himes speaks of Geiselmann’s “pugnacious zest for tackling anyone so foolish as to advance a contrary opinion.” See “Review” of Rudolf Reinhardt, Tübinger Theologen und ihre Theologie in Journal of Religion 60 (1980): 96.

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Introduction  C   7

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strife than had been frequently acknowledged. Reinhardt’s 1977 article not only aims to correct this line of thought, but goes so far as to impute ulterior motives to those who spoke of a School that “not only lasted 150 years but also brought together different theological disciplines and methods.”12 If the Geiselmann-dominated generation sought too simplistic a view, then Reinhardt’s corrective seemed too eager to show differences, breaks, and ruptures. After outlining the implausibility of bringing different phases and projects under a common tent, Reinhardt concludes his 1977 essay by suggesting that we “at last cease to speak of a School” and instead speak of schools that arose around the great figures of Tübingen.13 In a later article, Reinhardt takes what has normally been the greatest evidence for continuity—the Quarterly, which had always been edited by the faculty—and argues that it had become a Parteiblatt for the ultramontanists on the faculty. Reinhardt explains, “The claim that all of the professors of the Catholic theological faculty were co-editors of the journal is simply a legend.”14 Subsequent scholarship can no longer presuppose an unequivocal use of “School,” but must once again either argue for the legitimacy of the term or continue in the direction of de-legitimization. More recent scholarship has been particularly helpful in reconstructing the notion of a Tübingen School. While acknowledging the tension between reform-minded and conservative wings of the first and second generation, Bradford Hinze reaches the following synthesis: We find a moderately progressive wing and a moderately conservative wing trying to create the conditions for Catholic theology in their own day and age to be responsible and to move forward. [.....] We can say that Catholic Tübingen theologians tried to defend the dynamic and active place of the Catholic Church and tradition in the world without succumbing either to the Scylla of rationalism and historical relativism, or the Charybdis of a brand of ecclesial triumphalism wedded to a static view of doctrine.15 12 Reinhardt, “Die Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät,” 19. Reinhardt heaps particular scorn on Heinrich Fries’s encyclopedia entry in the 1965 Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd ed., ed. Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner (Freiburg: Herder, 1965), 10:390–92. 13 Reinhardt, “Die Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät,” 42. 14 Rudolf Reinhardt, “175 Jahre Theologische Quartalschrift,” 114. For a similar claim see Hubert Wolf, Ketzer oder Kirchenlehrer? (Mainz: Matthäus Grünewald, 1992), 106–7. 15  Bradford E. Hinze, “Roman Catholic Theology: Tübingen,” in The Nineteenth Century

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8  C   Introduction In a century where the temptation to extremes was so palpable, the Tübingen School kept its wits, although it did not always reach common conclusions about theology, let alone ecclesial-political positions. Can one then, recalling an earlier attempt, define the School on the basis of an agreement about which questions to engage while noting that these questions “experienced a particular development” within the school?16 Heinrich Fries certainly thought so in his oft-cited 1965 encyclopedia entry. Instead of locating the essence of the School in certain doctrinal conclusions, Fries focuses more on a formal concern to vanquish the Enlightenment.17 In this vein, Peter Hünermann’s recent work locates the essence of the School in its methods instead of its conclusions. His essay remarks that, despite the centrality of Drey to the School, nobody called himself a “Dreysian,” and no scholar in the twentieth century has attempted to re-label them so. This despite the common moniker of “Hermesian” or “Güntherian”; conversely, nobody speaks of a Bonn or Vienna school of theology centered around rationalist methodology. For Hünermann, this semantic point underlies how Tübingen practiced theology in a radically different way. Before Tübingen, says Hünermann, theological faculties had chairs for differing orientations, be it Augustinian, Scotist, Suarezian, or the like. Ancillary positions in scripture or church history had the role of filling out this picture. Even when division into schools gave way to a chair in “dogmatics,” the other disciplines were assumed not only to accept the dogmatic program, but were to play an essentially ancillary role for dogmatic theology.18 Largely due to Drey’s theological method, based upon the notion that history was the realm in which the life of the Spirit manifested anew Theologians, ed. Christoph Schwoebel (Oxford: Blackwell, in press); Prof. Hinze has generously permitted me to cite his work before it has appeared in print. 16  See Heinrich Fries, “Tübinger Schule. I. Kath. T.S.,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 10:390. 17  See ibid.. The great irony in Kustermann’s and Reinhardt’s zeal to correct Fries by showing Enlightenment convictions of such first-generation members as Gratz, Drey, and Hirscher is that Fries fails by having too narrow a definition not of the School, but of the Enlightenment. For an explanation of this point see Grant Kaplan, Answering the Enlightenment (New York: Herder and Herder, 2006), 1–6. 18  Peter Hünermann, “Johann Sebastian Drey und seine Schüler?” in Theologie als Instanz der Moderne, eds. Michael Kessler and Ottmar Fuchs (Tübingen: Francke, 2005), 176–78.

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Introduction  C   9

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to each generation, every chair in the department came to be seen as doing theology. Tübingen, then, became a place where groundbreaking theology on the kingdom of God, the Church, and the relationship between history and myth could be produced, in turn, by a moral theologian (Hirscher), a church historian (Möhler), and a professor of New Testament (Kuhn, until 1839). For they were all doing theology in their own bailiwick, a model of a faculty unknown to previous generations. This formal peculiarity made Tübingen unique, and at least partially explains (which those who wish to dispense of the name can never explain away) the veritable explosion of new and exciting ideas in Tübingen. The purpose of this introduction is only to acknowledge some of the tensions surrounding Tübingen historiography, and does not intend to solve any of these questions. Still, a few tentative conclusions should be stated. First, the differences among members do not outweigh their commonalities. Second, the emergence of and semantic shifts regarding the term “Tübingen School” do not merit the judgment that the term is a fiction of recent historiography. Third, the burden of proof at this point lies with those who want to deny the reality of the School. Such a demonstration requires more than just epistolary anecdotes; it demands a theological engagement that shows how common features of the Tübingen School could have arisen without certain unifying methodologies.

Drey and Möhler From 1825 to 1830 Kuhn studied under both Drey and Möhler as part of his priestly formation. Given that Kuhn began publishing at a feverish pace, beginning in 1832, his education in the Wilhelmsstift carries a particular pertinence. Möhler joined the faculty during that period, but there is little epistolary evidence that Kuhn owed his greatest intellectual debt to Möhler. In an 1834 essay he called the professor of New Testament, Andreas Benedikt Feilmoser, his “unforgettable teacher.”19 Kuhn did, however, write the Nekrolog, where he mentioned his debt to Möhler, in 1838. The political tension with the Hermesians was so high, it must be stated 19  See Wolf, Ketzer oder Kirchenlehrer? 12n.

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10  C   Introduction upon his passing, that Kuhn may have been selected as much for his intellectual acumen as for his closeness to Möhler. To understand more precisely the influence of these two thinkers on Kuhn and on the School in general, it will prove helpful to identify three shared characteristics. The first is methodological: from both Drey and Möhler Kuhn learned of the need for contemporary thought to move beyond both scholastic and rationalist paradigms. The urgency about moving beyond these paradigms was gained by reading Friedrich Schleiermacher and Friedrich Schelling. The second point of commonality concerns theological orientation. All three thinkers saw their task as being in some way apologetic; Drey and Möhler both defended not just the particulars of Catholicism, but the very idea of Catholic theology and the Catholic Church. To do so they launched attacks on Protestant theology while defending the integrity of pre-Reformation theology. Kuhn would follow in their footsteps. The third fundamental position concerns the relationship of truth to history. Following Schelling, all three argued that history was not simply an epiphenomenon, on top of which truth occasionally made contact. Instead, history manifested truth in organic continuity. This position led to a variety of theological conclusions about the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Church, the place of scripture in theology, the role of tradition, and the possibility of doctrinal development. Although all three thinkers would not focus on the same consequences, they shared the same assumptions about how truth and history relate. Method in Drey and Möhler Johann Sebastian Drey (1777–1853) was without question the School’s founder. He was an original member of the faculty in Ellwangen, was part of the transfer to Tübingen in 1817, and co-founded the Quarterly two years later. More than any of the other original faculty members, Drey gave shape to an emerging theology that interwove fidelity to the Catholic tradition with an engagement of contemporary philosophical movements. Drey’s first monograph, the Brief Introduction, laid out the central contours of his theological vision. In addition, the Brief Introduction bore a resemblance to Schleiermacher’s Brief Outline, the first edition of which appeared in 1811. More than any other Protestant theologian, Schleiermacher outlined a

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Introduction  C   11

critical approach to Enlightenment religion. Especially in his 1799 On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, Schleiermacher sought to move the central locus of religion away from the Enlightenment’s emphasis on ethics. Schleiermacher instead accented intuition and feeling as more primary to religion. When Drey writes that “religion arises in man as the first feeling, his spirit’s primal and essential orientation,” he betrays an undeniably Schleiermacherian influence.20 Similarly, Drey adopts Schleiermacher’s Spinozist monism: “In an active being endowed with consciousness, the experience of connectedness and dependence is not separable from consciousness.”21 The debt to Schleiermacher is unmistakable and only touches the surface of how Schleiermacher influenced Drey. The point, however, is not just to show this influence, but to see how Drey uses Schleiermacher to repudiate Enlightenment religion, which de-emphasized the mystical in order to accent the ethical. Drey’s Romantic idiom did not mean a wholesale repudiation of Enlightenment ideals (to which his ongoing concern for ecclesial reform attests), but without any doubt signaled a departure from Kantian “rational religion.” For this and for many other things Drey found Schleiermacher helpful for providing an alternative route. Drey’s application of Schelling followed a similar trajectory. Although educated in the Protestant Stift in Tübingen, Schelling was quick to abandon Lutheran orthodoxy for Romantic religiosity and Spinoza’s panentheism, just as his Romantic cohorts, especially Novalis and Schleiermacher, had done. Drey applies Schelling to get beyond an Enlightenment framework for religion. Just as Drey’s Brief Introduction echoed Schleiermacher’s Brief Outline, so too it took after Schelling’s Method of Academic Study, which he presented to his Jena students in 1802.22 Schelling’s lectures re20  See Johann Sebastian Drey, Brief Introduction to the Study of Theology, trans. Michael J. Himes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1994), #8; this and all subsequent citations have followed the Himes translation. There is no shortage of scholarship on the connections between Schleiermacher and Drey. For the most relevant in English see Himes, ibid., esp. xvi–xx; Bradford E. Hinze, Narrating History, Developing Doctrine: Friedrich Schleiermacher and Johann Sebastian Drey, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993; John E. Thiel, Imagination and Authority: Theological Authorship in the Modern Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), esp. 33–94. 21 Drey, Brief Introduction, #6. 22  See Schelling, Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studiums (Tübingen, 1803), eds. Otto Weiss and Walter Ehrhardt (Hamburg, 1990). The English translation, On University Studies, trans. E. S. Morgan (Athens, Ohio, 1966), has not been consulted.

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12  C   Introduction main appealing because they offer an accessible picture of his early Romantic worldview. They attracted Drey, no doubt, because Schelling’s philosophy seemed more compatible with Catholicism than Protestantism. (Schelling’s later call to Munich was the centerpiece of the attempt to make the university the center of Catholic scholarship in Germany.) Although we cannot give the contours of all aspects of Schellingian philosophy, it helps to locate two central themes that clearly influenced Drey: the scientific method and the emphasis of history.23 Schelling writes in the first lecture of On University Studies that “[t]he knowledge of the organic whole of sciences must precede one’s particular formation in an individual discipline.”24 Consequently, the task of science and especially philosophy involves not simply taking things apart and investigating them atomistically, but also bringing them together to demonstrate synthetic unity. His later lectures on Christianity and the study of theology speak of integrating the ideas of Christianity into its history. Instead of dissolving the events of Christianity into mere representations of eternal ideas, theology’s task is to integrate apparently unrelated or isolated events into a synthetic whole. Schelling repudiates not only Enlightenment philosophy of religion, but also a scholasticism that rid theology of history.25 Drey’s debt to Schelling appears throughout the Brief Introduction as well as in many other of his works, including his later three-volume Apologetics.26 Catholic theology had long confirmed the importance of history and the role of tradition in relationship to scripture. In Schelling, however, Drey found an ally who had offered a sophisticated critique of modern philosophy. In the Brief Introduction Drey echoes Schelling’s emphasis on history when he writes that “[t]his positive character of Christianity must 23  For English resources concerning the connection between Schelling and the Tübingen School, see Himes, “Introduction,” in Brief Introduction, esp. xx–xxiv; O’Meara, Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism, 94–108, 138–60; Fehr, The Birth of the Catholic Tübingen School, esp. 73–115. Hinze, Narrating History, passim. Hinze at times accents the influence of Schleiermacher in a way that minimizes Schelling’s influence on Drey. In my judgment much of the literature underplays the influence of the later Schelling on the Tübingen School. This point forms a central thesis in Answering the Enlightenment. 24  Schelling, Über die Methode, 7. 25  Schelling, Über die Methode, 81–99. 26 I have given a brief analysis of Drey’s later writings and their relationship to Schelling in Answering the Enlightenment, 105–10.

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Introduction  C   13

not be overlooked or given cursory attention by anyone who intends to offer a fully accurate and authentic account of it.”27 History matters because the truth is contained in the whole, not just the beginning. The whole, further, needs to be seen among and within the parts: “Thus for the lively understanding of a science in all its branches there must be preliminary to the study an outline which includes a division of the whole science into all its parts, which allows us to see the importance to the science of each part in turn and the way all of them are united into a single whole.”28 This applies not just to the organization of the theological disciplines, but to the understanding of Christian history: “The primitive history and the further course of Christianity are in fact only one history, just as Christianity is itself only one reality in the ordinary sense.”29 Drey used both Schelling and Schleiermacher, not so much for the conclusions that these thinkers would reach (neither were Catholic), but for the opportunities that would emerge from adopting and following their central premises. There is little indication that young Johann Adam Möhler would have been assigned the works of Schleiermacher and Schelling while under Drey’s tutelage at Ellwangen, but there is every indication that he read them, most especially Schleiermacher. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Möhler’s first great work, Unity in the Church (1825). It is important to keep in mind that the Tübingen School, especially Möhler, does not borrow wholesale or follow blindly one particular Romantic thinker. Instead, the claim is that the Romantics proved useful for Tübingen to get beyond scholastic categories and Enlightenment presuppositions. One could hardly imagine a better example of a paradigm shift in theology than in the transition from scholastic to Romantic ecclesiology as embodied in Möhler’s Unity. Shaped in large part as a response to the Protestant Reformation, scholastic theology sought to emphasize the visibility of the Church. Robert Bellarmine’s famous definition of the Church—“an assembly of persons united by the profession of the same faith and communion in the same sacraments under the governance of legitimate pastors and especially of the one vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman Pontiff ”— 27 Drey, Brief Introduction, #34. 29 Ibid., #174.

28 Ibid., #76.

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14  C   Introduction deals entirely with external qualifications; the interior disposition and true intention of believers, so important to the reformers, is low-lighted by Bellarmine’s definition.30 The definition and the accompanying ecclesiology so stressed Church hierarchy and structure that little space was given for incorporating the experience of the converted believer into a theology of the Church. Enlightenment anthropology stressed autonomy and individuality; it regarded community as posterior to the abstract notion of individual. Further, it emphasized that one enters into society based on rationally calculated self-benefit or preservation. Out of this environment some began to regard the church’s function to be primarily pedagogical—it gave believers a moral foundation that would make them better citizens, which would benefit the state. The Romantic turn opened the possibility for maintaining the importance of individual conviction and experience (de-emphasized by Baroque scholasticism), while retrieving a thicker understanding of the importance of community as a reality bound together by a deeper bond: love. One can trace an earlier appearance of this shift in Schleiermacher’s second “speech” to the cultured despisers. Here he argues that the essence of religion is not a knowledge or an activity, but a contemplation, wherein the pious gain “the immediate consciousness of the universal existence of all finite things, in and through the Infinite, and of all temporal things in and through the Eternal.” Schleiermacher describes an internal disposition that places religion outside the expansive reach of calculating rationality. Religion, he continues, “is a life in the infinite nature of the Whole, in the One and in the All, in God, having and possessing all things in God, and God in all.”31 A person divorced from community suffers from a failed vision and imagination. The Enlightenment emphasis on analysis, which stressed taking things apart and analyzing them individually, led to the mistaken notion of the isolated subject, to which Schleiermacher offered a Romantic correction. 30  Bellarmine, Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, 3 vols. (Ingolstadt, 1586–93), 4.3.2; cited in Michael J. Himes, “The Development of Ecclesiology: Modernity to the Twentieth Century,” in The Gift of the Church, ed. Peter C. Phan (Collegeville, Minn., 2000), 47; this paragraph relies heavily Himes’s article. 31  Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, 3rd ed., trans. John Oman (Louisville: John Knox, 1994), 36. The translation is Oman’s.

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Introduction  C   15

Möhler would disagree with much of Schleiermacher’s ecclesiology, but he no doubt used Schleiermacher’s theology to get beyond an Enlightenment notion of church that could never conceive a metaphor for the ecclesial body more binding than “free association.” In addition, Schleiermacher’s anthropology took into account the interiority absent from scholastic ecclesiology.32 In 1825 Möhler completed Unity in the Church, which put Romantic religion within a Catholic ecclesial framework. Ecclesial unity, principally, did not revolve about a common verbal proclamation but “a life directly and continually moved by the divine Spirit, and maintained and continued by the loving interchange of believers.”33 The power of the Spirit is to unite believers into a bond that is externally visible, but internally communicated through the love poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5). Love and life were both centrally Romantic motifs; Novalis famously called love “the One of the universe.” Möhler describes belonging in almost oceanic terms, and in a way that would have been unthinkable two generations earlier. He exclaims:

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This oneness with the universal whole is at the same time true existence in God, the source of true knowledge of God, of the Creator of the universal whole, because the universal whole as such is grounded in God and is his total revelation. [.....] As only the All of his revelation reveals him completely, one can truly know him only in the All, living in him, embracing the All with a full heart.34

Möhler’s appropriation of Schleiermacher would not curb later critique, but it is no surprise that the author of Unity would also praise Schleiermacher as the eponymous “great theologian of our time.”35 This great theologian made it possible for a provincial Roman Catholic priest from a 32  For the English literature on Möhler’s relationship to Schleiermacher see Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, esp. 83–89; Himes, “‘A Great Theologian of Our Time’: Möhler on Schleiermacher,” Heythrop Journal 37 (1996): 24–46; Reinhold Rieger, “Idealistic Hermeneutics in Theology. Remarks on Baur, Möhler and Schleiermacher,” in The Legacy of the Tübingen School, ed. Donald Dietrich and Michael J. Himes (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 111–29. 33  Möhler, Unity in the Church, or the Principle of Catholicism, Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries, ed. and trans. Peter C. Erb (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), #7, 93. All citations from this work include the paragraph number and the corresponding page in the Erb translation. On occasion Erb’s translation has been modified. 34 Ibid., #31, 153. 35 Ibid., #8, 98n.

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16  C   Introduction Swabian village to state at the age of thirty, “Thus the individual believers manifest a unity among themselves; this is the inner essence of the Catholic Church. The episcopacy [.....] is only the external representation of that essence, not the essence itself.”36 The influence of Schelling on Möhler is certainly not as profound as that on Drey or Kuhn. Still, Schelling contributed in a fundamental way to the Romantic thought that Schleiermacher’s theology embodied. Further, Schelling’s emphasis on history and on the life of the Church made him in some ways the philosopher for Catholics.37 His notion of intellectual intuition meant seeing the fundamental unity between the division that the ideal and the real supposedly manifest. In making this distinction, Schelling was concerned primarily with disproving Fichte’s subjective idealism, but Schelling’s point would also inform his more “popular” philosophy, the lectures on Academic Study. In his first lecture, Schelling claims that “the truly ideal [.....] is also the truly real.”38 This dialectic unity lies at the basis of all true science. He sees theology’s task as preserving the unity of Christianity’s eternal ideas and its historical, empirical manifestation of such ideas. This thinking certainly informed Möhler’s Unity.39 Indeed, the second half of Unity provides a dialectical balance to the mystical first half. Just as the human being cannot be reduced either to its ideal (spirit) or real (body) form, so too the Church, as organism, cannot exist without both its spirit (those whose hearts the Holy Spirit has enkindled) and its body (the institution).40 One can, for heuristic purposes, distinguish the invisible from the visible, but these two “can never be separated in life.”41 In this way Schelling helped Möhler arrive not just at an experiential, Romantic notion of the believing community, but at an understanding that was able to bring together this Romantic spirit with an ecclesiology amenable to Catholicism’s claim that the Church mediates Christ’s saving power to all believers. 36 Ibid., #64, 247. 37  For the relationship between Schelling and German Catholic theology see O’Meara, Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism. 38  Schelling, Über die Methode, 9. 39  For this point see Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 126–30; Peter Erb, “Introduction,” in Unity, esp. 48. 40  Möhler, Unity, #49, 211–12. 41 Ibid., #49, 212.

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Introduction  C   17

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Tübingen Theology as Apologetic As much as Tübingen borrowed from German Romantics and Protestant thought, it also sought to contrast Catholicism with Protestantism and to point out the other’s shortcomings. Despite the hesitation Drey or Möhler may have expressed toward aspects of Catholic scholasticism or the workings of the hierarchy, they defended Catholicism against both Protestant and secular worldviews. This impulse was most likely augmented by their proximity to the Protestant faculty in the vibrant university setting at Tübingen. Drey devoted more of his energy to apologetics than to inter-confessional polemics. His longest work, the three-volume Apologetics, appeared at the end of his career.42 His most central critique of Protestantism, appearing in several writings, stems from a fundamental conviction about the essence of Christianity. For Drey, Christianity is a positive religion, meaning that it manifests itself historically.43 Drey does not so much argue as assume this; Schelling had made the same point. Christianity is a lived reality in which the Holy Spirit continually guides the Church as the community of believers in history. Following the Catholic-leaning Romanticism of Novalis, Drey critiques Protestantism for devolving from a religion of the enfleshed word into a religion of the book. By relying so immediately on a book, says Novalis, Protestantism abandons the true spirit of religion by reducing religion to philology. He explains: “Luther treated Christianity entirely arbitrarily; he failed to recognize its spirit and introduced another letter and another religion, namely the holy universal validity of the Bible. With this [intrusion] another highly foreign, earthly academic discipline [Wissenschaft]— namely philology—was amalgamated to the religious concerns, and its emaciating influence was unmistakable from that time on.”44 For Novalis, 42 Drey, Die Apologetik als wissenschaftliche Nachweisung der Göttlichkeit des Christentums in seiner Erscheinung (1838–47; reprint Frankfurt, 1967). 43 Ibid., §1: “Das Christentum ist eine positive und historische Religion.” This forms the basis of Drey’s apologetics. It is worth noting that he also began his 1819 article, “Vom Geist und Wesen des Katholizismus,” with the line, “Das Christentum als eine positive göttliche Religion ist eine zeitliche Erscheinung, eine Tatsache.” The article has been reprinted in Geist des Christentums und des Katholizismus, ed. Geiselmann (Mainz: Gütersloher, 1940), 193–234, at 195. 44 Novalis, Schriften, ed. Richard Samuel, 6 vols. (Stuttgart, 1960–1988), 3:512.

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18  C   Introduction the essence of Christianity lies in the community that lives the faith and spirit of the book, not in the book itself. For Drey, once theology began to rely on a book, it was only inevitable that “the entirety of theology would be transformed into a grammar and a philology.” The subject of theological science “could no longer be living Christianity as it had developed in the course of time and under the guidance of the divine spirit.”45 Christ is no longer present in the same manner as the disciples experienced, for, as Drey explains, the Christ event is the culmination of the human spirit’s longing for God and the apex of the divine initiative to fulfill such a longing. The community of believers living in fidelity to the Christ event, however, is emboldened by the life-giving Spirit. A theology of the letter omits this reality. The 1819 Brief Introduction echoes Novalis: “If scripture alone is accepted as the means of the tradition of the ideas of religious belief, then the whole of theology is exegesis. But if there exists a living objective reality which is generally recognized as the continuance of the originating event and therefore its most authentic tradition, then the historical witness is found in and through it.”46 Drey does not combat the Lutheran emphasis on scripture with a spiritualist or enthusiast theology; such a line of argument had already been pursued by pietists and Schwärmer, and would only supplant one form of ahistorical apriorism with another. Instead he embraces the Church as a living, historical community. Given this, it follows that, for knowledge of Christianity, “its continuing development is a subject just as important and necessary as its primitive history.”47 The Tübingen emphasis on church history did not result from whimsy, but instead followed necessarily from a theological foundation that Drey perceived as being absent from Protestantism. Only Catholicism was properly equipped with this theological foundation.48 Especially on account of his 1832 Symbolik and its subsequent editions, Möhler is remembered far more than Drey for his polemics and defense 45 Drey, “Revision der gegenwärtigen Zustandes der Theologie,” in Archiv für die Pastoralkonferenze in den Landkapiteln des Bisthums Konstanz 1 (1812), 3–26. Reprinted in J. S. Drey, Revision von Kirche und Theologie: Drei Aufsätze, ed. Franz Schupp (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984), 15. 46 Drey, Brief Introduction #47, 20. 47 Ibid., #174, 81. 48 Drey develops this argument in greater detail in §20 of the Apologetik.

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Introduction  C   19

of the Catholic faith. Like Drey, Möhler relied on a fundamental position that served to orient his polemics. In Unity he developed the idea that heresy found its root partially in egoism, the notion that the individual could place himself above the collective body. The same work sought to draw an analogy between ancient and modern heresy. Just as Irenaeus defended the Church against Gnosticism on account of the latter’s inorganic, ahistorical understanding of truth, inspiration, and salvation, so Möhler defended Catholicism against the Protestant principle that elevated a subjective, transcendental approach to scripture above the real, concrete approach of history. For Möhler, the Gnostic principle also leads to heresy: “In general, heresy is the attempt to discover Christianity by mere thought, without consideration for the common Christian life and that which arises from it.”49 Although Unity offered a thinly veiled critique of Protestantism as a modern manifestation of Gnosticism, the early work was not, sensu stricto, polemical. Symbolik, on the other hand, was. This text established Möhler’s reputation as a Catholic apologist, and the ensuing controversy engaged him until his death in 1838. According to Bradford Hinze, Symbolik “went through five editions in six years, was reprinted sixteen times before World War I, and was translated into Latin, Italian, French, English, Dutch, Swedish, and Polish.”50 F. C. Baur, the most influential member of the Protestant faculty at the time, issued a rebuke that set off a series of exchanges on claims made in the text.51 Echoing his sentiments from Unity, Möhler states, “to bring about a schism—to destroy unity—is a crime.”52 These can hardly be the words of a person who sought conciliation with 49  Möhler, Unity, #18, 123–24. Möhler sprinkles Irenaeus liberally throughout the footnotes. Erb lists over forty entries for Irenaeus in the body of the text alone. 50 Hinze, “The Holy Spirit and the Catholic Tradition: The Legacy of Johann Adam Möhler,” in The Legacy of the Tübingen School, 77. 51  For the definitive treatment in English on the Möhler/Baur debate see Joseph Fitzer, Möhler and Baur in Controversy, 1832–1838: Romantic-Idealist Assessment of the Reformation and Counter-reformation (Tallahassee, Fla.: American Academy of Religion Press, 1974). 52  Möhler, Symbolism: Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences Between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by Their Symbolical Writings, trans. James Burton Robinson (New York: Crossroad, 1997), §37, 262. The title of the translation is misleading, and would perhaps better be translated, “Creeds.” In here and what follows the translation comes directly from Robinson. The citation lists the chapter followed by the page number in the English.

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20  C   Introduction his Tübingen co-religionists. Even more damning, Möhler returns to the theme of egoism but in Symbolik connects egoism specifically to the Protestant principle of sola scriptura: “The formal principles of all these productions of egoism were the same: all asserted that Holy Writ, abstracted from Tradition and from the Church, is at once the sole source of religious truth.”53 Sola scriptura is formally erroneous; further, it leads inevitably to the material error in the various heresies. Möhler follows Drey in positing that Christianity rests on historical revelation. Therefore, “the abstract idea and the historical fact—the internal and the external truth—are inseparably united.”54 Christianity is the life of the believing community in history. Möhler connects these claims to an incarnational theology. Just as our salvation relies on the word being embodied in the historical person of Jesus, so the truth of Christ’s saving message must be embodied in the exterior form of the Church. Although Möhler praises Luther’s reminder about the invisible Church, he worries that Protestantism too easily marginalizes the Church visible:

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If we adopt the idea of an invisible Church, then neither the incarnation of the Son of God, nor his miracles, nor in general any outward, positive revelation can be conceived: because they comprise authoritative proofs, outward visible manifestations of eternal ideas; and accordingly they are by force of an internal necessity there gradually rejected, where it is assumed that Christ has founded a mere invisible Church, since the members of such a Church need only invisible internal proofs to obtain certitude.55

Whatever one now makes of such arguments, they brought Möhler much acclaim in his own day. They were also part of a larger Tübingen project, perhaps born of their minority status in Tübingen, perhaps stemming from their presuppositions, of defending Catholicism’s intellectual legitimacy. History and Truth It should be noted at this point in our treatment of Drey and Möhler that the relationship between these distinguishing characteristics is more 53 Ibid., §39, 286; see also §44: “The Bible the Only Source and Arbitress in Matters of Faith.” 54 Ibid., §37, 268. 55 Ibid., §37, 266.

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Introduction  C   21

circular than causal; we have no basis to say whether their apologetics led them to turn to the Romantics, or whether the Romantic turn bolstered their polemic proclivities. Likewise, we cannot say whether their preference for organic metaphors stemmed from a prior “sacramental” imagination, or whether it might have been the other way around. This exercise means only to identify certain distinguishing features that constitute a provisional “essence” of the School and that predict Kuhn’s theological orientation. In a way that echoed the classical philosophical debate about the One and the Many, German thought between Kant and Hegel took up the question under the terms “universalism” and “history.” Did the essence of truth consist in “the timeless truths of reason” that lay on the far side of Lessing’s ditch, or did it lie in the contingent events of a God who revealed himself in history? How one answered this question would condition one’s understanding of Christianity’s essence: either as an irreducible salvific event in the life and death of Jesus, or as a universal truth that pure reason could distill. This same rational faculty could then discard as useless the “contingent fact” or “representation” within which the universal truth was imprisoned. Despite all of their differences, Kant and Hegel both privileged universalism while trying to shove history into it. Especially in his later philosophy, Schelling took the alternative tack, and Tübingen followed him.56 As mentioned above, the relationship between history and truth serves as a fundament affecting many different topoi in theology. For our purposes the exploration of these results is limited to the themes of tradition and doctrinal development. According to Drey, Christianity was rooted in the historical event of the Son’s salvific mission and incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth. Christian religious ideas follow from it. Further, Christianity’s essence is found not in speculative reflection on this event, but rather in a lived participation. Thus all of Christian history constitutes a single, organically linked history.57 Though scripture forms a definitive testimony to the story of salvation, it could never suffice because it constitutes a merely 56  For a wider outline of this argument, see my Answering the Enlightenment, 7–94. 57 Drey, Brief Introduction, #174, 81.

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22  C   Introduction external word: “So the scripture which begins and is preserved along with this living tradition must be external to that tradition and thus act on the development of doctrine as an external factor.”58 The tradition, writ large, includes the life of the church. Christianity is not a book but a historically manifest living reality. As such it transmits to posterity not only written texts but more primarily a life animated by the Holy Spirit. In a series of articles published in the Quarterly’s first year, Drey uses the phrase “living tradition” in connection with the earliest apostolic churches.59 Drey then contrasts authentic, living tradition, or paradosis, with a later scholastic understanding, which reduced tradition to “merely verbally preserved doctrines in contradistinction to the written ones.” Tradition, reminds Drey, includes “doctrine, sacrament and rite; [.....] the ecclesial life, the faith, and the consensus in the Church.”60 Again, tradition is not something secondary to any prior idea of Christianity; instead, as a living historical entity it is Christianity. Drey spells out what would follow from opting for a noetic route: “The first is the path of purely philosophical contemplation that regards everything positive and historical as allegorical or symbolic of an idea. [.....] The general nature of this system [.....] is to transform history into philosophy, the historically real into the ideas, positive faith into speculation; to state it briefly, it cancels what is historical in Christianity.”61 Drey calls this option the path of gnosis. It takes every historical accretion as a contagion to be expelled for the sake of a purer, original Christianity. It sees Christianity “as a fact of a long forgotten time,” and views it “like an ancient monument.” Such a view jettisons a living tradition for what Drey calls here “a dead letter.”62 Besides the obvious confessional defense implied in Drey’s explanation, there is also a corollary to what will come to be called the ressourcement movement. The authentic expressions of the Christian spirit from past centuries signify what Drey calls the Fortsetzung or continuation of the one Christian history. The past comes to be seen as not simply a relic of the old way but a source for re58 Ibid., #192, 88–89. 59 Drey, “Vom Geist und Wesen,” 199. 60 Ibid., 200. 61 Ibid., 201; Drey later (208) speaks of the need for Catholicism to set the limits of Grübelei [speculation]. 62 Ibid., 201.

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Introduction  C   23

newal; to be severed from it is to be severed from the original event; the Holy Spirit binds us as the animating source of the historical body of believers. The relationship between truth and history as presupposed by the Tübingen School paves the way not only to living tradition, but to an understanding of the original events that constitute the teachings and doctrines of the believing community. Both Drey and Möhler generated theories of development that eclipsed earlier models.63 We will turn our focus to Möhler, whose dispute with Baur in the 1830s led him to refine his understanding of development.64 Like Drey, Möhler emphasizes the need to begin with a living reality. Speculation has its place for Möhler, but it must be secondary to the real, revelatory events. Therefore any dialectical explanation of development presupposes a wrongheaded understanding of the relationship between truth and history. One cannot reach a truth simply due to the tug and pull of contradictory arguments; the truth must be prior to any dialectic. He writes, “Development by means of contradictions never transcends the kind of knowledge possible in this way, that is, it is impossible for pure knowledge ever to pass over into positive divine faith because the latter has an entirely different origin and an entirely different nature.”65 Doctrinal truth was not formulated during Christ’s lifetime, but the Christ event was both truth- and life-giving. For Baur, at least as Möhler understood him, Christian truth is a goal to be attained through the dialectic of thought that achieves a unifying synthesis. Certainly some truths develop on account of human speculation, but Baur, following Hegel, adopted a Platonized model that could never recognize historical truth. Instead of claiming that we discover doctrine 63  The Catholic theologian most symbolic of earlier models was Jacques Bossuet (1627– 1704), who saw the surest sign of Catholicism’s legitimacy in its (allegedly) static truths. For overviews of the modern development of development see Owen Chadwick, From Bossuet to Newman: The Idea of Doctrinal Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), ch. 1, and Jan Hendrik Walgrave, Unfolding Revelation: The Nature of Doctrinal Development (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), ch. 6. These books discuss Tübingen but place greater emphasis on Newman’s later breakthroughs. 64  My knowledge of what follows relies heavily on Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, ch. 8. 65  Möhler, Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensätze zwischen den Katholiken und Protestanten. Eine Vertheidigung meiner Symbolik gegen die Kritik des Herrn Professors Dr. Baur in Tübingen (Mainz: 1834), 480.

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24  C   Introduction through continuous speculation, Möhler writes that “we are only able to investigate more deeply the doctrine already communicated and known.”66 From this we can see how Möhler, borrowing from Schelling’s ordering of the real before the ideal, constructs a theology of development clearly at odds with Baur’s Hegelian dialectic. The preceding section on Drey and Möhler claims to provide a precise but by no means inclusive view of the nature of Tübingen theology and the immediate influences on Kuhn. To fill out the picture, we would need to discuss the use of patristic and medieval sources. Briefly, Tübingen theology signals a shift in attitude about sources. This shift was one of rhetoric. Tübingen began to refer to the texts of these figures, especially patristic sources. This was partly a medium-generated event: helpful compilations were issued that had not previously been available. Tübigen adopted a style that relied more on patristic sources than on scholastic manuals, but this was still a far cry from a sophisticated engagement with a patristic author or theme. Nothing has been said about important precursors to Tübingen, the most important of which was Johann Michael Sailer (1751–1832), who mentored three different Tübingen professors and embodied the Romantic turn from Enlightenment Catholicism.67 Lesser precursors to Tübingen include Alois Gügler and Franz von Baader. That Tübingen theology had ancestry need not be denied in order to emphasize the original breakthroughs of the School. Further, Tübingen theology is not exhausted by the figures of Drey, Möhler, and Kuhn. Johann Baptist Hirscher (1788–1865) played an important role as a Church reformer and was one of the most reputed theologians of the day.68 One cannot presume that such an impressive figure, as well as the rest of the faculty, had no significant influence on Kuhn’s theological development. They certainly did, but the preceding sections aim merely to introduce the context of Kuhn’s writings, not to exhaust this context. 66 Ibid., 482, italics added. 67  For English sources on Sailer and his influence see O’Meara, Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism, esp. 40–47; Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 20–27. 68  See Hermann J. Pottmeyer, “Kingdom of God—Church—Society: The Contemporary Relevance of Johann Baptist Hirscher, Theologian of Reform,” in The Legacy of the Tübingen School, 144–55.

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Introduction  C   25

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A Biographical Sketch of Johannes Kuhn Johannes Kuhn (1806–1887) was born in the village of Wäschenbeuren, adjacent to the medium-sized city of Schwäbisch Gmünd. Kuhn’s intellectual aptitude led him to the Wilhelmsstift in nearby Tübingen, where Kuhn would spend most of his adult life. Between the completion of his studies and his 1831 ordination, Kuhn, like his mentor Möhler, took a “study trip” (Studienreise). Kuhn was not able to hear Hegel lecture in Berlin as he had wished. He did go to Munich, however, where he audited and drew Schelling into a well-chronicled public dispute. This episode remained part of the lore about Kuhn, and came to symbolize his status as a courageous and eager interlocutor.69 After his return, Kuhn applied for a position as a docent in Tübingen, but was deemed too young. In the same year Kuhn received the call to the New Testament chair in Giessen and was a finalist for a position in the philosophy department at Freiburg one year later. The confidence that led him to dispute Schelling also fueled his robust publication agenda. His first article, which treated the relationship of faith to reason, appeared in two parts in the 1832 Quarterly.70 His lengthy 1834 monograph, Jacobi and the Philosophy of His Time, surveyed not only the thought of Jacobi, but that of major European thinkers from Descartes to Schelling.71 Besides the rate of publication, one should also note the range; although Kuhn’s appointed field was New Testament, he published a book detailing the contours of post-Kantian idealism through the lens of Jacobi—a Protestant whose philosophy seemed more compatible with Lutheran pietism and, on the surface at least, antithetical to any Catholic scholasticism or rationalism. Despite lacking in reputation, Giessen had the advantage for Kuhn of 69  Wolf, Ketzer oder Kirchenlehrer? 17; Markus Oelsmann, Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn: Vermittlung zwischen Philosophie und Theologie in Auseinandersetzung mit Aufklärung und Idealismus (Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 1997), 222. For an earlier source see Paul Schanz, Gedächtnisrede (Rottenburg, 1887), 5. 70 Kuhn, “Über den Begriff und das Wesen der speculativen Theologie oder christlichen Philosophie,” ThQ 14 (1832): 253–304, 411–44. 71  Manfred Frank’s recent work has heaped praise on Kuhn’s largely neglected exposition of Jacobi. Frank states that Kuhn’s understanding of Jacobi’s notion of self-consciousness or feeling, while “not very developed conceptually,” is still “pioneering.” See Frank, “Unendliche Annäherung: Die Anfänge der philosophischen Frühromantik” (Frankfurt: Suhrlamp, 1998), 170.

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26  C   Introduction also employing Franz Anton Staudenmaier, also a native of Schwäbisch Gmünd and an alumnus of Tübingen. The two helped edit and contributed feverishly to the short-lived Journal for Theology and Christian Philosophy. Giessen would prove too small to contain either Kuhn or Staudenmaier, the latter departing for Freiburg and the former for Tübingen, both in 1837. Kuhn was first given the chair in Old Testament at Tübingen, although within two years he would take the chair in dogmatics. In between, however, he found himself locked in bitter controversy. Based on his earlier exegetical writings while at Giessen, Kuhn published The Life of Jesus, Scientifically Examined.72 In it Kuhn critiqued D. F. Strauss’s epochal Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. Kuhn’s objections, prefigured in his earlier articles, centered on Strauss’s Hegelian understanding of the relationship between truth and event, and between myth and history.73 Kuhn’s polemics, however, would yield unintended consequences, and would come to foreshadow the fallouts at the end of his scholarly career. The journal out of Mainz, Der Katholik, represented a staunchly conservative position within the German theological landscape. In 1828 it, not the Quarterly in Tübingen, had published Möhler’s vehement defense of celibacy in the face of calls for the abolition of celibate clergy.74 The anonymous review of Kuhn’s Life of Jesus that appeared in Der Katholik noted that Kuhn’s “Protestant approach” for grounding essential principles of the faith could lead to “anti-Catholic biblical tomfoolery [Bibeltreiberei].”75 Although Kuhn refuted Strauss, remarked the reviewer, he did so by eschewing a Catholic way of thinking and by pursuing Protestant methods, in particu72  Das Leben Jesu, wissenschaftlich bearbeitet (reprint Mainz, 1968). 73  For the only published treatment of Kuhn’s critique in English see William Madges, The Core of Christian Faith: D. F. Strauss and His Catholic Critics (New York: Peter Lang, 1987). Albert Schweitzer briefly mentions Kuhn’s work, granting it “first-place” status among Catholic critics of Strauss, and calling it “a serious and scholarly attempt to grapple with the problems raised by Strauss.” See Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. F. C. Burkitt (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Albert Schweitzer Institute, 1998), 107n. 74  The article appeared in two installments. It has been recently translated into English: Johann Adam Möhler, The Spirit of Celibacy, trans. Cyprian Blamires, ed. Dieter Hattrup (Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2007). 75  “Rezension zu ‘Das Leben Jesu, wissenschaftlich bearbeitet’ von Dr. Johannes Kuhn, Mainz 1838,” Der Katholik 71 (1839): 68–80, 209–19, at 76.

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Introduction  C   27

lar what would come to be called the “historical-critical” method.76 Kuhn’s openness to contemporary philosophy expressed in the book on Jacobi likely added to the suspicion that he espoused a crypto-Protestant theology, even in the guise of attacking liberal Protestantism. The affair, however, took an unexpected turn. In the same year that this controversy erupted, Möhler died at the tender age of forty-two. Although in 1835 Möhler had left Tübingen to join Döllinger in Munich, his shadow over his former faculty still loomed large, not least because of Kuhn’s return. Kuhn was chosen by the faculty to write Möhler’s Nekrolog in the Quarterly, where he used the occasion to defend his mentor against the Hermesians, centered in Bonn.77 There had been a long history between the schools. The former Tübingen New Testament professor, Peter Gratz, who had been with the School since the Ellwangen days, went to the Bonn faculty in 1819. Four years later Gratz lost his teaching position and was exiled to a high school in Trier. The instigator in this demotion was Georg Hermes (1775–1831), who exercised a powerful influence in Bonn.78 Later Möhler would seek an appointment to Bonn, only to be rebuffed by Hermes and the Gallicanist archbishop of Cologne, Ferdinand Spiegel, who deemed Möhler’s early work insufficiently Catholic. Tübingen did not forget these slights. Hermes avoided censure during his own lifetime, but the Vatican denounced his positions in the 1835 Dum acerbissimas.79 This surely left the Bonn faculty, strongly loyal to Hermes, smarting. When the new Cologne archbishop, Klemens August Freiherr Droste zu Vischering (the central figure in the Cologne Affair), was installed two years later, the faculty in Bonn became further marginalized, in this case by an archbishopric that had previously supported their cause. Their devotion to Enlightenment reform 76  Wolf, Ketzer? 34–35; somewhat anachronistically, Wolf paraphrases the argument from Der Katholik by talking about the “historisch-kritische” exegesis (ibid., 35). 77  [Kuhn], “Nekrolog Johann Adam Möhlers,” ThQ 20 (1838): 576–94. For an account of the hostility between Bonn and Tübingen, see Wolf, Ketzer? 34–49, on which my retelling heavily relies. 78  For a brief overview of Hermes’s theology see Gerald A. McCool, Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), 59–67. 79  See Peter Hunermann, ed., Enchiridion Symbolurum, definitionum et declaretionum de rebus fidei et morum, 41 ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 2738–40; henceforth abbreviated DH.

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28  C   Introduction and rationalist philosophy became increasingly opposed to the new Roman mindset emerging among the German Catholic hierarchy amidst the bourgeoning tension between Catholicism and German civic institutions. In Möhler’s organic ecclesiology and communal anthropology the Hermesians saw the makings of a system that would undermine their Febronian positions. Kuhn’s Nekrolog, surely cognizant of the weakened position of Bonn after the 1835 condemnation, praised Möhler and remembered his life. This included recalling the incident in Bonn, when Möhler was accused of heterodoxy by a man whose teachings had now been condemned.80 It did not take long for Bonn to respond. The Hermesian Johann Braun (1801–1863), under the pseudonym of Daniel Bernhardi, said of Kuhn’s attacks, “He [Kuhn] scatters flowers and wreaths with his right hand on the grave of Möhler, and waters the cypresses. Yet with the left hand he attempts to tarnish the grave of another, sowing thorns and weeds on it.”81 Braun also stated that the Quarterly, though formally dedicated to scholarly critique, had resorted to ad hominem argumentation. Bonn, however, was not content to play out this dispute in theological journals. They had read the Der Katholik review of Kuhn’s book, and colluded with Mainz to submit a request to Rome that Kuhn’s The Life of Jesus be put on the Index.82 Kuhn took up the intellectual challenge proffered by Braun in the 1839 essay “The False Choice between Faith and Reason,” where he positioned himself between Hermes and the French anti-rationalist Louis Bautain (1796–1867).83 Kuhn’s attacks echoed the position taken by the Vatican, which sought to combat not only rationalism, but unorthodox fideism as well. Rome issued a list of Bautain’s six untenable theses in both 1835 and 1840.84 The essay shows a familiar Kuhnian tendency to place his own stance in between extreme positions. 80  See Wolf, Ketzer? 41. 81  [ J. Braun], Obelisken (Cologne: 1839), 49. 82  Wolf, Ketzer? 32, 38. 83 Kuhn, “Über Glauben und Wissen, mit Rücksicht auf extreme Ansichten und Richtungen der Gegenwart,” ThQ 2 (1839): 382–421; see “The False Choice between Faith and Rational Understanding” below. 84  See DH, 2751–56. For a treatment of Bautain and the reaction from Rome see McCool, Nineteenth Century Scholasticism, 46–56. For his relationship to Tübingen see Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 231–37, esp. 232n for an extensive bibliography.

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Introduction  C   29

Here we should note that within two years of his arrival, Kuhn not only launched a book-length attack on Strauss, perhaps the most nuclear public intellectual in all of Germany, but also engaged in polemics with two prominent strands in Catholic theology that were by no means considered anathema in Tübingen. Drey had favorably reviewed Hermes’s work, and Bautain had not only been praised by Möhler in the 1834 Quarterly, but had even been granted an honorary degree by the Tübingen faculty.85 Kuhn’s polemics hardly signaled the behavior of a young professor seeking to fly under the radar screen by avoiding offense to his more senior colleagues. Was Kuhn simply hungry for attention? More problematic is the reasonable judgment that Kuhn sought to “out-orthodox” his opponents shortly after his own orthodoxy had been called into question.86 Although we cannot discern Kuhn’s motives with certainty, we can offer a wider context for his seemingly compulsive polemicizing. Kuhn had witnessed at Giessen the noteworthy controversy between Möhler and Baur and was no doubt familiar with the polemical style germane to Tübingen. The proximity to the Protestant faculty created a dynamic in which each side kept an eye on what the other was doing.87 Although Kuhn did not take Möhler’s chair, he likely saw himself as heir to Möhler’s controversialist legacy. Kuhn’s subsequent rift with the Hermesians resulted in part from his zeal to cement Möhler’s reputation. His line of attack may have been opportunistic, but more likely it resulted from the shock of the reaction to his Life of Jesus, which Kuhn might have hoped would have the same impact on New Testament studies that Möhler’s Symbolik had on creeds. In his subsequent correspondence with Franz Xaver Kraus, Kuhn indicated awareness that Bonn had taken an accusation to Rome. This contextual etiology of Kuhn’s polemicizing becomes plausible if one also weighs Kuhn’s self-appointed role in Tübingen to defend the faith. As a former hearer of Schelling and author of a hefty tome on modern philosophy, Kuhn probably considered himself uniquely qualified to address 85 Drey’s review of Hermes’s Christ-katholische Theologie can be found in ThQ 2 (1820): 28–38. For the details concerning Bautain see Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 232. 86  Wolf sees a particular political motive in Kuhn’s polemics with Bonn (Ketzer? 37). 87  This insight results from informal conversations with Peter Hünermann. More recent controversies in Tübingen witness this phenomenon as well.

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30  C   Introduction the philosophical underpinnings of Strauss’s Jesus research and of Hermesian fundamental theology. These factors make it implausible that Kuhn’s motives for the attacks were rooted in hunting heresy and in gaining cheap notoriety. Kuhn’s 1839 essay hardly ended the polemics between Tübingen and Bonn. The next student to enter the fray was likely Peter Volkmuth (1805– 1872), who in 1840 anonymously issued Der Tübinger Januskopf.88 This text compared Kuhn’s writings to the two-faced god of Roman mythology: when attacking Hermes Kuhn appeared the fideist, and when criticizing Bautain he fashioned himself the rationalist. Volkmuth also seized on Kuhn’s use of recent Protestant thought, which Volkmuth happily highlighted: “Professor Kuhn makes the Church Fathers into Hegelians and calls the rationalist and Protestant Schleiermacher the only theologian in modern times who can be compared to Aquinas.”89 Although the first claim had no basis, the second was factually accurate. Echoing Möhler’s oblique reference to Schleiermacher in Unity, Kuhn paid special tribute to Schleiermacher, writing, “Of all theologians after Aquinas, only Schleiermacher can be seen as occupying the same level of scientific capacity and genius as Aquinas.”90 Such praise was easy to target for the Hermesians. We should also point out, however, that Kuhn’s political naiveté contradicts the argument that he sought only to establish his own orthodoxy and gain approval in Rome. Kuhn would at any rate exercise greater care in the coming years. In his 1841 reply to Volkmuth, he refuted the claim that he was a “Catholic” or “bastard” Hegelian and clarified his account of faith and reason.91 Due to his attacks on the Hermesians, Kuhn gained a reputation as a “neo-scholastic.”92 This reputation only grew as Kuhn’s next controversy began fomenting before the ink had dried from his encounter with the 88  [Peter Volkmuth], Der Tübinger Januskopf oder Glauben und Wissen des Herrn Dr. Johannes Kuhn (Koblenz, 1840). Wolf posits Volkmuth’s authorship based on the scholarship of Heinrich Schrörs (Ketzer? 45). For the original argument see Schrörs, Ein vergessener Führer aus der rheinishcen Geistesgeschichte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Johann Wilhelm Joseph Braun (1801– 1863) (Bonn, 1925), 309. 89  Volkmuth, Januskopf, 15. 90  “Über Glauben und Wissen,” 399. 91  “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” ThQ 23 (1841): 1–80. 92  Wolf, Ketzer? 58–65.

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Introduction  C   31

Hermesians. The roots of this controversy began in 1837, when Archbishop Vischering refused to capitulate on mixed marriages. The 1837 “Cologne Affair,” as it came to be known, eventually saw the Prussian government arrest Vischering, who, for his unwillingness to compromise the faith, became a modern-day Athanasius to many Catholics. The Tübingen School largely sided with Vischering, in part because he had been sent to Cologne to rebuff the Hermesians.93 This event became localized when the Württemberg government fired the young Tübingen theologian Joseph Mack (1805–1885), who had criticized the agreement on mixed marriages only three years after the Cologne Affair.94 Kuhn and Karl Josef Hefele (1809–1893; future bishop of Rottenburg during the First Vatican Council), called for their own bishop, Johann Keller (1774–1845), to confront the government as Vischering had so courageously done.95 Mack was sent to a parish and would not re-enter academic life. The faculty fought the government’s replacement choice, although he was a Hirscher student. Neither Rome nor the Protestant government failed to notice the rift between Tübingen and the bishop. Several curial officials judged Kuhn sufficiently “ultramontane” and noted his willingness to protect the Church’s sovereignty.96 The local government must have reached the same conclusion, for they blocked Kuhn’s pay raise on two separate occasions.97 Kuhn’s reticence concerning—or even refutation of—non-Catholic influences on his work became a more prominent feature of his subsequent writings. In the 1841 response to Volkmuth, Kuhn determined Schleiermacher’s notion of faith to be so subjective that it made the science of theology impossible.98 This criticism would carry through to the 1846 edition of the Dogmatics.99 A series of essays in the Quarterly from 1842 to 1843, 93 Ibid., 40. 94  For a brief account with helpful bibliography see Reinhardt, “Die Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät,” 26–28. 95  Wolf, Ketzer? 76–79. 96 Ibid., 68–93. Despite a lack of clear evidence, Wolf constructs a thesis that Kuhn worked behind the scenes to engineer the downfall of Keller and others. 97 Reinhardt, “Die Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät,” 28. 98  “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 57–58. 99  See chapter 11 in this volume.

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32  C   Introduction titled “Modern Speculation concerning the Christian Faith,” made Kuhn’s opposition to Hegelianism more explicit than his critiques of Strauss had done.100 In the preface to the 1846 Dogmatics Kuhn even distanced himself from the subject of his earlier monograph, Jacobi: “Whoever examines my book [on Jacobi] with any care will find rather quickly that, due to purely philosophical reasons, I was not in agreement with Jacobi when I wrote the book. And whoever reads this introduction to the Dogmatics in a merely superficial manner will be convinced quite easily that the theological reasons for distancing myself from Jacobi are even stronger than the philosophical ones were.”101 Kuhn did not alter his theology during this period, but he did make a deliberate attempt to differentiate his own thought from trends in recent and contemporary Protestant and modern thought. Kuhn put space between himself and Schelling in a series of essays that appeared in the Quarterly from 1844 to 1845.102 Of all major philosophers at the time, Schelling was the most “Catholic.” Taking into account Schelling’s opposition to Hegel, his appointment to the chair in Munich, and his attempt to preserve the possibility of historical revelation, one might question Kuhn’s need to disguise Schelling’s influence on him.103 Several factors may explain Kuhn’s refutation. First, it began in 1844, more than forty years since Schelling had published his lectures on the university. Second, Schelling had taken Hegel’s chair in Berlin, with much acclaim, and had lectured on the philosophy of revelation. Much to Schelling’s dismay, his arch nemesis, H. E. G. Paulus, published the lecture notes without Schelling’s permission.104 It is mostly from these notes that Kuhn takes 100  “Die moderne Speculation auf dem Gebiet der Glaubenslehre,” ThQ 24 (1842): 171– 225; ThQ 25 (1843): 3–75, 179–226, 405–67. It should be noted that Kuhn’s use of dialectic made those unfamiliar with the meaning of Hegelian dialectic conclude incorrectly that Kuhn brought Hegel into the Tübingen School. For one example, see Alois Schmid, Wissenschaftliche richtungen auf dem Gebiete des Katholizismus in neuester und in gegenwärtiger Zeit (Munich, 1862), 56ff. Geiselmann correctly demonstrates that Kuhn’s attitude toward Hegel was always critical (see Die lebendige Überlieferung als Norm des christlichen Glaubens [Freiburg: Herder, 1959], 213–21). 101  Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik (Tübingen, 1846), viii–ix. 102 Kuhn, “Die Schellingsche Philosophie und ihr Verhältnis zum Christentum,” ThQ 26 (1844): 57–88, 79–221; 27 (1845): 3–39. 103  Schelling’s abiding influence on Kuhn forms an essential argument in my Answering the Enlightenment, esp. 122–26. 104  For an account of Schelling’s battle with Paulus, and of the unreliability of the Paulus text, see Manfred Frank, “Einleitung des Herausgebers,” in Schelling, Philosophie der Offenbarung

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Introduction  C   33

up his argument with Schelling. From this context—of the man sitting on a chair most recently occupied by Hegel and Fichte, in the heart of Protestant Prussia’s capital city, Berlin—Kuhn’s refutation of Schelling is also a symbolically Catholic response to what many certainly saw as symbolic of Protestant crypto-theology. At this point it is worth asking: does Kuhn’s rejection of these sources signal a fundamental shift or even a conclusion to the distinguishing elements in the Tübingen School? Did Tübingen itself shift from a reformminded school to a school intent on toeing the Vatican line? Here it is helpful to keep in mind the citation from Bradford Hinze given above (note 15); what makes Tübingen unique is the ability to avoid both a reform inimical to Church structure and tradition and a conservatism opposed to anything modern or new. During this “turn” from 1838 to 1846, Kuhn by no means forsook modern concepts in illuminating the problems underlying various theological questions. His plunder of the spoilia Aegyptorum continued the path forged by Drey and Möhler, albeit more subtly. However, the barrage of critiques suffered from 1838 to 1841 made Kuhn more conscious of the public image he projected. Publicly, he stated more clearly how his own theology differed from these other thought systems. The publication of the first edition of his Dogmatics concluded a frenetic writing pace, begun in 1832, that saw Kuhn publish three separate manuscripts as well as nearly two dozen articles, some passing one hundred pages in length. In addition, all but two of his sixty book reviews— many of which were far longer than what would count today as a “review essay”—were written during this period. In 1846, Möhler had been dead for eight years, Hirscher was nine years removed from the Tübingen chair in moral theology, and Drey was nearly seventy and in the process of retiring. The quality and pertinence of Kuhn’s publications elevated him to the place of Kopf [head] of Tübingen, an unofficial title that Kuhn would keep for a generation. Indeed, when Kuhn returned from a lengthy stay at a health resort, theologians and seminarians had planned a torchlight 1841/42 (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), 46–52. Kuhn had heard Schelling lecture on the same topics in 1831, and points out possible problems with the text more than once in his 1844 essay (“Die Schellingsche Philosophie,” 68, 79).

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34  C   Introduction procession that the local police forbade.105 It is no wonder that Matthias Scheeben later lamented that Kuhn was treated “like a pope” in Tübingen.106 Kuhn’s acclaim and reputation led Rome to nominate him to the Rottenburg episcopacy in 1847. King Wilhelm vetoed the appointment on account of Kuhn’s overly “Roman” theology.107 It was nothing new for Tübingen theologians to have their nomination vetoed, but in the case of Hirscher and Drey, they were turned down by Rome, not the local government. As tempting as it may be to identify such a reversal with a clear shift rightward, this makes sense only if one assumes that Rome and Germany were both static entities. But this is not so. As Bradford Hinze reminds us, the Tübingen School lived through the “last throes” of the Holy Roman Empire.108 In addition, industrialization was creating the very social upheaval that fueled Marx’s social theory. These social implications made the case for social confrontation increasingly compelling. It was not surprising that Tübingen began to echo Möhler’s concerns about Protestantism’s pliancy in the face of the dark underbelly to Enlightenment ideals and progress.109 One year later Kuhn was chosen to replace his colleague Karl Hefele in the Württemberg assembly, where he served until 1852 and performed quite ably.110 The March 1848 “revolution,” which sought both a more liberal, parliamentary system and a more unified national government, embroiled the German states in high political drama. Due to Prussia’s military influence, 105  Wolf, Ketzer? 114. 106  See Thomas O’Meara, Church and Culture: German Catholic Theology, 1860–1914 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 54. Döllinger would make a similar complaint in the 1860s. For anecdotal references to Kuhn’s reputation see Answering the Enlightenment, 159–60. 107  Wolf, Ketzer? 85–93. 108  See Hinze, “Roman Catholic Theology: Tübingen,” at “Confronting a Volatile Social Situation.” For an overview of social tensions that had influenced Tübingen theology, this essay is a good place to start. It also provides a helpful bibliography concerning the social dynamic that affected German theology. 109  See ibid. For more general attempts to connect social and cultural trends to nineteenthcentury German intellectual developments see Nicholas Boyle, Who Are We Now? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 95–209; and Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760– 1860: The Legacy of Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1–15. 110  See Wolf (Ketzer? 116–31) and Heinrich Fries: “Johannes von Kuhn: Leben und Werk,” in Johannes von Kuhn. Wegbereiter Heutiger Theologie, 7 (Vienna: Styria, 1973), 38–39.

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Introduction  C   35

as well as infighting between the assembly’s moderates and radicals, the reforms largely failed. During this precarious time, Kuhn reliably supported the monarchy, despite the role of the same monarch in preventing his episcopal appointment. Kuhn became a valued advisor to the king and was made an honorary member of several political associations.111 In another irony, his former opponent D. F. Strauss also served in the assembly, but his tepidity toward reform instigated a movement against him that Kuhn helped quell. Strauss remarked, “[H]ad Kuhn been a bishop four hundred years earlier, he would have let burn a heretic such as me, and his political opinions are much further to the right of my own, [.....] yet he did display [in this controversy] a strength of character that filled me with respect.”112 Having completed his service to the state, Kuhn returned to his chair and resumed his professional duties. Hirscher, who belonged unquestionably to the “reform wing” of the Tübingen School, had taken a position at Freiburg, and in 1855 strongly but unsuccessfully advocated for Kuhn to fill the vacant chair in dogmatics.113 Kuhn issued a Trinitarian section to his Dogmatics in 1857, and a revised introduction two years later.114 He also revised the section on the doctrine of God in 1862.115 While never completed, the revised Dogmatics runs to nearly eighteen hundred pages and far outstrips any systematic efforts of his mentors. In the midst of these publications Kuhn became engaged in a new intellectual battle, although this time he represented the “German” position. In his 1859 Introduction to Dogmatics, Kuhn criticized the Münster layman Franz Jakob Clemens (1815–1862) concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology.116 Clemens had established a reputation for opposition to Hermes and Anton Günther and represented a first wave of 111  Fries, “Johannes von Kuhn,” 39. 112  Wolf, Ketzer? 119. 113 Ibid., 135; this fact of course undermines the thesis that Kuhn and the Möhlerian faction had somehow betrayed the true reforming spirit of Tübingen. 114 Kuhn, Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Dreieinigkeit (Tübingen, 1857; reprint Frankfurt, 1968); Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik, 2nd ed. (Tübingen, 1859; reprint Frankfurt, 1968). 115 Kuhn, Die dogmatische Lehre von der Erkenntniss, den Eigenschaften und der Einheit Gottes, 2nd ed. (Tübingen, 1862; reprint Frankfurt, 1968). This text is bound together with the 1859 text in the 1968 reprint. 116  See chapter 2 in this volume. For some of the ecclesio-political background of this rise, see John Ingles, Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1998), esp. 41–61.

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36  C   Introduction German neo-scholastics. He had studied with the Jesuits in Rome and returned there at the very end of his career.117 He published three separate responses to Kuhn in Der Katholik between 1859 and his death in 1862, all of which sought to restore a scholastic worldview wherein philosophy was the handmaiden to theology. Kuhn responded with several pieces that challenged both Clemens and the validity of his interpretation of Aquinas. These questions returned Kuhn to the familiar terrain of fundamental theology, wherein the relationship between faith and reason (or in this case, philosophy and theology), determined to a large extent the answers at which one would arrive. Clemens’s death in 1862 served only to suspend the debate, not to end it. The occasion for renewal came when Kuhn wrote a short essay on the question of a Catholic university in Germany. Kuhn’s negative reaction to this possibility, first floated by Heinrich von Andlaw, gave the neoscholastics new ammunition. As a layperson involved with the “Catholic movement” in Baden, Andlaw sought a Catholic university in order to protect the values of Catholic students from an increasingly secular university culture.118 Andlaw quickly withdrew from the debate. Constantin von Schäzler (1827–1880), a student of Clemens, took his place when he issued an anonymous attack on Kuhn in the journal Die historisch-politischen Blätter.119 Kuhn answered Schäzler’s accusations in a series of articles in the Quarterly and finally in his book on grace.120 Already twenty years removed from his earlier controversies that had gained him a “Roman” reputation, now Kuhn was being cast by his opponents as a dangerous anti-Roman heretic. The fate of Kuhn foreshadowed that of such later figures as Maurice Blondel (1861–1949) and Henri de Lubac, whose thought was deemed un-Catholic though it would be later re117  O’Meara, Church and Culture, 38. 118  See chapter 14 in this volume. 119  [Constantin von Schäzler], “Eine freie katholische Universität und die Freiheit der Wissenschaft,” in Historisch-politische Blätter 51 (1863): 897–938. 120  “Die historisch-politischen Blätter über ‘Eine freie katholische Universität und die Freiheit der Wissenschaft,’” ThQ 45 (1863): 569–668; “Das Natürliche und das Uebernatürliche. Antwort auf die fortgesetzten Angriffe der hist.-pol. Blätter,” ThQ 46 (1864): 175–329; “Die Wissenschaft und der Glaube mit besonderer Beziehung auf die Universitätsfrage. Schlußwort an die hist.-pol. Blätter,” ThQ 46 (1864): 583–645; Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade (Tübingen: H. Laupp’schen, 1868). The opening chapters of the last text have been translated in chapter 7 of this volume.

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Introduction  C   37

deemed and even considered more “Catholic” than that of their opponents. In Kuhn’s case, the controversy wore on him. He and Schäzler polemicized in their respective journals, but the dispute had a far wider reception. According to Hubert Wolf, “The controversy between Kuhn and Schäzler resulted in a great number of public responses. Theological journals as well as more popular newspapers and magazines reported on the affair.”121 Noted theologians Franz Xaver Kraus, Alois Schmid, Matthias Scheeben, and Herman Schell all opined concerning the controversy.122 Schäzler adopted a shrill tone that bore less likeness to sophisticated theological wrangling than to a district attorney’s seeking public recognition for his stance. Schäzler’s wishes were fulfilled when Rome took up his proposal to investigate Kuhn’s writings on grace for their possible heterodoxy.123 Kuhn weathered this storm, although the preface to the 1868 work on grace evidenced his flagging energy for the controversy. As a historical event, the controversy foretold both the painful ironies of the modernist crisis and the emergence of a “neo-Thomism,” whose allegiance to Aquinas was more verbal than real. Thomas O’Meara describes the phenomenon thusly: “Sometimes self-consciously non-scholastic thinkers like Kuhn [.....] understood the fabric of Aquinas’s theology better than those writing textbooks on it.”124 For Kuhn, Schäzler was a disciple of Aquinas in the way that Cornelius Jansen was a disciple of Augustine.125 The ongoing controversy did, however, afford Kuhn the opportunity to clarify the Thomistic theology of grace and of the supernatural that foretold both de Lubac’s insights and his ecclesial hardships.126 He had little time to celebrate escaping condemnation, however, as the First Vatican Council had been called in 1868. No Tübingen theologian, and indeed no theologian deemed “German” and not “Roman,” served as 121  Wolf, Ketzer? 173. 122  Thomas O’Meara reviews much of this literature. See Church and Culture, 53–60, 74– 79, 101–9. 123  For a detailed account of the inquisition against Kuhn in Rome see Wolf, Ketzer? 191–334. 124  O’Meara, Church and Culture, 34. 125 Kuhn, Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade, vi–vii. 126 Kuhn concludes his work with an extended commentary on q. 110 of the I-II of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (Die christliche Lehre, 360–444). For the connection to de Lubac, see my Answering the Enlightenment, 146–49.

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38  C   Introduction a peritus at the council, although it bears mentioning that Friedrich Cardinal Schwarzenberg had inquired whether Kuhn, along with Hefele and Döllinger, could consult in Rome.127 By the time the Council met, Hefele had been named a bishop and became a leader of the episcopal minority opposing papal infallibility. Pastor Aeternus eventually won broad support among the Council Fathers. Dejectedly, Hefele returned to Rottenburg but waited five months before announcing the new teaching. Kuhn followed Hefele’s lead and their leadership ensured that Tübingen did not join the Old Catholic separatist movement. The new dogma, coupled with his difficulties from the previous decade, led Kuhn to withdraw both from teaching and from publication. He used his political network to arrange the construction of a Catholic church in Tübigen, the Johanneskirche, which still stands adjacent to the Wilhelmsstift. Kuhn passed away in 1887, not before one more attempt to make him a bishop and one more inquiry into the orthodoxy of his theology.128 His marked grave lies in the seminary adjacent to the newer Theologicum where both Protestants and Catholics study together, albeit in different fields.

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Kuhn the Theologian To understand some thinkers, one is best served by focusing on a key change or series of shifts; grasping the mind of such thinkers involves knowing how they moved from one to another way of looking at things. Kuhn certainly developed as a theologian. He also made important decisions and shifts in the orientation of his theology. Yet there is a basic continuity that stretches from his earliest to his last published work of theology. So instead of looking for the essential characteristics in a shift, one must find these in a continuity. The sketch does not aim to give an exhaustive account of his theology, but only to point out certain thematic and stylistic features that emerge in the selections offered in this volume.129 127  Wolf, Ketzer? 336–38; this fact was not mentioned in the literature prior to Wolf.. 128 Ibid., 373–78. 129 Although it centers on Kuhn’s theology of revelation, Answering the Enlightenment uses the subject of revelation as a prism for understanding the whole of Kuhn’s thought. It is the most thorough treatment of his theology available in English.

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Introduction  C   39

The most important feature of Kuhn’s thought is his conviction about the relationship between faith and reason. The majority of his writings attempt to hold together two seemingly contradictory principles. The first is that faith and reason are compatible: Christian faith is rational for Kuhn; it does not involve a leap into an abyss of irrationality. One can explain Christianity, demarcate its boundaries, and even define its terms. When one reasons well, one does not risk faith, but rather enhances it. The second principle is that faith and reason belong to radically different orders. Faith is a graced activity and cannot be explained or accounted for in the realm of nature. One cannot philosophize one’s way into faith any more than one can work one’s way into heaven. Kuhn avoids a Pelagian epistemology in which sure and sound reasoning earns one faith. Kuhn’s attempt to hold these two principles within one system of thought explains much of the confusion and acrimony generated from his writings. It also illuminates the need to spell out the order between faith and reason, the natural and the supernatural, reason and revelation, and nature and grace. We cannot know the source of Kuhn’s conviction about this compatibility. It may have come from his tutelage under Drey and Möhler, or from insight into the dead end of rationalist philosophy as Schelling saw it. Kuhn also studied the Church Fathers and knew the scholastic tradition well. We cannot know definitively why he thought this way, but we can at least determine that he thought this way. As a stylist, Kuhn uses two rhetorical devices to make his arguments persuasive. The first is to spell out the fault lines of his interlocutor’s argument. Kuhn patiently details the position of his interlocutor in a way that makes it very clear where and why he disagrees on a given point. The second device is his tendency to place himself between two extreme positions. As noted above, he did so in his article against Bautain and Hermes. The device has the effect of explaining his rectitude on the given point through negation. Accordingly, Kuhn must be right because any other way of considering the problem is clearly wrong. A number of Kuhn’s writings, even those from Giessen, are intended to a significant extent for his Protestant interlocutors in Tübingen. He belonged to one of the first generations of Catholic theologians that took Protestant theology seriously. It bears repeating that Kuhn drank deeply

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40  C   Introduction from the well of modern thought. He was able to reap the benefits of Germany’s “golden age” of philosophy and religious thought. Like his teachers, Kuhn conceived the role of a Catholic theologian in Tübingen to be to establish and explain the legitimacy of their faith to a Protestant culture. This also meant de-legitimizing Protestant theology as Möhler had attempted to do. In this light Kuhn’s controversy with D. F. Strauss was entirely predictable. Strauss’s Life of Jesus represented an application of certain strands of modern philosophy and resulted in what Kuhn determined to be unsound conclusions about Christian faith. Kuhn’s responses to Strauss showed a knowledge of modern philosophy and method, offered an orthodox alternative to Strauss, and demonstrated the academic legitimacy of Catholic theology. One can also add that Kuhn’s experience with ecclesial politics likely influenced the written form of his theology. The response to his book on Strauss taught him that if he wanted to remain a practicing theologian, sounding orthodox was just as important as being orthodox. The era of more provocative departures from Rome had passed by the time Kuhn returned to teach in Tübingen. Kuhn’s tenure in the state legislature did nothing to deaden his political instincts or his awareness that one needed to balance conviction about the truth with prudence and practical wisdom, given inherent power discrepancies. Kuhn’s failure to navigate these minefields injury-free should in no way diminish the reality that he operated within such a framework. (Again, these remarks remain in such a skeletal form because a more extended theology treatment has recently been published.) In addition, Kuhn’s writings offered in this volume, it is hoped, stand on their own and offer readers the ability to understand the central themes and concerns of his theology.

Translation and Editorial Principles Translation involves both the art and the science of interpretation. As an artist, the translator recognizes the limits of the science—knowledge of historical context, familiarity with the author’s corpus, fluency with theological and philosophical concepts, comparison of textual discrepancies. As a scientist, the translator recognizes the limits of art—the intuition

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Introduction  C   41

about what the author really meant when the text conceals more than it reveals, the subjective judgment about the best way to render into English what seems indissolubly German. Prefaces to translations generally emphasize the effort to stay true to the meaning of the original text. In this translation every effort was made to render into English the often difficult prose of Johannes Kuhn. In doing so I have made scores of precarious judgments, and it behooves me to explain at least the most important of these so as to provide transparency for the reader particularly interested in the original German text. Following the lead of Heinrich Fries’s 1973 edition of Kuhn’s writings, I have omitted excessive footnotes and the most laborious passages within certain texts. In general, I have been less liberal than Fries in doing so. Still, the text here does not attempt an exhaustive, critical translation wherein every omission, and every instance of difference between earlier and later editions, is noted. Doing so would run the risk of subtracting from the more central goal: providing English language readers an opportunity to explore Kuhn’s writings. Nineteenth-century German prose often exhibits a cavalier attitude toward the paragraph. Some passages run over five hundred words before a break in paragraph. In other, much rarer, instances, each sentence initiates a new paragraph. For the sake of readability I have truncated paragraphs and have expanded shorter ones without indicating where I have done so. Although it may be criminal to create new paragraphs while editing James Joyce, it is both licit and preferable to do so to the texts at hand. Kuhn used italics liberally. Sometimes he italicized entire sentences. In other instances the lack of italics seems to obscure the precise meaning of the text. Most of his italics have been removed because they would eclipse rather than shed light on the meaning of the text. I have rendered his italics according to current English standards. The choice to remain consistent with the translation of several words should be explained. Mensch and its various iterations can mean both an individual and a human collectivity. “The human being” may be the most neutral rendition, but the repetition of “the human being” can often make the translation read much less fluidly than the original German. “Person” rids one of this problem, but is complicated by three factors: first, German

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42  C   Introduction has its own phrase, die Person, frequently used by Kuhn; second, the debate about the possible distinction between a human being and a person may lead some readers to attribute to Kuhn a position on this question that he did not hold; third, Kuhn spends a great deal of time in his Trinitarian theology distinguishing between analogical and univocal applications of personhood to God, which indicates that he was quite deliberate and self-conscious of his usage of the word. Despite all of these factors, “person” has been chosen in most instances, except in those where I have judged “the human being” preferable. Wissenschaft means “science” in German, and includes any academic disciple that aims at a rigorous, intelligent, and ongoing deliberation of the given discipline’s subject matter. Accordingly, theology and philosophy are no less sciences than physics and chemistry. Because Kuhn shared this widely held view of science, it would be disingenuous to translate Wissenschaft as “liberal art” or “humanities discipline.” Instead I have consistently translated this term as “science.” The adjective wissenschaftlich can be rendered “scientific,” but in certain cases it more closely resembles “scholarly.” I have made these judgments without indication. In German Wissen approximates “knowledge” or “understanding.” In “The False Choice between Faith and Rational Understanding [Wissen]” I have rendered Wissen as “rational understanding” throughout the essay. This phrase better expresses the contrast between faith and Wissen that Kuhn analyzes. Nowhere else in the remaining essays do I render Wissen in this manner. Geist carries a number of pitfalls. It can refer to the Holy Spirit, and in such instances I have capitalized the translation. German syntax requires the capitalization of all nouns, hence there is no foolproof way of knowing when Kuhn means human spirit and when he means the Holy Spirit. Context, however, almost always reveals the correct answer. A further problem is that Geist can mean both mind and spirit. Familiarity with Hegel only confuses the matter, since the word carried such a loaded a meaning in his writings. I have vacillated liberally but intentionally between mind and spirit when Kuhn speaks of the human Geist. Kuhn uses objectiv (rendered “objective”) in a particular way. He contrasts it with subjectiv. When he uses the term objectiv, it implies something

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Introduction  C   43

communal, public and shared (as opposed to private and individual), and thus more likely to be tried and true. However, one should not thence conclude that truth is something “out there” for Kuhn. Several other words, such as Begriff, Erkenntnis, Wissen, aufheben, Verstand, Vernunft, and Vorstellung, are familiar to English readers who have studied Kant, Hegel, or other German Idealists. The terms have particular meaning for each of these authors. Translations that do not consistently render these terms often mislead the reader and obscure the original meaning. Kuhn read Kant and Hegel thoroughly and understood how they utilized these terms. Yet he did not use them with the same precision as Kant or Hegel, and to pretend that he did would only obscure Kuhn’s meaning. Hegel scholars have debated for many decades how to translate Aufhebung (sublation). But those conversant in modern, spoken German know that Germans use this term regularly and with none of the import given by Hegel. Kuhn sometimes uses the term colloquially, although in rare instances he seems to employ a Hegelian meaning. I have translated these terms as liberally as Kuhn used them, but have maintained consistency or indicated otherwise when their frequent use demanded more precision. Ding gives us “thing” in English, but it functions in Kuhn’s writings like the Latin res, which can mean both thing and reality. “Thing” in English has come to mean something that takes up physical space. When, for example, Kuhn writes of göttliche Dinge it is much more helpful to translate these as “divine realities” rather than “divine things.” As a general rule, “reality” has been rendered for Ding. Handling the question of inclusive language is always difficult, especially when translating from a language where nouns have three genders. In any case, one cannot follow the letter so one must attempt to follow the spirit of the author. Kuhn would not have wanted stylistic points to distract from the arguments themselves, and in my judgment using inclusive language would distract the reader as being anachronistic. As a consolation I have alternated between the feminine and masculine pronouns. It should also be mentioned that Kuhn never makes disparaging remarks about women or minorities or Jews. Would that it were only so with other Germans from his century. Kuhn served as a professor of New Testament in Giessen. His later,

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44  C   Introduction doctrinal writings bear the stamp of his earlier appointment; he cites scripture generously and regularly. His citations, however, are not always precise. Sometimes he is off by a verse, other times a chapter. Likewise his citations of patristic sources are not always reliable. I have taken the liberty to check and when needed give the correct citation without any indication of editorial intrusion. In Kuhn’s time, every learned German knew how to read Latin, and knowledge of Greek was widespread. In the body of the text I have generally kept the Latin and Greek in their original, with translations in brackets. In footnotes, I have translated the passages from foreign languages without leaving the original. When Kuhn cites from a text that has been translated into English, the English bibliography has been cited. In instances where no English translation is available, the English translation of the title has been bracketed. The inspiration for a thematic presentation of separate texts comes from the 1973 Wegbereiter heutiger Theologie by Heinrich Fries. Indeed, perusing his text reveals how much I have followed his lead. I have added footnotes to the translations when I thought it would benefit the reader. In this I have borrowed liberally from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church and the Catholic Encyclopedia available online. My hope is that the translation and its apparatus can serve scholars who work on the areas present in this volume, as previous translations have aided me by providing some context. In addition, I hope that it helps newcomers by not being overly burdened with scholarly apparatus.

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T h e Fa l s e Ch o i ce b e t w e e n Fa i t h a n d R at i o n a l U n d e r s ta n d i n g

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ThQ 21 (1839): 382–421

This essay situates itself within a nexus of controversy treated in the general introduction to this volume. We will refrain from repeating those points. It should be noted that theological discussions of faith and reason dominated an intellectual agenda stemming from an Enlightenment concern with liberation from ecclesial authority. Regardless of whether one agrees with their conclusions, the paths taken by Kant, Hegel, and Schleiermacher constitute deliberate and serious attempts to address how to square religion with reason. Kuhn addresses this problem by returning to older, pre-modern formulations. He also concedes that theology depends on revealed truths, which makes it a different kind of knowledge, but he does not relapse into a position of irrationality. Kuhn disapproves of the movement that seeks to promote Tertullian’s famous slogan: credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd), which he sees as more of an aberration than a true representation of the Christian position. The concern about how faith and reason are related did not dissolve for Kuhn or the Catholic Church. What has changed, however, is that secular learning has turned to a post-modern outlook that, while not turning its back on reason, at least questions foundational assumptions and the hegemony of reason. These developments have led John Paul II and Benedict XVI to re-



45

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46  C   Faith and Rational Understanding turn to the question of what Athens has to do with Jerusalem. The essay below sheds light on an earlier attempt to navigate between positions that, even if well-intentioned, would undermine the possibility for faith and reason to fortify one another in a meaningful way.

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T

C

heol o gy a n d p hilo sop h y are the sciences that have the deepest effect on and most profound interest for humanity. The question of how faith and rational understanding [Wissen] relate rests on the border of these fields. Either field can resolve the problem by resorting to its own method and starting from its own independent principles, and each has the right to do so. The conclusions they reach will depend on the principles and methods they employ. For theology, faith is the point of departure and the authoritative principle prior to rational understanding. Therefore rational understanding must be joined to faith: credo, ut intelligam (I believe, so that I might understand). Philosophy reverses the relationship and starts with rational understanding. From understanding it moves on to faith and unites faith to rational understanding: intelligo, ut credam (I understand, that I may believe). Now what is true for philosophy must be true for theology as well. This sentiment was voiced by representatives of the Christian faith, who in so doing conceded more to rational understanding than philosophy nowadays grants to faith. Under the guidance of Leo X at the Fifth Lateran Council in 1513, the Council Fathers unanimously rejected making a distinction between philosophical and theological truth. They also rejected the idea that one could say of a sentence that it is true philosophically, but false theologically, and vice versa.1 As a result theological and philosophical formulae need to express one and the same thing. This remains the case even though much contemporary theology may want to abandon philosophy. It is also worth remembering that philosophy has the right to protect rational understanding when determining how it relates to faith. Tertullian’s credo quia absurdum [I believe because it is absurd] has recently been echoed;2 however, such a statement 1  Session VIII of the council states: “Since something true does not in the least contradict another truth” (DH, 1441). The 1513 council opposed claims that other sentences could be philosophically but not theologically true. 2  See Julius Frauenstadt, Die Menschwerdung Gottes nach ihrer Möglichkeit, Wirklichkeit und

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   47

does not signify an objective maxim to be followed, but only the subjective opinion of the theologians who waver concerning rational understanding. Likewise the reverse claim: intelligo, quia non credo [I understand, because I do not believe] can only reflect the opinion of a philosopher expressing annoyance with faith. Faith and rational understanding are not identical, but they do express real and necessary moments of human cognition. Faith does not receive acceptance [Anerkennung] solely in the realm of theology, and rational understanding does not receive acceptance solely in the realm of philosophy, but rather both receive acceptance outside their given field. Without conceding an essential variance regarding the formal relation between understanding and faith, one could entirely dismiss either of these sciences, or one could declare them to be identical—the most recent philosophy has sought to resolve theology into philosophy and faith into the pure concept. Whatever the case, one must acknowledge as an absurdity that faith is a thorough and pure denial of rational understanding, and rational understanding is a thorough and pure negation of faith. This claim becomes even more problematic when one begins by saying that what is true for theology cannot be false for philosophy, and vice versa. “I believe although I do not grasp the matter entirely,” is something entirely different from “I believe because I do not grasp the matter, because it is a contradiction.” In the former scenario the gap between faith and understanding lacks a resolution [Aufhebung] into unity and simultaneous reality. In the latter, the gap implies the impossibility of any unity and simultaneous truth. In our opinion the former scenario is and remains licit. The formula generally and broadly referred to above concerning the compatibility of philosophical and theological truths is the concrete expression of what theology and philosophy can and must agree on, and what they always have agreed on. Further, they can understand themselves properly only if they each recognize the legitimacy of the other. A comprehensive and thorough analysis would need to demonstrate to what degree faith and understanding are able to acknowledge each other. It would need to determine the concept and the essence of the highest Notwendigkeit [The Possibility, Actuality, and Necessity of the Incarnation of God] (Berlin, 1839). Kuhn cites at length from the book, and then adds his own commentary that has been omitted. (Tr.)

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48  C   Faith and Rational Understanding

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human wisdom by coalescing the outcomes derived from the two fields. Our task will be to examine philosophical and theological truths side by side and view them through the same lens as if they were as coordinated spheres [koordinierte Sphären]. If we put religion above science, we will immediately arrive at the highest expression of human knowledge, which comes from the proper appraisal of the relation between faith and rational understanding—at least from our standpoint. From this standpoint, that knowledge of God is the promise of eternal life ( John 17:3), and in this promise there is also given the wisdom of God, which is the righteousness, sanctification, and salvation in Christ (1 Cor 1:30). Proceeding from the viewpoint articulated in the last paragraph, we aim to explicate the orthodox Catholic viewpoint concerning the relation between faith and rational understanding. In so doing we shall defend this position against the extreme positions and remarkable misunderstandings currently bandied about.3 At this point let us agree that more is involved in understanding what one believes than simply to believe without understanding.4 The version of the phrase that, since Anselm of Canterbury, has been frequently applied, universally echoed, and totally harmless, is not entirely suited to protect the law of faith, at least according to the anonymous reviewer. Instead, so it goes, we believe without understanding; 3 Along with those loudly proclaimed and generally well-known misunderstandings, I must also include the anonymous remarks from the journal Der Katholik 19 (1839): 68–80; 209–19. These comments were issued in a review of my book, Das Leben Jesu, wissenschaftlich bearbeitet, volume 1 [The Life of Jesus, Appraised Scientifically; Kuhn never wrote the second volume (tr.)], (Mainz, 1838). I can speak of this critique even more freely since the author openly admitted the scientific merit of my work. Thus he did not damage my vanity, which is usually the cause for responding to a critic. Instead the anonymous critic turned his attention to my ecclesial orientation and accused me of neology and heterodoxy. To the degree that I address this accusation, I do so not out of egotism, but due to another motive, one that will not be easily mistaken. Readers will encounter the measured argumentation that is supported by valid recourse to authority juxtaposed against confident, disrespectful, wide-ranging, quasi-totalitarian assertions. Should this juxtaposition appear strange, the reader might take into consideration that the matter at hand concerns the objective ecclesial position, and not an individual opinion. Further, the reader might assume that in consideration of length I considered it obligatory to exercise the utmost restraint. Were I to look this anonymous reviewer in the eye, I would quite easily be able to justify directing the most animated language toward the hostile initiative, which a less than competent judge has taken against me. I only want to say one thing to him personally, namely, a phrase that Augustine used against Faustus: “Tu es ergo regula veritatis; quidquid contra te fuerit, non est verum?” [You are the rule of truth; that which was against you, is not the truth.] (Contra Faustum, II, 2; [n.b.: This citation was not found where Kuhn lists it.]) 4 Kuhn, Das Leben Jesu, 438n.

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   49

otherwise one might receive the impression either that faith must become understanding or that this were faith’s only possible resolution.5 Obviously Anselm’s phrase as it stands can be understood as one wishes. Since one is not bound to follow one particular meaning, we shall use this phrase in a different way than that of the reviewer from Der Katholik. For both the common believer and the dogmatic or speculative theologian, faith is a conscious activity. The difference we sought to highlight pertains only to a difference in this consciousness itself, not to the difference between a conscious and unconscious faith. Still, the question remains whether faith can and must become rational understanding. But from what I said previously, it remains unknown whether my exposition assents to or denies this possibility. We are not of the opinion that faith becomes transformed into understanding, and that faith can and must morph itself into understanding. But if one says faith is simply immediate, nothing mediates faith, and faith excludes rational understanding as something entirely foreign to it, then one is merely repeating Tertullian’s credo quia absurdum, and is by no means in concert with our understanding of faith. Even less so is such an opinion concordant with the Catholic faith. In De Trinitate Augustine writes, “But it is another thing to know in what way faith itself may help both the pious and be defended against the impious, which the Apostle seems to call knowledge” (Book XIV, I).6 Now we have already differentiated between a scientific appropriation of faith and simple faith, and we have privileged the former over the latter. Augustine makes this point more clearly in another of his writings, and it is especially pertinent that he considers this standpoint proper to the Church. In De Utilitate Credendi Augustine writes that the Manicheans accuse the orthodox Christians of blind faith since they value faith more than understanding. Augustine remarks that this point shows the difference between the Manicheans and the Catholics; the former understand in order to believe, while the latter believe in order to understand.7 The scholastics adopted this view of the relation between faith and 5  See [anonymous], “Rezension,” Der Katholik 19 (1839), 210n2. 6  This translation is modified from On the Trinity, trans. Arthur West Haddan. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 184. (Tr.) 7  De Utilitate Credendi, ch. 1. Kuhn gives the Latin for which he had already rendered a paraphrase in German. (Tr.)

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50  C   Faith and Rational Understanding understanding and in certain specific points developed it further. They always began from the perspective that faith is the beginning, end, and deepest root of understanding. From there they sought to move from faith to understanding, and from understanding into the furthest reaches of understanding, that is to say, to advance to faith. By doing so they separated themselves from the so-called Positivi or Sententiarii who, by excluding all scientific methods, aimed to explain and substantiate faith simply through appealing to citations and statements from the Church Fathers.8 The scholastics meanwhile used the dialectical method, and from this method they received the name “scientists” (Wissenschaftlichen). They were thoroughly imbued by the presupposition of faith’s immanence to reason. Hence they abandoned the credo quia absurdum and replaced it with the credo, ut intelligam. By doing so they ruled as falsely extreme the position that declared faith and reason not merely immanent, but identical. One could summarize this position as: credo quia intelligo [I believe because I understand]. They also considered erroneous the wish to move from understanding to faith, expressed in the shibboleth: intelligo, ut credam [I understand, that I may believe] recently articulated by Georg Hermes.9 The opposition to Roscellinus’s phrase per intellectum ad fidem—that is to say, in order to come to faith, one must proceed by way of reason—was justified.10 Abelard’s phrase—nihil credi posse, nisi prius intellectum [nothing can be believed unless already understood]—was repudiated with even greater conviction. [.....] This progression from rational understanding to faith consisted in more than an analytic dismantling of the content peculiar to faith. Nor was the opposite the case. The movement from faith to rational understanding does not depart from the truth of faith by proposing new clauses. One cannot fortify peculiar, immediate certainty through demonstration. Rather, 8  By the Positivi Kuhn implies those medieval thinkers who focused on knowing only how scripture and the tradition had already answered given questions. The Sententiarii would have constituted the literal-minded followers of Peter Lombard’s Sentences. (Tr.) 9 Georg Hermes was a popular theologian in Bonn, whose students had had open disputes with Möhler and the Tübingen School. His position was often labeled “semi-rationalist,” and several sentences from his works were condemned by the Vatican. (Tr.) 10 Roscellinus was a medieval theologian and opponent of Anselm. His only surviving work is a letter to Abelard, his former student. He died c. 1125. (Tr.)

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   51

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for the scholastics, the movement from faith to reason happened as a truly objective process immanent to the object. Hence they all returned to faith and considered this objectively dialectical process to depend on the reality of faith. It continued in an unbroken connection and in the steady progress of rational understanding toward the unexplored and absolutely immediate foundation of faith. By doing so faith must have appeared to them as not merely the possible, but also the necessary truth that signaled that the scientific process had reached its conclusion. On this manner Anselm writes, “I want that you would follow me on this matter, that I understand by the necessity of reason the fitness of all things that the Catholic faith enjoins upon us concerning Christ.”11 Both positive faith and any other immediate truth such as rational faith call for this process, and neither allows for another process. One can find such a discussion of immediate truth—that realities outside and independent from us are present to us—in Jacobi’s David Hume on Faith, or Idealism and Realism, a Dialogue, and in Fichte’s Crystal Clear Report to the General Public.12 The essential difference between Fichte’s claims and my own should be noted. From the outset Fichte does not accept as immediately true that immanent rationality understands objectivity. The course of dialectical development demonstrates that we only have the consciousness of our rational understanding concerning the things external to us. Fichte follows this path to arrive consistently at idealism. To stick with this 11 Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, ch. 25. Slightly amended from St. Anselm: Basic Writings, trans. S. N. Deane (Chicago, Open Court, 1962), 253. (Tr.) 12  The former text can be found in Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill, ed. George di Giovanni (Quebec: McGill-Queens University Press, 1995), 253–338; the latter in Philosophy of German Idealism, ed. Ernst Behler (New York: Continuum, 1987), 39–115. The title of the original German is Sonnenklarer Bericht an das Publikum. An earlier translation from 1868 refers to it as the Sun-Clear Statement, as does some secondary literature. They all refer to the same 1801 text. (Tr.) Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1744–1804) challenged the rational foundations of modern cognitional theory and all of modern philosophy. Though he has generally been considered a marginal figure in the history of philosophy, due perhaps more than any factor to Hegel’s brusque treatment of him, especially in The Phenomenology of Spirit, recent scholarship has helped to restore interest in Jacobi. Kuhn’s first major work, Jacobi und die Philosophie seiner Zeit [ Jacobi and the Philosophy of His Era] (Mainz: 1834) was largely though not entirely sympathetic to Jacobi’s central points. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) played a much more prominent role in the development of German Idealism. (Tr.)

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52  C   Faith and Rational Understanding example, other thinkers surrender all truth prior to rational understanding, and also place on hold all immediate understanding of objectivity until they have secured this truth. When they do so, they will never return to realism, and if they perchance arrive at realism, it is merely due to a failure in their thought process or through falsifying the results. This position prevented Fichte from the inevitable consequence that befalls those who proceed from the principle of pure lack of presupposition, that is to say, from nothing. Although they wanted a result other than idealism and nihilism, this is all they could arrive at. Suppose that from the outset we were to eliminate immediate understanding and that we adamantly refused entrance to this understanding at any point. We would then find ourselves enveloped entirely in our own consciousness. We would have nothing but pure determination and modification of our consciousness, and the consciousness would be the only source of these modifications. We would be left with the pure ego or spirit in such a way that the world and all things would need to appear as merely a modification of our consciousness. This would extend to God as well, who would become the pure ego or the absolute spirit that achieves consciousness in us. Philosophy can pursue no scientific method besides that of positive faith, and strictly speaking has no evidence besides that given by positive faith. Philosophy relies on rational faith or the immediacy of objectivity. The difference between this faith and positive faith can be explained as follows: rational faith consists in what is naturally and universally available for every person; positive faith is made available through a special, supernatural moment in life not available at all times or for every person. This distinction makes philosophy more accessible, reachable, and universal. I am aware in our day that summarizing and describing the essence of philosophy as the science of rational or natural faith evokes a certain dread.13 It is declared that the principle of philosophy has universally become the concept, and the essence of philosophy has become the conception of absolute truth. And yet how different is faith from the concept?! Nonetheless, both views are more or less the same, and only the manner 13  This paragraph outlines the main tenets of Hegel’s system. The vocabulary is entirely and intentionally Hegelian. (Tr.)

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   53

in which the task is accomplished makes them distinct. Some think that conceiving should be the essential task of philosophy, or that speculative knowledge should be the same as the identical knowledge of the object. Accordingly, the becoming that accompanies the object and that moves forward with the object becomes an understanding that completes itself through a coalescence of the concept and the thing itself. Such a philosophy begins with nothing, since for it the world itself began from nothing and was brought forth from nothing. And such a philosophy attempts to approximate this creation from nothing. However, one can clearly discern that the immediacy of objectivity, as we have defined rational faith, is nothing but the understanding identical with its object. Immediate understanding differentiates itself from mediated understanding in that immediate understanding removes the opposition between being and thought, whereas in mediated understanding the object remains opposed to and separated from rational understanding. One should not take exception that this immediacy of objectivity realized in the intuition and perception expresses only the beginning—the empirical and subjective element of knowledge. The conceiving on the other hand should represent the last and highest. Further, the conceiving should regard the subjective and empirical elements of knowledge as moments sublated [aufgehoben] into it. From our vantage it is important to recognize the difference between viewing immediate understanding as the beginning and foundation of all true knowledge, and viewing immediate understanding as the goal and completion of all true knowledge. Both kinds of immediate understanding are essentially the same, and the goal of philosophy must be to return to its beginning. For this to happen, the object of the concept has to be something necessary for knowledge. In other words, for the immediate knowledge at the conclusion (or the idea according to traditional terminology) something is necessary, and this something accompanies knowledge itself with the insight into its completion and absolute limit. On the other hand the object of initial immediate knowledge—the intuition, the representation—simply appears as something actual [ein Wirkliches]. Likewise knowledge itself appears as an initial knowledge sullied by empirical and subjective qualifications. Not the truth upon which the object of knowledge is based, but this object of

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54  C   Faith and Rational Understanding immediate knowledge, insofar as it is immediate, suspended in itself, and cannot be exceeded, is subsumed into the concept (or the idea). This happens in such a way that truth appears in the concept as absolute and objective. At this point there emerges a major difference. The self-proclaimed speculative philosophy of Hegel begins with nothing, and then emulates the process of the becoming of things. In doing so it posits this activity as the activity of the Spirit and takes the self-development of this Spirit for the development of the world or of God in the world. We on the other hand assert that the finite human spirit [Geist] is created out of nothing, and we base this on the fact of creation (for there is no other spirit available for the philosopher to set humanity in motion). To our mind this creatureliness means that the philosopher cannot locate any beginning of things out of nothing. Whenever such a philosopher seeks to begin he finds something already posited, something absolutely immediate. He cannot get out from under this anymore than he can undo creation itself.14 If followed to its logical conclusion any philosophy that posits an absolutely pure beginning results in nihilism, for from nothing there can result only nothing. The only other option is to begin with pantheism, wherein this beginning and the system itself is no longer capable of justifying itself. Every position presupposes its beginnings and can be true only to the extent that its beginning and foundation are true. Of all systems of pure beginning, one must concede, only pantheism does not fall prey to nihilism. The foundation of pantheism lies in the Absolute Spirit from which all things arise; hence pantheism gives an ideal account of the all and the manifestation of the all through the creative act of the divine spirit. Pantheism equates this spiritual process with reality itself, for the absolute spirit realizes itself in this process and returns back to itself. Against such a worldview one can propose only (since such a proposal runs counter to his principles, Hegel declares it to be essentially unphilosophical, and he claims he has already negated it) that at some point the human spirit be14  The preceding paragraph succinctly outlines the difference between the Hegelian and late Schellingian theory of philosophical beginnings. Though Schelling goes unnamed and Kuhn rarely admits his debt, Kuhn’s reliance on Schelling is unmistakable. For an account of this relationship see Kaplan, Answering the Enlightenment, 111–66 (Tr.)

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   55

comes conscious of itself and of God and that both exist in themselves and differ essentially. Accordingly, the human spirit locates the essential reality of both God and the human in their individuality. It does so in such a way that the self-consciousness of humanity and God are each posited as other. But as the opponents of pantheism argue, the human spirit recognizes [erkennen] this other not in a way that God and humanity share an identity (that is to say, an essential unity, integration and completion). Rather, just the opposite happens: the human spirit, though excluded from God, sees the unity of self-consciousness as the principle of individuality. The opponents of pantheism do not know how to prove these arguments, but only want to assert the arguments as immediate, certain truths prior to all understanding and philosophy. By lacking a proof, the arguments only appear at a disadvantage to pantheism’s allies. The pantheists themselves have to assert their pure beginning as either a presupposition or an immediate truth. In the latter case the pantheists would find themselves in a tougher bind than their opponents because they are opposed by the individual consciousness of the ordinary person as well as so-called sound human reason. The pantheist position is indeed no authority for philosophy, but rather, philosophy must be ready to explain it, and philosophy must not let it persist as a contradictory moment.15 Now what philosophy takes to be the immediate truth, theology—at least from a Catholic perspective—takes to be positive faith. Hence theology can call itself a science to the same degree as a philosophy conscious of its foundation and limitations. Starting with faith in the Trinity (as philosophy begins with the natural, immediate consciousness of God), theology does not simply let this faith develop, and does not regard every element given expression in Christian faith to be a necessary development of the Trinitarian concept. Nor—should this development be regarded as a construction of the articles of faith out of an individual concept, which in any case is not possible—does theology present such a possibility as an integrating moment in the unity of this concept. Instead theology absorbs these moral and religious truths and sees them as the scattered and refracted rays 15  For this point see Jacobi und die Philosophie seiner Zeit, 554ff.

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56  C   Faith and Rational Understanding of the one eternal light. If this is so, then the truth of the Trinity no longer remains at the level of the first immediacy of faith as a subjective, empirical position. Instead it is a universal and objectively speculative concept, without ceasing to be purely immediate in relation to truth and certainty. Augustine and Anselm, along with the entirety of spirited scholasticism, have led us to this position. Now we have a representative. Looking back at him I doubt whether I have really stated my own opinion above, or have only paraphrased his views regarding the pertinent spiritual movements of the present time. Of course I am speaking of Thomas Aquinas, who after Augustine has exercised the most powerful and decisive influence on the shape of Catholic doctrine in the West. We can point to no subsequent theologian who has presented the Catholic faith more scientifically or with such clarity.16 Of all subsequent and contemporary theologians not one compares to him with respect to scientific vigor and power, save Schleiermacher. Thomas opens his Summa with the question: whether the sacred doctrine (theology) is a science? He answers the question by positing two classes of science. One class is based on the immediately certain foundations of natural reason—arithmetic and geometry being examples of this class. The other class relies on the foundation of a higher, previous science, that is to say, an understanding that is certain and borrowed from elsewhere; for example, optics relies on geometry, music on arithmetic. Theology belongs to the latter class of science, for it relies on prior knowledge revealed by God (Summa I, q.1 a.2). Hence one can observe that every science essentially relies on a presupposition that it must acknowledge and respect. Reflecting on the very essence of science, there is no difference between theology and other sciences whose scientific qualifications [Wesen] are acknowledged. For all intents and purposes, Thomas did not intend to accept this difference wholesale, for it did not change how he proceeded and he did not truncate theology’s claims to have a scientific character. He merely found another way to bring this immediate truth to its necessary presupposition, just as it works in every other discipline. Should one desire to push the compari16  One need only compare the Roman Catechism to Thomas in order to be won over to this claim.

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   57

son, one sees that it contains something quite meaningful: namely, it immediately aligns theology with sciences that derive their presuppositions from other sciences. A science based on immediately certain principles of reason presents the process of the mind [Geist] in which it appears immediately as the knowing mind in relation to objectivity itself. On the other hand, a science that relies on another science demonstrates the process whereby the mind appears as knowing the spirit [Geist] itself.17 In the latter case objectivity is no longer immediate and pure, but instead received and presented in a consciousness that can be external and objective to the mind. This happens when the originator of a given perspective borrows geometry from another. He could not produce it on his own as something interior and self-generated, as in the case of a science that relies on its own immediate knowledge. Returning to theology, which does not presuppose immediate objectivity itself or the immediate rational understanding this would imply, but instead presupposes the divine Spirit and the completed science of God in the scriptures and the traditions (i.e., the consciousness of) the Church. Scripture and tradition conjoin in the concept of ecclesial consciousness, and from a Catholic standpoint this cannot be otherwise. This already matured ecclesial consciousness is the theology of immediate presupposition. Indeed for anyone born again, in addition to the academic theologian, the revealed truth is interior and sufficient. In much the same way, the ecclesial consciousness suffices to the degree that the theologian is a living and robust member of the Church. Both the revealed truth and the ecclesial consciousness are the immediate presupposition of theology—not pertaining to the subjectivity of the faithful theologian, but to the objectivity of the entire faith of the Church. On this basis the faith given in scientific theology is not salvific for the theologian; only revealed truth, through which the theologian becomes absorbed as a living member, and in his individuality receives the faith of the Church, can be salvific.18 Theology presupposes ecclesial consciousness as something immedi17  The use of Geist here denotes both an intellectual process and at the same time a Platonic/Johannine notion of participation in divine reason or logos. (Tr.) 18 Kuhn’s emphasis on the role of the community echoes the organic and anti-individualist ecclesiology and soteriology that Möhler espoused in Unity in the Church. (Tr.)

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58  C   Faith and Rational Understanding ate and conclusive. This should not, however, rule out a strictly scientific account of theology. The greater and more intricately this foundation is arranged, the more thoroughly theology can distinguish itself in relation to the science upon which it rests. On the other hand, if the spirit first has to secure its content from objectivity and then, in piecemeal fashion, shape this content into knowledge, the science that would arise from this process could only appear deficient. This process explains what the history of philosophy thoroughly substantiates, namely, the more a thinker roots his thought in experience, the more successful are his speculations. One could even state as a general rule that philosophy as a science progresses in a strict relation with the advances of experimental sciences [Erfahrungswissenschaften]. Speculation that turns its back on life and experience is like a useless entity, lifeless and lacking fruit. The results of such a philosophy are necessarily vain since they are untrue. Goethe’s comments hit the mark: “A man who speculates / Is like an animal on a green plane / Led around in circles by an angry ghost / Though all around lie pretty green pastures.”19 The scholastics found no barrier to doing a science of faith, whereby in this faith ecclesial consciousness was given to them as something immediately true and certain. Some people know how extensively the scholastics employed the dialectical method. One should not lose a sense of wonder at the scholastics’ truly magnificent scholarly achievement, as one is wont to do by acquiring a taste for the insipid and the minute, which has been happening more or less in our day due to the focus on the individual [separated from the whole]. Those who gain an awareness of how the scholastics employed the dialectical method will be able to arrive at the conviction more easily that the absolutely necessary basis for all orthodox and supernatural theology does not diminish the truly scientific character of theology. One must not lose sight of the fact that all other sciences, and especially philosophy, do not take precedence over theology. These sciences cannot help but solve their own particular tasks in essentially the same way as theology does.20 19  See Goethe, Faust, lines 307–09. 20  Only philosophy can be compared precisely to theology. For the experiential sciences have essentially the same relation to philosophy that faith has—in its individual articles and designations for ecclesial consciousness—to theology. Both sets of relations concern immediate truth,

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   59

Returning to Aquinas should help illuminate this matter. He poses the question: utrum sacra doctrina sit argumentative? [Whether theology provides rational arguments? (Summa I, q.1 a.8)]. Thomas answers that other sciences neither precede nor generate their scientific essence by proving their principles, but instead argue from their principles. Likewise theology does not seek to show that its principles (the articles of faith) are immediately certain and irrefutable; rather, it proceeds from these articles in order to demonstrate something else [sed ex eis procedit ad aliquid ostendendum]. Let us suggest a comparison between the science of faith as the highest of its kind (i.e., among theological disciplines) and metaphysics as the highest science in the realm of natural knowledge. The science of faith relates to the minor theological disciplines in the same way that metaphysics relates to the experiential sciences. The science of faith does not simply presuppose its principles, but rather operates from them.21 It does so without giving an actual proof or illuminating these principles in their entirety, which in any case is impossible. Metaphysics can argue with those who deny its principles, but at the same time concede a certain matter or at least agree on one point. With those, however, who concede nothing, metaphysics cannot even argue but can only disprove their arguments and dissolve their doubts. It is similar in theology. If an interlocutor concedes an article of faith, one can show its relation to another article and argue from it to the intelligibility of all of the other articles. But if nothing revealed by faith is conceded, and when there is no existing faith, theology can only refute the objections that are brought against it. As Thomas explains, “Since faith is born from an infallible truth, and the contrary to truth cannot be demonstrated, it is clear that alleged proofs against faith are not demonstrations, but charges that can be refuted” (Summa I, q.1 a.8). Imagine that one presupposes positive doubt and considers such doubt the necessary beginning of both philosophy and theology [Glaubenswissenfor which the completed concept (rational understanding in the more narrow sense) should be determined. 21 Take apologetics as an example. Those who have not received the faith through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit stand outside of grace. A scientific account of faith can never justify faith, for faith is a supernatural grace of God. But a scientific account can eliminate the doubt and remove the obstacles that obstruct the working of grace in the realm of thought and knowledge.

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60  C   Faith and Rational Understanding schaft]. Were this so, one would never arrive at faith itself, nor at the truth and certainty proper to faith. Instead, one would approach the essence of faith wrong-headedly because this position does not regard faith as a supernatural grace working in and through the person. For educated individuals, or from a scientific standpoint, faith is regarded as a merely natural product of science and of human reason. On this point Thomas says that theology uses reason, but not to prove faith, “because that would take away from the merit of faith, but to make clear other things in theology” (Summa I, q.1 a.8 ad.2). Theology uses the insight of reason while presupposing the truth and certainty of faith in order to articulate the essential aspects in the necessity of the concept and in the unity of the science. The basis for doing so, as Thomas so poignantly states, is that “grace does not eclipse nature (i.e., reason and natural science), but perfects them, so that natural reason serves faith just as the natural inclination of the will is obedient to charity” (Summa II-II q.4 a.8). On this matter Paul the Apostle reminds us that the Gospel is neither formally nor materially a doctrine of wisdom [Weisheitslehre], but God’s power for the salvation of those who believe (Rom 1:16ff.). Further, those who assert this salvific truth are empowered by the cross of Christ, which is given to those who are being saved (1 Cor 1:17ff.). Paul did not proclaim the Gospel “ἐν σοφίαͺ λόγου (ἀνθρωπίνου)” (1 Cor 1:17 [with the wisdom of human eloquence]), but with the demonstration of spirit and of power, so that faith might rest not on human wisdom, but on the power of God (1 Cor 2: 4–5). In spite of this Paul still admits of a wisdom of faith (σοφία πίστεωϛ) for those who are mature in faith (ἐν τοῖς τελείοις; 1 Cor 2:6). This wisdom does not consist in the acquired sayings of human wisdom, but in the teachings and inpouring of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:13ff.). Let us start with what the consciousness of all Christian confessions undoubtedly presupposes: namely, that faith is a gift given by the Spirit of God. As such, faith takes place only through the experience of being born again and can be achieved in no other way. Therefore the difference between philosophy and theology by all accounts is an essential one that we have articulated in the contrast drawn between nature and grace. But if one prescinds from this judgment, then philosophy, just like theology, will come to rely on an immediate understanding and will be no more a

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   61

science than theology. Viewed from this angle, theology would have the same free and unlimited range given to philosophy, and the dialectical process internal to faith would be completed since Christian consciousness comprises a previously constituted spiritual unity. To make this unity the point of departure for speculative philosophy one would need to truncate severely the history of philosophy. There belongs to philosophy a particular notion of rational understanding: it constitutes everything that enters into the human mind's consciousness through the free power of the human mind. On the contrary, knowledge that neither derives from the human mind alone, nor has its truth and certainty guaranteed by the mind, is called faith. In the broader sense that kind of knowledge called faith directly locates its truth and certainty in the witness of another ("faith by hearing"—historical understanding), or through the voluntary action and authority of another (fides ex auctoritate—positive understanding), and is recognized on the basis of this witness. The knowledge particular to theology that is more narrow than faith is not unique because it provides an immediate understanding—for as such this kind of knowledge comes into question from one side—nor is it unique because this knowledge incorporates the historical and the positive moments into itself. Rather, primarily and above all, it is unique because it is a supernatural knowledge located in the rebirth of the entire person through the Spirit of God that humanity, as natural and born of flesh, can never produce on its own. In this sense, and against the backdrop of the difference between philosophy and theology that parallels the difference between nature and grace, we said at the outset that philosophy primarily concerns rational understanding, whereas theology deals with faith. In terms of their formal scientific elements, however, the two do not differ essentially since both rely on immediate understanding. And neither of the two fields can sufficiently account for the truth and certainty of this understanding. Hence they must be supported by a deeper foundation. By its nature, immediate understanding serves as the barometer of true and false. Two masterful accounts of Christianity engage this singular issue, and by doing so they determine their truth, solution, and reconciliation with one another. These two traditions are the Alexandrian, whose most distin-

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62  C   Faith and Rational Understanding guished representative is Clement of Alexandria, and the Western, which took its form from Augustine. The Alexandrians sought to bring together and to reconcile Christian faith with Greek wisdom. They sought for a science of Christianity to confront the genteel derision espoused by the heathens. For as Paul said, the Greeks regarded the gospel as foolishness. Consequently the Alexandrians began with the idea of the divine Logos envisioned by John. Everything true and good was considered as divine revelation, like rays of the one eternal light. Christ appeared as the one true source of this light, and everything true and good found completion in Christ. The Alexandrians saw it as their task to take everything in the Christian consciousness and regard it as unique. Meanwhile they set out to join everything true in the wisdom of Socrates and Plato, as well as the earlier poets, to the body of Christian expression. Along these lines they regarded the entirety of Judaism as a direct, immediate preparation for the revelation of Christianity. The Alexandrians held the Christian faith—the completed revelation of the Logos in Christ—to be the highest unity and the absolute measure of all other truth and knowledge. Christian gnosis was authentic and applied to the Apostle’s words: “The spiritual (πνευματικὸς) man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:15–16). Alexandrian gnosis does not go much beyond a Christian philosophy of religion because the Alexandrians had alloyed and almost entirely eliminated the tension [Gegensatz] between nature and grace. This tension continually orders Christian knowledge and gives it its unique supernatural imprint. Western Christianity has been less fixated by the brilliance of Greek wisdom and does not permit any other wisdom than its own, which is also “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). Christianity in the West has followed Paul’s account more closely. With his foot soldier, Saint Augustine, he has developed an authentic supernaturalism, which must be regarded as the essential form of Christian faith and Christian theology. This supernaturalism has been realized through the tension between nature and grace. For theology it means that the immediate Christian content of faith [Lehrinhalt] establishes itself prior to all science as objective divine truth. Further, one should regard this content

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   63

as the default position of the born again, that is, the faithful who have been moved and carried by God’s spirit. From this one might infer that the previous definition has caused Christian faith to withdraw from science, or at least to separate itself from science more than natural faith would. For natural faith gains its scientific merit from the status that philosophy of religion grants to it. Science as such is a pure product of the human spirit, and natural God-consciousness relates to science in every way as a kindred element. Christian Godconsciousness, on the contrary, is not immanent to the human spirit in the same way as science is, and hence it is not entirely homogeneous to science. One could say that positive (Christian) faith cannot assimilate itself to science and cannot be permeated by it in the same way as natural faith. Science itself is determined as much by its object, and to a certain degree elevated by it, as its object is determined and elevated by science. As we have already shown, immediate knowledge [of revealed faith] cannot exclude science, nor can science ever sublate [aufheben] immediate knowledge. Instead, the natural abilities of the human spirit are elevated through grace. The object of the science of the spirit born again—the Christian faith—is therefore no more mysterious and intractable an object than the science of the human spirit’s object, the natural consciousness of God. But supernaturalism makes another claim. It states that Christian God-consciousness, being an immediate object of science and having developed dialectically from science, does not come under consideration as a merely natural result of the human spirit or as the purpose [Bestimmung] immanent to its nature. Instead, Christian God-consciousness from the outset is considered the idea of God that consists in the unity of nature and grace, and that is placed immediately in the consciousness of the born-again. The rectitude and necessity of this judgment is most visibly displayed in all scientific attempts that advance Christian faith beyond the merely natural consciousness of the spirit both individually and collectively. But these attempts have not reached their desired goal. Recent philosophy has once more proven that ideas developed thusly are in no way the ideas unique to the Christian faith. Instead they contain an entirely alternative content not authorized to be called Christian. A reproach echoed from all sides is that the newest philosophy has a different mean-

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64  C   Faith and Rational Understanding ing of the trinity, original sin, justification, the incarnation, and so on, and that they only approximate the meaning offered in the Christian articles of faith. This reproach has been thoroughly established, and though Göschel treats this matter in his newest book, he most surely has not convinced a single theologian (exception those of the Hegelian school) of the converse position.22 The second basic claim of supernaturalism concerns the tension between nature and grace, in regard to an other, higher realm. The individual and his individual faith, even if they have been born anew through the Spirit, are related to the community of those born anew and to their faith, as nature is related to grace. The individual exists as a living member of the community [Gemeinde], and his faith is not independent from the faith of the others. Further, his faith is neither true in itself, nor valid when removed from the collective consciousness. Just as the individual cannot abandon himself in his individuality, so the community itself is not an individuality, but it embodies a higher, advanced stage of the spirit that is represented through the individuals and that lives through them. A community is not the collective mathematical total of individuals, a notion wielded perpetually by the most shallow of people, along with the most obvious of truths, and these shallow people resist every deeper comprehension of human existence. Nor does the individual in his isolation realize who he is, but only in the unity of the communal and individual does the concept of human existence become actualized. This concept achieves an other and higher reality when the unity of the individual and the genus turns out not to be the individual as he is in himself (for this is possible only because the reality in itself is the unity of many individuals in the entirety [Gattung] and not an individual), but turns out to be something other and higher: the God-man.23 In the God-man the human is posited 22  The Berlin theologian Karl Friedrich Göschel (1784–1861) sought to reconcile Christianity with modern culture. Hegel was familiar with Göschel’s work and reviewed a collection of his aphorisms. Göschel’s book is called Beiträge zur spekulativen Philosophie (Berlin, 1838). (Tr.) 23  See Göschel, Beiträge, 60ff. We cannot entirely agree with the thoughts developed here. Comparing the following passage with that noted in the text provides an ample difference. Göschel says on page 63, “The first was that the unity of the human race remains a mere name, an abstract universal concept, until it achieves an actual unity in an actual individual, who expands into a subject and person.”

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   65

as a mere individual and the divine as the communal where the individual finds rest. In the humanity of the Savior the whole human race is taken up into the unity of the individual and the entirety. Likewise, the human race is led even further and united with God in the same savior: “that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us....... The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and they in me” ( John 17:21–23). Just as the individual reaches completion in the entirety, so the whole human race is fulfilled in the savior. Consequently Christ is in the community, and to the degree that the individual is also in the community, Christ is in her. This being so, we can freely assent to Schleiermacher’s apt aphorism, namely, that Catholicism makes the relationship of the individual to Christ dependent on his relation to the Church, and Protestantism makes the relationship between the individual and the Church depend on his relationship to Christ.24 According to Göschel, just as a monarchy actualizes itself only through the head of state, so humanity achieves an actual personality only when it is given a head (Christ), who himself is an individual.25 His claim here is incomparably more true than the claim of D. F. Strauss, who argues that the idea of Christ is not realized in an individual, but in the entirety of the human race.26 Despite their opposition, Göschel by no means captures the Christian belief concerning the person of Christ, humanity, and the communion of the faithful in their relation to Christ. The person of Christ, along with any personality, consists in the unity of mere individuality with what is communal in the same genus [Gattung]. In the case of Christ, that genus is divinity. As Christ is in himself, he is one of the divine persons. And just as every person is a mere individual for himself, so too is he a member of humanity. The higher concept of personality pertains precisely to the unity of the one with the communal, the individual with the entirety [Gattung]. Hence one cannot say that humanity arrives at actual personality through the fact that Christ is the head. Instead the individual achieves an actual personality in the communion of the entirety. In that 24  See The Christian Faith, #24. 25 Göschel, Beiträge zur spekulativen Philosophie, 61. 26  Strauss, The Life of Jesus, II, #148

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66  C   Faith and Rational Understanding Christ has assimilated the unity of both in his individuality alone, but has achieved the communal as a person in the community of the Father and the Holy Spirit, the unity itself has been elevated—one could even say that it has become more actualized. On this basis Christ has saved the entirety and therewith every individual. Conversely, the relation between the individual and Christ is mediated through her relation to the Church. The person is redeemed as an individual and will be saved, or her spirit will be saved, through her union with the whole, that is, through Christ’s Church. But the contrary is not possible because the whole is not the mathematical sum of individuals, but instead something higher and more aboriginal. Hence the individual cannot realize his relation to Christ immediately, and cannot determine his relation to the Church by means of his own relation. Scripture is decidedly opposed to this view, to say nothing of the fact that scripture does not tell of the beginning of humanity as a single individual but rather as a unity of man and woman, as a pair. It understands the first human as a whole, as a person in the higher sense, or as spirit. And this certainly applies when scripture connects the sin of the whole species to the first human. Thus Christ is situated as the one through whom the whole of humanity receives salvation. But this makes Christ the first to be saved no more than it makes Adam the first sinner, although Schleiermacher mistakenly claimed the latter as true (see Rom 5:12).27 In all of this one sees how deeply the second account of Christian supernaturalism penetrates into the essence of faith. For the second account bases its notion of faith on the doctrine of Christ himself and on his relation to the Church and to the individual. The foundation of the first account, the doctrine of original sin and its relation to salvation, binds itself closely to the second account of supernaturalism but does not exactly fall into the crosshairs of Christian faith, as does the second account. Alexandrian religious philosophy almost seamlessly wove the nonChristian (Greek wisdom), the pre-Christian ( Jewish revelation), and the Christian into one. Everything that sought to attach what was best in 27  The text of Romans 5:12 reads, “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all men sinned.”

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   67

itself to Christian faith was ascribed by Alexandrian religious philosophy to Christian consciousness. Thus the Alexandrians ran into the following danger: namely, outlining the universalism of Christian faith without thereby compromising Christianity’s unique essence or abandoning its deeper perception and foundation. The vantage point held dearly by the Alexandrians—if we want to compare it to the operation and the particularity of current Wissenschaft—to some degree falls outside the realm of theology and belongs more in religious philosophy. On another level the Alexandrians belong more to the sphere of apologetics, a designation that they try to put in the most positive light. But Christian dogmatics in the strict sense does not let itself be defined by this point of view. The Western, Augustinian supernaturalism is the one that has permeated more deeply into the essence of the Christian spirit, and is the true science of this spirit from its most inner core. Augustinian supernaturalism first put this science on its right path, and this science can be conducted only on the foundation of the Augustinian way. The faith that is known and that appears in science, following what has been said, is true, revealed, and ecclesial, and it can be nothing else. Only to the degree that known faith is this faith, is the science of faith true. Along the same line, to the degree that the science of faith deviates from the true, revealed, and ecclesial faith, it is false and objectionable. From the principles I outlined earlier—and now I repeat it—that “the unmediated faith in itself has no right to place itself above the mediating and mediated faith (faith known through reason), so long as it can boast in truth of no greater external foundation. Instead immediate faith must be inferior to [nachstehen] mediated faith. For it means more to know what one believes than to believe without knowing.”28 The pious basis of known faith is nothing other than the supernatural truth and certainty of faith. And this faith is prior to all knowing and independent of all science—it is the true, revealed, ecclesial faith. That which is added to known faith, and that by which we want to vindicate this faith, is only that it is simply a known faith developed dialectically and known in the universality and necessity of the concept. There are empirical and subjective moments when unmediated 28 Kuhn, Das Leben Jesu, 438.

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68  C   Faith and Rational Understanding faith of any given individual seems to be forced. Aside from these moments, immediate faith does not possess the moments of truth and certainty essential to faith like a Gnostic or speculative unity of knowledge. Instead, these moments of truth are separate and differentiated from one another. Immediate faith comprehends the content of faith as something true, and immediate faith incorporates the content of faith into the consciousness of faith as something certain. Truth and certainty are not different elements, but rather different moments that constitute one and the same spiritual action [Geistesakt].29 Thus this union is always different from that unity of knowledge in which truth and certainty merge into one another and lack all difference. In this fact alone consists the advantage of known [gewusster] faith above the merely conscious [bewusster] or unmediated faith (see the beginning of the essay). One cannot attain this known faith in something else, or without acknowledging the presupposition of the pious foundation. Regarding the decisive (practical) relation to the salvation of humanity, it would be an especially grave mistake if one attributed to unmediated faith a lesser force or importance. The faith that saves is always unmediated faith. Those who develop their faith in a speculative manner do not obtain life on this basis. On the contrary, because one already believed before seeing and before knowing, one obtains life ( John 20:29).30 The fides salvifica is a simple, unmediated, divine-human activity. The Apostle describes it as follows: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Known faith, however, is the work of humanity, and although one receives this faith through the gracious elevation of his natural capacities, this does not make knowledge of faith any less of a natural activity. Theologians describe salvific faith as a supernatural capacity that results in the person being completely convinced of the truth that God has revealed and has given to believe through his Church. 29 In Jacobi und die Philosophie seiner Zeit, Kuhn makes a crucial distinction between elements and moments. He writes, “One understands element as something being and existing for itself. It differentiates itself from a moment in that the latter excludes the possibility of being for itself and is only something in another. For example, such properties in chemistry as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen are elements. The positive and negative in electricity are moments” (ibid., 417; tr.). 30  “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

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Faith and Rational Understanding  C   69

This faith is of supernatural power in two ways. First, by the degree that its content exceeds the natural capacity of the person; through it the person is elevated to the knowledge of such things, or to a knowledge of what he could never attain on his own (the supernatural truth of faith). Second, this faith is supernatural to the extent that the objective basis of firm conviction resides in the invisible and highest divine truth that simply excludes every doubt (the supernatural certainty of faith).31 Therefore we repeat what Anselm and Hugh of St. Victor have said, namely, that it is better to understand what one believes than to believe without understanding. This “better” relates neither to the meritum fidei [merit of faith]—which is the same for the person of simple faith as for the one who speculates—nor to the basis of truth or conviction regarding faith. These bases lie beyond understanding. And, as Aquinas expressly remarks, through their deduction and hardening from human understanding the meritum fidei is resolved. Instead, this “better” is merely used in regard to the lazy reason (neglentia in Anselm) of certain theologians who do not scale the ladder to understanding and thereby hinder others from so doing.

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31  On this point Kuhn quotes the Roman Catechism. (Tr.)

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The Precedence o f Fa i t h ov e r R e a s o n Einleitung in die Katholische Dogmatik

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(1859 ed., 252–68)

Twenty years separate this and the previous text on faith and reason. This selection comes from the 1859 Dogmatics, from which several of the following chapters derive. Kuhn’s concern here is to combat a movement in neoscholasticism that sought to translate the principle that faith precedes reason into a renewed understanding of philosophy as a handmaiden. One can see from the text below how easy it was for Kuhn’s fundamental theology to raise ire. The neo-scholastic zeal for a return to a thirteenthcentury relationship between sciences would seem to be the clearly preferred option. Kuhn, however, shows below how philosophy must be granted a certain autonomy for it to be a legitimate field of study. This argument did not commit Kuhn to a position wherein theology could be dissolved. Philosophy had its autonomy but could not attain the higher, theological truths absent the historical revelation privileged to theology. Nor was Kuhn naïve about the results that autonomous philosophy would yield. Kuhn lamented the direction of modern philosophy and saw it as largely wrong-headed. Kuhn’s criticism of Jakob Clemens catapulted him into a series of disputes that would eventually end his academic career. The text below, then, is an important bridge between his early and later theological disputes.

70

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W

Faith over Reason  C   71

C

e a c c e p t that there are two realms of higher truth—the realm of reason and the realm of immediate revelation. The reception and knowledge of the truth follows from the distinct principles of each of these realms. From here it becomes obvious that these two sciences come into relation with one another. The question that follows is: What kind of relation is it? What are the borders in which each science can operate so that their relation remains friendly and cooperative, and that conflict will be avoided? According to the usual explanation, philosophy has procured its reputation for the free and pure pursuit of reason [Vernunftforschung] on account of its self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, theology has obtained its status on the basis of possessing a higher truth. So theology inclines toward giving orders to philosophy, and to make positive truths the norm and measure of all truth. Philosophy, meanwhile, tends not to acknowledge truths that cannot be known through reason alone, therewith either excluding theology or rationalizing it. In other words, philosophy tends to reduce positive truth to what is already contained in reason. We must designate both tendencies as extravagant, overreaching, and impermissible according to the given presuppositions. Let us first address philosophy. Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, famously declared doubt to be the principle of investigation into truth. For Descartes, this doubt extends to everything given immediately (by this I mean what precedes speculative and contemplative thought). This includes the truths acquired through tradition, education, and sense experience. Descartes sought a foundation (which he found in the selfcertainty of the thinking mind [des denkenden Geistes] that became his cogito ergo sum) for truth that would withstand every doubt. On this foundation Descartes wanted to construct an edifice of truth and of the knowledge of this truth. Such an edifice was to be of indestructible permanence and unshakable security. Such a notion of philosophy did not begin with Descartes. It is almost as old as philosophy itself and seems to be inseparable from the very concept of philosophy. Philosophy is capable of regarding itself as independent of any presupposition, experience, or authority. And its truths arise from

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72  C   Faith over Reason the knowledge realized through the sheer power of discursive reason. Philosophy thus sees itself as the science of the absolute lacking any presupposition. When philosophy sees itself in this manner it becomes the absolute science and the measure of all the others. As Aristotle says of philosophical theology or metaphysics, it is the philosophia prima, the head of all the sciences, which at the same time cannot contradict its maidservant.1 Philosophy submits to this presupposition and sees in it the accurate expression of its idea, namely, absolute, a priori knowledge. This presupposition is the πρῶτον ψεῦδος [first error] of philosophy, and the reason it necessarily drifts into pantheism. There is no absolute knowledge, no pure, absolute cognition of the truth that arises through mere thought. This is so because thought is not the source of truth but only the means of the cognition of truth. The starting point of all a priori philosophy is purely fictitious. The philosophical extravagance outlined above has some bearing on theology. The corresponding extravagance of theology, at least in its contemporary form, lies less in an account of theology that is false in principle than in a certain haste to make conclusions based on its legitimacy visà-vis philosophy. Theology states that while philosophy is a rational science [Vernunftwissenschaft], theology itself possesses a higher truth. From this angle one is inclined to determine the relationship in the following manner: while philosophy aids faith on its way to knowledge [Erkenntnis] and science [Wissenschaft] (that is, it makes theology formally possible), theology directs knowledge [Wissen] toward a fullness of truth previously unknown to knowledge. Theology materially enriches philosophy and assists its completion. Insofar as philosophy has a priority over theology (as does reason before revelation), and so long as philosophy presumes this priority and it is a necessary presupposition for it, philosophy will remain self-sufficient and independent. But let us reflect for a moment on the fact that self-sufficient philosophy is limited to the scanty and fluctuating foundation of the truths known through reason, whereas theology stands on a richer, deeper, and more certain content about God and the divine realities, which are known through divine revelation and are immediately given. When taking this into account, one is justified in believing that theol1 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book VI, vii; Metaphysics, Book II, ii.

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Faith over Reason  C   73

ogy is the queen science and philosophy the handmaiden trailing behind. And in the framework outlined in this paragraph, such a claim does not mean that theology cancels [aufheben] or destroys philosophy. It takes little effort to perceive the prematurity and impetuousness of such corollaries, since the pious zeal and verve for the “saintly science” [die heilige Wissenschaft] eagerly makes such conclusions. And from theology’s purview, these conclusions appear to be easily justifiable. However, some propose with the most demure circumspection that only philosophy can establish the possibility of a realm of truth outside of reason and of common experience, and only philosophy can prove the reliability and rationality of the theological principle of knowledge (the faith in authority). They further conjecture that theology comes to be a science only through philosophy. They say all this and still hold to the saying: philosophiam esse theologiae ancillaim [philosophy is the handmaiden of theology].2 When this happens one can hardly unpack all of the confusion and inconsistency. For this saying is irreconcilable with the previous claims because it does not apply in general to the relation between theology and philosophy, but only to theology’s use of philosophy in matters of religion. In this specific relation the saying is true and undoubtedly the corollary of the following principle of theological (dogmatic) science: fides praecedit intellectum [faith precedes intellect]. How can philosophy, if it is not fully sufficient and does not operate independently on its own foundation and terrain (both materially and formally), render to theology the aforementioned service? How does theology benefit through the service of a science that is dependent on it? How does one reconcile the proof of the fact of supernatural revelation, the rationality of faith, and the cohesiveness of the theological science? Maybe philosophy should—as a doctrine of cognition—claim independence from theology and should receive these commands and doctrines only as a science of content and as a metaphysics? As a mere formal philosophy, it cannot serve theology in the manner expected, but only as a science of rational truth. 2  See Jakob Clemens, “Unsere Standpunkt in der Philosophie” [Our Position Regarding Philosophy], in Der Katholik 39 (1859).

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74  C   Faith over Reason Perhaps we can imagine philosophy independently preparing the way for theology only to abandon itself and die off? We can fathom it doing so for the sake of an entirely other, richer, and more glorious science that resurrects itself as a philosophy of faith, and begins a new life. Let us take for a minute the human mind, and individual reason. Why can and should philosophizing reason and philosophy itself not arrive at these truths? One could say: philosophy is truly a queen, but nothing prevents her from converting and becoming a Christian. Or one can make a shift and declare—along with the second-century apologists—that all truth and all philosophy, provided it be true, witnesses the divine Logos that reveals itself in humanity. All such philosophy cancels the dualism between reason and revelation, and between philosophy and theology, to theology’s benefit. Such a shift would mirror rationalism, but rationalism does so to the benefit of philosophy. But let us now seek the true relation between the two. We should begin with what the two have in common, namely, the knowledge of God and of divine realities. Next we should ponder how the two differ, namely, in the source of truth particular to each and in the principles that determine how they arrive at this knowledge. Philosophical knowledge is derived from the worldview that includes the spirit and its historical manifestation. Philosophy does not consider anything true that does not stand the test of discursive rationality [denkende Vernunft]. Theology arrives at its truths through immediate divine revelation, and it considers divinely revealed whatever is manifested and pronounced through the organs of divine revelation. Its cognitional principle is not reason, but the authority of the prophets and apostles, and later, the teaching Church. One attains the truth professed by philosophy through mere reason, whereas theology acknowledges as true what lies above reason, and what avails itself to theology. Therefore it refers to such truths as supra-rational [übervernünftig]. The truths with which both sciences concern themselves are not merely truths that correspond. To a certain degree they together construct a whole, the divine truth. One part of this truth flows from the natural (mediated) divine revelation, another part from the supernatural (immediate) revelation. If we locate ourselves within the standpoint of objective, pure reason—to which philosophizing reason strives—philosophical truth

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Faith over Reason  C   75

must co-exist in the most complete harmony with the theological. There can be no discussion of a contradiction between the two. One can hardly interpret philosophically the mere excess of revelation beyond reason as a contradiction. Likewise, the observation of a given object with the naked eye contradicts the bespectacled observation of the same object only in the sense that the bespectacled observer is able to perceive the object more fully, more clearly, and with greater determination. The opposition and contradiction, when and where these emerge between philosophy and theology, are only accidental. They lie in the subject receiving the truth, for he may consider something a truth of reason that is not a truth, or he may falsely understand and receive a revealed truth. When one says that the two sciences share a wealth of truths to which theology brings something new and unique, one envisages too extrinsically the material relation—which is communal and unifying—between the two. It would be better not to say that they share a truth with one another, although the two fields are unified [eins] in the truth. One can say for example that both teach the existence of God. This is true; however, the existence of God is not a truth consisting in itself, but only one side of the truth. The existence of God is an abstract concept; only in the union of the idea of God with the what of God [mit dem Was Gott ist] does this truth come about. Both teach the unity of God. Yet even this truth is an abstraction, a general determination to which the other must arrive in order to say how it is that God is one. Even pantheism is neither atheistic nor polytheistic; rather, it is simply pantheistic. But nobody would venture to say that pantheism shares with the theology the same truths concerning the existence and unity of God. By forgoing this way of thinking [Vorstellungsweise] for being too extrinsic and by resorting to our usual way of thinking, we want to make the following point: theological truth, defined in accordance with all angles of the truth, is a truth in itself complete and self-contained. Philosophical truth consists as a moment within this truth. We can also say that philosophical truth is general and abstract, whereas theological is a determinate and concrete truth. From this it in no way follows that philosophy does not exist self-sufficiently outside of or next to theology. For a truth that, like rational truths, comes to a fulfillment higher than philosophy’s true end can still

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76  C   Faith over Reason be an independent and sufficient truth, regardless of its being incomplete. Why should the following truth not be real and fruitful, namely that God is the creator and sustainer of all things, and he enters a personal relationship with the rational creature, and he is a benevolent father, provider, and just judge? Should it matter that such divine attributes do not have a more concrete quality that derives from the source of immediate revelation, such as the truth that God’s own Son appeared among us and is our savior? One should point out that human reason can, independent of (immediate) revelation, arrive at the knowledge that God is creator. Further, reason (the principle of philosophy) precedes faith, and is the real condition of faith (as Augustine writes, credere non possemus, nisi ratioles animas haberemus [We cannot believe unless we have a rational soul]. These points should remove any doubt concerning the self-sufficiency and independence of philosophy from theology. Philosophy is not only conceptually and essentially self-sufficient. It also shows itself wholly free from theology in regard to everything that it does. Some concede that theology as a science presupposes philosophy; without philosophy, it is argued, theology is not capable of justifying its necessity.3 Nor can theology show the rationality of its principle of obedience, wherein we surrender our reason to divine authority as an act of faith. In a similar vein, theology cannot combat the attacks and maneuvers of its opponent that are directed against the faith. It is equally unequipped, through principles of verisimilitude and analogy (which must be borrowed from the realm of rational cognition), to articulate and to bring nearer to understanding its own truths that transcend [übersteigen] reason. The previous paragraph shows the arguments from time immemorial for the use of rational cognition for matters of faith. Some Church Fathers label the service that philosophy lends to Christianity δουλεία [servitude]. By this the Church Fathers do not mean that philosophy depends on theology, but instead that it exercises self-sufficiency. Further, it is demanded that the two sciences be properly differentiated and that it be declared objectionable to mingle the two and let the one blend into the other. One cannot establish philosophy upon theology and the principles of author3  See the previously mentioned article by Clemens in Der Katholik.

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Faith over Reason  C   77

ity and faith, nor can one establish theology on philosophy and the principle of reason. It is clearly proclaimed that philosophy must not deem as its own phrases and concepts that one can demonstrate through reason or through rational [vernünftigen] experience. As a compensation for its service rendered to theology, we are told that philosophy receives its greatest power and security, its final development and completion, from the assistance and guidance of theology. Without the assistance of theology, philosophy is not able to traverse the limits of human reason (according to Francois Fenelon).4 Accordingly, only a theologian can be a complete philosopher and a reliable pioneer in the highest regions of the natural sciences. Further, he cannot be a complete philosopher without directing his gaze toward the supernatural order (which admittedly is possible only through faith) and acknowledging the connection, which in both orders [the natural and supernatural] binds the world with God and human thoughts with divine thoughts. If it is illicit to hold the opinion that theology as a science can be separated entirely from philosophy, it is even further from the mark to want to bring philosophy to its scientific completion without any regard for theology.5 We recognize in the preceding paragraph a clear contradiction within those premises. We are compelled to dismiss these claims as entirely impermissible, for we consider the premises to be founded on the concept and essence of philosophy. The finitude of human reason and the corresponding subjective limitations do not lead one to conclude that, in matters of the knowledge of God and the divine economy, what is highest and most complete, can be attained only through mere reason. Philosophizing reason, the more that it is truly self-conscious, will grant less room for the illusion that it has the final say about the truth and the knowledge 4  Fenelon (1651–1715) was a French bishop and contemporary of Jacques Bossuet. He exercised a significant influence on French theology and ecclesiastical life. (Tr.) 5  These thoughts are not at all original. Nor are they typical in German science. Instead they have been imported from France and Italy. In these countries there are a group of spirited theologians who love to impregnate philosophy with Christian ideas in order to make the Christian truth attractive in the name of reason and philosophy. One sees this in the book of Father Gratry, which has just been translated into German and has been received with the highest praise. Kuhn here is referring to the article in Der Katholik by Jakob Clemens. Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry (1805–72) was a prominent French theologian of Louis Bautain’s circle. The text to which Kuhn refers is most likely De la Connaissance de Dieu (2 vols., Paris, 1853). (Tr.)

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78  C   Faith over Reason of the truth. The same reason will carefully guard against ascribing to its results the qualities of exclusivity and completion. Just the opposite will take place: philosophizing reason will consider the realm of truth infinite and not to be exhausted by philosophy. Through this process, philosophy will open itself for every other teaching, including immediate divine revelation. By this we mean only that philosophy will not deny the possibility of such a revelation. It still remains to be asked: How does philosophy judge an actual divine revelation? What purpose can philosophy extract from such a revelation for the amplification and fortification of its own knowledge? Suppose, according to its own self-understanding, philosophy does not permit itself to recognize any claim or concept other than its own, or any claim that it cannot determine through its own activity of understanding [Verstandestätigkeit], reason, or rational experience. Then philosophy could neither enrich its content through revelation, nor sharpen or support its reasons for conviction [Überzeugungsgründe] based on the authority of revelation. This would imply that revelation could only anticipate the truths of reason. Revelation would be only an imparting [Mitteilung] of the truth that the human mind [Geist] “can achieve on its own.”6 Further, the human mind only needs to believe or acquiesce to the authority of that which mediates truth, until the mind finds this truth on its own, and bases it in its own reason. Let us suppose that one remains with the theological concept of revelation. The immediate impartation is the absolute and enduring condition needed to come into possession of this revelation. The reception of the given revelation through the authority of the organs of revelation is the final and deepest basis for the certitude of revelation. Philosophy has no access to revelation because philosophy relies solely on the authority of reason and its discursive knowledge [denkende Erkenntnis]. It should surprise nobody, then, that the claims for philosophy in the preceding paragraph, if they are to be maintained and practically implemented, necessarily give way to rationalism. 6 Kuhn puts this phrase in quotations though he does not indicate an author. The author is Lessing, whose ideas about development and revelation had long been of interest to Kuhn. The citation comes from #4 of Lessing’s Education of the Human Race. (Tr.)

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Faith over Reason  C   79

Another way for philosophy to make a judgment regarding the fact of proclaimed revelation is the test of facticity [Tatsächlichkeit]. Let us suppose that discursive reason [denkende Vernunft] were not only capable, by virtue of its principles, of knowing the possibility of an immediate divine revelation, but were also able to substantiate the witness of historical revelation as such, as well as the completion and fulfillment of this revelation in Christianity. What would this imply? Insofar as philosophy can and has been able to make this substantiation, it implies nothing more than that philosophy has grasped its capacity to concede the rationality of faith. For philosophy must remain at the gates of Christianity. She cannot enter because she cannot make faith into the principle of her knowledge. Reason is and must remain the principle of knowledge for philosophy. To say otherwise would mean dissolving [auflösen] the difference between revelation and reason, faith and knowledge, theology and philosophy. One would either have to cancel [aufheben] the principle of philosophy in pursuit of truth, which would be contradictory, or one would have to define revelation as the temporary anticipation of reason, and as a merely historical and popular disguise for rational truth. But doing so would contradict the notion of revelation and its reception as such from the vantage point of reason. On the other hand it appears impossible that reason—if it, as we have granted, acknowledges Christianity as in fact the final divine revelation—would then submit and faithfully profess to this revelation. It seems more likely that reason, finding its own resources sufficient, would prefer to withdraw. The unlikely scenario of reason’s submission only increases when reason is in position to obtain this knowledge from evidence gained through its own faculties. From this we can merely add that one can be directly illuminated by other factors: that discursive reason, as objective reason—that is, independent of all subjective influences and experiences—in no way knows [erkennen] revelation as a fact. Reason recognizes [erkennen] only the possibility of revelation. The apologetic proofs that we readily acknowledge and whose value we affirm are not solely philosophical, but also theological proofs in accord with the principle: fides quarens intellectum [faith seeking understanding]. These proofs start with faith and lead to the knowledge of faith: credo ut intelligam [I believe that I might understand]. Our opinion coincides with

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80  C   Faith over Reason the Christian teaching, according to which revelation is a supernatural impartation of God to the human mind. Its acceptance in faith and the power of eternal life made possible through faith is a divine grace. Humanity can go through this experience of life [Lebenserfahrung] only with God’s help. The Lord says: nobody comes to me; instead, we are pulled to the Father. When cognizing reason (i.e., philosophy) is active within Christianity, it accepts the Christian truths as given. It goes so far as to place itself in the position of faith. But philosophy does not perceive these truths fully or defend them in the same way that philosophy can defend its own truths. Because philosophy stands outside of the faith it is not able to provide an actual and purely philosophically rigorous proof for Christianity being the absolute revelation. Philosophy is not capable of replacing the supernatural motif of faith; it can only recognize reasons (motiva credibilitatis [a motive of credibility]) that safeguard the Christian faith as something rational while spurning the objections of the unbelievers. To put the matter succinctly: one cannot philosophize one’s way into Christianity. Since philosophy can rely only on reason and the authority of rational thought, it cannot accept anything in itself relatively, let alone absolutely extra-rationally [ausservernünftig]. Philosophy cannot accept anything authenticated by an authority other than that of the cognizing mind. Philosophy cannot accept experiences that lay claim to something beyond those made under normal circumstances, and on the basis of one’s healthy sense perception and reason. Historical faith can be a source of truth for philosophy only if it is mere rational faith. Under these conditions revealed faith cannot be a source of truth. Suppose philosophy relies on faith and cannot know truth through mere thought. Philosophy should not find it difficult to assimilate the revealed truth that—as we are justified to say from a theological standpoint—is given immediately to reason and leads philosophy further to its final goal. Moreover, suppose philosophy is able to arrive at knowledge solely through rational truth. Then revealed truth—at least according to philosophy—does not exist as truth at all times and places [überall] because philosophy does not create revealed truth from its own source. According to its principle, namely rational thought, it cannot prove the validity of revealed truth.

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Faith over Reason  C   81

Although one can easily observe the abstract quality of the discussion at hand, this quality does not derive from our judgment that philosophy is the objective rational cognition of the truth. For this is philosophy’s own notion of itself. Instead it is abstract insofar as we have left aside that objective reason is historical reason, it is reason in its historical development. By contrast, philosophizing reason is abandoned to the influences of the time period and the contemporary culture, and is born of these influences. Therefore philosophy bears in particular the imprint of Christian influence because Christianity has been the greatest cultural force of the past centuries, up to the present day. Does this reality not alter the relation of philosophy to theology? Do these historical circumstances not perhaps hold the solution to the dualism that we have maintained in the interest of both philosophy and theology?7 To this we answer: No! Philosophy can only adopt what is known through mere reason and is verifiable through rational thought. The entire treasure-chest of traditional truth has no more influence on philosophy than that of rational education on individual reason. If these truths mediated through education are in fact extra-rational [übervernünftig], then these truths, along with the purely rational truths, will rely on the authority of the teacher. Philosophy will then part ways, just as it did in coming into its own consciousness. Philosophy increasingly will regard as true only what it reaches through its own rational thinking. It will consider the authority of the teacher as a disposable crutch that can be discarded. On the other hand, for theology, as long as it wants to remain as such, the authority of the teacher (the teaching Church) must remain continually valid. Therefore reason, whose product is philosophy, is not abstractly natural, but rather historical. It is formed and educated through Christianity. If this is so then philosophy is still not Christian, as long as we thereby understand the truth content that is the body of Christian revelation. In the best case, this historical reason is that which, 7  The latest text from Jakob Frohschammer, Einleitung in die Philosophie [Introduction to Philosophy] (Munich: 1858), takes this position in a manner both stimulating and challenging. Frohschammer (1821–1893), a Catholic philosopher at Munich with whom Kuhn intermittently corresponded, fiercely upheld the autonomy of philosophy and became something of a rebel. He also faulted the Old Catholic movement headed by Ignaz von Döllinger for not going far enough. Rome excommunicated him in 1871. (Tr.)

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82  C   Faith over Reason through the force of reason alone, really proves and knows what is presupposed by revelation as rational truth. It is important to emphasize: in the best case. Take a look at the entirety of modern philosophy since Descartes. It pays no regard that its founder and initiator was shaped by the elements of a Christian education. With few exceptions, modern philosophy has taken a thoroughly anti-Christian position. It has unearthed an understanding of the Absolute as the authentically philosophical, though this understanding is diametrically opposed to the Christian understanding. Philosophical research is not limited to a view of nature as such. Under its purview there is also the realm of the spirit, and not merely the nature of the spirit, but also its historical development and activity. The immanent content of reason or the idea of the Absolute is the point of departure for philosophy and the object of its knowledge nearest to philosophizing reason. By this we do not mean the idea of reason according to its subjective appearance in the philosophizing subject itself, but rather the idea that announces itself with general conviction, where this idea seeks to know and to demonstrate what is objectively, universally, and eternally valid. Therefore the historical religions, including Christianity, lie in the realm of philosophy’s consideration to the degree that they have a purely natural side and belong to the historical development of the human spirit. On the other side there is the unchangeable and constant book in which God has written of himself. Against this book the subjective as well as the historical idea of the Absolute is readily tested, and the objective truth is known and therefore demonstrated.8 Such is philosophy in the highest sense, the truly concrete philosophy. One can also call it a positive and Christian philosophy. It is positive by recognizing in the idea of the spirit a positive content that precedes the thinking that reflects and speculates, and through which philosophy comes into its own.9 It is Christian in that it finds this content manifested most purely and completely in Christianity. 8  One can also say that the content of the idea (the immediate consciousness) is also the material that continually feeds into speculative thought, which finds its objective support in the rational contemplation of the world [Weltbetrachtung]. Hence the content is brought to knowledge, protected, and made certain by this speculative thought. 9 If philosophy understands itself correctly, its task cannot be as Kant formulated it: “How can the Absolute be known a priori?” Instead it should be: what does it mean to know the truth? It

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Faith over Reason  C   83

This concrete philosophy is not the highest on the basis of its truthcontent being uniquely Christian. Instead it is the highest because of the pure rational content that it presupposes to be the completed revelation of the Spirit of God. Even this philosophy cannot pretend to conceive and know the Christian truth on the basis of its own standpoint of pure rational knowledge. Nor can it pretend to have sublated [aufheben] the tension [Gegensatz] between faith and knowledge (that is, theology and philosophy) into a unity. The objective dualism between faith and knowledge remains, as does that between reason and revelation. This dualism cannot and should not be solved, either by sublating revelation into reason, or by sublating the knowledge of revelation’s truth (theology) into rational knowledge (philosophy). The higher identity (not the unity) of the two consists in reason presupposing revelation, and recognizing its own truth as the general truth of revelation. On the other hand revelation must be conceived as the completion of reason and its truth as the concretum of rational truth.

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is a precarious, subjective presupposition to say that philosophy should be a priori knowledge, and philosophy must free itself from this presupposition.

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The Finality of C h r i s t i a n R e v e l at i o n Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik

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(1846 ed., 99–118)

This selection comes from Kuhn’s first edition of the Dogmatics, which he would revise after returning from his foray into the state legislature. Kuhn employs here a familiar trope by placing his own argument within two extremes. In this case it concerns a fundamental Enlightenment critique of Christianity: that biblical revelation is by no means final. The opposite claim says that firstcentury Christianity achieved an apotheosis in understanding the revelatory message of Jesus, and that there can be no progress in this understanding. The passage below is one of the clearest examples of how Kuhn worked through the problem of making theology intellectually legitimate without eradicating its fundament. In making this argument Kuhn returned to the debates in biblical hermeneutics that shaped his earlier biblical scholarship. He also addressed the major tenets in Protestantism that attempted to either modify Christianity to make it relevant, or legitimate a biblicism that saw any development as a corrupting force. It is noteworthy that in the middle of the nineteenth century one can find a Catholic who understands the fundamental positions in Protestant thought and who argues persuasively that the Catholic position is the most intellectually feasible.

84

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Christian Revelation  C   85

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T

C

h e s i s : The truth of revelation is not capable of increasing or being purified; however, it is capable of development and mediation through human thought and knowledge. One sees such a development in the Catholic formation of dogma, which is the objective dialectic of the Christian faith. Since New Testament revelation is doubtlessly further along than Old Testament revelation, one might suppose that New Testament revelation could move in another direction. At the very least such a notion should not be dismissed out of hand. If the opinion were simply that the human mind [Geist] performs the task of advancing revealed truth, then such an opinion would need to be jettisoned because it would contradict the concept and essence of revelation. Revelation progresses inwardly and independently from the continual insights of the human mind that expands and corrects itself. As soon as this is understood, then one cannot argue from the concept of revelation. Instead it must be understood from its content and final purpose, whether revelation has come to its end in Christianity, or whether it is still approaching this end. According to its real [reellen] side, divine revelation desires the complete unification of the divine and the human;1 stated negatively, it seeks to sublate the separation caused by sin. According to its ideal side, it wants complete religious truth and understanding. To put it negatively, it seeks to sublate the mind’s blindness to God precipitated through sin. From the outset we see divine revelation head toward these ends and draw ever more closely around itself the circle at whose middle-point stands the Christ foretold in the proto-Gospel.2 This entire process has come to an end with Christ, in whom that metaphysical and moral unification has been completely realized, and in whom lives the most complete 1 Kuhn borrows the language of the real and ideal sides of a given reality from Idealism, especially Schelling. To take an example: suppose one wanted to explain the phenomenon of human language. The real side would find this reality to consist in the physical activities, the movement of the vocal cords, the sound waves traveling through space. The ideal side would see the reality of language in the transaction of the “inner word” or the communication of an idea that could not be reduced to chemical equations or physical measurements. (Tr.) 2 Kuhn likely means here the Old Testament and inter-testamental writings. (Tr.)

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86  C   Christian Revelation

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God-consciousness. Therefore his word is the culmination of all divine revelation. Even the Neologists, notes David Friedrich Strauss,3 recognize the Christian revelation, which, as the New Testament itself claims, consists in what is final, highest, and self-contained in Christian consciousness. Everything prior functions as a preparation for Christ, who fulfills the promise. Moreover, what is given to humanity in Christ’s person (in whom the fullness of divinity resides by nature) and his teaching cannot be objectively surpassed by anything. Any further progress can be only subjective, that is, in the human appropriation of the gift offered in Christ (Eph 4:13ff.). If one denies this claim, one either anticipates the true Christ in the future ( Judaism), or disputes whether a historical person can be the Christ (heathenism [Ethnicismus]). Even those who, like Mani, pretend to be the Paraclete, would have to acknowledge the truth of John 16:13–14,4 and would have to concede to draw on Christ’s consciousness.5 However, all salvation is in Christ alone (Acts 4:12) as well as all salvific truth. No other foundation can be laid than the foundation of Christ (1 Cor 3:11), who is the way, the truth, and the life ( John 14:6). One could say that the religion of Christ is complete but in its initial transmission it was strongly commingled with Jewish elements.6 Therefore 3  See Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre [The Christian Faith] I, 254. Both volumes were published in 1840, and it has not been translated into English. The selfproclaimed “Neologists” sought out a harmony between biblical revelation and modern reason, but often at the expense of the former. They criticized such doctrines as original sin, the Trinity, and belief in hell. Neologism frequently led to rationalism, and often tended to want to reduce Christianity to a natural religion. Lessing was a frequent and decisive critic of their program. (Tr.) 4  The passage reads: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (Tr.) 5  We Christians have no new revelations to expect after Christ. The Magisterium of the Holy Spirit does not exist for the mediation of such truths, but simply for the preservation of the truth from Christ mediated by his apostles, and for the initiation into these truths. As Bellarmine says in the Disputatio de Verbo Dei, book IV, 9: “Nothing is (a truth given) by faith unless God has revealed it through the Apostles or the prophets, or it is evidently deduced from this source. For the Church is not ruled by new revelations, but it persists in those truths that are handed down by ministers of the word [Luke 1:2]. Hence it says, ‘the household of God is built upon the foundations of the apostles and the prophets’” (Eph 2:20). Therefore we should correct Franz Anton Staudenmaier when he says that the Holy Spirit as the principle of truth not only receives the divine Word proceeding from Christ, but also creates [erzeugen] truths ever anew through continual inspiration (see his Die christliche Dogmatik [Freiburg, 1844–52, 4 vols.], I, 19). 6  See, for instance, Christian Friedrich Böhme, Die Religion Jesu Christi [The Religion of

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Christian Revelation  C   87

Christianity would need to be liberated through a critical process of excision, and, through scholarship [Wissenschaft], brought back to its original purity. According to this theory, Christ would indeed be full of the divine spirit, but his followers on the other hand would be wholly exposed as lacking this spirit. Jesus, the so highly regarded divine master, would not have gone to the trouble or been in the position to disabuse his followers from the prejudices of their time and of their culture [Volkes]. In order to overlook these blatant contradictions, rationalism would have to devolve into exposing the wholesale thoughtlessness of the entirety. This position is untenable from another angle as well. If one compares the teachings of Christ with those of his apostles, at least as they stand in the scriptures, one would quickly see that the most provocative passages—the ones that, considered in light of Enlightenment rationalism appear to display Jewish prejudices—include both the utterances of the Apostle and the speeches of Jesus, and appear most often in the mouth of the latter. Therefore one regards it as necessary to apply the distinction already articulated of “complete” and “incomplete” to what was originally Christian. In considering the words of Jesus and the apostles, one must distinguish between teaching [Lehre] and manner of teaching [Lehrart].7 The words of Jesus are complete, and the words of the apostles should be explained, as representative of their time and place and therefore incomplete, limited, and for the layman. However much we consider the sentiment of the previous paragraph as an improvement over the earlier articulation (or perhaps we regard the latter sentiment as a regression since they are so much later), the latter sentiment coincides perfectly—both in principle and in its result— with the earlier sentiment. In both cases human reason serves as the judge of revealed truth, and revealed truth is denigrated to the status of being a residue of mere rational truth. The Christian teaching is preserved as a divine teaching in name only. One no longer devotes oneself faithfully to Jesus Christ] (Halle, 1829). The Gnostics had already made such a claim in the second century, as Irenaeus pointed out (Against the Heretics, III, 2). 7  Semler does this in a variety of places. See, for instance, Bemerkungen zu Kiddels Abhandlung von der Eingebung der Schrift (Remarks on Kiddel’s Treatise Concerning the Inspiration of Scripture]. See also Teller, Die Religion der Vollkommenern [The Religion of the Perfected] and Lessing, Education of the Human Race.

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88  C   Christian Revelation Christ, the divine mediator for all times, but instead to the human spirit. At best Christ deserves merit [Verdienst] for first establishing and bringing to consciousness the pure truths of reason at which humanity would have eventually arrived. The merit for this achievement is further diminished when one opines that Christ wrapped the pure content of reason in a garb particular to the time period and culture, and left it to posterity to extract the essential element [Kern] from the exterior. If, as is the opinion, no time period possesses the content of religious consciousness in a complete form that is totally adequate, and this can be achieved only in the course of time, then Christ is relegated to being the highest medium [Organ] in his own time for the religious spirit weaving through humanity. Consequently, it is nothing but superstition to revere Jesus as a religious hero (pardon the word!) for all times, or to regard him as the divine genius of humanity. For, according to David Friedrich Strauss, what is highest in terms of religion does not arrive through a particular person at a certain time, but through humanity itself in the course of all time.8 This is the conclusion that follows from rationalism in general and from the force of its consequences. Ultimate or so-called speculative rationalism proceeds from the same consequences. According to this sort of rationalism, Christianity is at its origins still incomplete. The idea that Christ set into motion, that at the outset appears to be limited and bound, and that lies at the basis of Christianity, can only gradually be laid out in the process of the idea’s development, and thus liberated from its limitations. According to Schelling, the first books of history and the teachings of Christianity are nothing other than a particular and therefore incomplete appearance of Christianity.9 The idea of Christianity is not to be sought for in these books, whose worth must be determined according to the degree in which they express and measure up to the idea. Hegel maintains that the biblical text contains the manner [Weise] of the first appearance of Chris8  See Strauss, Glaubenslehre I, 264 and in the conclusion of The Life of Jesus, II, #148. Kuhn’s citation does not correspond to the translation of the fourth edition by George Eliot: The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, ed. Peter Hodgson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972). The first edition was published in 1835, the fourth edition in 1840. (Tr.) 9  Schelling, Vorlesungen über die Methode, 197. (It is not clear which edition Kuhn cites, but the citation is likely from the ninth or tenth lecture. For an English translation see On University Studies, trans. E. S. Morgan [Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966]. Tr.)

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Christian Revelation  C   89

tianity.10 Further the text does not yet contain in a very express manner what abides in the very principle of Christianity, but only an inclination of this principle. What the Christian, self-revealing spirit is in and of itself does not emerge at the beginning. One must not confuse the origin, the immediate existence of the first appearance with what Christianity is in and of itself, according to its concept [Begriff].11 Writes Hegel, “One can almost say that if one follows Christianity back to its first appearance it will be reduced to the level of spiritlessness [Geistlosigkeit].”12 In a certain sense it is of course true that the beginning is incomplete, but Hegel’s claim is far from being universally valid. Later we will distinguish what is true from what is false in the previous paragraph. We should mention that this position overlooks entirely the fact that Christianity does not declare itself as something entirely new that sets out a fresh course, but instead as the completion of Old Testament revelation and of a history and instruction that stretches back to the cradle of humanity. The Hegelians also fail to take into account that, because it does not arise from human cognitive activity [Erkenntnistätigkeit], revelation should not be confused or seen in the same way as this activity. In the realm of human activity there is nothing of which one could say without reservation: it is the non plus ultra; however advanced the spirit of a time or person may be, another time or another individual may rise above it. Suppose that the rational consciousness of God receives its essential content with the existence of reason, and thus is not capable of any advance and purification.13 If this is true then one is free to regard reason itself is a self-completing potency—both in individual people and in humanity as a whole—that gradually develops. Therefore the knowledge of God is something that can develop. One could only talk of a development of the content of revelation 10 Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 3, 111. Kuhn does not cite an edition. The third volume can be found in volume 20 of Hegel’s Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Werkausgabe, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Michel (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970). For an English translation see Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 3 vols. (Tr.) 11 Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, 574. Again, Kuhn gives no further bibliography, but it is likely that he is referring to the section in The Phenomenology of Spirit titled: “Revealed Religion.” (Tr.) 12 Hegel, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 3, 111. 13 Kuhn discusses this point in an earlier chapter of the Einleitung. (Tr.)

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90  C   Christian Revelation

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if this content were bound by the development and formation of human reason, as they portray the adoption of this content of human consciousness and its fusion through rational thought. Absolute rationalism does not from its own position recognize the difference between the human spirit and the divine Spirit and their differing manifestations as we have presented them here. To the contrary, the rationalists assert essential unity of the two, and that so-called divine revelation is woven into the human spirit’s infinite process of perfectibility. Therein lies the falsity of their position, which leads to its inability, in matters of religion, to reach the right verdict. Both natural and revealed religion simply presuppose an opposing principle regarding the relationship between the human and divine spirit. Although the rationalistic way of thinking may be unjustified, in purporting the human spirit’s progression, such a claim about this spirit as it relates to revelation still contains an undeniable truth. For this progression does not move to a different content that is more comprehensive or purer, but instead it is an advance to a more complete development of its content. Scripture itself admonishes the faithful to grow more and more in their understanding of the divine truth (1 Cor 3:1ff.; Eph 4:13; Col 1:10–11; 2 Pet 3:18). A progression in this sense, the immediate result of which is a formal advance in itself, has not only been permitted by the Christian Church, but even supported and demanded. According to Vincent of Lerins, (The apostle Timothy says), “Keep the deposit;” preserve the talent of the Catholic faith inviolate and unadulterated. [.....] If the divine gift has qualified you by wit, skill, and learning, then be a Bezalel of the spiritual tabernacle (Exod 31:2), engrave the precious gems of divine doctrine, fit them in accurately, adorn them skillfully, add splendor, grace, beauty. Let that which formerly was believed, though imperfectly apprehended as expounded by you, be clearly understood. Let posterity welcome, understood through your exposition, what antiquity venerated without understanding. Yet teach still the same truths which you have learned, so that, although you speak according to a new fashion, what you speak may not be new.14

One admits the profectus religionis [progress of religion] and disbands with the permutatio [change]: “For progress requires that the subject be 14  Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 22. The translation has been slightly altered from The Commonitory of Vincent of Lerins, trans. C. A. Heurtley, NPNF Second Series, vol. 11 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 147. (Tr.)

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Christian Revelation  C   91

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enlarged in itself; change, that it be transformed into something else.”15 Vincent illustrates the development demanded of the original Christian [urchristlich] content by comparing this content with the gradual development of the human body. Is not the difference between the physical state of a child and that of an adult quite large? But the child does not have fewer limbs, nor is it an essentially narrower, diminished organism. And even if individual members who belong to the essence of the human organism first emerge in the later years, they already exist in their earliest years as human in their seed (seminis ratione). Every other development, be it in excess or in deficiency, is abnormal or even wasteful. According to this law of development, Christian dogma should continually augment itself and become more secure and more spiritual while remaining undamaged and unsullied.16 The Old-Protestant tendency was to overlook the understanding of Christian faith as it was increasingly promoted by the Church and its agents over the centuries.17 Their tendency was simply to reduce everything to the position of primitive Christianity [Urchristentum], to refer all that is new to the scriptures, and to neglect the great achievement of the brightest and most gifted expositors in the exegesis and comprehending of scriptural content. This regressive tendency, which the rationalistic sons of the Reformation (who are so unlike their fathers) use to indict Catholicism, is as unnatural as it is spiritless and ungrateful. About this Schelling comments accurately: To the operations of the new “Enlightenment” [Aufklärerei .....] (if one can call it this, since it so often contradicts the real Enlightenment [Aufklärung])18 belongs in any case also the pretense that Christianity returns, as they say, to its original/ primitive sense, to its first simplicity, in which form is also called the original or primitive Christianity. One should think that teachers of the Christian religion must have known, thanks to later times, that they have pulled so much speculative matter from the meager content of the first religious books and have developed this into a system.19 15 Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 23. 16 Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 29. 17 A long footnote on the Old Protestants has been omitted. (Tr.) 18  The parenthetical comment is Kuhn’s, not Schelling’s. (Tr.) 19  Friedrich Schelling, Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studiums [Lectures on the Method of Academic Study], ninth lecture (SW V, 301). The English translation, On University Studies, trans. E. S. Morgan (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966), has not been consulted. The lecture in question strongly rebukes the Kantian reduction of Christianity to the ethical sphere. (Tr.)

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92  C   Christian Revelation Neo-Protestant rationalism exceeds this truth to the same degree that Old-Protestant supernaturalism lags behind this truth.20 Only Catholicism knows the measure and end in that it takes the correct mean between the two extremes. Along with Vincent of Lerins,21 Catholicism requires a profectus religionis that fights against both irrationalism and the permutatio required by rationalism. Catholicism maintains the substantial completeness and unchangeability of the original religious consciousness without denying progress in the understanding and development of religion. For this reason Catholicism suffers opposing rebukes: rationalism accuses Catholicism of irrational supernaturalism, and irrational supernaturalism accuses Catholicism of rationalism. The second rebuke has a simple logic: the Old-Protestant supernaturalists believe that every profectus [progress] is connected necessarily with a permutatio, a material change or a falsification of the substance of faith through human wisdom; they regard the development and progression [Ausbildung] of Christian doctrine as a contamination of earlier Church doctrine. They consider it an expansion through human opinions and estimations [Satzungen]. The rationalists proceed from the same false premises. They posit that the progress demanded by them, which disregards the original revelation and attacks its very essence, is discarded in the Catholic system. For the Catholic system permits a movement only within revealed doctrine. Hence they reproach the Catholic system for its stagnation and lack of true progress. Old-Protestant supernaturalism’s polemic against Catholicism does not attract any academic interest. On the other hand, it is important to investigate the principles from which rationalism advocates a necessary departure from Catholicism. At first this is only a departure from the portrayal of revelation in the Bible. On second glance, however, it departs from revelation itself, and therefore from Christ. For Semler, it is not as though the Bible 20  Both relate together interiorly as cause and effect. The withholding of the right of reason in relation to revelation necessarily led to injustice done to reason—this is rationalism. Now this injustice to reason is exhausted to its final consequence in the form of absolute rationalism. Not only does this reason remove revealed, positive religion, but all religion, so that one finally changes one’s ways in the face of this atrocious poverty [Verwüstung]. One does not turn to the earlier way, which leads to this abyss that devours all religion and morality, but to the older, ecclesial path, that one never should have abandoned. 21  See Commonitorium, 27, cited above.

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Christian Revelation  C   93

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contains a fixed, unwavering description of Christian truths or concepts such that only one unique representation should and must offer the permanently valid representation of these truths.22 Further, if divine inspiration has not been able to alter the otherwise natural manner of representing done by the authors of sacred scripture, then all of their expressions are human expressions [Wörte] that can and must be insufficient, vague, and unsuitable. For posterity, suppose that the new spiritual concepts given by Christianity are infinite and should be morally suited and used for all human beings who will become Christian in the course of time. If this is so, according to Semler, “Then there have never been words that could contain the complete range of the uncontainable development of these concepts.”23 Certainly one cannot deny that, as the absolute truth, Christian revelation contains an infinite capacity for development, and that it has the capability to be appropriate for people of all ages and levels of education. Even so, the argument that it is impossible to express the entirety of its content through words is an unfounded corollary. It is also rash to argue for the necessity—not merely of an always developing and more distinct form of expression—but for the necessity of an improved [fortschreitend] continuation and expression of the original presentation of the same thing. If Christian truth were such that it could be grasped only partially and incom22  One can find a rather complete outline of Semler’s and later rationalists’ views concerning this topic in Eduard Zeller’s “Abhandlung über die Perfectibilität des Christentums” [Discourse on the Perfectability of Christianity], in Theologische Jahrbücher [Theological review] 1 (1842). The only reference that seems to match Kuhn’s footnote is a book by Heinrich Corodi, Etwas über das Buch Esther, als Anhang zu Kiddels Abhandlung von der Eingebung der Schrift; mit Zusätzen von Dr. J. S. Semler [Concerning the Book of Esther as an Addendum to Kiddel’s Treatise on the Inspiration of Scripture with a Supplement by Dr. J. S. Semler] (Halle, 1783), vol. 2, 150. Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791) was a prominent Lutheran theologian and well-known rationalist in Halle. Eduard Zeller (1814–1908) was a Hegelian who taught briefly in Tübingen in the 1840s, where he and F. C. Baur co-founded the aforementioned journal in 1842. (Tr.) 23  See Zeller, “Abhandlung,” 15. These truths have not become archaic, but always newly ignited insertions. This, for instance, is what Schelling says about ecclesial dogmas, including openly the biblical presentations, that they correspond to the scientific consciousness of their time, but they cannot be definitive for all times. (See my essay, “Die Schelling’sche Philosophie und ihr Verhältniss zum Christentum” [The Schellingian Philosophy and Its Relation to Christianity] in Theologische Quartalschrift (1845): 15. Kuhn wrote three highly critical essays concerning Schelling between 1844 and 1845. For an argument about the place of these essays within Kuhn’s wider appreciation of Schelling, see my Answering the Enlightenment, 122–26. (Tr.)

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94  C   Christian Revelation pletely, then it would not be the revealed truth. It would only partially and incompletely, which is to say, not at all, fulfill its purpose to imbue human beings with joy [beseligen]. If the truth and belief in this revelation really imbues human beings with joy, then only the whole truth absent any falsity would be able to do this, only a complete faith, free of any superstition could effect this. Christian truth is not so construed because it is not the absolute truth in the absolute sense, that is, the essence of this truth is not identical to the rational knowledge [Wissen] of God: instead it is the truth from God to humans through humans, namely through the person of Christ. Concerning this kind of truth, one can claim without any contradiction that it is never capable of being presented and expressed entirely and purely. From the infinite capacity for Christian truth to develop there follows only an infinitely pluriform presentability [Vorstellbarkeit] of this truth, a presentability not merely according to general consciousness, but also according to philosophical thinking and of all intermediate stages that lie between the general and the philosophical. Due to the nature of this presentability for humans of all times and capacities, it follows that as humanity elevates itself to a higher and more universal spiritual education, there must correspond a form of the presenting and expressing revelation that is more developed, universal, and pure. It should be noted that rationalism is not entirely earnest when it ascribes an infinite content to Christianity’s spiritual ideas. Instead it says that everything should be attributed to the human spirit on account of the claims concerning a never-ending development. The human spirit, so it goes, is capable of an infinite perfection. Hence divinity itself can mediate an absolutely complete knowledge only if the divinity would transform a finite spirit into an infinite spirit, or would forcefully prevent the human spirit from further development.24 That is the clear goal of Semler’s rationalism, which is defined in an 24  For this see Krug, Briefe über die Perfectibilität der geoffenbarten Religion [Letters on the Perfectibility of Revealed Religion] ( Jena, 1795); quoted in Strauss, Glaubenslehre, I, 261; see also Zeller, “Abhandlung,” 21. Wilhelm Traugott Krug (1770–1842) was a philosopher and prolific writer who taught at a variety of universities, including Leipzig. (Tr.)

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Christian Revelation  C   95

amorphous and still very incomplete manner. Semler’s attack on Christianity is twofold: at first it says that, insofar as he is human, Christ’s divine consciousness could not possibly have been an absolute consciousness. In addition, it says that the teaching Christ gave to his followers—which was then recorded and spread by them—could not possibly be flawless, since these disciples were in every case purely human. For us the importance here lies in the claim about the disciples because a discussion about the person of Christ belongs to dogmatic theology.25 Concerning the disciples, we should recall what was briefly stated above, that revealed truth is not truth in the absolute sense, nor is it knowledge of the divine essence, which would be identical with having God’s own knowledge. Instead revealed truth lies above human reason, for it did not arise within human reason. Still, that does not mean that knowledge of the divine is incompatible with human reason, and could therefore be mediated and understood only by eliminating reason. If revealed knowledge were absolute, it could be mediated to human beings only if its essence were transformed from finite to infinite, or if humans were hypostatically intertwined with it. In other words, the person would have to be made equal with God or Christ. But if the knowledge of the divine is not like this, then we should not raise the preceding objection against its being mediated to human beings. Revealed truth shows itself as an absolute truth for us on account of its extending human reason beyond its own boundaries, and teaching people of realities that would never be experienced through reason. By appearing as an extension of rational insight [Vernunfteinsicht], and by not making a claim that would find no point of contact in human reason, revelation can be communicated to the human being. But revelation cannot be capable of improvement. One can admit of an addition to and a purification of revelation through reason only when one does not truly understand the concept of revelation, or when one denies that revelation has a source of truth external to and independent of reason. Still, there is an infinite progress in the knowledge [Erkenntnis] of revealed truth, and this progress will be won by the human being who always progresses in the development of his rea25 Kuhn would treat dogmatic theology proper in the later edition of his Dogmatik. (Tr.)

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96  C   Christian Revelation son and by expanding and purifying his rational understanding [Wissen]. That the human being progresses in the truth does not hinder revelation’s status as absolute truth. Much to the contrary, this progress is a most powerful force and an impressive display. The more comprehensive and purer the human insights, and in particular the more complete his rational knowledge [Vernunfterkenntnis], then all the more will he penetrate into and understand revealed truth. The more he understands it, then his own essence and reason will become all the more translucent to him, and his own worldly knowledge [Wissen] will all the more deeply be substantiated. In this manner he can “employ the mediated knowledge of what is new to reaching higher insights” without bringing revelation into danger of being made subservient to human beings, and without its content being enriched or purified. Therefore we need the human being in order to preserve [salviren] revelation as absolute truth, and we need not hinder the human being from progressing as far as he can in his spiritual perfection. Instead, one must implore him to spiritual perfection so that revelation becomes for him everything that it can and should become. For rationalism, however, revelation serves to accompany the human being through his learning and travel, and to guide him toward spiritual maturity [Mündigkeit] and development. Since revelation has the particular task of orienting the person—depending on his given need and his spiritual abilities—to this end, revelation could not possibly be complete in any absolute sense.26 We have absolutely no intention of disputing the notion that revelation spiritually educates humanity. Still, how should one imagine this spiritual education? Must the educator give away [vergeben] something of the truth known by him? Or should the educator dispense with such truth only by making this truth present, by proving it to the consciousness of the pupil, and by raising his level of comprehension? If only the latter happened, and if the education were made more fruitful as a result of the richness and purity of the educator’s consciousness, then how could one imagine the absolute completeness of revealed truth being contradictory with its purpose of spiritually educating humanity? 26  For this point see Krug, ibid.

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Christian Revelation  C   97

How should one reckon with this revealed truth? Surely, if one does not imagine something akin to modern philosophy’s absolute understanding,27 a speculative truth that is only receptive to the most complete, formal education [Bildung], then the previous argument would have no rational meaning. It would be entirely unnecessary for the first recipients of revelation—in order to hand this revelation down to future generations in all its breadth—to be outfitted with a complete, scientific education. Even more so, the first generation of recipients was not compelled to abolish their spiritual individuality in order to spread this revelation without distorting it. It follows that revelation can be conceived entirely and progressively, proportionate to every level of formation [Bildungsstufe], and is available to everyone without exception. But this truth is not accessible in the same form or representation of expression; rather, revelation orients itself according to specifics of the spiritual formation of a given individual or community [Volk]. At this point, one comes up against the distinction between content and form. If the peripheral knowledge of the authors of scripture—say, their knowledge of natural science—was incomplete, then their knowledge of divine matters must be incomplete as well, one might say. Further, knowledge of the divine could be exceeded by later knowledge to a certain extent, as is the case with knowledge of the world and of humanity.28 Suppose one takes this to mean that the religious consciousness of the biblical authors and the religious teachings they espouse depend on the measure and truth of other insights and information they have had. This position would constitute nothing other than a denial of revelation. Presupposing that revelation has happened and was communicated to the authors of scripture: it would be an entirely different matter if one argued that these authors received the given content proportionate to their level of formation, whereby it would follow that their efforts could never be surpassed. 27 Kuhn uses the phrase die absolute Erkenntnis and not das absolute Wissen, the title of Hegel’s final chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Still, Kuhn seems to describe a phenomenon associated with German Idealism and Hegelianism in particular. (Tr.) 28 D. F. Strauss paraphrases Semler’s position on this matter: “Human reflection could not but lead, at least in some respects, beyond the level of insight on which the biblical authors stood, just as it did with astronomy, geography, etc. Just as one allows for a correction and completion in the latter, so one must do so with the former.” (Glaubenslehre, I, 259).

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98  C   Christian Revelation Even if it were conceded that they nevertheless expressed the revealed truth unalloyed and with all of its power, one could still not regard the form of their accounts as normative and binding for all times. There is no doubt that to bring to consciousness an immediately given content one must connect it to one’s prior knowledge.29 The effort to orient and preserve this new content must play out according to one’s level of formation. When one’s knowledge and formation are incomplete, there by no means necessarily follows a diminishment and alloying of the newly given truth. In contemplating the authors of holy scripture, it is de rigueur to recount the influence of inspiration, both to substantiate the perfection of their religious consciousness and to vouchsafe the purity of this consciousness. To this end, the followers of Christ were given a promise that the Spirit would initiate them into all truth and remind them of everything that Jesus said. Indeed, in relation to the immediate organs of divine revelation, the concept of inspiration is indispensable; certain faith in the perfection of Christian revelation, which is mediated through the apostles, would lack its most stable support without the concept of inspiration. Still, the concept of inspiration cannot be of any use to us in the attempt to alleviate doubt. The question arises as to whether this doubt could be assuaged by other means besides inspiration. If the essential content of revelation were a kind of philosophical or speculative knowledge, then we would have to question whether, in terms of their knowledge and their formation, the apostles were in a position to understand and to hand down this content completely and purely. The Gospel, however, is for the “poor in spirit,” and it is most conceivable precisely to such people. It is the truth for everyone, just like the eternal truths of reason. Just as the truths of reason would not originate in anyone whose reason has devolved into sensuality, or is otherwise distorted [verrückt], so revelation is completely intelligible to the simplest of minds. Therefore we prefer to regard as complete the “religious views and teachings” of the scriptural authors. This content, if it is revealed, has nothing to derive from their other branches of knowledge. Unlike Muslims’ relationship to the Qur’an, the Bible, comprising many authors’ writings, does not function for Christians as a centralizing concept 29  Section 5 of the Dogmatik addresses this problem.

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Christian Revelation  C   99

and norm for all human knowing. The Christian does not want to derive geology, geography, astronomy, and the like from the Bible, but only true religion, which explains the lack of interest in vindicating the truth of the Bible in any manner other than religiously. If we turn to the form of revealed truth’s representation and expression in the Bible, we need to remember that these are influenced by the given author’s “other types of knowledge,” and they must therefore be acknowledged to depend on them. At the same time, we must remember that a lowly, worldly education does not in the least rule out a complete and pure reception of revealed truth. Hence we claim that this form is both complete and incomplete. As the given way to explicate revealed content so as to make it compatible with the current time, this form belongs to the dogmatic-historical process. To the degree that we prescind from content, or that we consider it merely formally, it is the most incomplete formation of dogmatic construction. As the original reflex of revealed truth, however, this form is both the source of all subsequent truth and its lasting norm. The truly original form has this twofold meaning, especially in the spiritual realm: it is the first link in the chain that proceeds from it, and from this angle the most imperfect link. At the same time it is the law or universal link of the chain and thus the most perfect, a non plus ultra for all subsequent links. Let us compare the explication of revealed truths for the first period of Christianity in comparison with the subsequent ecclesial exposition. If we judge the former incomplete and therefore recognize an advance in this explication, then this advance is twofold: on the one hand, the content that remains unchanged develops more and more, and the moments contained in this development are both differentiated from one another more precisely, and are determined more specifically according to their connection. The former is the natural result of the latter. The latter proves itself necessary as soon as the community of believers expands and Christianity comes into contact with other, more extensive levels of formation, and more specific oppositions emerge against it. Thus we really find a highly meaningful advance in the representation of Christian truth. Having left behind its narrow, Palestinian cradle, this truth came in contact with Greek science and Roman education. We find a similar advance when this truth encountered Germanic culture, and became the agent of their entire spiritual development.

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100  C   Christian Revelation No matter how much the later formulations of Christian truth abandoned the original formulations, at least formally, the later formulations still carry a meaning derived from the earlier ones. For the earlier formulations serve as the actual norm, measure, and rule of all that comes later. Even if we excluded the formulations attempted by individually gifted Church members, the remaining communal ecclesial formulations could still not be counted as normative formulations that are binding for all times. Instead, these formulations are only the objective expression of the Christian consciousness of their time, and as such the measure for all Christians at that time. For the subsequent periods they function as the medium that brings the formulation for these subsequent periods into perfect agreement with the original faith. In this way, beginning with the original exposition of the revealed truth given through eyewitnesses and the first servants of the Word, there emerges an interconnected chain of objective means of formulation within the Church. One can call this the objective dialectic of faith, insofar as every new link depends on the immediately preceding one in order to secure for itself the original content. At the same time, as the later formulation formally surpasses the earlier one, thus making it superfluous, these later formulations without exception presuppose the original as their unchanging norm and steadfast rule. If the ecclesial formulations achieve the quality of absolute objectivity, then only through ecclesial mediation of the original faith can these formulations continue to be pure and sufficient from one time period to another, and vice versa. Irrespective of its objectivity, the form that presents the faith of the Church is an empirical one. Catholic doctrines never ignored scientific learning; for this reason, the speculative form of its expression required not only what was most compatible with Christian truth, but also, and always, what was appropriate to the general level of education and the dominant objections. Therefore, these endeavors can validate the attempt to understand Christian truth in connection with its particular formulations, and they can bring each one of these formulations to its purest and most universal expression. Given that they are only the work of individuals, their theoretical and speculative form have only a subjective value. They can achieve an objective value through the science of faith or dogmatics only through the most total intermingling with ecclesial doctrinal formations.

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R e v e l at i o n a n d I t s S a lv i f i c I m p o rt Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik

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(1859; second edition), 5–24

This selection opens Kuhn’s revised introduction to the Dogmatics. Continued in two of the subsequent chapters, on scripture and tradition, it begins Kuhn’s second edition of his dogmatic theology. These sections constitute prolegomena or fundamental theology that precedes the work of dogmatic theology. In structuring the work this way, Kuhn offers a departure from the previous scholastic models, wherein one would begin with a discussion of God’s unity and the Trinity. Kuhn’s method signals a shift in the theological terrain. After the modern critiques of theology and the Protestant polemics against Catholicism, Kuhn determined that the most effective way to do dogmatic theology was to incorporate a fundamental or apologetic preface to the work of dogmatic theology. Yet it should also be understood that Kuhn’s dogmatic prologue distances itself from a philosophical apologetics. The reader is struck by Kuhn’s frequent scriptural citations. In a certain way, Kuhn argues from the revealed texts to legitimate the theological activity that bases itself on yet goes beyond these texts. What follows, however, is far from an excuse to jettison the scriptural texts by making superficial reference. Kuhn begins with theology as the Word of God, not unlike the way Karl Barth begins his Church Dogmatics.



101

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102  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import

C

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B

§ 2 The Concept of Revelation and of Inspiration

y C h r i s t i a n f a i t h we do not mean that which Christ revealed (fides qua creditur [the faith through which we believe]), but rather the content of this assent, the truth itself (fides quae creditur [the content of faith]) that Christ has communicated to us ( John 1:17). As divinely revealed, this truth is for us the subject of faith. Accordingly, we must come to understand what we mean by divine revelation. In the broadest sense, revelation implies the emergence of God from the “unapproachable light, in which he dwells” (1 Tim 6:16); it also implies his visible representation or manifestation in an other. From the midst of this, God is perceptible, knowable, and apparent [offenbar] to the mind’s eye, and is known by it.1 The mind’s eye does so by taking up in itself and in its consciousness the rays of the divine manifestation as though gathering into focus a picture of God (the idea of God). Since God is for himself from eternity and nothing is outside God except what He makes, then the primary revelation [Uroffenbarung] of God, which is the presupposition and foundation of all other revelations, consists in the creation of things, of nature, and of the spirit. God becomes manifest in the works of his creation. And in the apex of his work, the finite mind—which is the image of God’s own essence (Gen 1:27), God places the eye, which recognizes the creator through his works, especially the creation of the human, who reflects the creator most purely of all (Rom 1:19–20). The revelatory acts of divine providence and governance follow immediately from the divine manifestation in the works of creation (Acts 14:16; 17:26–27). Both revelations are interconnected and are not to be separated. The initiator of the world is also its preserver, supporter, and director. As such, God is at all times present to the realities that he has called into existence, and not merely as an externality working through his almighty power, but with his essence itself as internally working (Acts 17:26–27). On the basis of this essential presence, God is the light for all people and shines from the begin1  Offenbar means apparent or obvious. Offenbar shares the same root as the German word for revelation, Offenbarung. (Tr.)

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   103

ning ( John 1:4). Therefore if one is correct to call creation a revelation of God—insofar as God not only is knowable through externalities, but also is apparent to our mind—then creation merits this appellation of revelation to a greater extent when connected with divine governance. On the strength of this original and universal revelation, the person carries the consciousness of the Infinite (the idea of God) within his rational spirit. And on the basis of his rational spirit he is in position, through analyzing the external world as well as his own inner self, to elevate this original revelation to a mediated knowledge of God. This God-consciousness, however, is merely natural. It comes forth in the course of the person’s temporal development toward her autonomy, and underlies the contingencies and vicissitudes of this development. The relation of the spirit to God does not correspond completely to the divine idea. God wants to avert the ever-possible darkening of the spirit and the inversion of the will by dampening sensuality and egoism; he wants to unite human beings with him supernaturally. God manifests his will in the original person and in humanity writ large through the promise and mission of the Redeemer. This happens above all through the expression of God’s hidden intentions and volition (in the sense that it is not knowable from creation and its purpose) for the supernatural redemption of humanity. This divine expression is revelation in a more precise sense, and it is offered to particular people, and through them to everyone. These people are the divine prophets, those holy men of God [Gottesmänner]. They proclaim this revelation, which is the salvific will and plan of God for humanity. This revelation is something both other and beyond any universal divine manifestation that we convey through the concepts of divine governance and providence. It is also something other than the diverse revelation epitomized in the idea of creation. This idea is given more readily to naturally gifted people whom God calls into existence from time to time, and who work to bring God’s providence to fruition. The divine expressions that come through the prophets do not, in terms of content, become obsolete after God’s revelation through his own Son (Heb 1:1). This is the case regardless of the great distance between the prophets as purely human organs of the divine spirit and the Son of God, who took on human flesh; it is so regardless of how unmistakably different

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104  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import the manner of revelation may appear in either case. The Son of God also grasped divine truth in human consciousness and expressed it through human words. The only difference is that this truth came to him from his own self-consciousness. On this basis he knows himself to be one with God ( John 10:30; Col 2:9) and knows that His immediate vision of God flows from this ( John 1:18; 6:46), whereas this is given to the prophets by the Spirit of God. Precisely because the Son who became human sees the Father in his own presence and recognizes the essence of God as his own, the communication of the truth from the Son to others is a divine revelation (Matt 11:27; Luke 10:22; John 1:18). Christ chose the apostles to be the first immediate recipients of this truth in order to proclaim his teaching to the world (Matt 10:5; 28:19; John 17:18). They join the prophets as organs of divine revelation. The appearance of Christ is the appearance of God; whoever sees him sees the Father who sent him ( John 12:45). The Son of God has appeared in the flesh and has manifested himself through word and deed as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth ( John 1:14; 1 John 1:1–3). With this external revelation of God in Christ, which is analogous to the manifestation of God in the world of nature, one has only partially understood the concept of Christian revelation. Just as the existence of the spirit had to be added to the existence of human nature for creation to be [seen as] a divine revelation, so an inner manifestation needed to be joined to the external presentation or manifestation of God, so that God could really be revealed to us through Christ. Many saw Christ with their own eyes, heard his discourses, and observed his deeds without knowing him as God’s Son, and without believing in him. Even to his most trusted disciples he would not be revealed in his full glory in a purely natural manner. When Peter declared, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Christ answered immediately that flesh and blood did not reveal this, but rather the Father in heaven (Matt 16:17). The subjective revelation of God through an inward illumination, which provides the basis for our faith, does not alone constitute the inner moment of the Christian concept of revelation. Many others stood in rivalry with the apostles concerning a faithful understanding of the appearance of God in Christ and in a corresponding devotion to Christ, but these others had not received the calling and the investiture of the apos-

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   105

tolate. The inner moment that is adjoined to the external manifestation of God in Christ and that amplifies the concept of Christian revelation must be of an objective kind when compared with the faithful acceptance of Christ from the perspective of the individual subject. This is the objective spirit of the appearance of God in Christ, that is, the complete and pure, the consciousness of Christian truth free of all subjective admixture. In an analogous way one can describe the fate of Christ’s apostles as the chosen organs of his divine revelation through immediate communication of the spirit [Geistesmittheilung] (inspiration). To summarize the concept of inspiration correctly one may not separate it from the concept of revelation as external manifestation. Just as the general concept of divine revelation already shows us two moments bound together, so we see this relation recur in the actual and particular divine revelations. The inspiration of the Old Testament prophets relates to the external appearances and demonstrations of God; the inspiration of Christ’s apostles relates to the appearance of Christ, their dealings with him, his discourses, and his acts (1 John 1:1–3). For the Lord also revealed himself to Paul the Apostle (Gal 1:12; Acts 9:2; 2 Cor 12:1ff.). Jesus’ wondrous appearance, in connection with the handing on of his words and commands [Anordnungen] (1 Cor 11:23), compensated for Paul’s lack of dealings with the Lord that the other apostles enjoyed. Therefore one must not set the divine inspiration against natural human God-consciousness or circumspect self-consciousness. That which the organs of revelation know by inspiration and that of which these organs are certain surely goes beyond our natural consciousness, but does not contradict it. The divine activity [Einwirkung] on the mind permits the human organs of revelation to participate in a more inward and more living way and to attain a more comprehensive and deeper consciousness of God and the divine realities, as well as to participate in the knowledge of the mystery of God, and of his hidden counsel and plan. The divine activity has its point of connection in the natural God-consciousness and would be completely inexplicable without this connection. If the divine spirit empowers the human soul and at the same time carries the soul along with it, then the soul is in a certain sense no longer of itself so much as it is moved and carried by the divine spirit, and elevated beyond its own

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106  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import natural faculty. Still, the soul retains its own natural faculties. Inspiration, by which the organs of divine revelation transmitted the divine truth in speech and in writing, must be entirely distinguished from exstasis, the ecstatic speaking in tongues, mantic rapture, and other such phenomena. For the human spirit is not a blind, ailing, and passive tool, but rather the conscious, self-active, and personal organ of divine revelation. Everything relies on our conceiving revelation not as a work of human capacity [Kräfte], but as a work of God. But it is false to understand revelation as a work of God on humanity, wherein God changes the direction of the human faculties. Instead, revelation is a work of God through individuals that serve as his organs, in order to elevate humanity to a higher standpoint of knowledge and of the spiritual life that could not have been achieved through natural human capacity. The concept of the supernatural should not be accented one-sidedly, or understood as something unor contra-natural. It is supernatural insofar as it comes to appearance in nature, and comes to fruition through the capacities of nature. It is supernatural insofar as it originates not from nature and its capacity, but from a higher and immediately divine principle. It by no means follows that if one considers revelation to be supernatural, then one should believe that its activity would oppose the natural direction of our capacities.2 Revelation conflicts only with the disordered direction of our natural capacities, not with the properly ordered, natural direction implanted by the creator. Revelation meets the natural orientation, binds itself to it, and grafts it to the divine.3 The convincing into the truth comes from spirit to spirit, and in itself is a purely inward occurrence that we do not fully grasp. The scriptures have God speaking to the prophets, who hear the word and voice of God. The analogy of human communication of the truth, mediated through the audible word, is the most proximate and simplest analogy that we can imagine. We only need to elevate in our minds the verbum vocis [audible 2 In the footnote, Kuhn cites A. D. C. Twesten’s Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche [Lectures on the Dogmatics of the Protestant-Lutheran Church] (Hamburg: F. F. Perth, 1837–38) I, 343. This is where Twesten locates the error in the Reformation’s misunderstanding of the fall. (Tr.) 3  See Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, VI.

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   107

word] to the verbum mentis [mental word] in order to understand the given concept. One should always remember the corresponding external revelation of God by means of which inspiration is mediated. Removed from any context, inspiration remains an abstract concept. The inspiration of the Christian apostles in particular was, as stated above, based on the revelation of God in Christ, whose glory the apostles saw in its full grace and truth. This inspiration presupposed both participation and instruction through which Christ led them into the truth, making it known and entrusting it to them. Christ shared all truth to the inner circle of his disciples ( John 15:15) insofar as they were willing to bear these truths at the time ( John 16:12), taking into consideration the weakness [in understanding] of some only analogically or figuratively ( John 16:29). Therefore, regarding the divine inspiration of the apostles, one has to consider both the living making-present of the truth mediated to them by Christ and the complete opening up of these truths, both happening through the immediate activity of the Holy Spirit. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” ( John 16:12–13); “He [the Holy Spirit] will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” ( John 14:26). The promise of the Lord to his disciples came to fulfillment on the first feast of Pentecost (Acts 2). Thereafter the apostles proclaimed the gospel not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but as taught by the Holy Spirit. They spoke wisdom in the power of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:4). This was not human but divine wisdom, the mysterious, hidden, eternal will of God (1 Cor 2:6–7; see also Eph 1:4ff.). They taught what no eye had seen, no ear had heard, and no person had made sense of, namely, what God revealed through his Spirit, who searches even the depths of God (1 Cor 2:9–10). They taught such things not with learned words of human wisdom, but as the Holy Spirit instructs the spiritual, “interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual” (1 Cor 2:13), simply and purely. One must distinguish the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the apostles from the assistance that the Church celebrates in her proclamation of the truth bestowed to her (which is the magisterium spiritus sancti [the magisterium of the Holy Spirit]). Inspiration conjoins itself immediately and indivis-

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ibly to divine revelation and is both an essential moment and an integral part of it. Ecclesial proclamation presupposes revelation as completed in itself. Thus the assistance of the Holy Spirit, through which this proclamation is infallible, can in no way be regarded as a prolongation of the inspiration given the apostles. Divine revelation is concluded and completed in Christ, and the truth of Christianity is completely and purely announced and proclaimed through the apostles. Therefore, ecclesial proclamation is concerned merely with the preservation, further implications, and application of this truth to the manifestations of the knowledge and the life of humanity that are in steady flux.4 Here it depends on the one hand whether the influences of human opinions and false doctrines are present, and on the other, the complete and pure truth of Christianity is demonstrated in the most effective manner. For the Church to be able to perform this task through its organs, the assistance and direction of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Even Christ promises this much to the Church (Matt 16:18; 18:20; 28:20). Both the inspiration and the direction of the Holy Spirit coincide in the apostles. They were not merely the organs of divine revelation, but also the founding members [Gründer] of the Christian community. It is therefore correct to say that the apostolic office of teaching and governance continues in the Church. One need only keep in mind that this continuance does not relate to the entire essence of the apostolic calling and authority, but only to the secondary arena of governance.

§ 3 The Content of Divine Revelation: Old and New Testament All divine revelation is a revelation of God (objective genitive), of God’s essence and will, his intentions and plan for the salvation of human4 As Bellarmine writes, “Non novis revelationibus nunc regitur ecclesia, sed in iis permanet, quae tradiderunt hi, qui ministri fuerunt sermonis, et proptera dicitur aedificata supra fundamentum apostolorum et prophetarum.” [The Church does not rule by new revelations, but by continuing in those which have been handed down, and which were ministered by speech, and therefore are said “to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” (Eph 2:20)], in De verbo dei [On the Word of God], IV, 9. It is entirely mistaken when [Franz Anton] Staudenmaier says that the Holy Spirit as the principle of truth not only preserves the divine Word that departed from Christ, but also generates ever anew the continual inspiration of new truth; see Staudenmaier’s Die christliche Dogmatik [Christian Dogmatics] (Freiburg, 1844–52) I, 19.

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   109

ity. In the primary and original revelation, in the works of divine creation including our own Geist, God’s eternal power and divinity are revealed to us (Rom 1:20). God reveals his essence, his characteristics, and his holy will to us, particularly to our ethical nature, as the voice of conscience and practical reason (Rom 2:14–15; see also 2 Cor 1:12; Heb 8:10). In contrast to this revelation “from the beginning of creation” (Rom 1:20), there stands the divine “mystery kept hidden from eternity” (Rom 16:25; Col 1:26; 2:2). What God had prepared from eternity for those who love him, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no person has conceived (1 Cor 2:7, 9) until God revealed it to the world through his Spirit and through the mouth of his prophets and the apostles of his Son (1 Cor 2:20; Heb 1:1; Rom 16:25; Eph 3:5). For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of the Godhead [Gottheit]. The supernatural divine revelation is also a revelation of God, and indeed of his inner essence as the Father of Jesus Christ (Col 2:2), as well as of Christ as the Son of God ( John 1:14) and of the Holy Spirit that proceeds from both ( John 14:16, 26). Furthermore, God reveals his will that has been hidden from eternity, and that elevates us to immediate communion with him (2 Peter 1:4) in holiness and justice of the truth (Eph 4:24). This happens through his Son, whom God sent into the world for this purpose ( John 3:16; 1 John 4:9; Rom 8:31ff.; Gal 4:4; Titus 3:3–7), and who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30; Rom 1:16; see also Eph 1:4–5; 1 Cor 2:7; 2 Tim 1:9–10). If we compare the content of these two kinds of revelation, we will see that supernatural revelation presupposes the natural and interweaves itself with it most closely. Regarding content, the only thing different is the expansion and interiorization of the natural revelation. From the relation of the supernatural to natural revelation we comprehend the historical fact that the supernatural revelation was entrusted to Israel and is spread through them (see John 4:22). In Israel the true knowledge of God is never extinguished entirely. Those who become the organs and bearers of divine revelation are the ones whose consciousness has been particularly seized and moved most vigorously by the one true God. Here we speak of the forefathers of the Jewish people, of Moses, and of the prophets. Supernatural revelation had no basis among the polytheist Gentiles. Thereby

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110  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import we see more clearly why the Apostle acted as he did. Without any circumlocution, he proclaimed to the Jews that Jesus was the messiah promised by the prophets; in other words, he proclaimed the revelatory teaching of Christianity (Acts 2:22ff.). Among polytheist Gentiles, he first concerned himself with the content of the natural revelation of God and only subsequently probed the Christian teaching regarding salvation (Acts 14:15; 17:22ff.). From this we eventually perceive the composition and shaping of the Christian concept of doctrine that establishes not only the content of God’s supernatural revelations, but also the content of the natural revelations. The doctrine of the one God coalesces that of the three divine persons; the doctrine of the divine creation, preservation, and governance of the world incorporates the incarnation of the Son of God and of his Spirit’s supernatural workings of grace. The doctrine of the nature of humanity and of its supernatural elevation and restoration after the fall comes together with the doctrine of the immortality; that of repayment in the beyond complies with the resurrection of the flesh and with universal judgment, and they come together into a unity. It would be rash and mistaken to conclude that doctrines are revealed in the narrower sense. They have become available to us only due to prior knowledge, along with belief in supernatural divine revelation. The natural revelation of God in creation is and remains the source of these doctrines. All that is needed for their comprehension and knowledge is the proper use of our natural faculties. Meanwhile, the appropriation of revealed truths in the narrower sense and the corresponding activity of God’s grace, even if they can be achieved only through the activity of our natural faculties, do not result from these faculties alone, or through their own power. Instead they are conditioned by the activity of the divine Spirit upon humanity. This essential difference between the two revelations and their corresponding truths must not be confused, but strictly maintained. Inflated supernaturalism, as seen today in the so-called traditionalism, is just as little justified as rationalism. The latter is guilty of this confusion in the reversed sense, but underplays it in order to contest supernatural revelation. The Gentiles, that is, those standing outside of the immediate divine

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   111

revelations, in one way do not understand natural religious truths, and in another way do so only in a very incomplete manner. This reality can only underscore the essential truth of the difference between the Gentiles and Israel. The ignorance of the Gentiles is their own fault and finds its basis in the corporeal and sensate depravity of humanity, which makes them incapable of incorporating the idea of God, and unable to make this idea efficacious in their thoughts and deeds (Rom 1:18, 21). The fact that the additional purpose of the divine revelations and the immediate effectiveness of them was intended for the enlivening and reinforcement of the natural and ethical truths provides no counter-evidence. This is neither the only nor the particular purpose of revelation. Divine revelation does not remain at this station; it prepares at the same time a receptive and fruitful basis in which it can take root and grow. Just as revelation liberated the human mind from the darkness that had veiled humanity’s own light from itself, so revelation allows the ray of the higher light to shine on the human mind. Within this light, the mind knows God, God’s essence, and God’s will within a given parameter and clarity that radically [weit] transcends the faculty of human nature, even when this nature is completely unclouded and at full strength. Both creation and supernatural revelation are activities of God’s love and can be thus understood according to content and purpose. Rational creatures emerge at the highest level of creaturely self-realization and participation in the divine, and God calls these beings his likeness. Those acts of God’s overflowing love are grafted [anschliessen] to human beings, and through these acts God reveals himself to them in a supernatural manner that transcends creation by meeting their needs that occur in terms of their given orientation. The rational creature is made for that end and equipped with the requisite powers for such an end, and thus realizes eternal life—which is a life of the spirit in union with God through the knowledge and love of God—by applying and practicing these powers. In this process, and in the creature’s task and calling, God cooperates carefully and freely with the creature through a revelation that we call supernatural. This revelation cannot be understood as simply an amplification of God’s creative activity, which is already good and complete in itself, nor as merely the result of God’s universal governance and stewardship. Instead it

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112  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import should be understood as an activity of God’s special providence in relation to the rational creature’s use of freedom and as the supernatural administration of this providence in view of the creature’s calling that is to be realized through reason and freedom. This revelation is not presupposed by a deficiency or an inadequacy of the created spirit’s nature, but by a deficient, unsustainable, bad, or disordered use of its powers. To put it more simply, this revelation is presupposed by the need of the spirit that arises from such a misuse. The hidden secret of divine blessedness, the eternal salvific counsel of God, is founded on the foresight of this deficiency. The operations that God had prepared for the onset of this deficiency became effective in meeting it. God reveals himself supernaturally to the person in his purely creaturely and deficient condition. One should not understand this deficiency as a natural need, but as the need of human personality, whose particular composition avails itself to the divine Spirit through its own use of freedom, but before this need becomes a reality. Divine providence is based on this foreknowledge, and this providence is appropriate to the essence of the Spirit as personal. To the degree that she is born from the hand of God as her creator and author, the person is a rational spirit existing in the supernatural condition of holiness and righteousness of the truth (Eph 4:24). Through a participation that precedes individual use of freedom, God binds the person immediately to himself and eases her task and calling to unite herself personally to the creator through her own use of reason and freedom. Humanity departed from the coherence of this original divine revelation through the disobedience of the first person. This first revelation is subjective rather than objective, and depends on the obedience of the individual for its implementation. As soon as the subjective condition disappeared, divine revelation also receded. God, however, did not lose sight of the purpose of his creation, and his love did not grow cold. To the contrary, God’s providence over his children only expanded. Under the premise of their misuse of freedom, which is sin, human beings appeared only more in need of divine care. And so from eternity God resolved to send his Son in foresight of the fall as an objective and lasting revelation of his love and grace that would no longer be subject to the fault of an individual.

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   113

God’s revelation in Christ binds itself immediately and inwardly to the original revelation. Although the revelation in Christ is new and unique in terms of principle, implementation, and means for doing so, it is still to be conceived as a restoration of the original revelation to the extent that both are oriented toward establishing the power of the mind over the body. In order to understand the uniqueness of this revelation, one need reflect on the condition of the human being presupposed by revelation, whose neediness revelation comes to the assistance of. This condition is the falling away from God, and is no longer merely a situation of the mind’s newly insufficient dominance, but of the dominance of the flesh, the bondage of sin under which humanity toils (Rom 7:24). Even so, the person remains the likeness of God, and his nature remains essentially the original nature given to him in creation. But the soul, which is an image [Spiegel] of God, appears to be sullied through the waft of sin, and the voice of God in the conscience appears to be overcome by the cacophonous and shrill calls of the sensible. The natural possibility of the good always lingers at the margins in this condition, while the realization of the good becomes all the more difficult for him to achieve by his own power, the more he becomes habituated to sin. To this extent his dependence appears different from that of the first human being only by degree. This is only one element of the human condition. The natural powers of the mind and the will are in no way mechanical or organic powers of nature that become worn out through use or that lose their elasticity. Evil and sin are not outgrowths of the good nature of the spirit, but a spoliation of one’s personality. When this happens, the spirit comes into conflict with God, and the spirit’s perpetual calling, which consists in unity with God, is forfeited. This spoliation must first be overturned so that the person can locate himself in a condition of neediness analogous to that of the purely creaturely person. When this spoliation is corrected, the mind can once again take its rightful place above the flesh, which had been lost through sin. These quandaries lie beyond the scope of natural human power, and can be realized only through divine participation. Through such a divine participation we partake in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4); we become like God and are oriented pneumatically to the God who is always so. We receive this gift through the divine revelation of God’s Son. The Son took on

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114  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import human nature, “so that by the grace of God’s will he might taste death for everyone [.....] and might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage (sin)” (Heb 2:9; 14–15). Since the fall of the first man, all divine revelations are directed toward the appearance of the incarnate Son and, in and through the Son, the lasting establishment of a humanity pleasing to God. This appearance is the apex and keystone, and after it there are no further and new revelations to be expected. The divine revelations that prepare the personal appearance of God in his Son Jesus Christ entail to some extent the continual proto-proclamation of that which should become an actual truth in the fullness of time; they also entail the divine events that were intended to make humanity receptive to the adoption of the truth and grace in Christ. The truth can be mediated only gradually and in the husk of the senses to a sensate person. To such a person the spiritual life can be mediated only through those forms that speak to him and where meaning and receptivity are present. Thus the preparatory revelation has a pedagogical quality (Gal 3:24). One must distinguish between that which is revealed to humanity—what is continually true, abiding, and eternally divine—from the unfixed, the changeable, and from the manner of revelation. In the latter category there takes place an advance toward the more complete, while the divine truth and the divine plan of salvation remains unchanged. The discourse [Sprache] that God speaks to humanity in “various ways” (Heb 1:1) was always the discourse of divine truth, regardless of how sensory the forms needed to be. God clothed this truth in sensory forms so that humanity would comprehend it. The commands that God gave and that the Apostle designated as rudiments (στοιχει῀α τοῦ κόσμου [“according to the elemental spirits of the universe”— Col 2:8b])—as they are only suitable for the childhood of humanity (Col 2:8, 20; Gal 4:3ff.; 2 Cor 2:11; Heb 8:6)—were only vessels that bore the golden fruit of divine salvation. These commands arrived in forms amenable to the people and to the time, so as to make their content effective and fruitful. In this manner, both at the beginning and in the course of his revelations, God always directed humanity’s gaze into the future and toward the essence of the matter (Ps 50; Isa 58 and 60). Hence Christian revelation re-

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   115

lated to pre-Christian revelation on the one hand as the confirmation and fulfillment of prior revelation (Matt 5:17–18), and on the other hand as its culmination [Ende], both as the completion of what came before and the conclusion (Rom 10:4), meaning the repeal of the unperfected through the arrival of the perfected (revelation). If we examine Christian revelation first from the ideal element of its content, as a revelation of truth, then revelation appears as communication about God and divine things, based on Christ’s immediate vision of God. Nobody, not even Moses and the prophets, has ever seen God (Exod 33:20). Only God’s Son, who rests in the bosom of the Father, has revealed God to us from an immediate vision ( John 1:18). As the Son of God, Christ has the consciousness that God has of himself ( John 10:30; Col 2:9). This consciousness is taken hold of in the form of human knowledge of God, since Christ is the incarnate Son of God. It is not the absolute, eternal revealedness [Offenbarsein] of God in the distinction of the three divine persons, but instead his absolute revealedness of his absolute Logos to the human mind. Thus Christ’s knowledge of God—notwithstanding the fact that this knowledge is based on immediate perception and is a knowledge possessed on his own, and is not first communicated to him and inspired like prophetic knowledge—coincides with prophetic knowledge in that this knowledge of God has interceded into the consciousness of the human mind, is understood in the form of human (rational) knowledge, and has been pronounced in human language. Yet it transcends human language because of that essential relation of unity of Christ with God through the perfect clarity, depth, and totality of its content. Christ is the true light ( John 1:9), in whom are collected into a unity the scattered rays of divine revelation like a focal point. His truth is the truth κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν [“par excellence”]. “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth through Jesus Christ” ( John 1:17). Thus is understood the relation between Old and New Testament revelation according to its real angle. Never mind that the Christian revelation is the truth κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν in the barely given sense. Conceived from the real point of view, this revelation is first of all the truth in two senses: first, insofar as that which is only hinted at and given as a likeness or as a glimpse is brought to fulfillment [ausführen] in the Chris-

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116  C   Revelation and Its Salvific Import tian revelation, and has become the vivid, actual truth (Col 2:9); second, as that which was promised by the prophets, and has now been brought to fulfillment and realized in the Christian revelation. Therefore this revelation is the grace of God meant for everyone who accepts this revelation faithfully ( John 1:12; Rom 1:16), whereas the Old Testament revelation is the Law of God given to the Jews. The Old Testament revelation, however, finds its completion in the promise that has been given to this people, which is the promise of the grace of God in the Messiah who sprang from this people. To put it in another way, it finds completion in the diminishment of sin and in the inward renewal of the person through Christ’s work and merit. The essence of this completion consists in this promise. The Law appeared only in order to prepare the foundation in the hearts of people for the Gospel (Rom 5:20; Gal 3:19). It did so by holding up a mirror to people, wherein they would recognize their sinfulness and shortcomings, and so by their own power become justified and agreeable to the will of God (to the demand of the Law). Hence the Law stands in only indirect relation to the divine salvific plan. In its subsequent, immediate effect the Law even opposes the divine plan by ushering in sin and consequently death. For the person as he is, for the one who has abandoned God and is morally depraved, the Law alone is shown to be unable and incapable of awakening in him the spiritual life and bringing him to glory (Rom 8:3). Despite its divine origin and its holy and spiritual essence (Rom 7:12, 14), the Law occasions increased and expanded sinfulness and brings to humanity the wrath and curse of God, as well as death and damnation (Rom 4:14; 5:20; 7:13; Gal 3:10, 13, 19, 22). This is only one side of the Law, and its relation to humanity is entirely one-sided. The Law exists not simply in its own right, but in connection with the promise. It should not be understood according to its immediate effect, where, through the guilt of humanity, it encourages sin. Rather, the Law should be conceived according to its divine purpose, whereby it is the measure of human will and activity. And for those who follow it, the Law helps realize justice and life (Rom 2:13; 10:5; Gal 3:12). The person never was not forsaken by God that he is only confronted with the divine imperative. Instead, God reveals himself supernaturally to the person, pointing him to the seed of the woman who will crush the serpent’s head. He

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Revelation and Its Salvific Import  C   117

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points to the divine power and communication of life by which it becomes possible to truly fulfill God’s Law. This promise has been fulfilled through the revelation of God in Christ. Through the activity of the Redeemer the source is made available, by which the believer [frees himself] from the effects of sin and shapes for himself the power of a life that is pleasing to God and conforms to the divine will. The Gospel does not cancel [aufheben] the Old Testament νομος [law] but is its confirmation and fulfillment (Rom 3:31), and the end of the Law (Rom 10:4) in the sense indicated above. As a personal appearance of God among humanity, as the sending of his own Son from the right hand of the divine Father so that for our redemption he works and suffers the things that we should work and suffer through our own guilt, the Christian revelation is the highest conceivable proof. One could say it is the apex of God’s love for humanity ( John 3:16; 1 John 3:16; 4:9; Rom 5:8; 8:32). Hence it is the highest and final revelation, and no other can surpass it. His work and suffering is a sacrifice [Opfer] given by God, and it easily outweighs all other sacrifice. It effects the reconciliation of all of humanity with God in the most complete and most total manner (Rom 5:10; 8:3; Phil 2:7–11; 2 Cor 5:11ff., 1 John 2:2; Heb 9:15; Acts 17:30, etc.).

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R e v e l at i o n a s H i s to ry “Offenbarung als Geschichte—Thema der Theologie,”

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ThQ 14 (1832): 282–86

This selection comes from a two-part article that was Kuhn’s first contribution to the Quarterly. The entire article spans nearly one hundred pages, and it contains several of the thematic tensions Kuhn struggled to understand over his academic career: reason and revelation, faith and reason, history and idea. Only twenty-eight at the time of the article, Kuhn, as the essay shows, already understood the implications of modern philosophy for traditional Christian understanding; Although brief, this selection demonstrates Kuhn’s debt to Schelling, whom he had heard lecture in Munich two years earlier. Unfortunately Kuhn’s earlier writings tend to wander, and they lack the thematic and stylistic clarity emblematic of his later work. Kuhn’s argument takes place within a wider effort to restore the legitimacy of history as a field of study. Due to the Enlightenment’s penchant for universality and necessity, its expositors often denigrated historical study on the basis of its contingency. For them, the value of Christianity consisted primarily in its moral laws that could be both derived and applied as universals. Following Schelling, as well as his predecessors in Tübingen, Kuhn attempted to show the limits of the Enlightenment reduction of Christianity to morality. This meant stressing the centrality of history for Christianity.

C 118

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Revelation as History  C   119

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S

p e c u l a t i v e t h e o l o g y has the task of determining scientifically how the ideas of religion (inseparable from the ideas of morality and of law) proceed from Christianity. The subject or topic [Gegenstand oder Objekt] of speculative theology is neither nature—which is really only a presupposition for theology—nor universally given realities in world history, but rather, the object is Christianity, which is the apex of world history.1 It appears that our task here will consist in determining more precisely the limits of human intelligence in the realm of Christianity and in the realm of nature. We shall also clarify the concept of speculative theology. Since speculative theology is a part of the philosophy of history, and insofar as the subject of speculative theology is Christianity (which is the highest [manifestation] of history), we cannot avoid outlining the contours of a general philosophy of history. To the great detriment for clarifying of its own ideas, philosophy has refrained, during its persistent efforts, from enlisting the consultation of either world history or the realm of nature. Despite this, philosophy has arrived—if by other ways and means—at the fundamental questions for all of the philosophy of history: What are the most elemental factors of the development and history of the world? Do these factors consist of divine and human causality, or is it blind necessity that allows for no parallel cause? Or is world history simply the product of human freedom, desire, inclination, and passion? Stated briefly, is world history the backdrop of two competing worlds? Or, as one author has put it, is it “from head to toe simply a shadow play of elements running through one another within an empty skeleton of space and time? To put it more precisely, is this world in particular just a sand hill where insects struggle over world domination, and, for a summer’s day, mosquitoes seem to dance as figments imagined from the light?”2 1  The implication here is that salvation history intertwines with so-called secular history. Accordingly the scriptures are not strictly historical books, but works that chronicle how salvation history weaves its way through secular history, neither above it nor identical to it. (Tr.) 2  Christian August Heinrich Clodius, Von Gott in der Natur, in der Menschengeschichte, und im Bewusstsein [Concerning God in Nature, Human History, and Consciousness], 5 vols. (Leipzig: 1818–22), v. 2 pt. 2, p. 84.

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120  C   Revelation as History The human being is not the only acting principle in world history. What he can produce does not constitute the entirety of world history. Accordingly, the same being that taught us the internal and external view of nature emerges as a collaborator on the stage of events.3 Such an account of things can also be regarded as a possible truth that exists prior to and independent of the philosophy of history. Our investigation then turns not to this being, but to the manner in which the existence of something prior to history would afford us a speculative view of history. One can either only touch on the real [das Reale] given in history or engross oneself in it.4 When one engages in the former the real appears in history as a series of merely cursory, fleeting forms; with the latter it appears as a meaningful chain of genuine happenings. The former scenario entails the bare recounting of appearances without the appearing, of shadows without that which causes the shadows. It chronicles only the ephemeral and the fleeting. But not everything that comes into existence in a historical occurrence is able to make itself felt in a meaningful way. What is higher and essential is not easily available to sense understanding, even if it truly appears as the contingent, the form, or as ornamentation. On this basis, that empiricism in history [Geschichte], the merely material history [Historie], is not capable of noticing the activity of the world-spirit [Weltgeist] and the finer threads that weave together a supra-worldly engagement into all regions of what has happened. This empiricism cannot bring together all strands of this activity in the central locus of the whole. The sensible in the stricter sense—the pragmatism of history—is not in position to penetrate into the place where history [Geschichte] expresses, or perhaps even resolves itself in the ideas of religion, morality, and law. It is the business of rational history, of idealism (by this meaning only the inclusion of ideas into history), and of the philosophy of history to observe and describe this eruption of a purely spiritual world into history, and the fading of mere appearance and form before the radiant glimmer. 3 Kuhn is of course referring to a transcendent God. Most of Kuhn’s interlocutors would have assented to the general contours of a natural theology that would manifest belief in a creator God. The fault-line is not theism, but whether God is the God of not just nature, but history as well. (Tr.) 4  The contrast here is between the real and the ideal, similar to Kant’s distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal realm. (Tr.)

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Revelation as History  C   121

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As Wilhelm von Humboldt remarks, the number of creative forces in history will not be understood through the events that emerge immediately.5 When the historian has researched every individuality and its context—the form and effect of earthquakes, the changes in climate, the spiritual propensity and disposition of the nations, and, even more, the unique individuals, the influence of art and science, the bourgeois inclinations that have penetrated deeply and been widely dispersed—then something even more powerful remains. It does not emerge as immediately visible, but remains as the principle that gives the impetus and direction to every force. And its essence lies outside the circle of finitude, but it breathes through and dominates world history in all of its parts (ibid., 318). The human viewpoint does not immediately grasp the canvas of world government, but can only guess at it through the ideas that reveal it. For this human viewpoint, all history is only the actualization of an idea, and in the idea there lies both the force and the goal. In that one merely immerses oneself in the view of the creating force, one pursues a proper path to the final causes for which the spirit naturally strives. The goal of history can only be the actualization of the idea presented to humanity, in all ways and forms, in which the final form is able to combine with the idea, and the chain of events can only break where the two no longer permeate one another (ibid., 324). 5  “Von der Aufgabe des Geschichtsschreibers” [On the Task of the Historian], in Abhandlungen der Akademie zu Berlin (1821), 304ff. Humboldt gave the talk in 1821, and it was printed in the Akademie’s proceedings in 1822. An English translation can be found in The Hermeneutics Reader, ed. Kurt Mueller-Vollmer (New York: Continuum, 1985), 105–18. Kuhn paraphrases the essay throughout the rest of this paragraph. (Tr.)

Faithfully Seeking Understanding : Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

Grace and the Problem of Freedom “Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade nach ihren innern Zusammenhang,”

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ThQ 35 (1853): 86–92

This brief selection comes from an 1853 essay entitled, “The Christian Teaching Concerning Divine Grace According to Its Internal Coherence,” where Kuhn treats the problem of human freedom. No question loomed larger in the nineteenth century than the question of freedom. Kuhn realizes that the problem stems from conflating freedom with independence. Viewed from this angle, Pelagians and Predestinarians represent two sides of the same coin, for both regard human freedom and divine operation on the human will as incompatible. To make his point Kuhn borrows the language of German Idealism, especially Kant. Kuhn connects these recent concerns with older treatments of grace found in Augustine and Aquinas. Augustine’s concerns arose from a well-known existential basis, although they quickly became quite speculative. Aquinas, the great systematizer, prefaces the Secunda Pars of his summa with a declaration of the human will’s freedom, which no doubt served as a starting point for Kuhn’s treatment of the topic. His connection to these two figures—as well as to the anthropology undergirding the Council of Trent—is made apparent in the sections of this essay not translated here.

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Grace and Freedom  C   123

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I

n a m a n n e r a n a l o g o u s to the external world, that is, the world of nature, the realm of the human will or the ethical [sittlich] world is self-contained. The ethical world has its own principle [Princip]— the free will that is self-determining and determines itself. Its components are the self-determinations [Selbstbestimmungen] of this will and the composition [Bestimmtteilen] of the will given by these self-determinations. The composition on the other hand influences the will and its selfdeterminations in such a way that they are at the same time cause and effect. We will never escape from this recurrent circle of self-determinations and composition through an empirical consideration. Likewise in nature, regardless of where we would begin, we would not escape from the connection between cause and effect into what could be only a cause without any effect, and come to a pure cause as the ultimate ground of everything else. Irrespective of the cyclical natural system, and of the infinite series of things that mutually condition, maintain, and advance each other, we still look for an absolute cause as foundation of the whole and as the ultimate cause of everything causal—a divine power. Likewise, in the ethical world, we posit an absolute cause that undergirds this world as a good and that is the moving principle of all good willing, namely, divine grace. The person is dependent on God not simply in that the person wills and wills freely to the degree that God has given him this free will and has created him. The person’s dependence also consists in the fact that he wants the good to the degree that God continually pours into him this good will. The divine will wills the human will, which explains the existence of the human will. The divine will still operates in the finite will after the orientation to the good has already been established, leaving the capacity for doing evil alone to the person [das Vermögen des Bösen dem Menschen allein überlassend]. Hence one cannot speak of a diminution of freedom. Such a diminution would arise only if the influence of God were bound to a simultaneous suppression of the will’s capacity for both good and evil. If this were true, then God would only destroy through his grace what he had already given rise to through his power. And we are in no way justified in opposing divine grace to divine power. Instead we are called upon to think the exact opposite. This would mean that God effects the

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124  C   Grace and Freedom good into human willing so that freedom is possible only alongside the possibility of evil. Put another way: How is the will itself free for the good? Obviously, in no other way than that divine, operating grace moves the will toward a free self-determination for the good. The fundamental error of all those who depart from the Church’s teachings concerning this question lies in the following false presupposition: for the will to be free, it must be conceived as absolutely independent, not only from external finite causes, but also from the absolute cause. This fundamental error considers the will to be something that determines itself from and through itself alone. This presupposition entirely denies the moral dependence of the will on divine grace as well as any dependence of the individual on the larger whole or on one’s ancestors. By dependence on one’s ancestors we mean the deterioration of the will through its misuse, which is inherited naturally. This is the Pelagian position. If one sacrifices the freedom of willing, one makes the same erroneous presupposition, but applies it in a reverse manner. The Pelagians do this because they consider free will, which they want to maintain at any price, incompatible with the Christian doctrine of grace. Hence the Predestinarian position. They agree entirely with the Pelagians on this single point: the affect [Affekt] for grace, as it arises from the most active awareness of human sinfulness. This belief moves them to the other extreme. The Pelagians, who lack this awareness, simply hold fast to their concept of freedom and prevent the entrance of divine grace into the interiority of the will. The following claim articulates the most general presupposition of the Catholic doctrine of grace: that divine and human action cooperate together [miteinander konkurrieren] in the realization of the good. The two relate to the good as causes. They cannot be the cause of the good in the same manner because one would be superfluous next to the other. Therefore we must determine more precisely the manner of divine and human causality. From the outset it is clear that we must understand the divine as the absolute, prior cause. On the other hand, we must understand human causality as something conditional and subsequent. This understanding has already been stated in the expression outlined above: the divine, operating grace moves the will toward a free self-determination. This statement contains something deeper, and it is our task to examine the statement

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Grace and Freedom  C   125

more closely in order to move toward a new, more concrete understanding. There is no realization of the good through grace without the will and without its self-activity [Selbstätigkeit]. For grace operates through the will and moves the self-active will to the good. For the same reason, there is no realization of the good by human willing without grace. Let us bring these two propositions together and determine more clearly the truth contained therein. To do so, we must split the causality [Ursachlichkeit] of the human will into two moments, even though this causality is one and undivided in itself. To this end we regard the human activity of the will as merely spontaneous, and human willing [Wollen] as simply willing. Thus we can say that the latter willing acts through divine grace. In addition, this willing is the cause through which the human will desires the good. In the preceding paragraph we have conceived the activity of the human will as free. We have also understood its willing [Wollen] as a free willing rooted in deliberation and choice. In short, we see the will as determining itself and orienting itself to the good. If the will were only this, if it were absolutely free like the will of the absolute spirit, and if the will were not woven into nature and to some degree passive in relation to nature, then we could posit of the will no other cause than itself. Even if we know the will to be conditioned. we are only able—insofar as we regard the will in the moment of its sublimity [Erhabenseins] over the naturalness and passivity—not to think that the will is moved through something like divine grace. At best we may think that the will does not operate without divine grace. And this may also be established to the degree that we relate this moment of the will’s essence back to the first moment [divine grace] and we may think of it as bound to this [divine grace]. For without this connection we would be silent about all causality outside of the will, because we would have nothing conditional before us. This argument achieves an important conclusion about the causality of divine grace. For we cannot conceive the effect of grace on the human will from a simple standpoint as the absolute ethical cause of the will, even though this is in fact what grace is. Instead, the concept of grace is composite [zusammengesetzt]. Grace appears on the one hand as causa qua [cause by which] and on the other hand as conditio sine qua non [the necessary condition] for doing good.

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126  C   Grace and Freedom This relation between divine grace and human freedom is generally valid for the will both in its original incorruption and its later deformation. At one point Augustine dissolved these moments of the concept of grace into two kinds of grace.1 This essay by Augustine gave cause to the Jansenist doctrine that the original grace contains the auxilium sine quo non [the necessary help] and the grace of salvation contains the auxilium quo [the help by which]. But grace does not work in this manner. Instead, it is much more accurate to say that the concept of grace includes these two moments. For if one conceives grace exclusively under the first standpoint, then one cannot understand grace properly, and one lapses into the one-sided rationalistic position of the Pelagians. And if one conceives grace exclusively under the second standpoint, then one cannot account for the freedom of the human will and one lapses into the Predestinarian fallacy. It is more accurate to say that the redemptive grace differs from the original grace [at creation] in the following manner: redemptive grace is not bound to nature and is not mediated through a natural transmission. On this basis it is not absolutely universal like original grace. The second difference consists in the fact that the redemptive grace is based on Christ’s mediation [Stellvertretung]. Thus, in a certain sense, this grace appears as imputation. It is not so with the original case. The final difference is that, in the case of original grace, God stands on the side of the good in human willing and thus makes victory possible over the evil that humanity returned to in its powerlessness. In the case of redeeming grace, it opposes the evil through the human will and thus prepares the way for a reawakening to goodness. From one side, redemption works through conversion and is mediated through the external union with the Christian community and the use of the Church’s means of grace [the sacraments]. From another side redemption proceeds directly to the universal community of all human beings and is mediated through the universal means of the divine world order. 1 Kuhn cites chapters 11 and 12 of De correptione et gratiae [On Corruption and Grace]. According to a recent bibliography, this work, written c. 426, has not been translated into English. (Tr.)

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Neo-Scholasticism and t h e M i s u n d e r s ta n d i n g o f G r a c e

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Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade (1868): 1–30

The first thirty pages of the book on grace, which appear here, constitute Kuhn’s last major work. He would pen another article a year later, and then retreat entirely from academic writing, although he would live another eighteen years. On one level this text represents the culmination of his argument with Constantin von Schäzler and the neo-scholastics over the relationship between nature and grace, and between the supernatural and the natural. On another level it echoes Kuhn’s longstanding effort to proceed carefully between two extreme positions. In the preface to the book, Kuhn opined that Schäzler seemed more interested in raising suspicions against him and dragging his name through the mud than in “a calm, objective considered academic disagreement.”1 We can only speculate on the reasons why Schäzler attacked Kuhn’s position with such vigor. Whatever the reason, Kuhn responded to the attacks with a plodding thoroughness. Over the course of five articles in the Quartalschrift, Kuhn spent over three hundred pages defending himself against Schäzler while showing Schäzler’s position to be more Calvinist than Catholic. Schäzler responded to every one of Kuhn’s articles, penning several articles and two books within a five-year period. 1  Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade, xi.

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128  C   Neo-Scholasticism One can hardly look at this debate, and the text at hand, without thinking of the twentieth-century discussions of grace and the supernatural, especially those focusing on Henri de Lubac. However far Kuhn’s understanding was from de Lubac’s, and however little Kuhn may have influenced him, one still detects a common, fundamental insight: namely, that the purely gifted character of grace must be preserved. And one cannot help but notice the irony that both theologians were accused by lesser figures who purported to represent the Thomist and Augustinian positions, but who were further from these positions than those whom they attacked.

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O

C

f a l l i d e a s about existence, the Christian notion of existence and of the human orientation [Bestimmung] is the most supernatural. The Christian notion begins with the distinction between natural and supernatural capacities of the person and regards the supernatural as the total and perfect realization of the divine plan [Idee] for humanity. Building on this notion, the Christian faith holds a definitive position concerning the condition of the first man [Mensch].2 Christianity considers this first man to be the head and representative of the entire species. It maintains that this relation is not merely a physical one, but also a moral (i.e., supernatural in the broad sense of the word) relation. It is the task of dogmatic anthropology to explain this scientifically.3 Setting out from the distinction between nature and grace, dogmatic anthropology must also explain and make intelligible to the enquiring spirit [denkender Geist] the following: What has the lapse of the first man, who came immediately from the hand of God, to do with grace? Further, what loss does sin cause? Finally, what is the meaning of human restoration that results from the liberation from sin? 2 As mentioned in “Translation and Editorial Principles” in the introduction to this volume, the word Mensch is like the Latin homo, and would have been translated as man in a time before the exclusivity of such a term. Whereas in the other essays the term person has been rendered whenever possible, in this essay it is avoided on account of Kuhn’s distinction between Person and Mensch. In addition, whenever Kuhn uses the phrase erster Mensch, it has been translated first man on account of the obvious connection to the mythic Adam and the importance of this symbol for subsequent Christian theology. (Tr.) 3  The word dogmatisch (dogmatic) did not carry the negative connotation in Kuhn’s time that it does now. Dogmatic implied nothing more than the explanation or systemic ordering of the tenets of Christian faith. (Tr.)

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Neo-Scholasticism  C   129

On this basis, dogmatic anthropology is divided into three parts and treats the following: (1) original grace (gratia conditoris) and the original state of justice (status justitiae originalis, naturae elevatae); (2) the first sin (peccatum originale), inherited sin (peccatum originale = peccatum haereditarium, original sin), and the state of sin (status peccati, naturae lapsae). (3) the restoration or reorientation of humanity from the fall through the grace of the savior (gratia salvatoris), i.e., the conversion and justification of the sinner (justificatio impii) and the state of justification (status naturae reparatae).

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1. The Task of Science One could say that the human being is created as merely natural (in puris naturalibus) and only subsequently is equipped with grace (gratia donatus, vestitus), or one could say that the human being, in the first moment of his existence (in primo instanti creationis) is given grace and in this sense is created in gratia or cum gratia. Both positions have been held in scholastic theology, and both are compatible with dogma. On this basis, the Church saw no reason to side with one position or the other and to put an end to these theological controversies. We ourselves side with Thomas Aquinas and the majority of subsequent theologians, who consider the latter position to be the correct one. The latter position can be summarized by the following phrase generally regarded to be Thomist: in gratia creatus [created in grace] comes very close to a misunderstanding that we must presently refute. If one supposes that the first man receives salvific grace in the moment of his creation (not any later), then this does not imply that grace is given in the same way as nature, or that grace is implanted ad modum naturae [in the manner of nature]. This would be a commingling of nature and grace—a dissolution of the difference between them that must be strictly and rigorously maintained. Grace presupposes nature, if not temporally, then at least objectively or conceptually. For nature or the natural human person is the receiver and carrier (subjectum, hypokemenon) of grace, and one would forego the concept of grace and destroy the particular essence of grace (of the supernatural) if one would somehow amalgamate grace with nature and the natural.

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130  C   Neo-Scholasticism Grace presupposes nature and does not complete nature according to a natural mode, but rather does so in an essentially other, supernatural manner (As Thomas says in the Summa Theologiae, I q. 1 a. 8, gratia supponit naturam et perficit eam [grace presupposes and perfects nature]. For this reason, questions about human nature or the natural human person have become urgent in dogmatic anthropology. In some sense they appear to be of fundamental importance for understanding Christian supernaturalism. Concerning these matters, we must understand what the human being is according to its concept and essence (that is, his nature). In addition, we need to consider the particular faculties of human nature, that is to say, the natural and essential orientation of the human being. Further, we must recognize the situation, that is, the situation of faculty [Vermögensstand], in which the human being—through his mere nature and natural powers— finds himself and is oriented toward his fulfillment. These questions seem in themselves to be philosophical, and the proper answer seems to be attainable through mere reason and rationalscientific research.4 The doctrine of faith has its self-sufficient truth independent from reason, and as divinely revealed (absolute) truth it stands above the truth of reason. Since this is the case for those of us who take the view of faith and who issue a dogmatic anthropology, we cannot yield to the temptation to decide each question in a scientific way and through philosophical investigation. For, depending on the results, which are never known apodictically and are never absolutely certain, such an investigation wants to judge the dogma of grace (its concepts, its necessity, etc.). Instead, we should begin with this dogma as the highest truth and take it as a reliable principle. In this manner we should investigate how the Christian doctrine of grace (presupposed as unconditionally true) fosters and serves as a foundation for understanding human nature and humanity’s natural orientation. However, dogmatic theology does not only cover the simple explana4  See Giovanni Perrone, Praelectiones Theologicae. Tractatus de deo creatore, Part III, ch. 2, #292 (in the 1842 Vienna edition on v. 5, 109). Giovanni Perrone (1794–1876) was one of the most prominent and influential Jesuit theologians in Rome during Kuhn’s time, and the Praelectiones were his most influential work. (Tr.)

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Neo-Scholasticism  C   131

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tion of its content, in this instance the dogmas about nature and grace. Nor does dogmatic theology merely treat the foundation of these doctrines through proofs from scripture and tradition in opposition to deviant, heretical teachings. Instead, following the Anselmian fides quarens intellectum [faith seeking understanding], dogmatic theology concerns the understanding [Erkenntnis] as demonstrated by faith’s compatibility with reason. This is done particularly through the refutation of attempts raised by the unfaithful that one should oppose solely from the standpoint of reason. Therefore it is no doubt necessary that we understand the purely rational (philosophical) reasons for the truth claims concerning human nature that are presupposed and postulated dogmatically, not to mention the questions raised by these claims. Further, we must solve the objections raised against mere reason.5 This is what the ancient theologians called the probatio or confirmatio fidei et ratione [the testing or confirmation by faith and reason] and the positive proofs from holy scripture and Church tradition that follow therefrom. Thus they too acknowledge the need for and the right to a speculative understanding of faith. 5  See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 2: “The proposition of our intention is to make known the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and to eliminate the errors to the contrary.” In opposition to the falsities of those who do not recognize the positive authority of Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers, it is necessary “to resort to natural reason to which all are able to assent, even though natural reason is deficient in divine matters” (ibid.). In these matters its deficiency is not absolute, but only relative. Natural reason in no way lacks all light of truth, but is, as Thomas says, “capable of attaining some truth concerning God and divine matters” (I, 3 [this phrase not found in the chapter cited by Kuhn]). But the truth of faith or the revealed truth transcends such a person’s capacity (I, 7.1). Natural reason cannot attain this truth on its own, and when it is given (or revealed) to natural reason, it still is not demonstrated. That is to say, the content is not proved through compelling reasons as a necessary truth (I, 9.2). The revealed truth promotes faith. Still, insofar as natural reason is “capable of attaining some truths concerning God and divine matters,” it is able from its particular standpoint to address and answer the claims and doubts raised against the truth of faith, and thus is able in a certain sense to show the probability of these truths (I, 8 and 9). Natural reason is—neither from the outset nor as a result of original sin—a born fool, as Luther says. Rather it is a source and principle of higher truth, although this higher truth is accessible to natural reason only to a certain degree and in a limited amount. Since truth cannot contradict truth, a consonance and an interior bond takes place between natural reason and revealed truth. Natural reason is capable of refuting and responding to the aforementioned claims and doubts (I, 7; see also Summa Theologiae, I,1 a.8). The translator has referred to but not always followed the English translation: On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. Anton C. Pegis (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1955).

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132  C   Neo-Scholasticism

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2. The Human Being and His Natural Orientation The questions raised previously may quickly be answered. In the system of divine creation the human being occupies a position sharply defined and immutably fixed. The human being rests between merely sentient beings (the animals) and higher spirits (angels). With the latter he shares self-consciousness and a self-determining spirit (intellect and will). An animal in no way possesses such traits. But with the animal humanity shares a material body and sensate experience, as well as an essence that feels and desires. Higher spirits do not share these qualities. Hence the human being is an embodied spirit, a sentient rational being. This is his substance (οὐσία). However, to every substance there belongs a certain subsistence (ὐπόστασις). Particular and essential to a rational nature is a personal spirit and a power to think and will. To be formed in this substance (body and soul) is the complete being of humanity, the total concept of human nature. Wherein does humanity’s natural orientation and ultimate goal consist? By its nature as a rational spirit, the human soul is immortal. In any circumstance, and however its life might be led, the human being extends beyond its temporal life, whether this be in eternal life (blessedness) or eternal death (damnation, misery). And whether it is the one or the other depends on the way he leads his life, which is a personal decision determined by his free will. But it is immediately apparent that the ultimate goal to which God has called him in this temporal existence (by creating him as a rational being), can only be conceived as eternal life. This is his divine calling, and its actualization is the task with which he should concern himself in this earthly life. The previous paragraph raises the question: whether and to what extent a human being has the capacity on her own merit to accomplish what she should accomplish? This raises a further question: prior to or independently of God’s provident grace, does the human being naturally possess the power and the faculty [possibilitas naturalis], which reason furnishes, in order to realize her naturally given ability as a rational creature? To put it more precisely, does she possess in her natural reason the capacity to know [erkennen] God? And does she possess in her will the ability to ori-

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Neo-Scholasticism  C   133

ent herself according to this knowledge, that is to say, to suppress the sentient and egoistic drive so as to love God, and in such a manner to arrive at her natural blessedness in God? We say yes to these questions with total confidence, for we are supported on one hand by reason and rational self-awareness, on the other hand by the positive doctrine of faith in reference to supernatural grace: that which has been bestowed to humanity in the beginning in addition to and beyond human nature (naturae superadditum). All Catholic theologians say this in one voice. It is that by which Catholic doctrine distinguishes itself both from Pelagianism and from the diametrically opposed pseudo-Augustinianism. The grace bestowed is an unmerited gift of divine beneficence and generosity that is not owed to human beings: a gift of grace (donum mere gratuitum [a gift simply given]). This is done in order to bestow a gift on humanity so that humanity’s nature can be elevated beyond its natural ability (the capacity needed in view of the final goal). In this sense it is a supernatural gift (donum supernaturale). These tenets of faith necessarily presuppose the concept of a purely natural [creatürlich] human being. Without this concept the above tenets are indefensible and frail. If humanity were simply not able to strive for an eternal life without this gift of grace, and instead must be eternally damned and miserable, how then could this benefit be a pure gift of grace not owed by the creator to humanity? It inheres in the concept of the human being as a rational being that he is called to communion with God (through the knowledge and love of God), and thus must be in position somehow to encounter this knowledge and love, and to live according to his rational nature! Anyone who is not in this position is not even human or truly rational. Further, whatever would relegate humanity to such a situation and whatever would be needed to complete it, could not be considered a free enhancement (a gift of grace) of his creation, but instead must be understood as a necessary completion of creation. Yet how could one understand this enhancement [superadditio] as a supernatural gift if the human being in his unique position as a rational being were so only on the basis of such a gift? How could this gift be supernatural if he were able to live rationally only through such a gift? If this gift were to complete human nature, then this supplement would be essentially and absolutely necessary,

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134  C   Neo-Scholasticism and therefore a donum naturale [a natural gift]. It would be a contradiction to regard that which first made human nature fully human as something supernatural. If we want to talk about grace, and we wish to avoid claiming what the Pelagians claimed (that what humanity received originally from their creator consists simply in human nature and its given natural possibilities), then we must maintain that the concept of human nature necessarily presupposes the concept of grace. Otherwise we would drift into the other extreme that commingles grace with nature by regarding grace as an ad hoc completion of nature needed to make humanity capable of a completely rational nature and intellectual life [geistiges Leben]. The fundamental error of this position, held by Constantin von Schäzler, has already been outlined. Von Schäzler has taken to “critiquing” our theology and has attempted to locate the concept of the “supernatural” on a deeper level. He has overlooked that the human being is not merely natural, and that to human nature there essentially belongs not merely human substance (its elementary intellect, body, and soul), but also reason (natura rationalis). He lacks a concept of the human being [Mensch] in contrast to human nature as such, as well as the concept of a personal rational being [persönliches Vernunftwesen]. This personal rational being is dominus sui et suorum actuum [master of himself and of his actions] through its natural and essential liberum arbitrium [free will]. By departing from this understanding, Schäzler ignores what Thomas says in the first question of the second part of his Summa Theologiae. Here Thomas lays the foundation for his contrast between sin and grace. Schäzler bases his “deeper” understanding on this departure from Aquinas, and this results in his new articulation of the concept of grace, in which he considers human nature as such the subject of grace. We too speak of nature and grace. However, we do so in the particular and specific manner of the Church Fathers—especially Augustine along with the later theologians—when they propose the following as a title in their treatments on the subject of Christian anthropology: de gratia et libero arbitrio [on grace and free will]. As Aquinas says, the human being, as a personal rational being, is capax alicujus veritatis de deo et rebus divinis [capable of attaining some truth concerning God and divine matters]. Adding to this definition—as we

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will do below—the human being is alicujus amoris dei [capable of attaining something of God’s love]. In order to be able, in an appropriate and reasonable manner, to be in agreement with his creator and with the natural orientation given to him, he does not need God’s grace because his nature is sufficient. Grace seeks to make him (and also accomplishes this) a participant in a unique, complete, and supernatural communion with God. This communion is such that it transcends the faculty and power of his nature (his natural possibilitas [capability]). If one takes human nature, regarded according to its simple substance, and distinguished from humans as personal beings (by which we mean what was given to the first human through freedom of the will and the faculty of the good made possible thereby), and if one conceives of this— his perfectio naturalis as integratio [natural perfection as integration] of his nature—as an unmerited gift of God, then there is nothing in principle to object to. Is not all that the human has a gift of his good creator, and can one not also on this matter side with the Apostle: quid habes, quod non accepisti [what do you have that you have not accepted]? But one must be on guard not to confuse the gift of natural created integration [of the human desire for God] with grace, as von Schäzler does when he attributes that gift to sanctifying grace.6 6  See Schäzler, Natur und Übernatur [Nature and the Supernatural], 242. There is an element of this commingling of nature and grace in Pelagianism. The free will, the gift by which God singled out humanity, and through which humanity is in the position to be upright, is the grace of God. Ergo, says Pelagius, “I do not dispute the grace of God. However, because I defend the free will of man, and I say, because the free will is sufficient for me to be just, I do not say: without the grace of God.” Augustine, on the other hand, says that “[i]t is not a matter of general grace with which man is created”—it is not a matter of nature, which both the virtuous and viceful people share, but instead a matter of “special grace,” i.e., grace that is distinct from nature (Augustine, Sermon 36 ch. 7 n. 8; Migne, v. 5,174). If the natural integration of the human being is traced back to saving grace—something held by no earlier theologians save Baius and Jansen (we will demonstrate this point later), then it would imply a reduction and diminution of the concept of grace (and of the supernatural) in an entirely different manner than the Pelagian confusion of nature and grace. Michel Baius (1513–1589) was a Louvain theologian whose writings about original sin and human nature received censure in his own lifetime. Cornelius Otto Jansen (1585–1638) was heir to his legacy at Louvain before he became bishop at Ypres. His posthumously published writings became the inspiration for Jansenism, which taught the irresistibility of God’s grace, double predestination, and ethical rigorism. (Tr.)

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3. The Free Will of Humanity and Its Natural Inclination to the Good If we say: “humanity is, somehow or other, in a position to know and love God by virtue of its rational nature, and thereby this to fulfill its natural end (finis naturalis),” this statement remains totally abstract such that we cannot more closely determine what specific sort of “being in a position” this possibilitas naturalis [natural potency] is actually supposed to be. We make the additional claim that this faculty becomes available to the human being such that it depends simply on his free will. What he does and what is made possible through his will is also actualized by him. For this reason his capacity is the possibility of opposing choices. The human being can choose in favor of or against reason, can either seek or turn away from the eternal and divine, and can submit to his sensualist and egoistic drives. In short, he can act rationally or irrationally. Whether one or the other happens depends on his will, which is free for both options such that he is compelled through neither his spiritual nor his sensual nature. All questions of “higher” anthropology revolve about human free will like an axis. The understanding of the will determines the understanding and comprehension of the Christian doctrine of grace. One must never forget that the matter of the will’s freedom is a philosophical problem of unfathomable depth. When one sees this problem in the proper light, and when one gets beyond the one-sidedness of both determinism and indeterminism, one still will fail to grasp completely the peculiar nature of the will, and will not be able to present evidence suitable for understanding. How much less will we be able to succeed in understanding divine grace and its effect if the mystery of our creation casts shadows on this doctrine of faith. It is not our task to undertake a philosophical investigation concerning the essence of human free will. Instead, our task regarding human nature in general, along with natural, human free will, is to highlight an understanding of the will that conditions and serves as the basis for the Catholic doctrine of grace. Perhaps human free will is best understood in the sense of indeterminism, as the same capacity for good and evil, that is, as an absolute freedom to choose [Wahlfreiheit]. According to this understanding, decisions of the will as well as acts must be independent of all external influence in order

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to be really free. These decisions must be thought of as proceeding from the sovereign preference of the willing person. Pelagian rationalism proceeds from this concept of the will and explains the Pelagian opposition to the Catholic teaching on grace. The notion of the divine dispensation [Mitteilung] of grace states that grace works interiorly, grasps the will in its core, and orders the will to the higher and to the supernatural. For indeterminism or Pelagianism, given their concept of the free will, this notion seems untenable, and is regarded as a disturbing and harmful incursion. Therefore, in order not to relinquish the fundamental truth of the rational consciousness—that the human being has a free will—Pelagianism declares itself opposed to this teaching concerning grace. Of course it would be correct in doing so if its understanding of the freedom of the will were true and rationally sound, since faith does not want to put itself in contradiction to reason. If we want to reject its opposition as rationalist and set against it the Catholic doctrine of grace as the truth, then at the same time we would need to explain that its position regarding free will is philosophically erroneous. Freedom of will is the solemn privilege of the human being in comparison to those creatures that stand below him, and in conjunction with reason it comprises his being “in God’s image.” Pelagius, too, admits as much. But his concept of the free will is not compatible with the doctrine of creation. If the human being is created in the image of God, he must have been created good. But this is not true of humanity if its created nature is constrained in this situation to will good just as much as evil. In order to image God and be just, that is, to be created in such a way as is contained in the idea of the human as rational being, the human must naturally be bonae voluntatis [of a good will] freely, and his free will must be conceived as inclined to the good. Pelagius knows nothing of the will’s inclination that presupposes a free decision of the will. Such an orientation of the will would imply, he thinks, both a good and an evil nature in a Manichean sense. He believes that one can understand the will’s orientation only as a result of the will’s activity. This is his fundamental error. He does not see that human nature, as long as it is only equipped with this same faculty of good and evil, lacks something if it is to be truly rational and created in the image of God. This something is for the rational essence the natural

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138  C   Neo-Scholasticism inclination to the good. This inclination of the will does not exclude its free decision; it only modifies this freedom. It does so in such a way that that will no longer appears as a faculty of volition [Willkur], as a principle of a groundless, random activity, but instead as ordered and motivated will. The counter-extreme to Pelagianism is Manichaeism, which purports a good and evil nature, and that there are two souls in humanity. PseudoAugustinianism adopts this position. Manichaeism is far from considering the will (as Pelagianism does) to be a pure faculty of choice and an absolute freedom of choice. It is far from dismissing every habitual orientation that is natural or supernatural to him as the precondition of the will’s decision. The Manichaean views the will much more simply in this last sense as an inclination, preference, or love. He denies freedom of choice (as libertas a necessitate [freedom from necessity]) and thinks that it is natural for the will to will as if it were determined and decided from within, so that it wills with preference, but involuntarily and by necessarily following its inner inclination. To the Manicheans, only the will of the first man counts as perfectly good, such that these goods are available to him for his free disposal. But because the Manicheans accept that these goods of his will are bestowed naturally to him through creation, and not through the grace of God, they confuse these goods with the natural free will. This leads to the conclusion that not merely these goods but also his freedom is lost through the misuse of the will in sin. Thus they arrive at the doctrine of a necessitas peccandi [necessity of sinning] and of salvific grace as a divine communication that takes place without the participation of the free will. On the contrary, the Church’s teaching states that only the supernatural good of the will is lost through the misuse of the will. The person’s natural goods decrease, but the freedom of choice, which belongs to his nature and to the essence of his rationality and his will, remains. In this manner the Church’s teaching advocates the truth that lies between indeterminism and determinism. It sublates [aufheben] the opposition of these two extremes into a higher unity. Both views are relatively correct to the extent that each accents a moment of the truth that excludes the other. On this basis, both positions are untrue when taken absolutely. The human will is never an abstract faculty of good and evil; it is never a pure indifference and indecisiveness between good and evil. Above all

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else, the will is what its name says—the will. The will is the inclination, preference, and love of the subject. For, as Augustine says, Quid est velle quam amare [what else is to will than to love]? Only under this presupposition and on such a basis is the will’s particular action of the human the will. The inclination (the heart’s desire), this habit of his will, is a moral (either natural or supernatural) quality of the will, and it incites the will to the corresponding action. Since the will is inclined and not necessitated, solicited but not determined, the will acts freely.

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4. The Human Receptivity for Divine Grace Assuming that she has grown out of her training wheels and strives toward intellectual maturity, the human being finds herself in an intellectual and moral state, possesses a free will and is the master of her own actions. All earlier Catholic theologians teach this, with the exception of Baius, Jansen, and their followers. Even the pseudo-Augustinians acknowledge that a free human will existed from the very beginning and was not sublated [aufgehoben] by justitia originalis [original justice].7 They do not deny that the human fall into sin derives from a free transgression against the divine command. However, in opposition to the pseudo-Augustinians, Catholic teaching declares that the natural freedom of the will is not lost through sin (see the Council of Trent, Sixth Session, ch. 1 and canon 5). Therefore salvific grace does not work with an involuntary tool, but with a rational being who orients himself through his own will. The sinner relates freely to the awakening as well as the saving grace of God (ibid., chs. 5 and 7). Free will is essential to humanity’s rational nature, as well as to its hypostatic character and substantial form. Through free will the human being becomes a personal [persönlich], rational being. The human being can be a personal rational being in different ways. He can have a good or a bad personality, and can be good in a merely natural way, or in a supernatural way as well (through grace). Human nature in the particular, concrete sense as a personal being is the constant, while the 7  This term comes from scholastic theology and indicates the theoretical state of the human being before the Fall, when humans possessed a supernatural inclination to the good that for Aquinas was not part of human nature, strictly speaking, but part of God’s supernatural grace. (Tr.)

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140  C   Neo-Scholasticism personality of the same being may change. What counts is not merely the human substance, but also the person’s own and essential attributes, what the scholastic theologians with one voice call naturalia post peccatum permanserunt integra [the natural integrity remaining after sin]. After the Fall humanity maintains not only its substance (body and soul), but also the dominium sui per liberum arbitrium [mastery of oneself through free will]. This mastery belongs to humanity’s idea and essence just as much as the human substance. Both before and after the fall the person is thoroughly human, but admittedly not the same person, nor the same personality. The moral composition, the willful inclination (good or evil), and the good or evil will, by virtue of which the will is free, constitute something other than the nature of the human will (so that the human is never under necessity to behave a certain way).8 The question arises as to how the will of a purely natural (creaturely) human, prescinding from both sin and grace, can be thought of as selfdetermining. Is such a will free in a merely natural sense as the abstract, neutral capacity for good and evil, or is the merely natural will ordered to the good from the beginning? Augustine taught, against Pelagius, that God made men just with a bonum voluntatis (good will). But Augustine did not expressly differentiate concerning the deeper relation between merely natural gifts and the supernatural perfections considered to come from divine grace. The scholastics distinguished the one from the other, and this should be recognized as a step forward in teaching [Lehrweise]. St. Thomas says of human beings that there rests in human willing a natural desire for the good of reason.9 Further, humanity naturally possesses an inclination to virtue.10 This natural inclination to virtue is given to him as a rational being (independent of grace).11 Due to being rational, humanity 8  The will inclined to the good we can call ethical; the will inclined to evil we can call ethically enslaved (notwithstanding its natural freedom). We can do so insofar as the human person is hindered and limited through the inclination of his will toward what he should not do, given that his creator gave him a free will for the purpose of doing what he should. In this sense the will is enslaved. 9  See Summa Theologiae I-II q. 63 a. 1: “In the will there exists a natural appetite for good in accordance with reason.” [Henceforth ST.] 10  ST I-II, q. 85 a.1: “Man has from nature an inclination to virtue.” 11  ST I-II q. 85 a. 2: “The good of nature diminished by sin is the natural inclination to virtue, which is befitting to man given that he is rational.”

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is disposed for virtue. Developed in an adult, this disposition is to be conceived as the immediate orientation [Aufgelegtsein] to the actual willing and doing of the good. It is the beginning stage and primary school for the virtues.12 The natural orientation and disposition to virtue rests between human nature as such and the supernatural good. Aquinas outlines a threefold good of nature.13 The first are the principles of nature. These goods (body and soul) constitute nature as such as well as other qualities or faculties essential to nature.14 The second good of nature is the inclination of humanity to virtue, which is naturally intrinsic to humanity (and to the will). We can call the third good of nature the justitia originalis (original justice), to the extent that this good was given to all of human nature through the first human being. We should remember, though, as Thomas expressly stated in the Summa Theologiae, this good is also a donum supernaturale [a supernatural gift].15 The will’s inclination to virtue was something natural for the first human being. But it is something different from and should be distinguished from her nature. Although such an inclination is natural to her, it is not inextricably bound to human nature, and should not be thought of as belonging to her substantial essence. Rather, it should be thought of as a variable that changes according to her conduct (her free use of the will). Human nature itself—literally the “first good of nature”—remains unchanged (naturalia post peccatum permanserunt integra [what is natural remains whole after sin]) through sin (a distorted, irrational use of the will), in that it is not totally negated or diminished. Hence it operates in a totally different man12  ST I-II q. 63 a. 1: “In man’s reason there are instilled by nature certain naturally known principles of both knowledge and action. These are the nurseries of intellectual and moral virtues, and to this extent the will has a certain natural appetite for good in accordance with reason” [Kuhn’s italics]. 13  See ST I-II, q. 85 a. 1. 14  There belongs above all to these “other qualities” the fact that the human nature is not merely a physical substance moved by external stimulation, and not merely an animalistic being, which follows its blind instincts (natural drives) unconsciously and without exercising its free will. Rather, the human is a natura (anima) rationis [rational nature or soul], a self-conscious and selfdetermining being, a person. As such, says Thomas, he is dominus suorum actuum [master of his own actions]. This is its sumum bonum [highest good], in that it distinguishes itself from animantia irrationalia quae natura prona atque ventri obedientia finxit [the irrational beings, who by nature have been formed bent and gluttonous]. 15  ST I-II q. 95 a. 1; see also Summa Contra Gentiles IV, 52, 6.

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142  C   Neo-Scholasticism ner compared to the two other goods of nature. The third good of nature is totally negated through the sin of the first people. The middle good, in contrast, is not totally destroyed by sin, but is minimized or weakened.16 It is of greatest importance for an adequate understanding of theological anthropology that one makes these distinctions—on the one hand between human nature as such and its natural goods, and on the other hand between natural and the supernatural goods (bonum seu donum gratiae [the good or gift of grace], or justitia originalis [original justice]. We must see these distinctions clearly, for these natural goods are the midpoint between human nature as such and the state of grace. In addition, in this middle point lies the key for a distinction proposed by later theologians between pure nature, integrated nature (natura integra), and elevated nature. When these theologians speak of integrated nature, they mean neither the simply natural gifts nor the actual gifts of grace. Instead they understand integrated nature as something between these two, and as the perfection of the person in the orientation to a natural end. With this definition, they distinguish it from the person’s perfection (through sanctifying grace) in orientation to a supernatural end. It is important to understand correctly that the naturalis inclinatio voluntatis ad virtutem (natural inclination of the will to virtue) of St. Thomas is nothing but the natural good of human beings, and the midpoint between human nature as such—according to its full meaning and not mere substance—and its supernatural goods. One must note, therefore, the dialectic hierarchy in this last concept. At least in its substance, human nature is the first, though entirely abstract, moment of the expression we connote by the word “human.” Since human nature is rational, this makes his nature a personal spirit. As a rational nature, human nature is an essential personal spirit. This way of existing (modus subsistendi) uniquely and inseparably from human nature is the moment that concludes the concept of nature. What we mean to say is this: according to its complete concept, human nature is the human being [Mensch] as a person [Person]. The human being is never simply a person 16  See ST I-II q. 85 a. 1 and 2. In these articles Aquinas by no means wants to deny that the will of the sinner is inclined to sin and that the original inclination to virtue is no longer present. Aquinas only wants to say that the good inclination is not eradicated in the sinner. (Tr.)

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or a personal spirit lacking a particular content or meaning of his personality. Instead, he is always somehow personally delimited; he is formed in some spiritual or ethical relation. He could be formed as wise or foolish, good or evil, as a friend or as an enemy of God. This formation is what we call one’s personality.17 When we agree with Aquinas that the human is by nature oriented to virtue, we do not mean to virtue and virtuousness itself, but something similar, the initial stage of it (what Aquinas calls the seminarium virtutis [the nursery garden of virtue]). The inclination to virtue goes beyond the concept of person or personal spirit [persönlichen Geistseins] and designates the quality of this being and its spiritual and moral personality. Both the wise man and the fool are persons or personal spirits, but their personalities are totally different. Through his inclination to virtue the human being has a good will. This remains the case if he wills and as long as he wills it so. In other words, he has a good will freely. This good will and this natural inclination to virtue form an immediate connection for the human being’s encounter with grace. Such an inclination serves as the natural openness or disposition for supernatural goodness that the human being now shares. At the same time the inclination to virtue is the lifeline by which he receives grace, and through whose mediation grace becomes his own. When this happens, he now becomes pleasing to God and worthy of eternal life (in the highest sense, as supernatural blessedness). This idea is of principal importance for the proper understanding of the Catholic doctrine of grace. We must emphatically implore our readers to comprehend this and to pass it on to all future readers. The idea is not new and has not been first claimed by us. We have only formulated this idea more pointedly, as happens nowadays, and have attempted to give expression to this idea according to current use of language. The following is a theological axiom from Bañez, the famous Thomist: gratia habenti usum rationis (adulto) nisi praevia dispositone [grace has no use for (adult) reason unless by previous disposition].18 This is true when 17  One should not overlook that this term is not the same as that of person [Personseins], which is the personality of human nature in this abstract sense. 18  Bañez, Scholastica Commentaria in primam angelici doctoris D. Thomae (Duaci, 1614), 471. Domingo Bañez (1528–1604) was a prominent Salamancan Dominican known for his controversy with the Jesuits concerning grace. (Tr.)

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144  C   Neo-Scholasticism it concerns the complete and concrete orientation of grace and its effect, and when it starts with a grown person. Concerning the grace of the first man, this goes without saying. Bañez considers this notion to be the precise claim of Aquinas, and cites the Third Part of the Summa (q. 34 a. 3).19 For Bañez this applies to both the original grace and saving grace. However, if we look at the first grace, significant difficulties underlie this interpretation. For it appears, when talking about a preceding natural disposition, that it lies under the presupposition that the purely creaturely human being is temporally prior to the communication of grace. At this point we brush up against the scholastic controversy mentioned already, and that we can now engage more deeply. At the time of St. Thomas the view of most theologians was the following: both angels and human beings were not created in or cum gratia, sed in naturalibus tantum [in or with grace, but naturally], and receive salvific grace only later.20 Even after Thomas and in spite of his argument, respected and well-known theologians still held this position, among them Duns Scotus and Gabriel Biel. These theologians conceived the state of nature as temporally prior to the state of grace. Therefore they could talk without difficulty about a prior disposition for the reception of grace. We too needed to understand this teaching in the interest of that axiom, even if it were applicable only to those earlier theologians. But it is not applicable only to them, and we are not hindered from giving consequence to this reflection, against which is the assumption that the human being is provided with grace only just after its creation. Therefore we offer the following reflections. It is posited that the human being is created naturally, so one may understand her natural disposition for acceptance of grace in a twofold manner. If the human were already receptive to grace through 19  See ST I-II q. 113 a. 8 ad 2: dispositio subjecti praecedit susceptionem formae (gratiae sanctificantis) [the disposition of the subject precedes the undertaking of the form (of sanctifying grace)]. In this article, which takes place in the context of his Christology, Aquinas says that one can receive meritorious grace before one has reached the age of reason. (Tr.) 20 Aquinas witnesses to this fact in ST II-II q. 5 a.1. Kuhn lists Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, and Bonaventure among the theologians who held this view. His bibliographic citation has not been included. Kuhn also notes that Bonaventure calls this opinion the opinio communior et probabilior [the more common and more probable opinion]. Kuhn continues, “In our time the Thomist opinion is the common claim and counts as more acceptable, which it also is.”

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the creation of its nature, then it is difficult to ignore why God would have waited a long time to dispense the grace that he had intended for humanity from the very beginning. Or perhaps the human being was not receptive to this grace from the beginning, but rather should make herself receptive and should prepare for this grace through the right use of reason. If this were true, then one would have to accept, prescinding from the difficulty of avoiding the concept of merit, that he would be able to use his will correctly, outside of the state of grace, and then in the same position immediately use his will incorrectly. But this is certainly improbable. On this basis it seems undoubtedly more correct to say with Thomas that primus homo in gratia creatus est [the first person was created in grace].21 From this does it not follow that we may speak of the first human being’s natural receptivity or disposition for grace? Certainly not. The Thomist teaching excludes a disposition that is the result of a good will that is more and less constant because, according to Thomist teaching, grace is dispensed to humanity in primo instanti creationis [in the first instant of creation] in a totally anticipatory [zuvorkommend] manner. Since nature in any case is the presupposition of grace—if not temporally prius [prior], then formally or conceptually so—then the question can be distilled to the following: Can human nature, as coming directly from the hand of God, be regarded as immediately and essentially oriented to grace (irrespective of every actual human use of the will)? And if this is true, how is humanity thus oriented? One could say, that already as a rational being with free will, humanity is disposed toward divine grace. For as such a being, humanity is in position to know the proximity of the immediate divine light and to give its assent to the unique love of God. According to what Thomas taught and what we have already stated about the proper understanding of human free will, humanity does not simply possess a naturally free will, but rather this will is habituated naturally to incline toward virtue. If we accept this, then we will perceive more than just a cold and passive acceptance of grace. Instead we will see a living and positive receptivity for grace. Indeed Bañez and most Thomists (at least in his mind) teach the following: quod angelo et homini data est 21  ST I q. 95 a. 1; II-II q. 5 a. 1.

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146  C   Neo-Scholasticism gratia in ipsa creatione, mediante tamen dispositione liberi arbitrii [that grace was given to angels and humans in creation itself]. In order to substantiate this claim about the meaning and nature of grace, they cite the passage from the master’s Summa Theologiae mentioned earlier: “that Christ was given grace in the first instant by reason of his own movement of the free will.”22 They also cite Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences. In these passages, Aquinas argues against the common opinion that the human being was first equipped with grace after his creation in naturalibus tantum [naturally]. Against this opinion, Aquinas argues, “It is more likely that when man was created with his natural endowments,23 which could not be ineffective, he acquired grace insofar as he had turned toward God in the first instance of his being created.”24 This conversio hominis naturaliter integri ad deum [conversion of the naturally integrated man to God] is nothing but the natural inclination of his will to the good of reason, and in this inclination there consists the previously noted dispositio of his will. Grace for the first human being is not invested [anerschaffen] in him like his nature, but instead becomes his own through the participation of his free will disposed for its receptivity. Thus grace appears to be connected to his free will, and to this natural principle of his particularity as a subject and person.25 Just as grace does not become particular for the human being without his will and willingness [Bereitwilligkeit], so grace remains in him only when and so long as he wishes. According to the teachings of St. Thomas, the human being is not created with or naturally provided with the natural good of his will, let alone with supernatural or salvific grace. As Thomas teaches expressly (Summa Theologiae I-II q. 85 a. 1–2), human nature and the natural freedom of will in its essential integrity is not endangered, let alone diminished or totally destroyed, through his misuse of the will. Still, the natural good of his will suffers a diminution, and the supernatural good 22  ST III q. 34 a. 3. 23  That is to say, not only according to his substance as human nature, but as a complete human being, as a personal rational being. 24 In II Sent. d. 29 un. a. 2. 25  For an example, see Kuhn, “Das Natürliche und das Übernatürliche” [The Natural and the Supernatural], ThQ 46 (1864). Kuhn gives page 55n2, but the article in question ran on pages 175–329. One bibliography mentions that this article by Kuhn was printed separately, which explains the discrepancy but does not alleviate the difficulty of finding the remark in the original. (Tr.)

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Neo-Scholasticism  C   147

is lost entirely. It could not be the result of sin when his bona voluntas [good will] would be given to him (in one sense or another), or would become like a “supernature” to his nature. Therefore it remains that when the human being attains the grace of God through the mediation of the free will’s disposition, then this grace is connected to the will (as the principle of the personality). The will retains grace, if it wants to retain this grace, and grace escapes the will, if the will does not want to retain it. When the will does not want to hold on to this grace, the person separates himself from the supernatural connection that binds him to God through the Holy Spirit, disobeys the divine will and command, and seeks to emancipate himself out of pride. The above axiom applies to salvific grace (the justification and salvation of the sinner), which we would like to touch on briefly for the rest of this chapter. Now we are in the auspicious position to see our insights confirmed not only through the authority of the scholastics, especially Thomism, but especially through the decrees of the Church itself. For good reason (as we shall see later) the Council of Trent treats the justification of adults. Trent speaks neither in an entirely abstract manner about it, nor portrays it from the same viewpoint as of children justified through the baptismal gift of grace. The human sinner finds himself in a completely different position than that of the first man before (or independent of) grace. The sinful person is not ad deum conversus (turned toward God) as prelapsarian man is. As a result, he is not immediately receptive to, or oriented toward, justifying and saving grace. Hence he is not in the position to achieve this orientation for himself, but rather as is written in the conciliar document, converte nos, domine, ad te, et convertemur [convert us to you, O Lord, and we will be converted] (Session 6, Ch. 5). Trent teaches expressly the necessitas praeparationis ad justificationem in adultis [necessity of preparation for the justification of adults] through prevenient grace of God (ibid.). And it allows us to recognize clearly the foundation of this necessity. The foundation lies, where it alone can lie, in the concept of justification. According to the council, justification is not simply the remission of sins (ibid., ch. 7), but also the salvation and renewal of the inner person per voluntariam susceptionem gratiae et donorum [through the voluntary acceptance of grace and of gifts]. The grace of justification is not merely an external favor of God through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness,

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148  C   Neo-Scholasticism and not merely the remission of sins, but it is also salvation and renewal of the inner person. This saving grace should be freely accepted rather than forced on humans. For this reason, there is a necessary preparation for its fruitful reception, a certain prevenient inner constitution of the person, by virtue of which he is disposed and prepared to accept this grace. If justification were only imputation of Christ’s righteousness, then it would not require prevenient grace and its transformation of the inner person, and it would not be about our preparedness. Instead it would be simply about the preparedness of God, and whether Christ’s righteousness should be applied to this or that person. In addition, a corresponding disposition of the free will would not be required if saving grace were a natural completion of human nature, thus making human nature capable of supernatural activity. The person would require this saving grace in the same immediate manner, without any activity on her part. It would require a mere passivity, just as cold water is warmed by fire. From our side, and as the scholastics and the Church itself teach, when a prior disposition of our free will is needed for its attainment, salvific grace is conceived not as a completion of nature ad modum naturae (naturally), and certainly not as a change in nature as such. Rather, salvific grace must be understood as a change in the element of nature connected to free will, and as the elevation of the person’s natural good and the perfection toward the supernatural good. If one conceives the habitus gratiae sanctificantis [habit of sanctifying grace] as a participation in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4), then one cannot conceive it in the sense of a physical communion with the divine nature or a deification of humanity. The consortium divinae naturae (participation in divine nature) can mean a twofold participation in the divine goods, both a natural and a supernatural participation, without canceling the infinite difference between God and his creatures, between divine nature and human nature (or essence), and without leading to a unity of substance (in the pantheistic sense). The participation in the divine good comes already to the natural, purely creaturely person as natura rationalis naturaliter inclinans ad virtutem (rational nature naturally inclining to virtue). For this reason one says that humanity is made in God’s image and likeness. If one’s natural good and perfection becomes supernatural through God’s

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grace, this is another kind of participation in the divine good and perfection than the former. But humanity does not receive another nature, and this is not a physical deification. This cannot be so because the acquisition of the supernatural good is mediated through the possession of the natural good. The difference between these two kinds of participation is that the former means a moral, and the latter means a physical communion of the human being with God. The latter would be a natural change of its nature. It would not be mediated through the good disposition of its free will. Instead it would be an entirely immediate transformation of the human’s involvement. It would constitute an elevation [Hinaufrückung] of human nature in the hierarchy of divine creation. We have opposed the previously outlined notion of the participation in the divine nature through God’s mediating grace because it departs from the teaching of the Church and the agreement of earlier theologians. This misconstrued notion understands the participation of humanity in God like the relation between a natural and an artificial magnet. The natural magnet (a certain kind of iron ore) contains within itself the quality to attract and retain, and binds itself through this process to the other object. It is able to share its power to attract iron. This quality arises from its own nature, so it is natural to it. Ordinary iron only has this power by participation, natura participata [by a participated nature]. According to this notion, God shares his nature in a similar manner. God shares what is natural to God with his creation through grace. Therefore, both are able to share the same nature with one another, with the provision that it is received in the creature. From a pantheistic standpoint this notion makes good sense, but from a theistic point of view the notion is nonsensical. From the theistic view, we maintain that there is a personal relation between God and the rational creature. This relation is founded on the free love of God and kindles in humanity a free love for God. The shared good, precisely because it is shared, cannot be the same as the divine good. For the divine good arises from and through itself, and is good by nature; it is the absolute good and perfection. Not even mysticism can disregard this fundamental truth. Mysticism must respect this truth. It must grasp and preserve this truth through the way of subjective contemplation and inner experience. Its particular charism consists in its distinction from objective speculation.

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Sources of Revealed Truth Scripture and Tradition Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik

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(1859; second edition), 24–71

The following constitutes the lengthiest chapter of our selection. It succeeds the earlier chapter, “Revelation and Its Salvific Import.” Kuhn’s concern here is to show how Christianity’s foundation in historically revealed events does not result in a biblicist theology, or what he calls the scriptural principle. Instead, scripture itself is based on a prior, verbal proclamation. As the Logos, Jesus is the Word of God. The disciples and apostles spread this message through verbal proclamation that was only subsequently recorded in the books of scripture. Given this, Kuhn argues that the New Testament is not the sole, sufficient source of truth. He makes the point that many New Testament writings are topical and do not claim to be exhaustive accounts of either the person of Jesus or the tenets of faith. These points also lead to a hermeneutics of scripture. For Kuhn, the Church has the legitimate authority to interpret scripture. Although he does not explore all of the ways that this point may be problematic, he does point to the difficulties in Protestantism that stem from the inclination for individuals to interpret the scripture absent any authoritative body. The text below appeals to many patristic sources, the most prevalent being Irenaeus and Vincent of Lerins. Like Möhler, Kuhn’s appeal to these authors was done as a conscious attempt to link contemporary confessional debates to 150

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earlier disputes. Doing so made it appear that the Catholic position was the authentic, orthodox one. The following text also contains many of the arguments that were made a century later by Yves Congar in his ground-breaking Tradition and Traditions and that also appear in the drafts and final copy of the Second Vatican Council’s decree on divine revelation, Dei Verbum.

T

C

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h e d i v i n e l y r e v e a l e d truth, the Word of God, which God spoke to humanity first through the prophets and finally through his own Son and his apostles (outlined in the previous chapter),1 is the object [Gegenstand] and content of Christian faith. However, because the living word of the prophets and apostles has long since departed, the questions arise: where and how is the content of this word preserved, and from which sources does it pass to us? The Church, to whose proclamations regarding all questions of Christian faith we are to assent, teaches the following regarding this question: 1. The divine truth of salvation (both in morals and in faith), is on the one hand recorded in writing, on the other hand transmitted [überliefern]2 verbally. This verbal transmission initially takes place from Christ to his apostles, and then from the apostles to the Christian communities founded by them. The handing down is propagated in the Church from one generation to the next, in unbroken succession, right up to the present day.3 To speak in the concrete: the Church of the second century teaches what it was taught by the 1 Kuhn is referring here to section 3 of his Einleitung, translated above, this is found in the second half of the chapter “Revelation and Its Salvific Import.” (Tr.) 2  The verb überliefern comes from the same root as Überlieferung, which means tradition or the process of handing something down. (Tr). 3  Council of Trent, Session IV, “Decree on the Acceptance of the Books of Scripture and of the Traditions” states: “And recognizing that these truths (of faith) and doctrine (of morals) are contained in the written books and unwritten traditions, which were received by the Apostles either from Christ himself or by dictation [dictante] from the Holy Spirit, and were then handed down [per manus traditae] until they arrived to us. There follows the example of the orthodox Church Fathers, who accept and honor with equal piety and reverence the books of both the Old and New Testament, for one God is the author of both. In like manner they honor the traditions, both those relating to faith and those relating to morals, as either given verbally by Christ or dictated by the Holy Spirit, and subsequently conserved by the Catholic Church.” [DH 1501]. Kuhn added the phrases in parentheses in his footnote to the Latin text. (Tr.)

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152  C   Scripture and Tradition

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Church of the first century, and the third century what was handed down from the second as the apostolic-Christian teaching. 2. The Church accepts both the holy scriptures and the oral tradition with equal reverence as sources of the truth (see the previous footnote). 3. Concerning the written Word of God, the holy scriptures (insofar as they can become a source of the knowledge and faith of Christian truth through interpretation and understanding, whereas the oral tradition serves as such a source immediately and in a living manner) are not to be explained by individuals according to their particular discretion. Instead it belongs to the Church’s discretion to make judgments concerning the meaning of scripture. The interpretation of scripture agreed on by the Church Fathers—the witnesses of Catholic faith—that is, the traditionally Catholic interpretation, should be respected as true and, in matters of faith, authoritative.4 This is the doctrine of the Church and, at least from our own position, the truth concerning the sources of faith. According to the principle of the dogmatic science [theology], we must recognize this truth as such and repudiate as unprincipled and untenable the doubts and objections raised against the faith, in order to proceed from faith to the knowledge [Wissen] of faith. To this end, we need to recall the relation of the (oral) teaching of Christ and his apostles to the Old Testament writings. From the Old Testament Christ proves the Gospel—his teaching concerning his identity, and his mission and his work. He does this by demonstrating that Moses 4  Council of Trent, ibid., “In closing, in order to restrain careless souls, that nobody should venture to support themselves through their own judgments in matters of faith and morals, as long as they hold to the edifice of Christian teaching, to contort Holy Scripture according to their own disposition. Nor should they read the Scripture against every meaning that holy Mother Church has determined and determines. For it is the Church’s task to judge the true meaning and interpretation of the Holy Scripture. Nor should anyone interpret against the unanimous consensus of the Fathers.” [DH 1507] In the footnote Kuhn explains that the “patristic consensus” in no way asserts that the Church Fathers agreed unanimously on how to interpret each verse or chapter in the Bible. Instead, it only means that the Fathers agreed on central tenets of the faith, i.e., that Scripture affirms the divinity of Christ. Kuhn cites Johann Adam Möhler’s Symbolik, §42. The English can be found in Symbolism, trans. James Burton Robertson (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 295–304. (Tr).

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Scripture and Tradition  C   153

and the prophets have written about him, and that the promises and the law have been fulfilled in him (Matt 5:17; Luke 24:25ff.; John 5:39, 5:45ff.). Similarly, the apostles establish the teaching of the Gospel by appealing to the Word of God in the Old Testament (Acts 2:16ff., 2:25ff., 13:16ff., 17:11; 28:23). But they do not cite the Old Testament as though Christ created his teaching from it, in a manner similar to how the Pharisees created their statutes from it. The source of divine truth flowed from Christ immediately, yes, even in a more immediate manner than it flowed from Moses and the prophets. As the divine Logos in his very own person, Christ was head and shoulders above these prophets ( John 1:18; 7:16; 14:24). Insofar as divine revelation from its inception and in its entirety points toward Christ and finds its conclusion in him, and insofar as the law and the prophets demonstrate the facts and truths of the Gospel—even if only from afar (the πόρρωθεν ἰδόντες [those having seen it from afar] of Heb 11:13), the apostles could quote the Old Testament and use it to authenticate the Gospel. In addition, Christ could say to the Jews that they do not understand the scriptures if they do not want to recognize him and his Gospel ( John 5:39; see also 8:31). However, the Gospel confounded them not because they thought it lacked erudition, but because for them it lacked the proper meaning and spirit, due to their blindness. The expositions of divine revelation avail themselves only to those who read and explore them in the right spirit. With this spirit Christ entrusted his disciples, and with this spirit he filled them. In such a manner he opened to them the meaning of the scriptures (Luke 24:27; 24:45). His disciples later proceeded in the same manner with those Jews who found themselves attracted by their preaching. The teachings of Christ served as their key to understand the divine word contained in scripture. Their teaching was the key for those who converted (2 Cor 3:15ff.), as it is for us. Thusly one can reduce the entire question about the sources of divine truth to the source of apostolic-Christian teaching. We know from the New Testament writings that Christ verbally proclaimed the word of divine truth to the people. In particular he made these proclamations to a narrow circle of followers who gathered around him. Christ initiated these followers into his teaching with particular concern, and drew them to the deeper meaning of his teachings (Matt 4:23; 5:1ff.; 13:11). He gave his attention especially to opening the true meaning of the

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154  C   Scripture and Tradition scriptures to them and to convincing them that the Gospel found confirmation in the [Old Testament] writings. Christ did not complete a written recording of his own teaching, nor did he give his disciples instructions for such an undertaking; instead, he instructed them to teach the people as he had taught, and through baptism to admit the faithful into the “kingdom of heaven” on earth (Matt 28:18ff.). In order that they would be ready for their mission and calling—to proclaim the divine truth that Christ revealed for the world—Christ promised and bestowed the Holy Spirit upon them. The Holy Spirit would remain with them (in Christ’s place) until the end of the world. This Spirit was the Spirit of truth that would lead them into all truth and remind them of everything that Christ had said ( John 14:16ff.; 14:26; 20:22). After the effusion of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost [following the resurrection] they spoke in “other tongues.” The Jews, who had gathered together in Jerusalem from all the nations under heaven, heard them speak, each in his own language, and heard them glorify the mighty deeds of God (Acts 2). Immediately we see the Gospel spread and give witness to Christ “in Jerusalem and all of Judea, and in Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The grace of God fructified the word of the Gospel so that the Gospel “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) of the audience. They believed and let themselves be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins (2:41). In the course of the Gospel’s expansion, Gentiles also converted to the faith. The disputed question arose about the necessity of the Mosaic law. As a consequence the apostles gathered in Jerusalem, discussed and decided the question, and declared their decision as a decision of the Holy Spirit, under whose direction they stood and according to whose inspiration they acted (Acts 15; see also Matt 18:20). In such a manner did the apostles look after the ministry of the divine word (Acts 6:3–4) and establish Christian communities (churches) in different places. The faithful “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42; see also 1 Tim 6:20), so that the Christian communities, regardless of their geographical separation and linguistic differences, should find agreement in the collection of the teachings expounded by the apostles. Some “eyewitnesses and first ministers of the word” (Luke 1:2) gave

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Scripture and Tradition  C   155

expression to the truth of the Gospel in written testimony as well. They composed historical presentations of Christ’s life (the Gospels) and of the Word’s expansion through the apostles (Acts of the Apostles). They also wrote letters to individuals and communities, in which they discussed matters pertaining to Christian teaching and the Christian life. Concerning the relation of these New Testament writings to the oral proclamation by the apostles, one must say that the meaning of oral proclamation during the apostolic period was unquestioned and indisputable. The apostles considered the oral proclamation of the Gospel—to which, we must recall, the Lord had commissioned them—as their true calling that had been entrusted to them (Titus 1:3). They made use of the written mediation of the Gospel only in a secondary and subsidiary manner, in order to support and assist the prior oral proclamation. In other instances they made use of these writings for the preparation and introduction of the Gospel. The Letter to the Romans, the New Testament book of the greatest dogmatic substance, is written with such an intention (Rom 1:10ff.). This applies to all the New Testament letters that occupy a privileged place regarding teaching, which is the main point of the question before us. The Gospel writings stand only in a mediate relation to the apostolic preaching. When Matthew left for other lands, it was said that his Gospel remained with the Jews in Palestine who had earlier heard his preaching. He offered them his Gospel as a substitute for his personal presence.5 He dedicated his Gospel to those who were already believers and did not seek to give this account in order to lead others to the faith. He preferred (as the Lord had commanded) to proclaim the Gospel orally to such people and so move them to believe. The written Gospel is a firmament and stabilizing force for the faithful, a key to its remembrance, and a means of defense and proof against opponents; it is not a source of faith for such opponents. Luke composed his Gospel and its second part, the Acts of the Apostles, for a certain Theophilus in order to instruct him in the specifics concerning the history of Jesus and the expansion of his name through the apostles. John wrote his Gospel with the intention of proving that Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnate Logos of God, full of grace and truth. John too 5  See Eusebius, History of the Church, III, 24.

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156  C   Scripture and Tradition presupposes the faith and regards his text not as a source of faith, but as a source of proof and as an instrumentum verae doctrinae [instrument of true doctrine] for opposing false gnosis. As he expressly states in his conclusion: “these things (the words, deeds and life of the Lord) are written, so that you may believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” ( John 20:31). Therefore it is Christ’s verbal preaching, which the disciples taught, that constitutes the Christian truth and that which they needed to believe, in order to have eternal life. The writings have only a mediated connection to faith because they serve the faith as an additional support [Begründung] and relate only in a complementary manner to the verbal proclamation. On individual points the writings assist in correcting false conceptions and opposing falsifications that arose, but in no way should they be considered as actual sources of faith and as substitutions for the verbal proclamation. Because of this, they refer constantly to the verbal proclamation (1 John 1:3) and admonish the faithful to cleave to this proclamation (1 Cor 11:2; 2 Tim 2:15). For the same reason it so happened that they referred their followers to those who proclaimed and handed down the faith, instead of to the scriptures (1 Tim 1:18; 6:20; 2 Tim 1:13ff.; Tit 1:9; 2:1; 2:15; 3:8ff.). Insofar as they give witness to Christian truth from the perspective of the apostolic consciousness, the apostolic letters with which we are primarily concerned here derive from a particular crisis or cause, and are written for a specific purpose. This circumstance excludes the possibility that these writings express an exhaustive catechesis of Christian doctrine, for this is simply not the case. In his letter to the Romans, Paul presents a comprehensive summary of the Gospel. Likewise his letters to the Ephesians and to the Hebrews pursue a general purpose. Even in those instances the letters present the Christian faith consequent to the particular needs of the communities to which the letters were written. They treat secondary matters extensively, and essentials are handled cursorily and in a suggestive manner. The letters often lack the qualities of a confession of faith or of an instruction in the faith.6 Instead, they presuppose the faith, or, in the 6 To support this claim, Kuhn cites two Protestant scholars and quotes long passages from their writings: Georg Christian Knapp, Vorlesungenen über die christliche Glaubenslehre nach dem

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Scripture and Tradition  C   157

case of Romans, consider the faith. As a contrast, the apostolic confession of faith—the comprehensive summary of the verbal proclamation by the apostles, which the oldest church called the “rule of faith”—has this quality but is inferior to the aforementioned writings because it lacks the explication of certain passages. The rest of the apostolic letters, composed for entirely circumstantial reasons, take into consideration doubt, false doctrine, and given questions. These letters without a doubt presuppose the entirety of the teaching given by oral proclamation.7 If we consider the New Testament writings in their entirety, they emerge not as a systematic whole, but rather as a collection of writings by different authors. With the partial exception of the historical books [Acts of the Apostles], the authors write independently of one another and none with the intention of producing a contribution to what would become a summa of Christian doctrine. As individual writings it is not possible for them to be sufficient expressions of this whole, unlike the rule of faith [the creed], which is in fact a conscious summation of the essential content of all apostolic proclamation. The letters of Paul constitute an arbitrary rather than a systematic whole. In a situation such as this, the defenders of the “scriptural principle” [Schriftprincip] are faced with two choices: either they must set out to give a scientific-philogical [sprachwissenschaftlich] interpretation of the scripture, which they cannot do, or they must adopt a supernatural interpretation of scripture, whose truth they are not able to prove. The former approach is proven fictitious on account of dissenting scriptural interpretations (as we will discuss later). The latter position is based on the presupposition about New Testament writings unknown to the authors, and against the pronounced intention given during their composition. The presupposition assumes that, through a miraculous stroke of divine providence, these writings have become what they should not have become Lehrbegriff der evangelischen Kirche [Lectures on the Christian Faith according to the Teaching of the Protestant Church], ed. Thilo (Halle, 1836) I, 101ff.; Philip Marheinecke, System der christlichen Dogmatik [System of Christian Dogmatics], ed. Matthies and Vatke (Berlin: 1847), 394. (Tr.) 7  See Wilhelm De Wette, Die Einleitung in das neue Testament [Introduction to the New Testament] (Berlin: Reimer: 1834), 60; Kurze Erklärung des Briefes an die Römer [Short Exposition of the Letter to the Romans], 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1847), 2ff.

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158  C   Scripture and Tradition according to the writings themselves, and have become what, from a historical view, they are not and cannot be: a complete codex of the Christian religion, sufficient unto itself. Suppose that Christ’s apostles were only entrusted with the task of orally proclaiming the Gospel, just as Christ had done, and to see this as their charge. If this were so, it naturally does not exclude the fact that it happened following God’s will and in concert through the impetus of the Holy Spirit, that, in fulfilling their commission to teach, they resorted to the next available means of communicating their ideas: written testimony. We already encounter such an account in Christian antiquity.8 Further, this account is inseparable from the belief in the Spirit’s inspiration [Theopneustie] of these scriptures. However, the former hypothesis goes much further; it eclipses and destroys the historical character of the New Testament writings entirely. The hypothesis in question presupposes that not only the apostles but even Christ himself stood in complete ignorance concerning the manner that divine providence would enable the spread of the Gospel. Still worse, this hypothesis assumes that divine providence pursued a course that diametrically opposed the course of the apostles, the course that Jesus recommended, and the course whose preservation of the Gospel Jesus expected until the end of time ( John 14:16). The miracle that is posited here in regard to the New Testament writings becomes totally unbelievable because it would denude Christ of all authenticity. To be authentic, it must be certain above everything else that divine providence wanted the written word and its circulation [Colportage] to be the means for the preservation and spread of the Gospel. How do we know this? How is this certain for us? The New Testament writings demonstrate in clear, unambiguous statements the path the Christ pursued in the spread of his Gospel, the path he prescribed for his 8 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 1,i: “For we have known the economy of our salvation only through those through whom the Gospel came to us; and what they then first preached they later, by God’s will, transmitted to us in the scriptures” [trans. from Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997), 123–24]. See also Kuhn, “Die formalen Principien des Katholicismus und Protestantismus” [The Formal Principles of Catholicism and Protestantism”], ThQ 40 (1858): 216. Grant translates only sections of Against Heresies. For future references to the text, it is cited by book and chapter. When the Grant translation covers the same material, it will be cited in parentheses. Otherwise the Latin text of Irenaeus has been translated by me. (Tr.)

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Scripture and Tradition  C   159

apostles and the path that they took: the path of the living word. Insofar as the previously discussed hypothesis wants to dismiss and disregard this, and wants to have knowledge of God’s intent that it cannot know from scripture, indeed that contradicts scripture, this hypothesis comes into contradiction with itself. It does so because it desires that all knowledge about God, God’s intent, about Christ and his Gospel, be derived solely from scripture. We should also consider another point that does not allow for the New Testament writings to be explained as the complete expression of the Gospel of Christ, sufficient in itself. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel that he allowed to be preached by and through all of his apostles. This Gospel does not exist in the New Testament; certain apostles did not even resort to written communication, or if they did, then nothing of their writings remain. Such others as Peter, James, and Judas [the son of James] communicated in the written word only in a few letters that are hardly comprehensive. One cannot say, especially from the standpoint of the scriptural principle [Schriftprincip], that it suffices to have only the writings of Paul, or only the letter to the Romans. Likewise, one cannot say that the omission of a written mediation by several apostles, together with the quite incomplete testimonies of others, are insignificant considerations, and should exercise no influence regarding the meaning of the New Testament canon as a source of faith. In this respect the verbal proclamation of the apostles given to us in the creed (the rule of faith) offers an indisputable privilege. The verbal proclamation contains the underlying essence of the entire apostolic proclamation.9 The creed or the rule of faith is not the only thing that, independent of the New Testament, has been handed down from the apostles through verbal tradition, and that is preserved in the Church as the truth of Christianity. Certain elements that found no expression in the apostolic writings, or were nearly ignored, have been transmitted in the teaching of the Church. We can draw the following conclusions: first, it is unhistorical to declare the New Testament writings the sole, self-sufficient, and comprehen9  This fact is expressed in later dealings: the apostolic creed arose through articles (symbolai, collationes) from all of the apostles. See August Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln [Library of Creeds and Rules of Faith] (Breslau, 1842), 26ff.

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160  C   Scripture and Tradition sive source of Christian truth. It is similarly unhistorical to reject the apostolic tradition as a source of truth. The second conclusion concerns the manner in which Christ proclaimed and allowed his apostles to proclaim the Gospel, that is, the manner in which the apostles did so, and how they charged their devotees and followers to do so. These instances demonstrate that, for them at least, the living word of God—not the written word—of the given servant of the Gospel who possesses the spirit of Christ should be the medium for spreading Christian teaching. This medium preserves the integrity and purity of the Christian teaching, and through it the Gospel is brought to humanity. In this way the purpose of Christianity should be achieved: to elevate humanity to God through faith in Christ, and to become one with God. Paul the apostle writes:

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Whoever confesses Jesus as Lord and calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? [.....] So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. (Rom 10:13–17)

In this particular passage all the elements are emphasized and shown in their inner coherence. Through it one can determine the solution to the questions of the source of faith and the foundation of the knowledge of Christian truth. Only one point is omitted, namely, that the Christian consciousness of truth of the particular preachers of the Gospel and their proclamation of the Gospel—their living word through the assistance of the spirit of Christ, of the spirit of truth—is protected from error and human weakness. In these verses Paul speaks only about the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel, and about the apostles themselves, who had brought to all people the word of truth, which they had received immediately from Christ. The apostolic teaching, however, found its continuance in the teaching of those who became their followers and representatives. It was also continued in those who proclaimed to broader circles the Gospel that they had received, as well as in the church teaching office, the uninterrupted succession of the apostolically ecclesial episcopacy. Hence the further claim that the Church protects and proclaims the apostolic tradition through its living word and under the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

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Scripture and Tradition  C   161

The following rule applies for determining the relationship of the verbally articulated and thusly propagated teaching of Christ to the scriptures. Just as the apostles accepted the teaching of Jesus Christ to be the key for understanding the Old Testament, and interpreted it on the basis and according to the measure of Jesus’ teaching, so, for the successors of the apostles and the apostolic church in general, the teachings handed down by the apostles served as the key for understanding not only the Old Testament writings, but eventually the New Testament writings. For these writings had gradually been distributed and eventually collected into a unity. The teachings that had been handed down served as the principle and the measure for their interpretation of the biblical writings. Paul the apostle contrasted the Old Testament word of God with the teaching of Christ and demonstrated the former’s proof on the basis of the latter (see in particular the letter to the Hebrews). The Christian Church handled the apostolic teaching in like manner. On the one hand the Bible was for the Church the agent of its debate [Auseinandersetzung] with the apostolic teaching (the apostolic faith, the creed) in its particular judgments. On the other hand the writings were the proof of its truth. Hence we arrive at the second point of our investigation. According to the commonly construed, abstract view of the matter, the first question to arise is whether scripture—taken objectively according to its content—is the sole source of Christian truth and is sufficient in itself? The Catholic Church denies this, whereas the Protestant system affirms it. Catholics place the tradition next to the scriptures as an integral source of truth. The Protestant system dismisses tradition and recognizes nothing besides scripture as a sure source of divine truth.10 The second question concerns scriptural interpretation: does scripture interpret itself or does it need an interpreter? To be more precise: if it is to be a source of faith, can the scripture be left to individual or subjective interpretation, or do the nature and the purpose of Christianity demand an objective and authoritative interpretation? The former is the Protestant thesis and the latter the Catholic one. To put it more precisely, Catholics say that scripture is to be interpreted in the sense of the Church according to the agreed faith 10 Here Kuhn cites a long passage from the Formula of Concord. (Tr.)

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162  C   Scripture and Tradition of the Church; the Church interprets scripture (see the above footnote from Trent). Given the conceptual state of the question, we will once again engage this theme in our concrete situation. As we have seen from scripture itself, it is not the actual source of faith. The living word of Christ, his apostles, and their followers is the source of faith. The apostolic and ecclesial (verbal) proclamation, however, gains supports through scripture for demonstrating its truth and for examining the content concerning universal and essential truths.11 In this manner scripture appears to be the more comprehensive and to encompass the broadest range of divine truth, whereas verbal proclamation seems to be the same truth contracted and concentrated, the distillation of scriptural content. Nevertheless, some things concerning the faith, rather than being expressly included in the New Testament writings, instead are only suggested in embryonic form. These elements of the faith quite explicitly reside in the apostolic proclamation that precedes the written word and develops independently of it. In this way, the one enters into truths that the other discharges. If one takes into consideration the entire, massive Old Testament, then one will have to declare the Bible—under the premise of the Spirit that penetrates into its depths, sheds light on its dark corners, and comprehends its mere suggestions—to be completely sufficient regarding content. Indeed, it will have to be declared as the insuperable, infinitely rich source of objective, divine truth. Since, according to its intended premises, the Old Testament can only be thusly construed, it involves no contradiction to see the apostolic tradition as an amplification [Ergänzung] to the Bible, and to regard it as completely sufficient in terms of content. For our thesis does not argue that the tradition receives truths that are in no way set down in scripture. It means only to say that the tradition expressly articulates some things that are not in like manner found in the Bible. Further, the tradition, unlike the Bible, clearly and precisely recapitulates essential truths of faith, whereas the Bible does not share this quality. On the other hand, imagine that one does not think that the tradition amplifies the content nor serves as a source of truth. Let us presume, rather, the sufficiency and perfection of the scripture, that 11 Kuhn cites long passages from Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures, V, 12) and Augustine (On the Creed to the Catechumens, ch. 1). (Tr.)

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Scripture and Tradition  C   163

is, that the scripture alone is the source of truth and faith, and that one considers it the material principle of scriptural interpretation.12 This would entail the higher concept of scripture, which would include the prior concept of tradition as a stage, but in no way entail tradition being an entirely different stage or contradicting scripture, as one might claim from a lack of insight into the matter. For the source of faith and the material principle of scriptural interpretation is tradition, precisely on account of the qualities by which the tradition amplifies scripture and serves as its source of truth. One finds both concepts of tradition in the Church Fathers.13 In general, though, they proceed from the higher concept of tradition. It was the essential truth handed down from the apostles of the Church, and passed from one to another—here I mean the Church’s faith—yes it was this truth and not the Bible, in which all who came to Christianity were given instruction. And it was this truth that one confessed as his faith under baptism.14 The scripture was drawn upon to demonstrate this faith’s truth and was utilized as a medium for a broader and deeper instruction in the faith. This manner of proceeding has remained constant for the Church, even into the present day. Accordingly, the apostolic tradition, that is, the ecclesial proclamation of the apostolic teaching, is the immediate source of the faith. The Church makes the apostolic confession of faith (with the further refinement that has taken place over time),15 not the Bible, its “shield of faith” against the heresies that confront it.16 For their part, these heresies are based on opinions formed from a par12  See Augustine, De doctrina christiana, ch. 3, 2: “We must consult the rule of faith, as it is perceived through the plainer passages of the scriptures and the authority of the Church” [trans. R. P. H. Green in Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (Oxford, 1997), 68]. 13  See Kuhn, “Die Formalen Principien,” ThQ 40 (1858): 433ff. 14 Kuhn cites passages from Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyril, and Cyprian to support this point. (Tr.) 15 Kuhn means here the refinement of the creeds at such councils as Nicea and Constantinople. (Tr.) 16  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I, 9. 4–5; II, 22.1: “Quum teneamus nos regulam veritatis, licet varia et multa dicant (haeretici), facile eos deviasse averitate arguimus.” [Since we hold to the rule of truth, even though they (the heretics) may say many different things, we easily prove that they have gotten off the track with regard to the truth.] See also III, preface; 1,1; 2.1; 3.1–4; 4.1–2; IV, 33; V, pref; V, 20; Tertullian, De velandis virginibus [On the Veiling of Virgins], ch. 1; Adversus Praxeam [Against Praxeas], chs. 2, 3, 31; De praescriptione haereticorum [On the Prescription of Heretics], chs. 12, 13, 36, 37; and the Council of Trent, Session Three.

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164  C   Scripture and Tradition ticular scriptural interpretation. The apostolic faith, not the Bible, counts as the Church’s norm and its rule of faith, and as the foundation for and directive of scriptural interpretation. Since this faith contains the highest revealed truth and the essence and spirit of the scriptural teaching, then one recognizes and knows the basis of scriptural understanding through faith. For, as in a focal point, in the faith the scattered rays of the biblical word are gathered. In its manifold detail this word is difficult to assess, and many of its sayings and suppositions are difficult to understand (see 2 Peter 3:16). The Church therefore takes the living faith in its midst and traces it to the apostolic tradition. It does so not because it considers scripture’s content incomplete, and thus in need of further amplification, but primarily because it cannot regard scripture as intelligible in itself and directly accessible for everyone. Indeed, it cannot view scripture as the self-sufficient source of faith and knowledge of truth adequate in itself. Irenaeus, who at every step advocates for the apostolic tradition, considers the holy scriptures perfect. To the scriptures he attaches a much richer content than to the rule of faith, which, for him, briefly summarizes the fundamentals of the faith clearly and unequivocally contained in scripture. However, since the scriptural content is not so clear, and a mistakefree interpretation is not possible without steady guidance, he argues for the sufficiency of scripture and denies its transparency.17 In his zeal for the ecclesial rule of faith, Tertullian, the acclaimed defender of tradition, seems not only hostile toward free, subjective scriptural interpretation [Schriftforschung], but also against the objective word of scripture itself.18 Yet Tertullian himself makes the broadest use of scripture for the explication and establishment of the Church’s faith and for the refutation of heretics. He expressly refers to holy scripture as the instrumenta doctrinae 17 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, II, 28.2: “[T]he Scriptures are perfect, since they were spoken by God’s Word and his Spirit, while we, as we are inferior and more recent than God’s Word and his Spirit, need to receive the knowledge of his mysteries” (Grant, 117). Irenaeus understands by this the deeper knowledge of the divine truths that are derived from the scripture and result in the rule of faith. 18  See Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics, chs. 14 and 39, which reads: “Nor do I risk contradiction in saying that the very Scriptures were even arranged by the will of God in such a manner as to furnish materials for heretics, inasmuch as I read that ‘there must be heretics’ (1 Cor 11:19), which there cannot be without the Scriptures” [trans. Peter Holmes in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 262].

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Scripture and Tradition  C   165

[instrument of doctrine] and marvels at the richness and fullness of scripture.19 All Church Fathers acknowledge both the exhaustiveness of scripture in terms of content and scripture’s quite rich store of truth.20 Vincent of Lerins, who presumed to examine the teachings of the Fathers regarding scripture and tradition and to present them accordingly, has no such notion of tradition in the sense of an amplification of scripture’s content. Such a notion of tradition recedes behind other notions in the patristic writings, so that it is hardly representative. For Vincent the scriptures are perfect in terms of content and totally sufficient as such.21 For us, however, they require an ecclesial interpretation. It is inadmissible to seek to interpret the scriptures according to one’s own discretion. The interpretation must be oriented secundum ecclesiastici et catholici sensus normam [according to the norm of the ecclesial and universal meaning]. Vincent locates the basis for this claim where it had always been: in the grandeur (altitudo) of the truths contained in scripture. This grandeur is off limits for the subjective spirit, which explains why the uninhibited explication of scripture can only bring to light the dissonance of human opinions, which refracts the objective truth.22 Vincent designates the tradition as the intelligentia ecclesiastica [ecclesial intelligence] and the sensus ecclesiasticus [ecclesial judgment]. One should not understand the tradition (or its organs—the patristic authors and teachers) to mean the Christian spirit in its subjective sense. Instead, it should be understood as the objective consciousness of the Church that received the faith directly from the apostles and preserves it unrevised. In this sense Hippolytus calls ecclesial faith the φρόνημα ἐκκλησιαστικὸν [ecclesial judgment] and labels this the rule of faith, thus establishing it as the norm of scriptural interpretation. This ecclesial faith is not the apostolic creed or any other expression of Christian truth. Instead it is the meaning and idea, the objective spirit of 19 Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics, ch. 37, 38, and Against Hermogenes, ch. 22: “adoro scripturae plenitudinem” [I adore the fullness of scripture]. 20 Kuhn references several patristic authors as well as a compilation by Natalis Alexander, Historia ecclesiastica Veteris Novique Testamenti, ab orbe condito ad Annum post Christum natum millesimum sexcentesimum [The Ecclesial History of the Old and New Testament] (Lucae, 1734). 21  Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, ch. 2: “the canon of the scriptures is perfect and sufficient of itself for everything.” 22  See ibid., ch. 2.

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166  C   Scripture and Tradition this truth. The objective spirit always brings itself to new expression and manifests itself in the most divergent directions according to the particular needs, but always as the same truth.23 Hence it is entirely correct when Hippolytus, Vincent, and others, referring to ecclesial faith as the norm of scriptural interpretation, call it the ecclesial idea, meaning, or spirit. From this it also follows that it is not merely the apostolic word as such, as a definitively formulated content; instead, it is the apostolic spirit transmitted to the Church and living in the Church. The concept of tradition is determined through these two moments. Like Christ and his apostles, the Christian Church advocates the principle of tradition in its doctrines and practices. The scriptural principle is foreign to it. Let us now seek to become conscious of the rational basis through which this principle [of tradition] is shown to be the only reliable and sufficient principle, and thus able to fulfill this goal. Christianity wants to vanquish the world. The divine truth Christianity proclaims should be the leaven that works through humanity and ferments it. It does so in order to (re)create humanity anew and restore it as pleasing to God. This happens through faith in Christ (1 John 5:4–5). As Romans says, “But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?” (10:14–15). Christianity, as a matter of fact, can reach its goal only through the continual, persistent proclamation of the same divine truth revealed by Christ and preached by his apostles. There is no doubt about this. But how are we to conceive this proclamation of the Christian truth for the sake of faith? What is the essence of this truth and what are its circumstances? The articulation of religious truths, which as such are the content of faith for everyone, must always reflect an aura of a particular time and people. Without such particularity the faith could not be popular or capable of being understood, and its content could not be effective. The scientific articulation clothes itself in the media of the given theoretical culture [Bildung] and academic language, since it would otherwise not speak to and convince its audience. Hence the word of scripture as well as the verbal presentation of 23  See ibid., ch. 32.

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Scripture and Tradition  C   167

the apostles and Christ shares this quality. It does not thus suffice that Christ articulated this truth once and for all in the manner in which he did so. Since Christ regarded this articulation as inadequate, he played no part in a written recording of these truths. Nor did he instruct his apostles in such matters; for they were the most suitable means, and hence so regarded by others. With the intention of spreading his teaching to all the world, and of securing the preservation and effectiveness of this teaching, he brought together a more narrow circle of followers (the original image of the teaching church),24 appointed them as apostles (those sent) to all peoples, and equipped them with his Spirit. The apostles were not solely concerned to give witness to Christ and his Gospel once and for all; they also wanted (as they should have) to assure perpetuity for their witness. To this end they did not resort to the medium of a written cementing [Fixierung] of Christ’s teaching—for what they wrote did not have this purpose. Instead they sought to secure the handing down of the teaching and of the teaching office to those who were so suited. The Christian Church has so proceeded to the present day. What is the real foundation and the inner truth of these facts? Only the living spirit of a given person can be an immediate organ of divine truth. A dead letter, a formulaic expression, or a creed is not capable of being a real foundation. Through a given person’s living spirit it is possible for the divine Spirit to communicate the truth revealed by the Spirit in every era and to every educational level, purely and completely without the admixture of error. Even if it were to fall from heaven, a book would only deceive and divide people who did not already have the Spirit of truth as principle [Führer] and interpreter. Irrespective of its sufficiency and purity, the divine truth needs to represent and give voice to the proclamation of the Gospel. It does so with the aim of making humanity anew as children of God through faith in the Gospel. It must do so within the confines of the given time and place, individuality, and spiritual inclination of individuals and people, respective of their changing needs. In addition, the 24  “Die lehrende Kirche.” Kuhn is most likely borrowing the vocabulary of scholastic ecclesiology that conceived of the Church as one of teachers (ecclesia docens) and those who are taught (ecclesia discens) This vision of ecclesiology has become marginalized since the Second Vatican Council. (Tr.)

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168  C   Scripture and Tradition divine truth must do justice to emerging differences and in general keep step with the movement of worldly (meaning that which is founded in experience and reason) science and education. The success of the proclamation depends on all of these factors. Continually repeating the same truth through identical expression and idiom by means of the same intuitions and representations would be pointless on account of being counterproductive. Thus the proclamation has never proceeded in such a way. Did not the apostles proclaim the Gospel each in his own way? Did they not proclaim it so that, in Jerusalem, out of the Jews gathered from every nation under heaven, each heard of the great deeds of God in his own language? The constant repetition of the Bible cannot engender the goal of Christianity. For, although the Bible contains the absolute truth valid at all times, the Bible does not at all times present this truth in the immediately appropriate manner. Instead, the Bible presented the truth in the way that would have been most appropriate and effective at the time of its composition. The New Testament writings, as we know, were only a supplement [Accidenz] to the verbal proclamation of the apostles. How should it come to be that these writings, after the passage of centuries, and following a complete volte-face of all circumstances, have become the highest source of truth and that the verbal proclamation has been relegated to its supplement? In order to understand why Christ appointed a permanent, living magisterium [Lehramt], we emphasize not only the relative aspect of the written word, but also the verbal proclamation of the apostles and Christ himself. In doing so, we do not aim in the least to diminish the absolute truth, nor even the normative nature, of either scripture or the verbal proclamation. Likewise, the word of scripture is not set above the authority of the teaching church, for this word is not the source of truth, but only a witness to the truth. Suppose we leave aside entirely the matter of the historical nature of the scriptures and the relativity of its account, and that we conceive of scripture as the absolute expression of the absolute truth, that is, what scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, actually is.25 It is in this way that the

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.

25  Suppose we regard scripture as a book, written by an author from a unified whole. From the human side this is fictitious. From scripture’s divine side this is what scripture is, because

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Scripture and Tradition  C   169

question is to be understood and demonstrated about interpreting scripture that suffices for the purpose of Christianity in terms of faith. From this standpoint one can also understand and demonstrate the appropriateness and necessity of the principle of tradition. Possession of the Bible is not yet possession of divine truth, of the pure Gospel, of the true faith. For us it does not suffice that the Bible contains the divine truth. We must draw the truth out of it, and it must become our own subjective entity. Only through this process are the scriptures the source of truth for us. Thus it does not suffice to hear or read the word of scripture (be it in the original language or in a translation). We must take hold of it mentally and grasp it entirely and purely. The possibility of error in interpretation (our own or that of another whom we follow) must be ruled out; the biblical content must be present to us in its pure objectivity. Then we are in possession of the pure Gospel, the true faith. This is not the only thing that matters, for we must also be convinced and certain that the path by which we experience the biblical content is totally reliable and dependable. In other words, we must be certain of the truth of our faith. Otherwise our faith cannot do for us what it must do according to its nature and purpose; namely to enkindle in us eternal life and an unconditional and self-founding conviction not perturbed by doubt (Heb 11:1). On its own the Bible can be neither the source of this faith, nor the source of this faith’s certainty. We cannot grasp and understand the rational discourse of another through his word in and of itself, but rather through the rational spirit in us that we all have in common. So we cannot purely and wholly comprehend divine discourse through the word of God alone, but only through the assistance of the Spirit of God. For the interpretation and understanding of divine scripture, rationalism demands the activity of the spirit of truth operative in human reason, as well as the application of the general means: knowledge of language, history, antiquity, and so on. Rationalism does this—and from its own perspective it is justified—when it fails to acknowledge in the scriptures an immediate divine revelation of truth, that is, a divinely inspired word in the positively scripture truly is the work of one and the same divine Spirit who has spoken to us through the prophets, and more recently through the apostles of Jesus Christ.

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170  C   Scripture and Tradition theological sense. Nevertheless, rationalism falls short of the goal—even if one abstracts from the fact that it does not consider Christianity to be a positive religion in the highest sense of the word—that it wants to reach. For it at least recognizes Christianity as a religion. With its principle and its means, rationalism does not go as far regarding the actual content of the original proclamation of Christianity as the philosophers go in relation to content. Let us take Platonism or another philosophy from antiquity as an example where there is disagreement over its individual doctrines, although these systems are more amply and formally documented than are the Christian teaching in the apostolic writings. If the rationalists regard Christianity merely as a religion, they must consider an authentic interpretation of its documents just as necessary as, for example, a written state constitution for securing the obedience of a given citizen, and maintaining civil order in general.26 All supranaturalistic directions in theology, that is, all of those that base themselves on the presupposition of Christianity as an immediate divine revelation, and on the scripture as the inspired word of God, demand in unison the entrance of the Holy Spirit’s activity so that the Bible can be our source of faith. But in the manner in which this entrance of the divine Spirit of truth should take place, these Protestant movements diverge. They agree with each other only in negating Catholic teaching, according to which one is to interpret the Bible on the basis of the apostolic tradition. This is done through the Church led by the Holy Spirit, and the ecclesial proclamation of teaching is the immediate source of faith. Let us first examine the Protestant position [Gegensatz]. Protestants recognize a principle for understanding the truth that differs from and 26 Rationalism realizes this consequence but does not get involved. Instead, and this is consistent, it disregards the Bible’s normative value. “If the Bible were a law book and a teaching norm, it would also require the authentic interpretation if the entire purpose should not be lost. Such a normative basis makes demands, for consistent thinking with undeniable necessity, on the entire ecclesial institution with unmistakable confession, office and rule. If one cannot desire such a thing as a Protestant, then one must also let go of the last position of the Roman ecclesial system, the normative validity of the Bible, the root out of which all Roman positions grow.” In Berliner protestantischen Kirchenzeitung [Berlin Protestant Church Bulletin] of 29 March, 1856. See S. Jörg, Geschichte des Protestantismus in seiner neuesten Entwicklung [History of Protestantism in Its Most Recent Development] (Freiburg: Herder, 1858), I, 129.

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Scripture and Tradition  C   171

stands above the word of holy scripture. Protestantism cannot entirely extract itself from acknowledging that from the difference between the scripture and the word of God, between the expression of the divine truth and divine truth itself, between the letter and the spirit, there necessarily emerges a distinction between the source of truth and the source of faith. Protestantism has the tendency to disregard and to deny this difference. It does so because, in its orthodox [positiv] version, it cannot maintain its position vis-à-vis Catholicism.27 It may sound hackneyed, but everyone who thinks and knows how to differentiate sees right away that Protestant polemics plays a game by fostering ambiguity in using the concept “word of God.” If the apparently undeniable distinction is neglected, holy scripture (the Word of God in the broad sense) is identified with the word of God in the more narrow sense. As the divine truth itself, as the “pure Gospel,” it is opposed to the magisterial and ecclesial tradition, as a merely human claim. Hence the mere possession of the Bible is already proclaimed as the possession of the truth itself. As though it did not first of all depend on what one finds in the Bible, what one reads out of or hears from it, and then believes! As if it were not already determined from the beginning that the apostolic tradition, to which the Catholic Church defers, stands not as a word of God equal to scripture, as if the ecclesial interpretation of the Bible based on the apostolic tradition could not agree with the immediate, subjective interpretation! These traits of Protestant polemics show a striking petitio principii [way of operating], and its proof is only illusory. Protestantism makes its departure from us by demanding that scripture, insofar as scripture is only the expression of the truth (the word of God extrinsically), be the divine Spirit of truth so that its content is unlocked for us and we come to faith. There are two possible ways for orthodox Protestantism to imagine the emergence and the activity of the Holy Spirit as it relates to scripture, and how the appropriation of the actual content of scripture comes about. One can assert that the Holy Spirit immediately inspires the person, and, thusly equipped, she encounters the 27 In the case of rationalism it is not so, for rationalism does not need to deny such a difference. But as we have already shown, rationalism does not reach its goal by this means.

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172  C   Scripture and Tradition Bible and knows its true content. Or one can believe that inspiration is mediated through the word of scripture and that the divine Spirit ascribes and opens the content of scripture to the person. Luther and proper Lutheran orthodoxy (especially the Smalcald Articles) decisively opposed the “inner light” of the spiritualists [Schwarmgeister] and the enthusiasts. For Luther, such a view entails disregarding the Bible. Its subjectivistic principle, by dismissing the tradition and ecclesial authority, makes wholly ineffective the only remaining anchor of objective Christianity. Even more problematic, as Luther saw,28 this view necessarily turns into rationalism, whose exact opposite it aspired to.29 Later Protestants came to believe that one needed to discern that, behind accepting a principle of knowledge of the truth independent from that of the Bible, there was hidden an affirmation of “papism.”30 They perceived clearly that, if immediate inspiration should be the principle of interpretation, then one ushers in the path to arbitrariness. It would discard any objective measure and every firm rule; Christian faith would necessarily devolve into an arbitrary pastime of subjective fancy [Einbildung]. In order to oppose this line of thought and to vouchsafe faith’s objectivity and truth, orthodox Protestantism—provided that it wanted to persist in the negation of the Catholic principle—was left defending the other path. Luther tethered the Paraclete, whom Christ had given to his Church for assistance, to the Bible, and argued for a mystical union of the two. For Luther the Bible and not the Church is the bride of Christ. He considered this connection to be the great secret of the divine Word, on the strength of which the divine Spirit guarantees [zusprechen] the divine truth to each person who reads or hears the word of scripture. Luther disavows the supernatural guidance of the Church by the Holy Spirit, on 28 Already in 1525 Luther said that for the Zwickauer prophets the Holy Spirit was nothing other than quam ingenium et ratio naturalis [that innate and natural reason]. 29 Neander effectively shows this connection in Dogmengeschichte [History of Doctrine], II, 224. According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Johann August Wilhelm Neander’s (1789–1850) church history “was somewhat uncritical but exercised great influence.” (Tr.) 30 Kuhn cites a long Latin passage from the Smalcald Articles (II, 8), which can be found in Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions. A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord, ed. Paul Timothy McCain (Saint Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 2007) 253–88. (Tr.)

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Scripture and Tradition  C   173

the basis of which the Church would preserve the apostolic faith without admixture and would maintain itself so as to communicate the faith to individual believers without danger of error and in persistent agreement with the scripture. Instead he opts for the Holy Spirit’s mystical habitation in the scripture, and for a supernatural effect of this inspirited [begeistet] scripture on the reader or hearer of it. For Luther, scripture not only is complete in terms of content, but also is itself the living word of God. For the supernatural effect of scripture on the spirit of the person, on the basis of which its content is clear to him (perspicuitas scripturae [the transparency of scripture]), the supernatural effect of scripture on his heart (both the spirit and the will—efficacia scripturae [the efficacy of scripture] is moved aside, on the strength of which this effect renews one’s spirit both morally and spiritually.31 In all of its essential points, Protestant theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries maintains Luther’s teaching about scripture as the sole and immediate source of faith.32 One can regard it as a step in the right direction that this theology seeks to use the moment of natural knowledge concerning the content of scripture. It decisively and expressly aims to show this to its best advantage through the application of the natural power of the spirit and the utilization of the acquired linguistic skills and other expertise. The more this really happens in the course of years, the more the rationalistic position [Princip] establishes itself, lest one return to the subjectively spiritualistic position of the enthusiasts. For it is only in this manner that the supernatural moment of the Spirit of God’s effect can coalesce with the natural moment of scriptural scholarship, powered by its own spirit. 31  See Luther Large Catechism (in Concordia, ed. McCain, 349–440). Luther here conceives the scriptural word along the lines of a sacrament. Further, he conceives it mystically, whereby the divine power inhabits the subject, and this is a divine and holy interaction. He does not conceive it such that the divine power stands by so that the sacramental effect happens through this power. For Luther the Word of God is the only true sacrament; the other so-called sacraments recede into the background and lose the meaning gained for them in the Catholic system. See my article, “Zur Lehre von dem Worte Gottes und den Sacramenten” [Concerning the Doctrine of the Word of God and the Sacraments], ThQ 37 (1855): 32ff. 32 Heinrich Schmid, Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche [Protestant-Lutheran Dogmatics], 4th ed., 41ff.; 375ff. Kuhn cites a long passage from this text to prove his point. (Tr.)

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174  C   Scripture and Tradition What is outlandish about this theory of Bible worship [bibliolatrischen Theorie] now becomes clear. One can pick the standard to apply here: the standard of scripture itself or that of Christian antiquity, the standard of reason or of experience. From no angle does this theory find merit, and in every instance it shows itself to be novel, untenable, and unfeasible. If scripture interpreted itself, then the Holy Spirit itself, the Spirit of divine truth, would speak from scripture to us.33 If this were the case, we would obviously have no need for tradition, for ecclesial interpretation. Certainly the purpose of Christianity would be more easily and steadfastly determined. The assumption alone is purely fictitious. Were it true, as is presupposed here, then whence came the opinions about Christian faith that diverge so much from each other, and at important junctures contradict one another? How does it happen that, among the Reformers who unanimously confess the same position about scripture, they have never arrived at a true agreement, for example, concerning the meaning of the loaded phrase of the Lord: “this is my body.” How can it be that, over time, they have never arrived at a true formula concordiae [formula of agreement], that one and the same Reformer changes his views and his faith about core doctrines? How can they account for the fact that, after endless debates, a unified Formula of Concorde has merely become the source of new discord? How can one explain that the word of God (in scripture), which was from the beginning “taught, preached, heard, read, considered, and brought to memory,” should be first opened in its purity to the Reformers? To arrive at this position, it is clear that they would have to combine the clear meaning with the word of God, and combine the pure, Christian consciousness with the reading of the divine text. Suppose one did not accept a principle that “worked extrinsically to the scripture instead of working through it” as the condition and foundation of the correct scriptural understanding. If this were so, then everyone who read scripture and everything read out of scripture would be equally correct. This would 33  So says Quenstedt: “Non aliunde quam ex ipsa sacra scriptura certa et infallibilis scripturae interpretatio haberi potest. Scriptura enim vel potius Spritus S. in scriptura et per scripturam loquens, est sui ipsius legitimus legitimus et ανυπευθυνος interpres.” [From no other source than sacred scripture is a certain and infallible interpretation of scripture able to be had. For scripture or, rather, the Holy Spirit speaking in scripture through scripture, is the legitimate and self-justifying interpreter of itself. (see Schmid, Dogmatik, 47).

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Scripture and Tradition  C   175

be a patently absurd claim. Or one would have to say that for the Christian faith, whose only source should be the scriptures, it does not depend on what one believes, but only that one believes, and believes in Christ and his Gospel without knowing who Christ and his Gospel are. In other words, that in its essence the Christian faith is something purely subjective: a feeling and not an objective truth.34 For if one could no longer discuss scriptural interpretation at all, but only the excitations of pious selfconsciousness wrought from reading scripture, then the enthusiasts would be correct in the sense that the main focus of faith lies not in scripture’s objective truth but in the subjective, pious consciousness. In any case, the principle that scripture interprets itself would dissolve here. Suppose that, in the former manner, a certain Christian consciousness (a material principle) is asserted to be the principle of objective scriptural interpretation. Not only would the latter principle be abandoned, but additionally, it would concede the Catholic position. It would be maintained that scripture is indeed a source of Christian truth, but only the interpreted scripture is a source of faith. The claim of an immediate supernatural transparency of scripture in fact manifests itself as an illusion. Experience shows us that it is not always available. In and of itself, scripture has a natural effect on its readers or hearers, as with any other written or spoken word. Through the grandeur and power of its truth, by which it—as Christian faith holds—distinguishes itself from every other book, scripture is in position to exercise a deeper and more lasting effect than any other text. Insofar as the word of scripture itself is not and cannot be the organ of the Holy Spirit (only the human Geist itself can be the immediate organ of the divine Geist),35 this effect is merely natural. Since the subjective disposition of the reader or hearer conditions its purity and power, this produces a quite uneven effect. An individual may, to a great extent, be in position to attain the actual con34  Schleiermacher famously proceeds in this manner. 35  One can maintain an extrinsicism, as in the sacraments, only by presupposing the Holy Spirit’s efficaciousness upon the person’s interiority. According to the Church’s teaching, this follows only from the presupposition of faith, and this serves as the condition of sacramental efficacy. Supernatural perspicuitas [transparency] and efficacia scripturae [efficacy of scripture], as seen in the above-mentioned Lutheran position, is an opus operatum, a magic power and effect in the sense falsely ascribed to the Catholic concept of a sacrament.

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176  C   Scripture and Tradition tent of scripture from scripture itself. It will never be the case, at least not with certainty and absoluteness, that he could determine this without any doubt that his understanding is in fact of the whole and pure divine truth. A pious reading of scripture achieves only a subjectively moral conviction, and scientific study achieves but an objectively plausible knowledge. Neither suffices to establish the faith (which should be both a subjectively moral conviction and an objectively certain knowledge of the truth) because one cannot achieve a commonly agreed upon faith, which is the condition of religious communal life, either through a subjective reading or through scientific scriptural scholarship. The holy scriptures speak of God and divine matters, and they explain “what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and what no person has ascertained.” Everything divine— what lies beyond experience and what is covered by the world of appearance as through a veil—always remains enigmatic for human thought: videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate [“For now we see dimly through a mirror”] (1 Cor 13:12). As verily and objectively established as these realities may be, human knowledge of them will always be incomplete and uncertain. And it is with this mindset that we approach the contents of scripture. Would this knowledge not, above all, have to be certain, secure, and complete? Especially if it should be the sole, sufficient means for us to extract in complete objectivity the content of scriptures vastly beyond human reason? Without a compelling foundation one has effectively demanded the emergence and activity of the Spirit of divine revelation, and has made the complete and certain understanding of scripture dependent on oneself. Without any reason Protestant orthodoxy accepts a mystical union of the Holy Spirit with the scriptures written by the prophets and apostles inspired by the Spirit. It does so in opposition to the express words of the Lord, who promised the Paraclete to those with him (the Church), who entrusted the apostles with proclaiming the Gospel, through whose further precaution they assumed their teaching office in the Church. Therefore it is not scripture, from which we immediately derive the Christian truth, that leads to faith. Nor is it scripture that interprets itself through the text inhabited by the Holy Spirit, as in the position outlined above. Instead, the Church verbally communicates her faith, the apostolic

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Scripture and Tradition  C   177

faith, to us, and interprets the text for us according to this faith (i.e., dogmatically and not scientifically). Both of these things happen with the Holy Spirit’s help and guidance. The Church taught and practiced this from the outset. For Irenaeus, the Lord gives the apostles the authority to proclaim the Gospel. Through her we have come to know the truth, that is, the teaching of the Son of God. About this, the Lord said, “He who hears you, hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). The Gospel comes to us through no other agent than the Church. At that time (as soon as they received this commission from the Lord) the Church proclaimed this Gospel according to God’s will and handed it down in writings. And this Gospel has become the fundament and the pillar of our faith.36 What the apostles handed down is faithfully preserved in the communities they founded (which in their collectivity and unity constitute the one Church of Christ). And in the same living manner, as it was first done by the apostles, this Gospel is spread concurrently to all places and in agreement with the scriptures.37 The apostles have handed down [niederlegen] the truth in the Church like a precious vessel, and in the most ample measure. For this reason one can, whenever one wants, receive from her the drink of life, the faith that gives life. The Church is the entrance to life, and the teachers outside the Church (the heretics) are the thieves and robbers ( John 10). One must flee from them and with all zeal search and take up what the Church offers: the handing down of the truth.38 One should heed those in the Church who 36  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book III, preface and ch. 1. The latter passage reads: “For we have known the ‘economy’ of our salvation only through those through whom the Gospel came to us; and what they then preached they later, by God’s will, handed down to us in the scriptures, so that these would be the foundations and pillar of our faith.” (trans. Grant, 123–24, slightly modified). The scriptures do not interpret themselves, and the apostles’ verbal proclamation of the Gospel, not the Bible, is regarded here as the fundament of communal (ecclesial) faith. The written text confirms this Gospel (Against the Heretics, III, 24.1). These truths do not require any proof for the expert and unselfconscious reader. See also my remark in ThQ 40 (1858): 201n3. 37  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I, 10.1. 38 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 3.1: “Thus the tradition of the apostles, manifest in the whole world, is present in every church to be perceived by all who wish to see the truth.” (trans. Grant, 124); and III, 3.4: “Since these proofs (the claim that the ecclesial teaching is the apostolic, in III, 3) are so strong, one need not look among others for the truth that it is easy to receive from the church, for like a rich man in a barn the apostles deposited everything belonging to the truth in it so that whoever will might take the drink of life from it. For it is the way of life, while all the

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178  C   Scripture and Tradition have received their succession from the apostles, and with this episcopal succession received the charism of truth. Likewise they should not heed the heretics who have departed from the truth and offered a strange fire (i.e., an imported teaching) to the Lord’s altar.39 Irenaeus writes, “Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace; and the Spirit is truth.”40 If we had maintained the point of view of individual faith, and of its truth and certainty, we now move on to the more all-embracing realm of universal or ecclesial faith and will thus conclude our investigation. The community and unity in faith, the religious communal life [Gesellschaftsleben] together in the one spirit of divine truth, the kingdom of heaven on earth, all of these are the final goal of Christianity. “Let your kingdom come to us.” Various views and opinions may persist in human affairs. In relation to the divine, one faith should animate everyone, just as we are all called to one hope (Eph 4:3–4). How might this final goal of Christianity be fulfilled? The unity and agreement of the faithful rests on—and this is undoubtedly clear—the same presuppositions and principles that condition and secure the truth and certainty of individual faith. If the Bible cannot be the sole and highest or self-sufficient source of faith for the individual, then it cannot establish an actual unity in faith without division and separation; it cannot provide the basis for a true, spiritual communal life, nor can it settle and decide given disputes with finality. If individuals, with all of their opinions, inclinations, and tendencies, are reliant on scripture alone, then, given that the history of Protestantism gives the most eloquent witness, the following lines from the play by the reformed theologian Samuel Werenfels bear repeating:

others are thieves and robbers. Therefore one must avoid them but love what belongs to the church and hold fast the tradition of truth.” (trans. Grant, 126–27). 39 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV, 26.2: “This is why one must hear the presbyters who are in the Church, those who have the succession from the apostles, [.....] and with the succession in the episcopate have received the sure spiritual gift of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father.” (trans. Grant, 157). 40 Ibid., III, 24.1 (Grant, 142). One finds further references of this ecclesial doctrine in Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, among others. See also my article in the ThQ 40 (1858) at 229ff. and 385ff.

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Scripture and Tradition  C   179 Hic liber est, in quo sua quaerit dogmata quisque, Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua

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[This is the book in which, for his dogmas each one enquiring, finds his dogmas in truth equally each one his own]41 When one prizes individual interpretation, the Bible—irrespective of its objective perfection—will be the source of division and confusion instead of unity and common understanding. In this way it is similar to divine law, which, despite being spiritual and holy, becomes the reason for transgression and the source of sin’s increase (Rom 7). On this basis Vincent of Lerins says of the Bible that, on account of the grandeur of its content, it will not be understood in the same sense by everyone. Therefore one must concede the Church’s authority of interpretation.42 Only in this way can the Bible fulfill its purpose: to be the source of truth and of the one true faith. This interpretation of scripture, which should seek to actualize this end, must be recognized by everyone as the bearer of the true path and the safeguard against the danger of error. Now the faithful are convinced that scripture contains the divine truth and are prepared to believe this truth unconditionally and without any doubt. Still, they are no less convinced that the Church presents them with the real content of scripture, and that the Church’s faith is this content. Hence they are willing to accept the authority of the magisterium [die lehrende Kirche] and to regard the Church’s faith as their own. Given its relationship to scripture and to the individual believer, the Church, through the apostolic tradition that continues in her and through her divine calling, considers herself the teacher of humanity under the Holy Spirit’s direction. Let us imagine an authentic, vitalizing, enduring agreement in faith, and a religious communal life that is in itself healthy and that grows through internal and external events [Bewegungen] and challenges. Such an agreement certainly does not arise and maintain itself through the fact that multitudes happen to find common ground in their opinions concerning matters of faith, and commonly confess an opinion and doctrine subject to a particular, sub41  The text can be found in Werenfels, S. Sam. Werenfelsii opuscula theologica philosophical & philologica lausannae (Lausanne, 1739), 509. 42  Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, ch. 2.

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180  C   Scripture and Tradition jective conviction.43 In Corinth Paul the Apostle desired and asked of the Christians, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be no divisions among them, and that they would be of one estimation [Sinn] and opinion (1 Cor 1:10; see also John 17:11,21; Eph 4:4–6). Such a petition is something entirely other and much more sublime than a merely conventional assent to a general confession of faith, whose breadth permits a diversity and plurality of subjective views and convictions. Doctrine and creed, ecclesial faith and a confession of faith, confer a force that is binding on individual convictions. It also confers a truth that, because it is divine, must import the same validity at all times and places. Further, this truth cannot be something of occasional validity, and cannot change into its converse according to a given circumstance. The scriptural position [Schriftprincip] does not bring one to doctrine and to an ecclesial confession of faith in the above sense. In order to make this claim, let us look more closely at the matter. The scriptual position argues that neither the faith of the Church (be it the new or the old Church) nor the patristic doctrinal consensus (consensus patrum) should be the norm and rule of faith, but rather scripture alone. The meaning of the historical witnesses of faith (expressing the faith of its time) should approximate the faith of the Church and the statements of the Fathers. They need not be equated with dogmatic truths that are valid and binding for all times. They should merely be statements about Christian faith that can be examined alongside scripture as the overall norm and rule. One needs to determine the truth of these statements according to their approximation to with the scriptural content (which is the principle and absolutely valid content). Which is to say that these statements can count as valid only to the degree that they agree with holy scripture.44 From this standpoint the authors of the Formula of Concord express their judgment about the faith of the old church and their confession of it.45 Their thinking runs as follows: on account of heresies, confessions of 43  See A. D. C. Twesten, Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche [Lectures on the Dogmatics of the Protestant-Lutheran Church] (Hamburg: F. F. Perth, 1837–38), I, 349. 44 Kuhn directs the reader to his previous reference of the Formula of Concord and gives an additional Latin citation. (Tr.) 45  Formula of Concord, art. 2: “We profess publicly, that we embrace (the early creeds of

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Scripture and Tradition  C   181

faith are necessary at certain junctures. Juxtaposed against a given heresy, these confessions give witness to the true faith vociferously, definitively, and convincingly. In and of themselves, such confessions are unnecessary, and the Bible should suffice on its own (however, as is scarcely noted, only for those trained in scripture). So argues the Formula of Concord about scripture being the source of faith, and about doctrines and ecclesial creeds. This teaching is the authentic Protestant position and remains unchallenged, while almost all of declarations of faith based on the Formula of Concord became controversial. At first glance the Formula of Concord says many striking things. In scripture one finds the Word of God in its pure objectivity, through the prophets and apostles, and, as one assumes, it is sufficiently complete. Nothing subjective or human is commingled with this word, for the prophets and apostles write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Church doctrines and the claims of the Church Fathers, if one of course presumes that their source is the apostolic tradition, are not divinely inspired [theopneustisch] expressions of truth; in the best-case scenario, they express the divine seed in a human shell. As we have seen above, the Catholic standpoint readily concedes that the expressions of the Fathers and of the Church as such are not equal to the word of sacred scripture. This glimmer of truth has to do on the one hand with an overdrawn concept of inspiration, and on the other hand with the previously discussed amalgamation of the text in itself with the text that is interpreted, the text with the word of God, and the word of God as expression of the truth with this truth itself. In terms of what can be said about the Bible, one can properly speak only of an objectively interpreted text. Along these lines, such an interpretation understands its entire content without subjective or human commingling, and conceives or imagines this as the content of faith. And in this way the “self-interpreting” Bible, the Holy Spirit “that speaks in and through the Bible,” becomes internally necessary. This notion is merely fictional, and the Formula of Concord does not insist on this with enough clarity. Therefore, the subjective interpretation is declared de facto to be the norm and rule of the faith, and privileged the church, such as the Nicene and the Athanasian), and we reject all heresies and dogmas that have been imported into the Church of God that are contrary to the sense of those aforementioned creeds.”

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182  C   Scripture and Tradition above the Church’s interpretation. With this the scriptural privilege gains a wholly different reputation, and the expression of this privilege defined in a particular way becomes almost unbearable. [It would involve saying that] we believe, confess, and teach the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and all teachers must be evaluated and directed; there is simply no other interpretation than the subjective interpretation of scripture. All other texts, whether they be those of the Church Fathers or of newer teachers—regardless of whatever name one might give them—should not be equated with subjectively interpreted scripture. Instead they must be subjected to it, and are to take on no other meaning than that of witnesses who teach. They should take as their model the apostolic period, when the teaching about scripture was received in its purity. The preceding explanation of the [scriptural] position becomes bearable, and to a certain degree tenable, only if one regards the subjective interpretation of the scripture in the sense of a scientific interpretation. For such an interpretation is objective, or it strives toward objectivity. Thus the positively theological position turns into rationalism, and scripture becomes the actual [im eigentlichen Sinne] Word of God. Further, the theological position’s normative validity is abandoned, and human reason, which, according to the theological position, is subject to the obedience of faith, jettisons the privilege of this position. If this is so, then it is clear according to the nature of the principle that the faith and the confession of the Church, be it of the new or the old church, do not possess a judicial standing or a dogmatic validity. They can therefore neither determine nor define an individual’s conviction. They are historical witnesses of faith that begin to decline [verfallen] in every moment of history. One can consider these witnesses true only if one finds them in agreement with scripture. The actual consensus of faith appears somewhat arbitrary, and doctrine and the creed appear to be merely conventional. The exact sense in which one confesses has to do with the conviction held by the individual subject. When disputes arise concerning the teaching of scripture, who decides? Is a definitive decision possible? Philipp Melanchthon answered: it is obvious from its presupposition that scripture explains itself.46 The decision 46  Melanchthon, Loci communes rerum theologicarum seu hypotyposes theologicae: “Quis igit ur erit judex, quando de scripturae sententia dissensio oritur, cum tum opus sit voce dirimentis

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Scripture and Tradition  C   183

then is necessarily applicable for all who recognize scripture as scripture, and hence recognize its normative validity. But the fact that scripture does not explain itself is best understood from the history of endless disputes, which bewilder and divide the proponents of the scriptural position. As has been said repeatedly, since scripture does not interpret itself and the Holy Spirit neither is in the text nor speaks to us through it, we must conclude by examining the following question: what is the nature of scriptural interpretation, since the standpoint of the scriptural position opposes the traditionally ecclesial position? According to the severity of the position, the answer could lie only in rationalistic, purely scientific interpretation. Scripture, like every other written work in antiquity, needs to be explained in terms of its content, independent of every predetermined dogmatic conviction. Already the presupposition that the Bible as holy scripture is the source of faith and thus has normative value for all times, as well as the ecclesially religious interests, demands a doctrinal interpretation. This relates to the position of the Reformers (unique for Christians) that argued for the total spiritual and moral incapacity of the natural person, and of his justification before God through faith alone without ethical self-determination and cooperation. They make textual interpretation depend on this conviction and on this material principle. It follows that they derive from scripture their confessed doctrinal teachings.47 In this respect orthodox Protestantism takes a position similar to second-century Gnosticism vis-à-vis the Catholic Church. Gnosticism did not recognize ecclesial tradition; it did, however, agree with the ecclesial viewpoint that the dogmatic understanding of scripture is not immediately given with scripture itself, nor can one reach this in a purely scientific manner. Instead, this notion depends on a positive foundation [Princip] external to and independent from the text.48 This foundation was Gnosticism’s own doctrine of wisdom that flowed from extra-Christian sources. Gnosticism, however, controversiam? Respondeo, ipsum verbum dei est judex.” [But who will be the judge, when dissent arises over the opinion of scripture, when controversy arises concerning the text? I respond, the word of God itself is judge.] Kuhn’s only reference is to the citation from Quenstedt above, which comes from Schmid’s Dogmatik. See note 33 above. (Tr.) 47  See Neander, Dogmengeschichte [History of Doctrine], II, 213, 223. 48  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 2.

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184  C   Scripture and Tradition refused to concede the use of an extra-Christian source, but instead made the earnest effort to authenticate what in truth was merely its subjective account of Christianity. It purported as valid its individually attained apostolic teaching tradition gained in secret over against the ecclesial method. In similar fashion Protestantism abandons church tradition as well as the ecclesial explanation of scripture built upon this tradition. Against this it juxtaposes its own account of the Gospel and the fundamental dogmatic convictions mentioned previously. Protestantism, however, does not want to hear this account explained in this fashion. It supports a subjective, Christian consciousness, but it wants this to be the objective and positive Christian truth. What might have been considered possible in the second century had not the slightest chance of success by the sixteenth century. The Reformation could not introduce its subjective, Christian consciousness as an expression of the apostolic tradition, and for this reason could not argue for this consciousness against the faith of the Church. On the contrary, it had to dismiss entirely the principle of tradition and cast its lot with the Bible alone.49 On the other hand they saw it necessary, as demonstrated above, to go beyond the text and to establish an objective principle of textual interpretation that would yield the knowledge of the dogmatic truths contained in scripture. According to their theory this principle is the Holy Spirit, who speaks in and through the text as one spirit speaks to another spirit through the word, and as the organs of the Church speak to us in a living manner. If this theory were true then the Reformation would be correct in its polemic against the Catholic Church. However, this is not the case, and it cannot be the case according to the Reformation’s own presuppositions [Annahme], at least as long as the Holy Spirit does not reveal the true content of scripture—as they presuppose—to the pre-Reformation Church and to everyone, but rather only to their founders and members. In this way they morph the objective principle of interpretation into a subjective one. Further, the fundamental dogmatic conviction, the material princi49  Writes Neander, “The Reformation could not defend itself against the Catholic Church without mounting an attack against the tradition, and without maintaining the position that the truth of Christianity can be derived from the scripture alone” (Dogmengeschichte, II, 212).

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Scripture and Tradition  C   185

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ple [das Materialprincip] that should and must join the formal principle in order to bring about the dogmatic interpretation (in contrast with the merely scientific and rational interpretation), is nothing other than the individual conviction of the Reformers. This conviction does not guarantee any objectivity and cannot maintain its position against the ecclesial tradition and the Church’s teaching authority.

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A u t h o r i t y a n d I n t e r p r e ta t i o n

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Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik (1859 ed., 71–104)

This selection complements Kuhn’s argument from the previous chapter. As such it deepens the arguments about the legitimacy of the tradition, the inability of scripture to interpret itself, and the concurrent need for some authoritative interpreter. This need begs the question of whether the Church then replaces the Gospel as the agent of salvation. Kuhn’s point, however, addresses the paradox later articulated in Dei Verbum: although the Church interprets scripture, it is also the servant of scripture, which contains the penultimate record of Jesus’ salvific truth. One is struck in these sections by Kuhn’s copious scriptural citation. Although Kuhn focuses on Protestants in these sections, his very method implicitly condemns any Catholic theological method that presumes no longer to need scripture. Indeed, Kuhn argues from scripture to show the inability to sidestep questions of authority, interpretation, and the priority of the spoken to the written word. One should also note the groundwork these essays lay for a theology of doctrinal development. Kuhn and the Tübingen School do not offer a systematic theory with the breadth analogous to Newman’s, but they do provide a sophisticated theoretical foundation for a Catholic theology of authentic doctrinal development.

T

C

w o e l e m e n t s preserve the content and the essence of ecclesial knowledge, also known as the formal principle. The first is the apos186

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Authority and Interpretation  C   187

tolic tradition’s immediate possession of Christianity’s truth, in which the Church delights. The second is the office and the authority of the Church to proffer and to communicate this truth as well as the authentic scriptural interpretation. As a result there are two main objections raised against the ecclesial position on tradition from the scriptural standpoint. From the latter standpoint, the prophetic and apostolic writings yield the only complete and pure expression of Christian truth, which replaces for good the verbal apostolic transmission of doctrine. In the verbal tradition of the Catholic Church (that maintains this truth directly) there persists a muddying of divine truth through human augmentation. Hence from their perspective scripture is the only certain source of truth. They also consider scripture self-sufficient and the highest source of truth, and perceive in the teaching office of the Church—by virtue of which the Church places itself between the divine word and the subject that yearns for it, and by which it communicates the import of this truth—an impermissible division between the immediate source of truth and of life. They determine the ecclesial interpretation of the text to consist in elevating the Church above God’s word. Lastly, they see ecclesial teaching authority as imposing on the Christian’s freedom and as restricting the subject’s freedom and unhampered discovery. One should distinguish the two concepts of tradition, as in the previous chapter. However, one should not separate them and regard them as independent concepts. One should regard the attack on this concept as applying differently according to the given understanding, but should also recognize what applies to both in their unity. Hence one should fend off the argument from this common standpoint. Protestantism in theory rejects the principle of tradition unconditionally and totally.1 It posits that scripture alone should be the source of truth and of knowledge, and should be the only valid source in cases of disagreement or dispute. However, the text itself offers the most explicit witness to the historical reality that the Lord expressly desired and commissioned the apostles to spread the Gospel verbally. This cannot be disputed, nor can one dispute that the textual activity entered into play only in a second1 As stated above, it is in fact not quite so. Orthodox Protestantism at least proceeds from a doctrinal tradition and makes individual interpretation dependent on its so-called material principle.

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188  C   Authority and Interpretation ary [accessorisch] and subsidiary manner relative to verbal proclamation. Therefore Protestantism has to curtail its conclusions in terms of the merits relating to the principle of tradition. Protestantism claims on the one hand that scripture and tradition coincide completely in terms of scope, and therefore that the latter is superfluous in comparison to scripture as a means of preserving and spreading saving truth.2 It also makes the claim that one can no longer appeal to tradition since it has generated so many obfuscations. In addition, the fidelity and care of the ecclesial body could not and has not preserved itself from outside influence in the long run.3 Therefore, the scriptures that came from the apostles have taken the place of the apostolic proclamation through internal necessity,4 and, by excluding the latter, have become the sole, authentic source of Christian truth.5 Praetermissis ergo traditionibus uni scripturae sacrae esse adhaerendum [traditions set aside, we must stick to sacred scripture alone].6 It is holy scripture that teaches us about everything necessary for salvation. It does so completely and comprehensively, and in such a clear and precise manner that its knowledge content is available to anyone.7 Stated briefly, one manages on this basis to replace the magisterium of the Holy Spirit in the Church with a magisterium of the Holy Spirit immediately in scripture. The explanation of the text is left to the human spirit, to the subject and to scholarship. Proponents of the scriptural position fail to see an important point. Though their eyes have not been made blind to the historical insight of the matter and they have not fled into a blind dogmatism, they fail to account for the following: the apostles’ spoken and written word—provided that 2 According to Nitzsch, the apostles taught more verbally than in writing, at least in terms of the range of their teaching. But in terms of kind they taught nothing different verbally than what was written (see Protestantische Beantwortung der Symbolik Möhlers [Protestant Responses to Möhler’s Symbolik], 235). The latter is true materially, for they taught this saving truth both verbally and in writing. But formally speaking it is false (see arguments above). Karl Immanuel Nitzsch (1787–1868) was a Lutheran theologian who sought to oppose rationalist approaches to Christianity by emphasizing the immediacy of religious feeling. (Tr.) 3 Kuhn cites a long passage from Twesten here (Vorlesungen, I, 288). (Tr.) 4  From the orthodox Protestant standpoint, the apostolic scriptures proceeded from the miraculous providence of God through the hand of its author, as though God himself declared the written text to be the only source of the truth. See the beginning of the previous section. 5 Kuhn refers to a long passage from Neander’s Dogmengeschichte (I, 76). (Tr.) 6  See Johann Gerhard, Loci theologici (Tübingen, 1762–89), I, 25. 7 As stated by Schmid, Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 37, 41.

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Authority and Interpretation  C   189

it was articulated once and for all with a certain breadth and force—did not suffice in their lifetime to protect against incredulity and to make additional instruction superfluous. One perceives the necessity of bringing about, either verbally or in writing, additional remarks and more precise instructions from the side of the apostles.8 Given all of this, we ask, after the apostles were no longer around, why the apostolic writings should be the only adequate source for knowledge of the truth, independent of oral tradition’s teaching? Could or would there not emerge new “uncertain” cases like those that arose in the apostles’ own lifetime? Who would answer these questions? And would the answer be given just as the apostles would have given it? Merely referring to the apostles’ written word, even with a nod to what was verbally transmitted, would not suffice. For what these sources said and the knowledge they provided about such matters, or how they attempted to apply specific judgments to new circumstances, caused doubt to arise and disputes to emerge. One need only recall the matter of baptizing heretics [the lapsed]. A living authority, like the apostles were in their own time, was needed in the eyes of all believers for the post-apostolic period and for all subsequent generations. This authority exists only in the Church magisterium that is led by the Holy Spirit, not in the expression left behind in apostolic writings. The activity of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord is not bound to the text’s letters but to the office of those to whom the apostles transmitted the leadership of the churches they founded and of safeguarding the truth communicated to these churches. It is with this in mind that one should note this passage from Irenaeus: What then? If some question of minor importance should arise, would it not be best to turn to the most ancient churches, those in which the apostles lived, to receive from them the exact teaching on the question involved? And then, if the apostles had not left us the scriptures, would it not be best to follow the sequence of the tradition which they transmitted to those to whom they entrusted the churches?9

8  See Neander, Dogmengeschichte, I, 76. 9 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 4.1 (trans. Grant, 127). See my article, “Die formalen Principien des Katholicismus und Protestantismus” [“The Formal Principles of Catholicism and Protestantism”], ThQ 40 (1858): 211ff.

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190  C   Authority and Interpretation When it comes to the most urgent case for making judgments concerning disputed questions that arose, Irenaeus does not here appeal to the external expression of the apostolic tradition guarded by the apostolic communities. Even less does he appeal to the apostolic scriptures, which he does not once recognize as indispensable means for preserving and spreading the truth.10 Instead he appeals to the faith of the Church and to the living understanding of the apostolic tradition that exists in the Church, as well as to the ecclesial tradition in the fullest sense of the word. The objection to the tradition pertains to the transmission and preservation of this tradition in the Church. As noted above, August Twesten objects, as if a comprehensive and complicated notion of doctrine created a great number of statements and judgments, and that this notion should be preserved and transmitted solely through the power of memory and recollection. From such a view there arose doubt as to whether this could have happened so comprehensively through only the fidelity and care of the ecclesial bodies. And it was questioned whether numerous changes could not have taken place to the given content, through addition or omission, and through a shift in the original melding of thought that happens in the course of time. Firstly, there was not a more comprehensive and more complicated concept of doctrine. Secondly, this concept was not to be maintained and transmitted as a mere matter of memory, without any external means of support, especially the textual witness of the apostolic handing down. The quintessence of the apostolic proclamation became coalesced in the framework of the apostolic creed. All other elements of this proclamation adapted themselves naturally to the creed. The proclamation was seized and understood not so much through the power of the memory as it was through meaning and spirit, through steadfast faith and the inner power, which the truth of the Gospel exercises on the whole spiritual person. This truth is very simple and is understood and comprehended with the same facility by both the poor in spirit and the spiritually well formed [hochgebildet]. Hence Irenaeus says, 10  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 4.2, where he argues that many barbaric peoples (one should understand this term to mean those people who lack the Greek language and education) have taken up the faith and preserved the tradition.

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Authority and Interpretation  C   191

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For if the languages in the world are dissimilar, the power of the tradition is one and the same. The churches founded in Germany believe and hand down no differently, nor do those among the Iberian [.....] As the sun, God’s creation, is one and the same for the whole world, so the light, the preaching of truth, shines everywhere and illuminates all men who wish to come to the knowledge of the truth. And none of the rulers of the churches, however gifted he may be in eloquence, will enlarge or make complete what is handed down—for no one is above the Master—nor will one weak in speech damage or curtail the tradition. Since the faith is one and the same, he who is educated does not add to it nor does he who lacks such training diminish it.11

The faith handed down from the apostles connects the faithful in the same locale to a parish, and the parishes spread throughout the globe to a single community. This is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. It is united through the bonds of faith, love, and peace. Its holiness comes from the presence and direction of the Holy Spirit, who is the soul of the Body of Christ. It is catholic [allgemein] because it encompasses all of Christendom, is bound together in unity, and fends off all sectarianism and division. It is apostolic on the basis of its origin. The apostolic tradition is the truth shared with those who prepare themselves for baptism. They are instructed into this tradition, which upon baptism they confess as their faith, and which they promise to maintain and hold dear. Through this continual instruction in the truth, and its repetition by the entire community, as well as through the steady communication of Christian communities with each other, there arose and survived a universal consciousness and profession of faith. Consequently there arose from the outset a defense against the encroachment of new, foreign elements that supplied such bountiful occasion for the subjective spirit’s lack of restraint.12 Likewise the Church guarded against the rule of scriptural interpretation regulated arbitrarily according to one’s personal opinions and presuppositions. The Church’s universal faith was considered to be such a certain and valid witness to the truth that 11 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I, 10.2 (Grant, 71). Atypically, Kuhn translates the passage and keeps it in the body of the text. I have used the translation as a template, but followed Kuhn where he diverges from the Grant translation (Tr). 12  See Rufinus, Commentarius in symbolum apostolorum, ch. 3. For a translation see A Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, trans. J. N. D. Kelly (Westminster, MD, 1955). (Tr.)

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192  C   Authority and Interpretation it was made into the rule of faith and the norm of scriptural interpretation. All teachers and instruction were measured according to this standard. The Church proclaims the verbally transmitted teachings of the apostles in the same living manner. The teachings have been upheld through the continuity of this instruction and have been propagated from generation to generation. This being so, the exterior objective basis stands together with this proclamation, which is naturally fluid on account of being conditioned by the subjectivity of the instructor and by the contingencies of those needing instruction. Thus the teachings were safeguarded not only through the inner force of the faith’s truth held by its members and the Holy Spirit’s help against error and confusion. They also possessed the texts of the apostles, as well as the texts in which the pupils of the apostles, and those who taught in concert with the apostles, expressed their understanding of the faith [Glaubensbewusstsein]. They did so through the simplest epistolary communication to individual people and communities, as well as through particular doctrinal texts that defended Christianity against Judaism, GrecoRoman religion (Heidenthum), and the heresies that emerged within Christian circles. Later the Church, through its representatives at local and general synods, took it upon itself to give written expression to its understanding of the faith. The Church also set out to augment the apostolic creed by adding more precise understandings of this articulation, that is, by locating more exactly the notions (the faith) upheld from the outset.13 The entirety of Christian literature, to the extent that it owes its existence to the authentic witnesses of the Church’s faith, is nothing other than the written expression of apostolic teaching. From the outset of the Church this was understood, believed, defended, and taught to be in agreement with scripture. The matter was thus in the incipient stages regarded, and the proof of tradition was conducted, from this perspective. Irenaeus explained to a certain Florinus that his viewpoint did not contain healthy instruction. Nor did it agree with the Church’s teaching and with what earlier teachers and 13  Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, ch. 23: “This, I say, is what the Catholic Church, roused by the novelty of heretics, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils, this and nothing else: the Church has consigned in writing to the next generation what it had been handed down in writing from those of an earlier generation, comprising a great amount in a few words, and often, for greater comprehension, designating an old article of faith by the designation of a new name” (trans. Heurtley, 148, with emendation).

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Authority and Interpretation  C   193

Church representatives, who were pupils of the apostles, had handed down to him.14 As a proof he exhorted Florinus to recall Polycarp, whom Florinus had seen in Asia, and whose company he had sought the pleasure of. He reminded Florinus of the speeches that Polycarp had addressed to the people when he recalled his acquaintance with John the Apostle and with the others who had seen the Lord. Polycarp had repeated the speeches from John the Apostle about the Lord, his miracles, and his teachings, and how he explained and presented all of this in concordance with scripture. It could also be clearly proven from the letters of Saint Polycarp, which he distributed to neighboring churches as well as individual believers, that the opinions of Florinus were incorrect. In his letter to the Philippians, Polycarp admonishes them to abandon and turn away from the false doctrines (of the Docetists) and return to the teaching handed down from the beginning.15 Saint Ignatius also warns his followers to flee from the problematic teachings of the heretics and to maintain faithfully the traditions of the apostles, which he thought necessary to confirm through his witness and to put down in writing, so that subsequent generations would receive a reliable resource.16 Likewise Papias took it upon himself “to write down that which he heard from the elders (by which he meant the apostles), and what was impressed on his memory, so that the apostolic truth would be strengthened through his witness.”17 In order to refute the Gnostics, Irenaeus cites the doctrines taught by the church in Rome. To this end he refers to the head of the Roman Church, Clement, “who had seen the apostle and associated with him and with many others who had before them the tradition of the apostle that was ringing in their own ears and clinging freshly to their memories.” He continues, “Under this same Clement, the church of Rome wrote a letter after a not so insignificant schism had arisen among the Christians in Corinth.18 In this letter he calls them to peace and to renew the tradition that they had 14  See Eusebius, History of the Church, V, 20. 15  Polycarp, “Letter to the Philippians,” ch. 7: “ἐπὶ τὸν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἠμῖν παραδοθέντα λόγον ἐπιστρέψωμεν” [let us turn back to the word delivered to us from the beginning] (trans. Cyril Richardson in Early Christian Fathers, ed. Richardson [New York: Touchstone, 1996], 134.) 16  See Eusebius, History of the Church, III, 20. 17 Ibid., 39. 18  For this point see my article “Die formalen Principien,” ThQ 40 (1858): 208.

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194  C   Authority and Interpretation received from the apostles. From this one can know the apostolic tradition of the Church.”19 Irenaeus refers to the same notion when he cites the letter from Saint Polycarp: “ἐξ ἧς καὶ τὸν χαρακτῆρα τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸ κήρυγμα τῆς ἀληθείας οἱ βουλόμενοι, καὶ φροντίζοντες τῆς ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίας, δύνανται μαθει῀ν.” [..... for those wanting to know the ways of salvation, it is able to be learned by the character of the faith itself as well as by the proclamation of the truth.]20 This argument for tradition has the same reliability as the argument for scripture. Why should one not regard the writings of the apostolic fathers as reliable documents for research into the tradition of the apostles? Likewise why should one not consider Irenaeus’s writings, among others, for understanding the handing down of teaching among the apostolic fathers? Why should only the apostolic texts [the scriptures] be able to assist our investigation into whether a teaching is apostolic? Clearly, one might say, because these writings have been composed by the apostles themselves. Presupposing this to be so, these texts are of course the most reliable resources for understanding apostolic instruction. But the question concerns not so much their time period as it does their content, and the knowledge of this content; thus it concerns the interpretation of these texts to this end. The question is whether the apostolic tradition, as it appears in the texts of the apostolic fathers and in the subsequent teachers and leaders of the Church, and as it appears in the steadfast, constant faith of the Church, is pointless and completely unnecessary. Prescinding from everything else, do we somehow exist in a more proximate and more immediate relation to these texts than the apostolic fathers? One must surely admit that we do not share an immediate and living relationship to these apostolic scriptures, composed nearly two thousand years ago in language foreign to us. Hence it must be conceded that we need a bridge to lead us over the ravine that has sown the difference of nationality and culture between our own and the apostolic period.21 Twesten remarks, 19 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 3.4: “Those who wish can learn that the God proclaimed by the churches is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and can understand the apostolic tradition by this letter” (Grant, 125). I have followed Kuhn’s translation here. For a slightly different translation see Grant, ibid. (Tr.) 20 Kuhn does not footnote this passage from Polycarp. (Tr.) 21 Twesten, Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik, I, 289.

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Authority and Interpretation  C   195

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Whoever has lived a number of years with a given author will certainly understand a text of that author better than someone unaccustomed to the character and disposition of that author. For every text is only an incomplete imprint of a given aspect of human life, from which the whole can only be fabricated with difficulty, whereas the text can be fabricated more easily and comprehensively by the one who has had an immediate experience. Something similar applies in additional contexts. Whatever Christian life and thought are, the life proceeding from Christ and from the apostles must offer a better answer to this than any text can offer. It is much more the case that an apostolic text presupposes [of the reader] a life in Christianity in order to be truly understood. One must grant to the most ancient church, when, in order to distinguish the Christian and the apostolic from its opposite, it disagrees with those who located the answer immediately within themselves.22

In other words, the ancient church finds this truth in its immediate Christian consciousness and faith, based on a living, uninterrupted tradition. Therefore the ecclesial tradition would be the authentic principle of knowledge of the Christian truth because this tradition forms the most complete means for understanding the apostolic scriptures and it does not extinguish the abiding meaning of these scriptures. The apostolic fathers must have known best of all what the apostles taught and what they expressed in their texts to be the salvific truth; Irenaeus and the others knew best what the apostolic fathers proclaimed as apostolic teaching and what they wanted to document for all times. This means that we have to recognize the uninterrupted ecclesial tradition as the most complete means of knowing salvific truth. As Twesten writes, It would be difficult for an error to emerge, as long as the Spirit of Christ was still alive in the Church, when one considers the Spirit’s role in forming an opinion. But how should one determine whether the intrusion of an oppositional spirit has been opposed?23

The answer rests in the Bible. But the Bible does not interpret itself. If one doubts whether the Spirit of Christ has remained continually with the Church or if it is held that the later Church has abandoned and denied the Spirit, then one can and must doubt with a firmer basis whether those who harbor such doubts and make such claims are themselves animated by the Spirit of Christ. And one must also doubt whether the interpreta22 Ibid., 116.

23 Ibid.

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196  C   Authority and Interpretation tion of scripture that they rely on is in fact the true one. This reflection gains even more traction when one seeks to support this position through scripture and one’s own subjective interpretation. At the same time one cannot deny that the apostolic scriptures offer an incomplete imprint of the Christian spirit and life, and that the most certain understanding of scripture is rooted in the living faith of the Church. The qualification from the previous sentence can lead to the following claim: we, and not the Church, have the Spirit of Christ. Only when we interpret scripture, and only when we use these methods, are we certain that nothing human provides the basis for this process.24 This scenario is normally painted as: we seek only the pure word of God; hence we recognize scripture alone as the norm and rule of faith. Whether a Christian community [Religionsgesellschaft] could be considered the pure word of God, free from all human association, must depend on how they interpret the Bible and whether they possess (from their standpoint) the true, objective principle of interpretation. The attack on tradition for being the source and basis of knowing salvific truth, as well as the doubt about its purity and reliability, touches once more on the disregard and failure to acknowledge the Spirit that animates the Church and all of its authentic members. It also touches on the unwillingness to adhere firmly to what has been given and handed down. The apostles upheld the principle of handing down only what has been given (1 Cor 2:2; 2 Cor 4:5), and emphasized this to the faithful and in particular to the teachers and representatives of the communities (2 Thess 2:15; 1 Tim 6:20; 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Cor 11:4; Rom 16:17; Phil 1:27ff.; Col 2:7ff.). From the nature of Christian truth this principle follows as one that is given to human beings through divine revelation. Hence wherever the Christian teaching office has a clear understanding of itself, this principle should be revered and regarded as the directive for this understanding. Christian revelation is a treasure of truth and knowledge bestowed on humanity from God. It is a gift that belongs not just to one person but to everyone. Hence those to whom it has been entrusted should be regarded as only trustees, not owners or lords (1 Cor 4:1). Because the truth has 24 Ibid., 289.

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Authority and Interpretation  C   197

been revealed by God and has not been constructed, the human spirit relates to this truth in a wholly different manner than it relates to its own thoughts. The human spirit must faithfully accept, loyally protect, and most conscientiously guard it from all of its own admixtures. It is in this sense that Paul warns Timothy, his “true child in the faith” (1 Tim 1:2) and co-worker, to “guard what has been entrusted to you” (1 Tim 6:20; see also 2 Tim 1:12,14). Vincent of Lerins captures this point well when he writes,

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[The deposit is] that which has been entrusted to you, not that which you have devised for yourself: not a matter of wit, but of learning; not of private invention, but of public handing down; a matter brought to you, not something put forth by you, wherein you are bound not to be an author but a custodian, not a teacher but a disciple, not a leader but a follower.25

From the outset all of the faithful, especially the teachers and leaders of the communities to whom was entrusted the service of the word, were not merely aware in a clear manner of the relation between the subjective spirit and the objective salvific truth. Instead they were most eagerly engaged to do justice to the claims that arose. In addition to the rule of the via lucis [the way of the light], which stands in opposition to the via tenebrarum [the way of darkness], Barnabas also spoke of protecting what had come down by neither adding to it nor taking away from it.26 Moreover, Tertullian writes, “We must not introduce anything of our own, nor maintain something that has been introduced by another. Our teachers are the apostles, who themselves handed down only the teaching received from Christ.”27 The Church Fathers unanimously agree on this principle.28 Nihil innovetur, nisi quod traditum est [Unless it has been handed down, nothing is renewed].29 25  Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, ch. 22 (trans. Heurtley, 147, with emendation); see also ch. 12. 26  Barnabas, Letter of Barnabas, ch. 19: “Φυλάξεις ἃ παρέλαβες, μήτε προστιθεὶ, μήτε ἀφαιρῶν.” [Guard those things which you have received, neither adding to nor taking away from them.] See also the citation above from Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians ch. 7. 27 Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, ch. 6. Kuhn gives the Latin in the footnote and renders his own translation in the body of the text. I have translated only Kuhn’s rendition. (Tr.) 28 Kuhn gives the following citations: Basil, Letter 140; Hilary, De Trinitate IV, 14; Augustine, Contra Julian II, n. 14; Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, ch. 9. I have omitted the texts supplied by Kuhn. (Tr.) 29  This well-known expression derives from Pope Stephan I in his dispute with Cyprian

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198  C   Authority and Interpretation

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The Church itself similarly places this principle at the basis of its judgments in matters of faith.30 Contrary to what some have assumed,31 there does not exist an essential difference in method between the older and the more recent church; at no time did the Church subordinate the authority of tradition, and it never arrogated to itself an absolute power in matters of faith. The Church always regarded itself as a depository of the apostolic faith. For this reason it always, in disputes concerning the faith, attempted carefully to establish the faith of previous centuries, going back to the apostolic period. It always took the faith handed down from the beginning as the basis and principle of its decisions. The Church never attributed to itself an authority above the faith, but only above individual accounts and above those who sought to make their own subjective opinion valid, and who attempted to elevate their subjective interpretation of scripture above the faith handed down. They attribute to the Catholic Church and its members such a complete resignation into one’s own subjectivity, such an unconditional disregard for what is objectively given, such a steadfast, religious loyalty over against the faith of the Church Fathers!32 They give over the baptism of the lapsed [Ketzertaufe]. Cyprian himself does not deny the principle, but only argues about whether the custom defended by Stephan is really based on the apostolic tradition. When he cites this line from Stephan, Vincent of Lerins remarks: “That holy and prudent man well knew that true piety admits no other rule than that whatever things have been faithfully received from our fathers are to be faithfully consigned to our children; and that it is our duty, not to lead religion whither we would, but rather to follow religion whither it leads; and that it is the part of Christian modesty and gravity not to hand down our own beliefs or observances to those who came after us, but to preserve and keep what we have received from those who went before us” (Commonitory, ch. 6; trans. C. A. Heurtley with slight changes). Vincent provides further citations of this principle in the last chapter of the Commonitory. 30 Kuhn notes that Vincent of Lerins refers to the Council of Ephesus and cites a long Latin passage from the Commonitory. Kuhn ends the footnote by noting: “The Church synods themselves usually emphasize this principle and refer to it as the standard according to which they proceed with their judgments.” (Tr.) 31 Kuhn refers to a long passage from Twesten’s Vorlesungen (I, 117). (Tr.) 32  See Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, ch. 6: “For it has always been the case in the Church, that the more religious someone is, so much the more eager he will be to oppose innovations.” and ch. 20: “He is the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the body of Christ and who esteems divine religion and the Catholic faith above every thing, above the authority, above the regard, above the genius, above the eloquence, above philosophy, of every person; who sets light by all of these, and continuing steadfast and established in the faith, resolves that he will believe that, and that only, which he is sure the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time; but that whatsoever new and unheard of doctrine he shall find to have been furtively introduced by some one or another, besides or contrary

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Authority and Interpretation  C   199

the strongest human guarantee for the faithful presentation of the tradition, against which no exception can arise. All human striving, even in the case of the most enthusiastic concern of the most prudent activity, can never be completely sure to succeed. Hence even in these matters and occasions, there persists a certain doubt, as favorable as it happens to be for attaining the goal at hand, about whether one can trust the tradition of the Church unconditionally. The promise of Christ should quell this final doubt. For Christ promised that he would remain with his followers until the end of the world. We believe that the Spirit of Christ, who remains with the Church that Christ founded, is the Spirit of truth that directs the Church to all truth and reminds the Church of everything that the Spirit has spoken. On account of the one-sided and false regard that Protestants present (as seen above), and the failure to observe the fidelity that abides in the Church, but mainly because it is not capable of acknowledging the visible church as the immediate organ of the Holy Spirit’s activity, Protestantism sees the ecclesial tradition as muddying and infecting the divine word through “human statutes.”33 Thus Protestantism recognizes in ecclesial interpretation and in the magisterium in general, that is to say, in the authority bestowed vis-à-vis the individual, an elevation of fallible human authority above the absolute authority of the divine word. For this reason it does not give the Church’s confession of faith—either an ancient or modern confession—irrespective of whether it may believe it to be true—the authority of judge, but instead only that of witness. Protestantism considers this to be true so long as it is convinced of its agreement with scripture. The acquisition of Christian revelation is not really a matter for individual Christians in themselves, but is instead a communal concern conditioned through reciprocal give and take until everyone has arrived at the same perfection of knowledge. In regard to that of all the saints, this, he will understand, does not pertain to religion, but is permitted as a trial.” (trans. C. A. Heurtley with minor changes) 33 Twesten admits that the tradition, insofar as the faith of the Church expresses itself in it, merits attention and respect “to the degree that the Holy Spirit speaks through it. For we believe the Spirit to be living and active in the Church” (Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik, I, 289). When he says this, he understands the Holy Spirit’s activity in this context as no different from the Holy Spirit’s activity in individual believers. And he preserves the right for individuals to determine to what degree the Holy Spirit articulates itself in Church doctrine.

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200  C   Authority and Interpretation to the original revelation and its scriptural presentation, everyone is merely a recipient. Thus “no other text (i.e., no such document from the apostolic tradition as the apostolic creed) can be considered equal to Holy Scripture, but must be all equally subjugated” (see the previous chapter’s reference to the Formula of Concord). The final and only reason to consider something to be salvific truth cannot lie with those who receive but only with that from which they receive.34 The final and penultimate basis of faith resides, to be sure, in divine revelation, over against which everyone, the Church included, is a recipient. But not everyone is a recipient in the same way, for they have not all been equally formed by revelation. Here the point surfaces that the individual receives his faith through the Church, and from its hand.35 Only in this fashion can the individual be certain of the Church’s truth and be one with other members. And only in this fashion is salvific truth a communal matter and a common good. For the Church, through its teaching office, takes this position toward the word of God on the one hand, and toward the faith of the individual on the other. The word of God, or more precisely scripture, remains for everyone the final basis of faith. But this word is neither the sole nor the immediate basis for individual faith. The word of God is the highest and the only absolute authority, and so it must remain. Nothing else can lay it aside, let alone elevate itself above it. The Church—never mind an individual teacher or representative of the Church—does not possess an absolute teaching authority, for it does not derive truth from itself. It is more accurate to say that the Church receives the truth, as well as its teaching authority and everything else, from Christ through the apostles. In this way the Church upholds the truth handed down to it. It does not derive its authority from its own human force of knowledge and high standing, but from the activity and authority of the Spirit of Christ (Acts 15:28). For the Church is the immediate organ of this Spirit. 34  So says Twesten, Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik, I, 289. 35  This relation of the praedicatio ecclesiastica [ecclesial proclamation] to the word of God has already been examined clearly and poignantly by Origen. Christ revealed the truth to us, and the apostles proclaimed it to us. We believe this truth and we determine it valid on Christ’s authority. But what Christ revealed and his apostles proclaimed is taught by ecclesial proclamation, which has been handed down in uninterrupted succession from the time of the apostles. This truth is preserved up to the present day in the churches. See Origen, On First Principles, preface. See also my article “Die formalen Principien,” ThQ 40 (1858): 400ff. Kuhn cites Origen’s work in the Latin edition. (Tr.)

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Authority and Interpretation  C   201

The Church does not regard its place otherwise; it does not exalt itself above the Word of God or even above the Bible, and it refuses to equate its teaching authority with that of the divine word. All of this follows logically from the manner in which it validates and exercises its authority. In its judgments the Church magisterium appeals to the faith handed down from the apostles, not to its authority as Church.36 It only considers itself the true guardian and keeper of this faith. The Church bestows neither on itself nor on its organs the authority articulos fidei condere [to construct the articles of faith]. It simply confers on itself the authority in verbo dei (per praedicationem prophetarum et apostolorum) conditos articulos fidei servare et explicare [to serve and to explicate the articles of faith established in the word of God (through the testimony of the prophets and apostles)]. The Church demonstrates merely the fidelity and purity of the tradition, not the content of the divine word itself. It does not purport to be the source and basis of the truth that it proclaims, and does not demand faith in its statements and obedience toward its decisions. It preserves this honor unconditionally and in full measure for the word of God. The Church only demands belief (and the corresponding obedience) that the word that it hands down, as revealed and proclaimed by the apostles, derives from nowhere other than from the source of truth, and that the Church has handed this down. Even in this the Church does not seek its own honor but instead bestows it on the Lord who founded the Church and gave it his Spirit for assistance. In an absolute manner, then, the Church subordinates itself to the word of God and to its Spirit. It seeks only to be a faithful servant to Christ’s word and a willing organ of Christ’s Spirit. The Church, however, places itself above us individuals on the basis of Christ’s intended order. For Christ arranged it so that we should hear the Church, and that the Church, on the basis of Christ’s Spirit, is for us the guide and lodestar into the truth. This Spirit remains with the Church until the end of time. The word of God is sufficient in itself and requires no buttress or witness. This applies to holy scripture as such. We must, however, be certain that 36 Kuhn refers to a letter from the Antiochean bishops against Paul of Samasota. Kuhn gives a cryptic reference to the Greek citation. Denzinger does not contain this text. Paul of Samasota propounded a monarchian Christology and was refuted at the Synod of Antioch in 268. (Tr.)

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202  C   Authority and Interpretation the scriptures presented to us as holy and composed by the prophets and apostles, are really so. Likewise, holy scripture’s teachings require no authentication; they are true because they are scripture’s teachings. Still, we need to know what these scriptures teach. They require interpretation, indeed an unmuddied interpretation, so that one’s faith in scripture’s content is not undermined by doubt arising from a humanly flawed interpretation. At this point we like to point out that everyone who does not believe the Church follows a person, either another person or oneself. Merely possessing the Bible does nothing in itself, since only the interpreted text can be a source of faith. Provided that one chooses not to receive this interpretation from the Church (which seeks its support from the apostolic tradition and the Holy Spirit’s direction), it results either from one’s own effort or from the effort of another. The difference between the Protestants and us consists in the following: we follow an ecclesial interpretation of the Bible, while they follow their own, or that of a Reformer, or of another teacher who is close to them. We acknowledge an authority above or equal to the divine word just as little as they do. They recognize no less than we a relative authority concerning the interpretation of the contents of scripture. They acknowledge a subjective authority whereas we regard the apostolic tradition and the Church’s magisterium as an objective authority. Whoever interprets a text does not place himself above it. When the Catholic Church interprets scripture on the basis of the apostolic tradition and the active Spirit of Christ, the reproach of placing oneself above the text does not in the least apply. This reproach applies more aptly to those who make human reason their interpreter, wherein scripture is truly stripped of its positive esteem and its content. The scriptural claim for being divinely revealed becomes subordinated to human reason and is anthropomorphized [vermenschlicht]. Protestantism avoids this accusation by letting scripture interpret itself through the Holy Spirit that purportedly inhabits the text. One can put this contrast into even sharper tension. In the Smalcald Articles, orthodox Protestantism clearly dismisses the enthusiasts or spiritualists [Schwärmgeister] who boast about having the Spirit prior to, outside of, or independently from scripture. They claim to be in possession of divine truth through an immediate, inner illumination. Protestantism

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Authority and Interpretation  C   203

harbors suspicion that “papism” [Papismus] shares the position of the enthusiasts in underestimating sacred scripture. Protestantism so heavily emphasizes the vocalized word of scripture (scripturam sive vocale verbum), which should stand in for the visible church and should in an entirely analogous manner be the external, audible organ of the Holy Spirit, as it is for the visible church through its living word. Protestantism dismisses the enthusiasts just as Catholicism does. The enthusiasts assume an immediate, interior relationship of the person to the word or to the divine truth, and either view begrudgingly or reject out of hand any external mediation. Protestantism, however, opposes this for an entirely different reason: the mediator of truth for the individual is the vocale verbum scripturae [the vocalized word of scripture], not the living word of the Church. Protestantism allows the word of God to reach humanity in its original expression, and permits the activity of scripture’s indwelling Spirit to speak to humanity. By doing so, Protestantism appears to establish an entirely immediate relationship between the word of God and the individual, and to let flow to humanity the word of God in its pure, unperturbed objectivity. Viewed in this light, the Protestant system of belief appears in its utmost, brilliant luster. This light alone is a will o’ the wisp that goes out as soon as one approaches it, not merely since the self-interpreting text is an illusion, but because an unpolluted, purely immediate word of God does not exist for us. The Word—in its immediacy and pure divinity, which is identical with God’s Spirit—that God spoke to the prophets and apostles is not synonymous with holy scripture. Scriptura sancta [holy scripture] and purum verbum dei [the pure word of God], which Protestantism likes to confuse, are two distinct realities. Holy scripture is the word spoken by the prophets and apostles spoke to their contemporaries in their own language. Notwithstanding its divine truth, it was the word that they spoke in accordance with the particularity of their own thought and the contingent needs of their contemporaries. There is no such thing as a verbum dei purum, but only a word of God mediated through a human being:37 37  The Protestant theory of inspiration would like to eliminate this element and entirely dehumanize the organs of divine revelation. See “Die formalen Principien,” ThQ 40 (1858): 38.

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204  C   Authority and Interpretation the Word that God spoke to us through the prophets and apostles (2 Pet 1:20–21; Heb 1:1). It is indeed an immediately divine word with regard to its origin and ground, and in comparison with the word that the human person gives rise to and expresses from the depths of his own spirit. But it is mediated through the consciousness of the human spirit for which it is inspired, and which expresses this word in the same manner and form as the human spirit expresses all other contents of its consciousness. The divine guidance that the human spirit rejoices in and that protects it from all spoliation of this salvific truth changes nothing regarding the essential shape and form of the word. We have before us the word of God in human language, which suffered no loss in terms of its content and truth. It is more accurate to say that it found its pure expression without being tainted by any foreign admixture, and in this sense it must be called the pure word of God. There remains the possibility for human misunderstanding, and for the truth to be darkened through errors in this transmission. It would be another matter entirely if God himself wanted to communicate the inspired truth to everyone, instead of God wanting to communicate this truth in the human words of those whom he had inspired, and for that reason they have pronounced the highest truth. Something else must emerge to protect against the intrusion of error and to secure the viewpoint of divine revelation. Protestant orthodoxy recognizes this as well. It permits the same spirit of divine truth that inspired the prophets and apostles to speak in a supernatural manner—in the same words and through this word—to every individual, and thus permits them to comprehend the same content. Since Protestantism recognizes the danger of error, wherever human mediation (no matter what kind) arises between the word of God in scripture and the person who yearns for the truth, it seeks to jettison any such mediation. In addition, it wants to let the word of God communicate to the person immediately in its pure objectivity. Only when God can reveal the truth to the world through human faculties irrespective of their purity will the person be able to receive and propagate this truth through their faculties in an unadulterated manner. In this way there lies the result that follows from this principle of revelation and must be recognized as the only feasible one. One cannot do without the mediation of the Church if, as demonstrated, supernatural discern-

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Authority and Interpretation  C   205

ment [Perspicuität] is purely illusory. If one rejects interior inspiration as the principle of faith, there remain only two choices: the ecclesial principle of tradition and authority, or rationalism. On the basis of the tradition and its divine calling, the Church takes a position that the Catholic system vindicates. By so doing, the Church by no means becomes an impediment or barrier between the subject yearning for truth and salvation and the divine truth. But the accusations are principally leveled against the contemporary Church on this basis. This claim shows a misunderstanding of the Church’s magisterium and its authority as mediator of the truth and grace given in Christ. Subjective “Bible Christianity” casts this shadow on the Catholic Church. The “evangelical” principle seeks to elevate the person above ecclesial mediation and into an immediate connection to Christ.38 The word of God (holy scripture) should, as the sole source of the truth, be the sole source of salvation, in contrast to the mediation of the external, visible Church’s role in salvation and the knowledge of salvation.39 It was Schleiermacher who set the tone in the modern period for these and other similar adages. He first formulated in utmost poignancy the contrast between the Protestant and Catholic principle. He stated that Protestantism made the relationship of the individual to the Church depend on the individual’s relationship to Christ. Catholicism on the other hand made the relationship of the individual to Christ depend on his relationship to the Church.40 One reaches the same result when, as Twesten, one takes out of context [auseinanderreeissen] the statement of Irenaeus cited above.41 38 As quoted in S. Jörg, Geschichte des Protestantismus, I, 40ff. According to Neander, the about-face in religious consciousness towards Catholicism consisted in the fact that this consciousness had retreated from the immediate relationship with Christ and the Church stepped between the two. Thus the reaction of the Christian consciousness in the Reformation dealt with this milieu. Indeed, it happened by reverting from mediation to an immediate relation to Christ, where an independence from the authority of the Church is asserted (Dogmengeschichte, I, 214). 39 Neander makes this claim about the “historical Christ.” However, he cannot conceive this connection and its opposition to the Catholic doctrine other than how Twesten conceives it. Both end up saying that we receive truth and salvation, taking up in ourselves “the appearance of Christ or the scriptural content that makes this present” through the activity of the Holy Spirit. (Dogmengeschichte, I, 214, 292). 40  Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §24, (pp. 103–08 in T&T Clark ed.). 41 Irenaeus writes, “Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit

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206  C   Authority and Interpretation In the phrase, “where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God,” Twesten finds an expression of the principle of Catholicism, insofar as it subordinates unity with Christ to unity with the Church. In the phrase, “where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church,” Twesten sees the Protestant principle, insofar as it subordinates unity with the Church to the union with the Gospel.42 This claim of Irenaeus does not separate the two states, but rather finds its truth in their connection, albeit by prioritizing the first claim. Irenaeus’s statement should have led Twesten to conclude that from the standpoint of positive and objective Christianity, one cannot conceive a purely immediate relationship of the individual to Christ and to God. The relationship of the individual to God, on the strength of which he is a child of God privy to divine blessedness in God through Christ, is founded on and begins with faith. If this relationship should be a purely immediate one, the faith must have come about in a purely immediate and nonsensory manner if this relationship should be a purely immediate one. Then the enthusiasts would have to be right when they talk of an immediate illumination of the individual through the Holy Spirit, or when they argue for a word of God external to scripture or for an efficacy of the Holy Spirit independent from scripture. As we have seen, however, the Smalcald Articles, and orthodox Protestantism in general, have most decidedly rebuffed this “enthusiasm” for an immediate Gospel. They argue as such because the Holy Spirit only effects our faith and salvation through the word of God in scripture. By word of God they mean the written word, the Bible, the externally tangible object, the verbum vocale. This word is the tool or means by which the Holy Spirit brings the individual into contact with Christ and with God. This is the task and job of the administration [Verwaltung] of the word and of the sacraments, through which the Gospel comes to individuals, and by means of which the individual can participate in the efficacy of the Holy Spirit.43 One may grant to this ofof God is, there is the Church and all grace; and the Spirit is truth.” (Against Heresies, III, 24.1; Grant, 142). 42 Twesten, Vorlesungen über die Dogmatik, I, 74; 112. 43 Kuhn cites here the Augsburg Confession (part 1, article 5) and then cites the divergence among prominent Protestants. The footnote continues for two pages. (Tr.)

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Authority and Interpretation  C   207

fice an authority above the individual’s and one may regard this office as an immediate organ of the Holy Spirit, or one may permit this authority only to the Bible, thereby rendering the service in the word a purely human activity, albeit an orderly activity orchestrated by God according to the direction of his word. If one chooses the latter then the Church ceases to be an authoritative, living, divine institution led by the Holy Spirit, and is supplanted by scripture. This creates an essential difference, and therein lies the gap between Catholicism and Protestantism. An immediate relationship of the individual to Christ and to God, an elevation of the person beyond any external mediation into the immediate bond to Christ, is in the one case just as implausible as in the other. The difference simply leads, according to the Protestant principle, to the Bible, this external vehicle in the hand of the preacher. And according to the Catholic principle it leads to the visible Church as the divine institution and office. The Church is the means whereby the Holy Spirit infuses people with the faith, the communion of Christ, and the status of being an adopted child of God. The opposing viewpoint may be entertaining and even well-intentioned, but it is not true. Its adherents disguise the foundation common to both principles, and cast a shadow on one while illuminating the other, and this is not adequate to either. From these two viewpoints it is not difficult to discern which is the true one. For one of them supposes the dead letter to be the organ of the Holy Spirit, which is the scripture, the biblical book in the preachers’ hands. The preachers hold an office but possess no authority. Indeed they possess a mediated divine calling, but not a divine outfitting, nor an anointing with the power of the Holy Spirit. The other viewpoint supposes the living spirit of the Church as its organ and servant. The Catholic Church also finds a clear articulation of its foundation in scripture itself. According to this witness, Christ built his church on Peter’s living confession of faith. Christ also handed over to him, as the leader and representative of the apostles, the keys of heaven and the power to bind and loose (Matt 16:16ff.; see also John 21:15ff.). Christ also dispenses this same power to the other apostles (Matt 18:18). John’s Gospel states, “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed

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208  C   Authority and Interpretation on them, and said to them, ‘receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (20:21–23). Christ prayed to the Father for Peter, that his faith would not fail (Luke 22:32), as well as for the rest of the apostles, that they would be protected in their faith ( John 17:8–9). Christ also gave them the Paraclete so that he would remain with them for eternity ( John 14:16). If one takes everything that Christ did and arranged during his earthly life so that his Gospel would be spread and preserved, one does not find the slightest hint that the works of scripture—be it from the Old Testament or from the New Testament works freshly penned by the disciples— play a direct part in this. Nor does one find that they should be the rock upon which the kingdom of God is erected, nor that they should repel all of the assaults and attacks of its adversaries. Least of all does one find a trace of this notion in Christ’s preaching and his orders that every person derive the Gospel from these texts and that, by transcending [Überspringung] every other mediation, these texts reside immediately in a relation to Christ and God. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” There is no immediate relationship of the individual to God, since, through human sin, the immediate union that God formed in Adam for the whole human race was torn apart. Christ is our mediator based on what he did for us while on earth. “Nobody comes to the Father but by me” ( John 14:6). We do not share an immediate relationship with Christ. Such a bond was attained by a few whom the enfleshed, visible Christ brought to faith during his life on earth. He told them that he was the Son of the living God. Through the means of Christ’s appearance in the flesh, his sermons, and his deeds, the Father let these few glimpse the kingdom initiated by Christ through the Spirit. For as the Lord said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” ( John 6:44). After Christ laid down his life and after the apostles experienced with their own eyes the reverie of his bodily appearance, there has been no other way for us to come into relation with Christ and with God than through the apostolic instruction and office that Christ appointed and equipped with his Spirit ( John 14:18). As the Father sent me, so I send you. With the appointment of apostles in his Church, this task instituted by Christ carries out the proclamation of the Gospel and the dispensation of the sacra-

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Authority and Interpretation  C   209

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ments (Matt 28:19).44 We can say with Dr. Stahl,45 but he cannot say with us: the Church is not simply a society made up of believing Christians, but rather, as bearer of this responsibility, a binding institution for all faithful Christians. It is an authority above personal judgment. The individual must submit herself to it. She must come to Christ by joining herself to the Church and ordering herself as a member of Christ’s body. The subjective path to salvation, with only the Bible—with or without explanation—the preacher, or whomever, is not the way that Christ designated and prescribed for us, and does not lead to this end. Such a way is full of danger for those that take it, and as a general rule, it foils Christianity’s goal of gathering all of humanity into God’s family (the kingdom of heaven). One should not confuse the destination and the path, the ends and the means. the interior and the exterior. The inner relationship of the person to God, on the strength of which he is a child of God and an heir to beatitude, is the highest reality. It is that which is actually striven for; it is the goal and the destiny of the person. The external relationship to the Church is the means to the end, the path to the goal, the gateway to life. One cannot regard the mediation of the Church, therefore, as a limiting or dividing barrier to an interior and essentially religious relationship. Instead one should regard it only as the external mediation of this relationship. When Christ 44 It is not the saving activity of Christ, his role as mediator, that his Church carries on as apostolic and catholic. This saving activity happens through the Church and applies positively to the individual only in that he is justified and redeemed on the basis of Christ’s activity. Through the Church’s role people came to believe and thus participated in Christ’s salvific activity. It is an unclear dogmatic exaggeration that leads to nothing but misunderstanding when the blessed Johann Adam Möhler says, and others echo him, that the Church is the ongoing incarnation of the Son of God here on earth, and that the Church and its members, the spiritual, continue this saving activity. This infamous phrase comes from Möhler’s Symbolik (I, 389 in Geiselmann’s critical edition). For a treatment of this theme, see Michael Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 257–74, esp. 259 (Tr.). 45  See Jörg’s article in the Historisch-politischen Blätter [The Historical Political Papers] 9 (1858): 664. Joseph Edmund Jörg (1819–1901) was a student of Ignaz von Döllinger and the editor of the Historisch-politischen Blätter from 1852–1901. The journal began as a mouthpiece for the philosophy and ideas of the Catholic philosopher Joseph Görres. It is unclear to what article Kuhn is referring, but worth noting that Jörg published his two-volume Geschichte des Protestantismus in seiner neuesten Entwicklung in the same year. The latter consists of a collection of essays taken from his essays in the Blätter, which may explain the similarity in page number between this and the following footnote. (Tr.)

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says, no one comes to the Father except through me, nobody believes that Christ wants to place himself between us and God as a dividing wall. One understands this claim to be about his mediation, which facilitates our redemption and union with God. It works just like this when we say that nobody comes to Christ possessing and enjoying the fruits of his mediation except through the Church, which mediates for us our faith in him through preaching of the word and distributing the sacraments, and mediates the gift of his sacrifice [Verdienst]. This activity does not constitute a belittlement or a watering down, but instead the mediation and actualization of unity with Christ (Gal 3:27; Rom 6:3ff.). If union to the Church and the performance of its task for us is the way to the goal, and the means to the end, then the relationship to the Church appears as the temporally prior one. But it is a clear misunderstanding or misapprehension of the true reality to conclude that the Catholic principle subordinates the unity with the Gospel or with Christ to unity with the Church, and places the latter before the former. In this expression we recognize the well-known tactic of Protestant polemicists. When a truth of the Catholic system irresistibly confronts them, there is imputed a distorted image of this truth in order for these polemicists to be able to present themselves as possessing the true form. They do this without having to concede the protestations from the Catholic side. Dr. Stahl writes, Justification by faith alone does not exclude, but rather demands many more means for the person to come to faith. The epitome of this means is the church. According to Protestant doctrine, therefore, the church is just as indispensable for Protestants as it is for Catholics. The difference is that for us the church is only a means and a path to faith that brings about redemption. The church itself is not the thing that effects and conditions redemption.46

However, this is not the claim that Catholics make. If the Church offers the true faith to us in its instruction, in its interpretation of scripture based on the apostolic tradition, then this faith is not faith in the Church, but faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Since the Church proffers to us the true Gospel, the pure word of God, then we believe through the Church, and thereby we are one with it, true members of the Church. 46  See Jörg, Geschichte des Protestantismus, 2 vols. (Freiburg, 1858), I, 664.

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Which faith is it then, that redeems us? It is faith in the Gospel, not the faith that we grant to the Church on account of its teaching us the true Gospel. Faith in the Church is only the means to reach the faith in the Gospel. The faith that redeems us is the faith that the Holy Spirit infuses in our hearts by making the word of the Church fruitful (Acts 2). But it is not enough to arrive at faith through the word of the Church and through faith to come into union with Christ. Our union with Christ must be a lasting faith that endures through our whole life and is decisive for it. The word must be our union with the Church, who is the enduring mediator of our union with God and Christ, but can be so effectively only if we show obedience to it. This steady obedience is, like faith, not the efficient cause of our salvation and redemption, but only the condition and the means to it.

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Is History Mythic? A Biblical Response to D. F. Strauss Jahrbuch für Theologie und Christliche

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Philosophie 6 (1836): 33–91

This selection outlines Kuhn’s critique of David Friedrich Strauss’s Life of Jesus Critically Examined, which had arrived on the German academic scene as a bombshell in the previous year. Although the article could not be rendered here in its totality, the spirit and the majority of the text demonstrates Kuhn’s profound concern with Strauss’s method. Kuhn was a young professor of New Testament when he penned this article, which would also provide the basis for his book-length response to Strauss in 1838. Instead of lapsing into an argument from authority, Kuhn confronted Strauss on his own terms by employing a sophisticated scriptural hermeneutics. We should not restrict the importance of Kuhn’s response, however, to its timeliness. No less a luminary than Albert Schweitzer would later praise Kuhn’s work as the only serious Catholic response to Strauss. Yet we should also lament how short-lived this attempted at sophisticated Catholic biblical criticism was. After nearly landing on the Index due to his engagement with Strauss, Kuhn quickly shifted away from exegetical work and toward dogmatic theology. Catholic theology would have to wait for the indefatigable efforts of Marie-Joseph Lagrange (d. 1938) and the pronouncement of Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) and Dei Verbum (1965) before re-entering the world of modern scriptural interpretation. 212

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I

Is History Mythic?  C   213

C

n o r d e r t o e x p l a i n the Gospels, it is of decisive importance, most especially concerning the critique of the kerygmatic [evangelischen] history, to properly determine the viewpoint from which the Gospel accounts depart. Did the authors of the Gospel accounts want to write or not? And if they intended to write, for what reason and purpose did they write their history? Was the purpose historical or dogmatic? And if the purpose was both historical and dogmatic, how are these two combined? In what manner did their books conceive how one purpose took precedence over another? The answers to these questions have decisive consequences. The questions themselves imply this, but a recent attempt has brought to light, in a striking and palpable manner, that the history of the founder of our religion is connected integrally with the religion itself.1 Such a serious objection demands a deliberate and sober examination. While there are branches of human understanding in which it brings honor to chance a clever attempt and to demonstrate the buoyancy of the mind through bold hypotheses and grim conclusions, we remain on an entirely different plane. It would be flippant and insolent to transgress the limits of this plane as a mere experiment. The progress of science consists in an ongoing expansion of earlier boundaries of knowledge. This is laudable and inexorable. This progress, however, does not exclude a certain wonder concerning the plainly experimental, which is about more than mere knowledge, indeed which can deal with the religious conviction of a given time period. This conviction is and remains an object of science, but its very nature forbids that it yield to the chicanery of scientific [szientifischen] hankering.2 1  This essay was co-translated with Jonathan King. See David Friedrich Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet, 2 vols. (Tübingen, 1835; [repr. Darmstadt, 1969]). Kuhn is obviously working from the first edition. Strauss would issue several revisions of the work. The famous translation, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, trans. George Eliot, is available but does not provide any means of cross-checking to Strauss’s original. Therefore only the German bibliographic information is given in footnotes here and below. (Tr.) 2  [Wilhelm] de Wette remarks quite aptly in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken [Theological Studies and Criticism] (1834): 138, “Certain orthodox [altgläubige] theologians may think in their hearts and even act as though the historical critique of theology can and should proceed otherwise than according to the most rigorous laws of truth. But certainly none of them venture to

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214  C   Is History Mythic? It is a historically stated fact that our Gospels came into being roughly thirty years after Christ’s ascension. In consequence of the spread of Christianity through the verbal proclamation of the apostles and their followers, there arose an actively awakened need for a more sufficient and reliable knowledge of Jesus’ life. The Gospels are based on the apostolic kerygma not merely as a function of their time period, but also as a function of the content itself. One can already see the argument for this in the introduction that Luke gives to his Gospel. By relegating the written account “of the events that have been fulfilled among us” (Luke 1:1), to the purpose of ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν [realizing the certainty of the teachings you have received] he declares the purpose of the Gospel to Theophilus. One learns most explicitly from this passage that the object of the written instruction was the same as that of the verbal teaching: the περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων [the narrative events that have been fulfilled among us] (Luke 1:1). The written instruction was to distinguish itself from catechesis, from the “teachings you have received,” through the certainty and steadfastness of the [verbal] evidence so that the former is compatible with this later witness. This is an ἐπίγνωσις a “re-cognition” of the teaching that was already known beforehand. Suppose Christianity’s oral teaching had consisted in a transmission of doctrinal claims through the apostolic proclamation, while the Gospels, especially Luke, apparently transmitted a history of the life, teachings, and fate of Jesus, and the Gospels at the same time functioned for the purpose of demonstrating the faith and were, in their own unique way, historical writings. If this were so, then Luke would not have brought his Gospel record so closely into concert with what Theophilus had already known to be oral instruction, and would not have been able to give the “certainty of the teachings” of Luke 1:4. From the beginning the eyewitnesses—that is, the pupils and continexpress this. Further, a critique practiced in this spirit cannot avert the disdain that it deserves. In addition, all of their tiresome half-measures will not prove sound in the long run. Of the critics one can ask nothing more than a devout love and reverence for the matter under consideration. Flippancy, iniquity, and derision are to be repudiated in every critical undertaking, including theological undertakings.” This statement has an even greater import given de Wette’s reputation for not allowing the rights of an unsubstantiated critic to be taken away. De Wette (1780–1849) was a prominent Protestant biblical scholar and theologian who taught at Heidelberg, Berlin, and Basel. While at Berlin, he became friends with Friedrich Schleiermacher. (Tr.)

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Is History Mythic?  C   215

ual companions of the Lord, and the ὑπηρέται τοῦ λόγου [ministers of the word]—in other words, those who stood in the service of declaring the Gospel that “was fulfilled among us,” without themselves having been eyewitnesses (above all, Paul)—in short, the eyewitnesses together with the appointed servants of the Word—handed down by means of oral teaching of the πράγματα πεπληροφορήμενα [events fulfilled], and their λόγοι [order] were the foundation upon which our Gospels are based. But what then are the πράγματα ἐν ἡμῖν πεπληροφορμήενα [events that have been fulfilled]? With general agreement one understands by this the occurrences in the life of Jesus as occurrences of the Messiah, his powerful speeches, his acts, and his fate. But to what extent are they “fulfillments?” Πληροφορεῖν means primarily “to provide a full measure,” and its meaning is determined more precisely depending on the object which it predicates. Hence διακονίαν πληροφορεῖν in 2 Timothy 4:5 means to “fulfill one’s office” or one’s service, or to bring something to conclusion. In 2 Timothy 4:17 the κήρυγμα πληροφορεῖν means openly and loudly “to proclaim the preaching” of the Gospel, so that all peoples receive it. In the passive voice it means “to have full measure.” In connection to pragmata it can be appropriated and translated only subjectively (for one’s own perception). It could therefore be translated as “have been forcefully proclaimed.” Let us take the treatment of these pragmata in the Gospels themselves, and the function they serve for the demonstration of belief ( John 20:31). More precisely, let us view these events in light of the fact that they were presented as fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies concerning the nature and works of the Messiah. In light of this, it may be more accurate to follow Lessing’s unconsciously and unsurpassably well-formed expression: “the things that have come to pass before us.”3 The close relation of the Gospel record to the apostolic kerygma puts the comparison of the central content and the essential form of each in a yet brighter light. This comparison is possible since the apostolic history has preserved several apostolic proclamations for us. Even if they do not also render their originator’s own words, these proclamations nonetheless represent the essential content and in particular the true form of their 3 Lessing, Theologische Schriften (Karlsruhe ed.) III, 26.

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216  C   Is History Mythic? originator. This kerygma entails merely an acquaintance with the apostles, which for instance Luke enjoyed in abundant measure. One need only recall his heartfelt relationship with Paul. His own conversion, moreover, must have provided him with the wherewithal for proclamation since his conversion itself resulted from this very proclamation. And beyond this he was indeed himself a “minister of the word,” who hardly preached the Gospel according to his own inclination, but much more according to the general apostolic type grounded in the matter itself. The most believable accounts in the Gospel still call to our attention their unique character. If the comparison between two accounts seems meager, the fault lies with us, not with the given facts, which have been transmitted in the most credible manner conceivable. Let us examine the first apostolic proclamation in Acts 2:14–36. The fantastic bewilderment that came with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples provoked amazement and sacrilege. Peter seized the opportunity to explain this event in connection with the new religious community (vv. 14–21) and to move from this point to a demonstration of the faith (vv. 22–36). He accomplishes this demonstration by saying: Jesus of Nazareth was a man through whom God performed wonderful deeds accomplished before your eyes, as his elect have attested to. You Jews, punishable agents of the irrevocable judgment of God, had him seized, using lawless men to execute him. But God awakened to life him who could not be contained by the chains of death, as it was foretold in the scriptures through David’s mouth (Ps 16:10–11; as Acts 4:29 notes, this could not have implied David’s own death, but the death of the Messiah). We are all witnesses that God raised this Jesus to life. He ascended to the right hand of God, he received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the hand of the Father and confirmed it to us, as you in this very moment see and hear (Acts 2:32–33). Therefore all of Israel now knows that God made him the Lord and savior, whom you nailed to the cross: Jesus of Nazareth. If this apostolic proclamation were simply to fall out of the history of Jesus, then it should be noted that Jesus would take into account his audience, to whom Jesus had entrusted this history, the Jews in Jerusalem. The Jews who were present after Good Friday were not any less aware of this history, for they were aware of the things that had taken place in Jerusalem

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Is History Mythic?  C   217

(Luke 24:18). If Peter diverges from the general type through his unique delivery, this happens due to his own particularity and does not eclipse the image of the general type. As the first speech after Pentecost, Peter’s address gives witness with continual reference to the unique event that instigated Peter’s defense of the faith. Notwithstanding these matters, one clearly sees that the essence of the speech is a concise history of Jesus the Nazarene, of his public activity manifested in miraculously powerful words and deeds (Luke 24:19), of his death at the hands of lawless men, of his resurrection and glorification, and of his unceasing concern for the new community from his position on the throne of the Father. The doctrinal aspect of Peter’s speech has not been excluded, but emerges only partially within the form of the story. For this story is the original moment, and the doctrinal aspect is merely secondary, and emerges only as a consequence and practical application of the proclamation (Acts 2: 28–39). This addendum is curious in light of the brevity of Peter’s content-rich speech. It contains all essential elements of the apostolic teaching and of the application of the historically inspired demonstration of faith to the ethnic and individual circumstances of those whose conversion and inspiration took place through a new principle: belief in Christ. The first phase of faith and of the new life set aside the expression of personal and ethnic individuality, which was carried over to the demonstration of faith (thus the κατενύγησαν, the “cut to the heart,” and the subsequent τί ποιήσωμεν, “what are we to do?” of Acts 2:37). Peter’s answers as follows: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.”4 This instruction contains the condition and fruit as the goal of the new faith, that is, everything that constituted the linchpin of the apostolic teaching in its narrower sense. His view of the relationship between Gentiles and Jews regarding the messianic kingdom remains unresolved. [.....]5 4  Since he addressed his letter to the Jews in the diaspora (1 Pet 1:1), Peter had the Gentiles only partially in mind. According to his views of the time (Acts 10), the Gentiles could participate in the promise only through Judaism. 5  Three paragraphs have been omitted here. They largely aim to show that Peter’s speech in

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218  C   Is History Mythic? This stable and constant mode of apostolic proclamation (kerygma) is grounded in neither caprice nor coincidence, nor on any kind of compact between the apostles made out of their own interests. It is more accurate to say that the development of this mode of apostolic proclamation lies in the nature of the proclamation itself, and it developed according to the necessity of the law of development which lies within the subject. The new religion positioned itself as the last component of a historical concatenation that completed a great chain of revelatory acts (see Matt 5:17ff.). The next manifestation of these revelatory acts needed to be historical and also needed to be connected with the history of antiquity, in this case that of the Old Testament. The Messiah soon to appear or the actual appearance of the Messiah is the original and universal expression of this religion (Matt 3:2; Luke 2:11; John 1:14). The exalted events in the life and especially in the public activity of the Messiah until his ascension are the individual and concrete forms [Modificationen] of this expression. Secondarily these events manifest for the understanding of that general expression in the idea of the kingdom of God that the Messiah actualizes. The individual forms of these events emerge as so many different didactic manifestations of this idea. To these there belong above all the teachings about faith, justification, the eternal life in the messianic kingdom, the mediation of Christ, the implications of his death and of his glorification by the Father. In the most compact sense, this is the necessary form of the preaching of the gospel, and as one sees, it is identical with the actual form of the apostolic kerygma. Let us now transition to the Gospels themselves. Be they not merely and purely historical presentations, nonetheless what clearly results from what has already been said is that, in essence, they must still bear the imprint of the apostolic preaching according to both the time and the matter out of which they emerge (Mark, Luke). Since they are historical correlations toward the goal of demonstrating belief, whereby the selection of ordering of the merely historical according to the principle of its suitability or fittingness proceeds in service of making public the demonstration of faith. Acts 10:34–43 and Paul’s speech in Acts 13:16–41 have the same narrative arc as the speech in Acts 2, albeit with slightly different emphases. (Tr.)

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Is History Mythic?  C   219

If they are such, that is, if their concept falls into the category of the apostolic kerygma, how would it be possible that they would be missing the universally practiced, necessary form of this kerygma? To accept such a claim would be clearly absurd. That our Gospels should not be merely and purely historical presentations of the life of Jesus can be shown with a sharpness of a proof which in these cases can hardly be anticipated and in any case is quite rare. In its purely apostolic form, the Gospel history does not consider the baptism of John and the public emergence of the Messiah as the first events of Jesus’ life. Therefore one cannot define the Gospels as histories of the life of Jesus. We understand the historical witness under the purely apostolic form of the Gospel history. Christ’s apostles openly derived this witness as such from the history of Jesus, and as eyewitnesses this testament served as the basis for faith and believability. At the same time we assert that this witness constitutes the actual core of our Gospel. It is easy to show that there exists an apostolic witness in this sense. In the address to the Christians who had gathered in Jerusalem after the ascension of the Lord, which Peter held as a preface to the election of the twelfth apostle, he remarked, “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:21–22). That the munus apostolicam [apostolic office] is limited here to the witness of the event of Christ’s resurrection may escape notice if one considers how the office constitutes the same complex according to views of the apostles, including that of Paul (1 Cor 15:14ff.), and according to all the other messianic actions. Bengel remarks correctly, “Whoever believes the resurrection of Christ believes everything that has happened and has taken place.” Or as it should have been said, “Whoever attests to the resurrection of Christ attests to everything that has happened and has taken place.”6 Peter articulates the same view in Acts (2:32; 3:15; 4:20; 5:32). On the other hand we find the complete expression of the apostolic witness (Acts 10:37ff.) as the witness of everything that occurred from the 6  Bengel, Gnomon, ed. Steudel, 494.

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220  C   Is History Mythic? baptism of John to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus in Galatia and Judea. This stands in complete agreement with requirements of Acts 1:21– 22 about the election of the twelfth apostle, namely that he was with the apostles and Jesus from the baptism by John until the ascension. Even Paul’s apostolic calling can be applied as a demonstration, although this calling seems at first glance to require an entirely different interpretation. Paul was not an eyewitness to the events in Jesus’ life, and his witness was not an apostolic one according to the narrower meaning of the term. Nevertheless, according to the Acts of the Apostles his apostolic mission conformed to the historical witness of Jesus, meaning the witness of the twelve primary disciples of the Lord. According to Acts 22:15, Ananias serves as an interpreter of the divine calling and sees Paul’s task as being a witness “of what you have seen and heard.” This content consists of the Lord’s appearance to him, which indicates the fact of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:8), and the revelation of Jesus as Messiah (see Acts 26:15–16; Gal 1:12–16). If Paul was a witness to Jesus’ resurrection in the same way as the other apostles, and the witness of this event entails having witnessed the previous events (see Acts 1:22 above), then Paul’s apostolic witness was not essentially different from that of the twelve disciples. This is the case with the historical witness of the great events in Jesus’ life. For in this and in no other sense does Paul interpret matters in his first, longer proclamation in Acts 13:31–32. Finally, what John’s Gospel says about Jesus’ public activity, from John’s baptism to the resurrection, has been presented historically as a demonstration of faith ( John 20:31). Eyewitness have confirmed this, in this instance a man belonging to a later, but no doubt still apostolic, time period, whom John calls a μαρτυρία [witness] ( John 21:24; see also 1 John 1:1ff.; Rev 1:2). From this we can gather that the practice of apostolic proof primitively consisted in witness to the miraculous events of Jesus’ life: the μαρτυρία Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [testimony of Jesus Christ] (Rev 1:2). One can also see that the apostolic “testimony” does not extend beyond the public life of Jesus, from his baptism by John to the ascension (see John 15:27). Finally, we can conclude this without any doubt because the “seeing for oneself ” [Autopsie], an essential element for the witness, does not extend beyond these parameters. One cannot reject, then, viewing this period of witness as evangelical history in the apostolic form, no more and no less.

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Is History Mythic?  C   221

The Gospel of John, the one of immediate apostolic origin in the narrower meaning, moves within these parameters if we exclude the ascension.7 The same is true regarding the Gospel of Matthew that was originally written in Hebrew, even though it is unlikely that this earlier version contained the first two chapters of the current version. Written under Peter’s influence, Mark’s Gospel begins with John the Baptist and presents in this regard the apostolic type of the Gospel in its purest form. Only the third Gospel makes an exception that is easily explainable. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, from which it cannot be separated, Luke offers a history of the life, teachings, and acts of Jesus and his apostle, without a predominant consideration of the demonstration of faith. In this matter it is the one firmly historical book of the New Testament according to the view of its author (Luke 1:3). However, the manner of historical recollection can always be one that differs widely from the usual manner, and I would like to recall this point explicitly so as to counter rash assertions about this claim. In Luke it does not stand out when he does take his book of the history Jesus’ life up to the birth of Jesus and the events immediately connected to the birth, although one also finds here again that the story betrays the intermingling of the purely historical quality of his book with the historical-didactic quality of the other Gospels. The story of John the Baptist’s birth seeks to refer to more than merely the intention to begin by ἄνωθεν παρακολουθεῖν [investigating everything from the first] (Luke 1:3) and ab ovo Ledae.8 What our Greek Matthew arrives at in his evangelical prologue, however, is so obviously derived from the view of didactic history that the concern for demonstrating the faith, which this history so nicely serves, has given its reason for being admitted. One should also note that a relation to the apostle Matthew is wholly excluded, but a relation to another apostle is not to be demonstrated and is even improb7 In contrast to the Gospels of disciples of the apostles (Mark, Luke), and of the Greek Matthew, which in the version that we have does not derive from Matthew the apostle. It was a commonly held belief in Kuhn’s time that John, not Mark, was the earliest and “purest” Gospel. (Tr.) 8  This is a Latin proverb meaning “from Leda’s egg.” It refers to the origin of the Trojan War being the inception of Helen of Troy and refers more generally to starting from the beginning. (Tr.)

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222  C   Is History Mythic? able, such that this passage, the prologue of the Greek Matthew, cannot be brought into the argument when one is inquiring into the apostolic type of the Gospel in the narrower meaning. As a result, when one considers their apostolic origin, we are justified to stress the very same boundary between the Gospel history and the apostolic witness in our own presentation of the Gospels. From this it follows self-evidently: that they are not merely and purely historical representations of the life of Jesus. Since this fact is accepted, they needed to provide not merely the history of Jesus’ birth and childhood, but also the history up to his inauguration as Messiah with John’s baptism. The Gospels do not, however, provide these things, and indeed this in no way results from a lack of reliable information, which the apostles must have had. Rather these things must have been omitted for other reasons—departing from the merely historical relation—connected to the didactic character of the Gospels. Regarding the hybrid historical-didactic character of their representation, the first, second, and fourth Gospels behave in entirely the same way. John emphatically indicates the purpose of his Gospel as historical-didactic (20:31), an indication which must hold good as canon for the authorial imprint of the Gospel history in its apostolic form. The first hardly requires demonstration. It is known inasmuch as it is obvious that our Gospels (excepting the third, which has in view predominantly the historical moment and does not directly pursue the goal of demonstrating belief) use history solely as an underlying fundament in order to draw from it the demonstration of belief. This quality is imprinted on the Gospel of Matthew more strongly than upon any other. Matthew summarizes under a general heading speeches and dealings of Jesus that lay chronologically far from one another and whose localities and personal relations are not dwelt upon. The chronological, the local, and the personal, however, are precisely what give the “historical” quality to history; thus one would misunderstand this Gospel were one to characterize its inmost essence by the word “history.” There are memorable events (ἀπομνημονεύματα) in the life of Jesus from the standpoint of their suitability for demonstrating his messiahship. The Gospel of Mark expresses this quality in his opening lines with the words, ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίον Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ θεοῦ, Καθὼς γέγραπται [The beginning of the Gospel of Je-

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Is History Mythic?  C   223

sus Christ the son of God. As it is written]. Hereby Mark gives a definition of the term “gospel.” The gospel is nothing other than the joyful proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God; the gospel is not the history of Jesus of Nazareth. Most noteworthy is the boundary and limiting of the territory of the gospel. It belongs to the expansive arena of divine or salvation history, whose distinctive characteristics are given in the Old Testament. Its beginning should not to be arbitrarily set aside, but rather its import is uncovered in that the holy scriptures construct the beginning of the messianic history with the prediction of the Messiah (Mal 3:1; Mark 1:2), and with John the Baptist, to whose story the evangelist quickly transitions in verse four, after presenting the starting point of his Gospel. In this light is the entire Gospel to be regarded; we understand from these verses not only the Gospel’s didactic element, but also the manner of the διδαχή [instruction], the mode of the evangelical demonstration of belief. As regards the Gospel of Luke, it contains the same quality of salvific writing of history as the former Gospel, and differs from it only in the following: that it permits the characteristic limitations of Gospel history to move ahead unnoticed, and in this respect the principle of the demonstration of faith is subordinate to that of pure history. This can be understood only as if this Gospel would have to sidestep entirely the principle of demonstration, for essentially this principle is already given in every salvific history. The matter can be understood much better as follows: Luke aims to write historically, and this is how he writes. As he himself understands, however, he writes this history as salvific history [Historie].9 The other evangelists in the apostolic gospel time generally restrict the usual conception of history [Historie] not only through the teleological element by means of which history [Geschichte] becomes salvific, but also through the messianic-theological element, through which their history [Geschichte] distances itself yet further from the general history [Historie] and becomes didactic in a narrower sense. They do not go behind the baptismal story; 9 Up to this point, Kuhn has used only Geschichte for history. Here he begins to use Historie, a synonym imported from French. It is not entirely clear how Kuhn distinguishes the two. Since the next sentence gives the best indication of his usage, the German has been bracketed at the expense of fluidity. Both terms have been rendered history throughout the text, and Geschichte is used with far greater regularity. (Tr.)

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224  C   Is History Mythic? from the bulk of historical material in the life of Jesus they grasp his teachings, his actions, and his fate, more so than Luke. These things they bring forth from their common historical connection and isolate them, more than Luke, as constituting the didactic standpoint of the messianic proof. The Gospel of John at first glance differentiates itself from the others quite strikingly through its prologue. Upon closer consideration, however, it cannot be doubted that this prologue merely intended to declare the initial point of view from which the Gospel history is treated and out of which John draws the demonstration of belief. He indicates here in essence no more than is indicated in the prologue of Mark, with whom he has the nearest affinity—namely, that which already lay expressly within the notion of Gospel according to apostolic reckoning and belongs in this respect not to the Gospel itself but to its preamble. With this one must abstain from the more important idea of the Messiah, which distinguishes the spirit of John’s Gospel from the others. Another difference, however, which to some is over inflated—but which does not constitute any essential difference between the first three and the fourth Gospels—seems to me to lie in the fact that John combined the didactic element of the temptation story with his prologue. The first three Gospels demonstrate that in the forty-day withdrawal and fasting of Jesus immediately after his baptism, along with the temptation story that accompanied these events—the trial of the temptation in which he perfectly succeeded—as well as in the battle against the external evil which confronted him, he embraced the divine spirit, although the spirit was in the baptism conferred on him merely virtually. John, however, shows more truly and deeply that the Holy Spirit naturally indwelt Jesus: the Logos became man ( Jesus); man ( Jesus) did not become the logos. In John’s Gospel the story of the withdrawal and temptation of Jesus recedes entirely, because it was written not to the end of mere, rudimentary history, but toward demonstrating the faith. The didactic element in every story was presented more deeply and truly in the prologue. In this manner one conceives entirely the wholesale absence of the temptation account in John, which, despite its centrality and importance, cannot be easily incorporated.10 [.....] 10  See Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, I, 397. Roughly three pages have been skipped in our translation. (Tr.)

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Is History Mythic?  C   225

What implications then lie within this conclusion and specifically in the statement of the purpose of the Johannine Gospel history for the question of the particular character of the writing of Gospel history in general? John refers to the entire (because the conclusion is the conclusion of the whole story) activity of Jesus through the term: σημεῖα ἐποίησεν [he did signs ( John 20:30)]. It is not difficult to develop the biblical concept of σημειον [sign]. That this concept must be taken so generally that all of the actions of Jesus are included proceeds from the relationship of the verse in question to the entire Gospel. Only in passing, therefore, do we need to dispel Lücke’s explanation—signs of the resurrection—as being much too narrow and in this respect impermissible.11 In general agreement with all Greek usage, σημειον (and also σῆμα) means a sign whereby one knows something. Two aspects are essential to the concept: the res significans [thing signifying] and the res significata [thing signified]. The New Testament usage generally follows this meaning (see Matt 26:48; Rom 4:11; 1 Cor 14:22; John 2:18; 6:30). Although it is not exclusively the case, as a general rule for Hellenistic usage in particular the meaning of the word refers more narrowly to a “miraculous sign” proceeding from God or from a divine power, and thus a sign, demonstration, and witness (Acts 2:22; 15:12). It is merely a modification of this concept when the designation σημεῖα is given in the New Testament to such actions of Jesus as documented either his supernatural divine power in general or the truth of his assertion that he is the Messiah, or as demonstrated his actual fulfilling of messianic expectations from the teachings of the Old Testament.12 The instances of this are quite numerous. It can be explained rather easily that even Jesus’ teaching activities (his logoi), insofar as they identify him as the one having power (Matt 7:29; Luke 4:32, 36; 24:19), belong to the category of σημεῖα. It is just as illuminating as to why John prefers the term σημεῖα to the term ἐρ΄γα [works, deeds]. Both terms are equally broad and they describe the actions of Jesus. However, the element of the extraordinary and the wonderful—the same element that constitutes the 11 Kuhn refers here to Gottfried Christian Friedrich Lücke (1791–1855), prominent Protestant exegete and theologian known for his friendship with Schleiermacher and for his four-volume commentary on John’s Gospel. (Tr.) 12  See Christian Abraham Wahl, Clavis Novi Testamenti philologica [Philological Guide of the New Testament] (Leibniz, 1822).

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226  C   Is History Mythic? underlying substrate of the demonstration of belief—directly belongs to “sign” as its proper meaning, whereas in the case of “work” it does not constitute the meaning qua meaning but only something that can be derived from the corresponding signification [Sinn]. So when John says: Jesus did both the things in this book and many other things so that you might come to believe (20:31), the expression of Jesus’ activity through “the signs seen by” is not only fully adequate, but also the truest and most appropriate expression that he could have chosen (see esp. John 2:11). This sheds light on the result of our efforts. Just as one distinguishes “work” and “sign,” likewise one distinguishes analogously a history of the life of Jesus from the history of Jesus as Messiah—that is, Gospel history. The difference applies not merely to the quantity but also to the quality of the historical occurrences. According to the “history of the life of Jesus” standpoint, the Gospel history provides only those facts in the life of Jesus that are fitting for the demonstration of his messiahship. According to the difference of quality the Gospel history appears as the holy, teleological history in contrast to the profane historical account. The “Gospel history” presents the occurrences according to their natural emergence from finite causes and their development within interdependent relationships. It is an essential mark of salvation history to consider occurrences in connection to the divine world order that is in part divine and in part particular. Every occurrence that admits of such a higher form of connection is a σημεῖον, and becomes ipso facto suitable for a demonstration of belief, that is, the recognition of the immediate divine transmission of that which σημεῖα performs. It can be noted that it already lies in the concept of σημεῖον and it is an easily established, necessary requirement of teleological historical writing that such occurrences have a finite element that is striking, and do not operate entirely on the level of the super-sensible. It is therefore also clear that even though Gospel history’s presentation departs from that of profane history, this in no way places it under the category of the unhistorical (i.e., the mythological). For it belongs precisely to the essence of Gospel history to feature, in addition to what is first of all a finite occurrence (that is, an occurrence of the sort that is the subject of profane history), a second, higher level, which itself is possible only on the basis of the former.

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Is History Mythic?  C   227

If the normal author of history has the one intention of presenting occurrences objectively, the author of salvific history has a twofold intention. Would the contemporaries of Jesus and of the apostles have considered the demonstration of faith to be an authentic demonstration if the facts that imbued their account were fabricated? Was the advance from the recognition of these facts to the faith in their higher meaning great and laborious? Christ and the apostles triumphed only gradually and with much effort over this nearly insurmountable barrier created by the time period. Would they have to do so through fabricated events? This barrier was only the first and least barrier by which these facts could be substantiated through eyewitnesses as objectively true. In this matter nobody could or would attempt a ruse, as such an attempt would have been the most unfortunate and least successful idea. Hence the real question is whether these events merit the conclusions that the apostles and the first catechists draw from them. From this it follows that the evangelists put less emphasis on the historical as such in the life of Jesus than on the demonstration of faith that needed to be derived from these events. The contrasts of a purely historical nature that emerge in the evangelists construct a rarely noticed but highly peculiar contrast together with an agreement seen only in light of the demonstration of faith. They proceed with a lack of inhibition that is the clearest evidence of their historical believability. But they also reach a homophony that strikes some readers as proper. Attacks on Gospel history are never more baseless and less successful than when one opposes them on the basis of their historical content. If there are people who find it worthwhile to touch the most sacred matters with besmirched hands, then it is our duty to advise them in the interest of their conscience-less inclination to direct their line of attack to investigate the truth of the demonstration of faith that is presupposed by the historical believability of the Gospels. We have not only shown here that the evangelists are not merely and purely historical, but we have also discovered the reason for this. 3. The evangelical story cites passages from the Old Testament to demonstrate that the story fulfills what was predicted centuries earlier by divinely inspired people about the Messiah and the kingdom. When Luke and John, less so than Matthew and Mark, present the

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228  C   Is History Mythic? Gospel from the standpoint of its correspondence to Old Testament sayings, one cannot gather that this point of reflection is not essential to the gospel genre. The particular purpose of Luke and John also involved the notion that the essential element of the evangelical demonstration of belief—the realization of the Old Testament messianic idea through Jesus’ teaching, deeds, and life—should recede in order to permit other means of demonstration to exercise a greater influence. This receding, however, does not imply negation or exclusion. As stated above, even John’s Gospel tends to presuppose rather than actually employ this demonstration from the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies. Jesus refers to Moses, who wrote about him, in order to confirm his messianic status ( John 5:46–47). It is similar in Luke’s Gospel. The disciples on the way to Emmaus harbored doubts whether Jesus, three days after having been handed over to his death, had fulfilled his promise to redeem Israel after his resurrection. Jesus walked with them and restored their faith, stating, “O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared. Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory.” And, as the parable explains, “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:25–27). We have offered similar examples from the apostolic preaching, which put beyond doubt the notion that they considered the history of Jesus the Messiah in connection with the messianic statements from the Old Testament, and that they placed a central importance on this congruence. From this one can see that a particular harmony has become discernible between our Gospels and the apostolic κερηγμα, which for the question at hand completely substantiates our conclusion. Therefore we can agree that the fulfillment of the messianic idea in Jesus’ teaching, deeds, and life is an entirely essential feature for the apostolic gospel genre. If this conclusion stands firm, the implications we want to make are clear and certain. To the degree that a Gospel report treats the prophetic element of Jesus’ life for the purpose of the demonstration of faith, it qualifies the merely and purely historical account of his life. This statement does not imply that the Gospel presentations thereby suffer loss of historical accuracy and honesty, since the prophetic element cannot simply cur-

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Is History Mythic?  C   229

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tail it with reference to historical selectivity and totality. For it lies in the innermost essence of the occurrences put forth from the prophetic point of view that they are able to engender recognition and belief only to the degree that their historical truths dispel doubt. A proof based on the fulfillment of prophetic claims presupposes more than any other historical proof the objective reality and the real objective of the actual fulfillment. There is, therefore, no more thoughtless assertion (to say nothing of its total lack of historical basis), than the one that doubts all of, or most of, the historical occurrences in the Gospel history, and the one that reads the fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies as myths. The most recent offensive outrage of this kind has been perpetrated by D. F. Strauss. His frivolous book that lacks any historical thinking, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, relies on such thoughtless assertions and falls prey to the same problems seen above. This overconfident young man says that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, was baptized by John, gained disciples, traversed Jewish lands while teaching, opposed Pharisaism at every chance, and invited people to the messianic kingdom. This caused him to have been subject to the hatred and jealousy of the Pharisaic party, and to have died on the cross. Writes Strauss, The simple historical framework of Jesus’ life was accompanied by the most diverse and most meaningful thread of pious reflections and imaginings. The result was that all ideas that early Christianity [Christenheit] had about its absent master were confused with facts and woven into his biography. The richest substance of this mythic embellishment is provided in the Old Testament in which the first Christian communities, primarily composed of Jews, lived and breathed. In his life and actions Jesus as the supreme prophet had to distill and surpass all that was done and experienced by the Old Testament prophets. As the reformer of Hebraic religion, he could not in any way remain behind with the first lawgiver. In him, the Messiah, all that had been prophesied of the Messiah in the Old Testament would finally have to be fulfilled. Pertaining to the alterations made to this preconception in his teachings and life that are historically familiar, he could not but conform to Jewish messianic preconception. In our time one need no longer necessarily highlight the notion that, by this conferment of what was historically anticipated into what actually happened—and in general by the mythical adornment of Jesus’ life—no kind of fraudulent intentionality or sly fabrication need have taken place. The legends of a people or of a religious sect are in their essen-

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tial constitutive elements never the work of individuals but rather are a product of the collective individual which is that society. Accordingly, these legends are not generated consciously or intentionally. Such an imperceptible common production becomes possible since oral transmission is the medium of communication. For while the growth of the legend is suspended by the act of producing a written chronology (or at least it becomes noticeable to what extent every successive writer is responsible for the addition of another part), with oral transmission it comes to be that the information being transmitted (when conveyed by the second transmitter) perhaps is slightly changed. Likewise in the case of the third transmitter little is added in relation to the second, and also in the fourth case nothing essential is altered in comparison to the third. Hence the content can become entirely different in the third or fourth transmitter from what it was in the first, without an individual storyteller having in any way consciously undertaken such a change. These changes accrue on account of all of the storytellers, and on account of this gradual shift they elude consciousness. Lessing has already noted this snowballlike growth of the tradition regarding Gospel history.13

We can only hope that this is the best rebuke that could be mustered to advance the position of the contra-historical presentation of Jesus’ life by the evangelists, for it would not prove persuasive. One recalls the saying: may God protect us only from our friends; we will take care of our enemies. Suppose an author grants himself the prestige of being a historian, and thereby takes the liberty in some notion or other to clothe mere ideas historically so as to present them as historical facts. Such an author is much less cumbersome for posterity than an author who, as a pawn of a tradition that misrepresents everything, in his innermost consciousness considers himself to be authentically historical, but in fact has been duped. Is it true, then, that evangelical history proceeded, through a magical effect of its traditional procession, from the pen of eyewitnesses and their disciples to the exact opposite of what happened, and this Gospel history was put into an entirely wrongheaded historical form that became its history? With this question one is confronted with so many absurdities that one almost feels ashamed in addressing it. One must put the question in the category of possibility and not actuality, and ask whether it is even possible or conceivable. One need only possess a dose of healthy sense and 13  Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, 72–74.

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Is History Mythic?  C   231

judgment in order to be convinced of the negative. Because we are dealing with another aspect of the above-mentioned recent assertion we do not take this consideration any further. [.....]14 The simple facts of Jesus’ history should be enveloped with every manner of pious reflection and imagining, and should be thus elaborated to explain the great diversity of details with which the Gospels confront us. Accordingly, the Old Testament would have supplied quite rich material to this mythic apology [Verzeihung]. Indeed this is true firstly insofar as the Old Testament relates the actions and lives of the prophets (in particular of Moses the lawgiver)—actions and lives that, according to a dogmatic conclusion of the contemporary Jewish followers of Jesus, the Messiah himself must have incorporated and surpassed in his own life— whether or not he actually incorporated these things in himself or really surpassed them. They were written on his account and were inserted into his life history. In this it is similar to how children raised by the brother of a deceased husband must be recorded in the baptismal record as from the mother’s deceased husband. But in the former instance it would be much more arbitrary than in the latter instance. This is also true secondly insofar as the Jews at the time of Christ as well as the Jewish followers of Jesus, supported by many Old Testament scriptures (the so-called messianic prophecies), held a pre-formed idea and story of the Messiah that, regardless of whether it agreed with or contradicted the actual history and factual perception of the Messiah, they imported into the history of actual events. This they did for no other reason than because it was believed or was held in dogmatically firm grasp that the fulfillment of prophecy at issue was demonstrated the very same way in the prior understanding of what the life of the Messiah would look like as it was in the history of the Messiah as the events actually unfolded. In the Gospels these occurrences and Jewish/dogmatic manipulations appear particularly vividly where it says: this happened (in the life of Jesus the Messiah) so that what the prophets said would come to fulfillment. Taken strictly, the more precise presentation of this view provides its 14  The translation skips to the next paragraph and omits a long footnote on Lessing and Strauss. (Tr.)

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232  C   Is History Mythic? most devastating refutation. In its core there lies an assortment of contradictions and absurdities such as one almost never encounters in the minds of people faced with factual content. Reality permits only a certain quantity of contradictions, whose limit is the limit of reality itself, whereas absurdity has room for an unlimited breadth in its thought. Let us enquire into the rationality of this position. In the first relation the citation from Deuteronomy 18:15, which Acts quotes at 3:22 and 7:37, is considered the principal location for the exemplary relation between Moses and the Messiah.15 Its application in the New Testament, therefore, is supposed to demonstrate that the Messiah Jesus is presented by the historical writers of the New Testament from the standpoint of Jewish dogma, according to which the Messiah could not fall short of Mosaic expectation. It is supposed that this, as it were, necessary viewpoint is presented all the same, regardless of whether it stands in agreement or contradiction to the historical truth of his being and life. In order for this argument to make any sense at all, there would have to have been parallels in the New Testament between Jesus and Moses. There would have to have been traces one could follow in the life of Jesus as represented in the New Testament, which had been constructed after the pattern of the well-known events of the life of Moses, which are depicted in the Old Testament. However, nowhere in the New Testament does one find such parallels or traces;16 on the contrary, Jesus compares himself to Moses when he says that Moses wrote about him ( John 5:46). This says as much as: Moses is my precursor, and I may not fall short of him in any way. When the Jews, whom Jesus had fed ( John 6:1ff.), invoked Moses, who had given their ancestors manna in the desert, Jesus rebuked them by saying: “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven (ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ); my Father gives this bread” (6:32). Jesus continues, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the bread that came down from heaven” (6:49). What greater contrast could be drawn between Jesus and Moses? Instead of Jesus being in agreement, we find it not uncommon that Jesus comes into conflict with Moses 15  See Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, 72n31. 16  The parallel between Matt 4:2 and Deut 9:18 and 1 Kings 19:8.

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Is History Mythic?  C   233

according to the account given in the Gospels; this explains the fervid zeal of the Pharisees and the scribes against the Galileans. It demonstrates only ignorance and bias when one believes that one must ascertain a particular kinship between the lives of Moses and Jesus from the New Testament. Not only must one be able to provide evidence for such a kinship, but there must also be prominent evidence, at least if one follows Strauss’s argument that the acts and life of the Old Testament prophets, especially Moses, provide the ostensible ornamentation of Jesus’ life as presented in the Gospels. A superficial acquaintance with the New Testament can already inform one that the texts assemble and present the relationship between Jesus and Moses for didactic and not historical reasons. Further, this acquaintance, instead of serving to demonstrate the Straussian position—supposing of course that it were at all plausible— comes into direct conflict with it. If there is a New Testament passage that closely pairs Moses and Christ as givers of a religious law, it is Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. But even this passage is quite far from saying that this passage simply presents Jesus as the second Moses. It is much more the case that the passage propels Jesus far above Moses as the one who fulfills that which Moses had put in motion. Jesus does this such that the completion of the law appears as its abolition, at least in its concrete form. [.....] The use to which the New Testament (see Acts 3:22; 7:37) puts the above-mentioned passage from Deuteronomy is explained quite simply. A brief explanation of this will be most suitable for demonstrating the great injustice that Strauss does in applying it to validate his presupposition. For Strauss, the Old Testament, in this case the account of the life and deeds of Moses, supplies the most fecund material for the mythical adornment of the Gospel history. The verse from Deuteronomy 18:15 was explained messianically at the time of Christ, and that supposedly demonstrates without dispute the full application of this to the New Testament, namely Acts 3:22 and 7:37, and the allusions to them in John 6:14, for example. Moses promises to the people of Israel a prophet who would be his successor. Following the Lord’s will and his mission, this prophet would lead, just as Moses had, with an extraordinary authority, and the people would obey him. Nothing was more natural than to understand this promise as

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234  C   Is History Mythic? applying both to the immediate successor of a future prophet and also to an uninterrupted prophetic succession. In this sense the προφήτης [prophet] promised by Moses was a collective prophecy. The Messiah then was not so much a member of the succession of these prophets as he was the supreme prophet above all who unified the entire succession in himself. He is as it were the common feature of the entire succession, and according to him the prophets themselves developed conceptions of him. This notion was identified with that of the expression of the Mosaic messianic promise itself. Consequently, the Mosaic verse could be taken for granted as messianic. Both Peter (Acts 3:22) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) argue from this point of view. Peter demonstrates Jesus’ extraordinary divine mission primarily through an appeal to the history of Jesus, with which his audience was familiar, and to which he clearly draws attention (3:13ff.). Given this, Peter presents the circumstance of the passion as something to have been expected from the sayings of the prophets about the Messiah, which came into fulfillment with his crucifixion (vv. 18ff.), from which the messianity of Jesus resulted. To this Peter very fittingly connects the exhortation to the Jews to make right their earlier failings (the erroneous judgment and execution of Jesus) with the fact that the messianic quickening and blessing was to have come for their sake as well, along with the fact that Jesus (for the second time at the parousia) would be sent to them as a helper and a savior. For further justification of the exhortation to the Jews Peter turns to the passage in Deuteronomy that he explains messianically (18:15; 18:19ff.). The application must be considered from a hortatory point of view, and says nothing further than that Moses (and all prophets—see Acts 3:24) already threatens severe punishment for anyone who fails to recognize the messianic age and does not obey the Messiah. Yet less amenable to Strauss’s presupposition is Acts 7:37. Here Stephen, in the course of his cataloguing of God’s extraordinary guidance of the Israelite people, comes to speak of Moses and his miraculous deeds. As one of the many traits of this extraordinary divine envoy (Moses), Stephen refers to the verse about his prophecy (Deut 18:15), and in no other context than to adduce a demonstration of Moses’s divine mission. Thus the New Testament usage of Deuteronomy 18:15 does not indi-

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Is History Mythic?  C   235

cate the slightest trace of mythic embellishment, to which Jesus’ followers should have been predisposed by Judaism, in regard to his history. On the contrary, there is made no particular use of this passage other than that made of all messianic passages in the Old Testament. From these passages an analogy is suggested with the whole appearance or individual actions and qualities of Jesus by means of a further interpretation. If a passage was contorted and contrived, this happened in adducing and interpreting Old Testament passages, not in the historically definite and unchangeable status of the acts and the life of Jesus. If one opts for the opposite, then how would the proclaimers of the faith and the composers of the Gospel history maintain any hope that others would be convinced by a history that had been falsely represented, especially when one considers that the true course of history had not yet been lost in time? Why would they use divergent treatments of the Old Testament texts and the passable Septuagint translation if the matter were otherwise, if the history of Jesus were contorted to the exigencies of the Jewish messianic idea? If Strauss’s presupposition were correct, we would no doubt find the opposite of what the New Testament presents, namely a completely compatible and exact citation of the Old Testament or its translation. This could not be farther from the truth, to which almost all New Testament citations provide witness. Even less so did the evangelists make the deeds and lives of the prophets into mythified ideals of the presentation of Jesus’ messianic history. Aside from the fact that no evidence could be offered for the assumption, since such evidence could not be provided, this theory stands in the most patent and overt contradiction with the Gospel history. John the Baptist, the first herald of the Messiah, talked and acted as if he were one of the old prophets. The manner in which evangelical history presents his way of life (Matt 3:4ff.) corresponds entirely to Elijah (Matt 11:14) according to 2 Kings 1:8. He lived extremely ascetically (Matt 11:18), as they were in the habit of doing. John in his true essence is placed above all of the prophets (Matt 11:9), but at the same time he is placed below the least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 11:1–13). From this one derives an infinite difference between the prophets and Jesus, the ruler of the messianic kingdom. Now, do the prophets of the Old Testament serve as a model

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236  C   Is History Mythic? for the evangelists to indicate the character and life of Jesus? We see that according to the evangelists Jesus brought together and surpassed everything that the Old Testament explains about what the prophets of old did! Now we have arrived at the second and more important point that we have set out to investigate. We have come to the restrictions that the evangelical history—from the point of view of the simple and pure writing of history—must have and did suffer through by presenting many of its facts as fulfilled prophecies. Strauss’s view has been stated above. His view is so simple and at the same time so drastic that it seems to explain all hitherto discussed matters with such ease that one is tempted to see this viewpoint as the only true one, or to explain its relation to the true opinion as the simplest one possible. For in this manner the qualities of the Straussian hypothesis that we have conceded are explained. But that his hypothesis does not and cannot contain the true point of view concerning the matter at hand can be shown from a piece of evidence that one may come to expect in such questions as this one. We are much less interested in the demonstration for this—we have already supplied this demonstration— than we are in exploring what makes the Straussian hypothesis so capable of arousing the appearance of truth to the degree that it does. Let us be to the point about the matter: one accounts for this because his position proposes the simplest and most direct counter to the true position. The contrasts are as follows: first, the actual history of Jesus the Messiah, along with his teachings, acts, and life, have become the primary principles and ideas that, in a general and indeterminate sense, give concrete interpretation to the messianic prophecies that have been handed down. Second, the idea of the Messiah cultivated according to the teachings of the Old Testament up to a great diversity of the details has become the source of the diversity and particularity in the life of Jesus the Messiah according to the presentation of the evangelists. One could say this more briefly: the actual history of the actual Messiah has become the interpreter of the expected Messiah. In addition, the expected Messiah served as the model for the biographical presentation of the actual Messiah. One perceives clearly from these examples that the evangelical history can be accounted for as easily and completely from the first explanation as from the second. This has become clear to us from the nature of the contrast.

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Is History Mythic?  C   237

Now the question arises: which of the two modes of explanation, excepting of course their suitability for solving the problem, is capable of providing a more persuasive demonstration of historical truth and actuality? At least ideally, both can solve the problem. Which solves it actually? Suppose we proceed from the decision about how one will interpret the messianic prophecies in the New Testament, and to this end we investigate the purpose of their usage. When we do so, we arrive at the conclusion that the first and last aim for these usages was the demonstration of faith in Jesus as the Messiah. It would not serve any purpose for us to recount a long list of these applications. The entire tendency of our Gospels, the composition of the apostolic proclamation (of which the Gospels only give a more expanded historical explanation), and the letters of the Apostle where Paul weaves the Old Testament into the course of the demonstration, these are all undeniable instances of our claim. Therefore it will suffice if we provide only an example that, if possible, encompasses other possible examples within it, and can serve the purpose without needing to reference the whole stable of examples. We can find such an example in Luke 24:27. In order to restore the wavering faith of the disciples, Jesus explained to them the meaning of his life and the extent to which this has been chronicled in the scriptures. As certain as the holiness of the scripture is the fact that all of this needed (the Greek ιδει in v. 26) to be fulfilled. “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures”17 (Luke 24:27). The success corresponded to the purpose (see v. 32).18 Jesus did not carry out this ἑρμηνεία [interpretation]19 in order to explain the facts [Tatsachen] of his life or to authenticate these facts—either purpose was quite superfluous since the disciples were already familiar with these facts from their own experience (see 24:18–20). Instead, Jesus did so with the manifest intention of leading to the most valid demonstration by appealing to the correspondence of these facts with 17 Kuhn gives this verse in the Greek. (Tr.) 18  The verse reads, “They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” 19  The Greek hermeneia contains the root from which “hermeneutic” arises. Kuhn’s discussion of hermeneutics at the end of the paragraph forms a continuity with his reference to the Greek in Luke 24:27. (Tr.)

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238  C   Is History Mythic? the verses from scripture about the Messiah. These passages presented him as the Messiah and gave witness to his messianic validity. Just as the demonstration of faith in Jesus as the Messiah in large part is carried out here, one should regard the different references to the Messiah in the New Testament as individual instances of the grand demonstration on the way to Emmaus. This is not the place to treat the hermeneutics of the New Testament authors. For through hermeneutics they were able to demonstrate convincingly the correspondence that is the actual nerve of the demonstration. It is enough for now to know that hermeneutics was the main lever for moving the hearts [Gemüte] toward the new faith. If the demonstration of faith is the ultimate purpose for citing messianic prophecies in the New Testament, then the necessary principles from which these citations must proceed can be easily detected. The first principle must consist in the ἀσφάλεια τοῦ λόγου [certainty of the word], that is to say in the indubitable historical truth of what was circulated as a fact in Jesus’ life; it must consist in the ἀσϕάλεια τῶν περὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Ναζαρηνοῦ γενομένων [the certainties known about Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 1:4; 24:19)].20 For it was to be demonstrated that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah. If the promises were at the same time sources of the facts that constituted Jesus’ life, this would have been a quite palpable act of chicanery. Nobody, let alone a doubter or nonbeliever, would have given much credence to such a demonstration. If the heart of the demonstration consisted in the correspondence of two things, then one of the things would have to be wholly certain and must be independent from the other (at least if one is talking about a demonstration), so as to secure the other. The messianic prophecies did not function this way, since they were referenced after the occurrences.21 And as is well known, Jews were given great liberty in their interpretation. Therefore we conclude that the stable factor in the question must have been Jesus’ history. It can be demonstrated in a piecemeal fashion how this explains the 20  The “certainties known” is not in the scriptural verse here. (Tr.) 21  See 2 Peter 1:18–20; see also Johann C. C. Döpke, Hermeneutik der neutestamentlichen Schriftsteller [The Hermeneutics of New Testament Authors] (Leipzig, 1829), 239 et al. See also Johann Georg Reiche, Versuch einer ausführlichen Erklärung des Briefes an die Römer [An Attempt at a Comprehensive Exposition of the Letter to the Romans] (Göttingen, 1833–34), II, 402. 2 Peter 1:19a reads: “So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed.” (Tr.)

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Is History Mythic?  C   239

authentic sequence of the events. Suppose someone is familiar with Jewish views about the Messiah during the time of Christ, and knows of the reasoning that resulted from the Old Testament prophetic claims. Suppose such a person has expectations concerning the superlative qualities of an earthly Messiah, and knows how rarely one finds in the Old Testament the phrase from Acts 26:23—παθητὸς ὁ χριστὸς [Christ must suffer]. Even one familiar with only the views of Jesus' disciples, that is, with those who heard very early about another understanding of the Messiah, knows of this rarity. After the history had shown Jesus of Nazareth to be presented and shown not as the Χριστὸς [Christ] but also as παθητὸς [suffered], the Old Testament understanding was resolved. Jesus and his disciples demonstrated this through phrases from scripture: ταῦτα ἔδει παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν [it was necessary that Christ suffered these things (Luke 24:26)]. One can hardly deduce, when considering other features of Jesus' life and passion, that the Jews should have had a merely remote analogy in their pre-existing notion of the Messiah. Nevertheless, these features, like the others, are presented as fulfilled prophecies. This clearly demonstrates that the fact conditions the meaning of the prophecy, and not the inverse. One did not know before it happened that the Messiah was to be betrayed by one of his most trusted friends. But if such a fact presented itself as the first thread that was spun, as a fulfilled prophecy ( John 13:18; 17:12), and if his disciples followed this approach (Acts 1:16), then one sees clearly that the fact lies in an original relationship to the interpretation of Psalm 41:10. The reverse, however, is not true; this scriptural passage did not permit a manufacturing of Judas's act. Jesus was crucified—this was a fate that so deeply contradicted the Jewish notion of a Messiah that it became the primary cause of Jewish persistent unbelief. Jesus’ clothing belonged to the soldiers who carried out the punishment. This was a circumstance whose immediate cause lay in the selfishness of the soldiers. It is presented, however, according to its highest and final cause, as divine providence that was foreseen in the Old Testament writings. The cloak was not to be divided, along with the other items of clothing. The soldiers divided the clothing among themselves. The primary garment was of one piece, and it was to their benefit not to divide it. Hence the soldiers cast lots to determine who would receive it. The

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240  C   Is History Mythic? Gospel writer framed this whole sequence as a fulfillment of Psalm 22:18, where according to the Septuagint it reads: “they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Is it conceivable that this sequence might be an adornment, according to a preconceived messianic notion, of a more simple act? To offer an example from the apostolic letters, let us recall Romans 11:25–27. Nobody will deny that the Jews at the time of Christ did not hold the view that Israel would have to obdure against the Messiah before the onset of the messianic kingdom, and that they would not enter into this kingdom until the abundance of Gentiles would enter. Even less so would one want to claim that such passages from Isaiah as 59:20 and 57:13 could have been interpreted according to this meaning. Therefore when Paul referred to these texts, he did so clearly on the basis of the factual relation of Jews to Gentiles in regard to the messianic kingdom. As Reiche notes, according to the hermeneutical principle of that time, the occurrence opened up the meaning of the Old Testament prophecy.22 The abovementioned passage in Paul would have been historically inexplicable if one were to make use of the Straussian hypothesis, according to which the Old Testament prophecy and the consequent messianic influence exercised influence over the presentation of factual claims. Since the apostolic demonstration of faith was essentially historical (see above), the purpose pursued through this demonstration must have a necessary historical element. From this follows the second principle to which the citation of messianic prophecies is disposed for the purpose of the demonstrating the faith. The purpose of the demonstration of faith, considered as an argument essentially based on a historical foundation, was to show that the deeds and fate of the Messiah include nothing accidental or arbitrary, but rather are carried out according to the divine teleology, whose operations and dispositions the prophets, as men moved by the Spirit, proclaimed (2 Peter 1:21). It was shown that these deeds followed absolutely (as opposed to the relativity of finite deeds and fate) from the necessity of divine order, if one could establish a reliable correspondence of these deeds with prophetic claims from an earlier time. It is 22 Reiche, Versuch, II, 402.

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Is History Mythic?  C   241

the same with proclamations of the divine Spirit, which according to their concept are infallible, and exalted above time and space and all relations of finitude and relativity. Accordingly, it is a necessary principle of citing messianic prophecy in this sense, that its fulfillment must be elevated from the standpoint of finite and relative existence to that of a higher order— that of an absolute level of existence. To state it in another way: the appearances in the life of the Messiah must be removed from the standpoint of a common appearance and located absolutely and necessarily in light of recent events. Prophecy provided the means of this transition. This is true to the degree that the process of demonstration would not have been less convincing overall than the demonstration above if the deeds noted from the absolute standpoint had not previously been established as common, historical appearances. Likewise, this would apply if the deeds had been fabricated on the basis of Old Testament citations, or if they had attained a merely mythical existence on account of the tradition. It is altogether contradictory to assign an absolute quality to a fact that in no connection and from no standpoint seems to be truly real or historically factual. The latter is clearly possible only insofar as the former is true. A fact, an event [Erscheinung] whose necessity is purported, can never be a mere illusion [Schein]. What is an illusion and illusory [scheinbar] about this event is its appearance as a finite fact, such that the acceptance of a mere illusion is negated here in the second potency [Potenz], while the illusion is negated with a profane historical appearing in the first potency. The New Testament offers no shortage of illustrative examples for our point of view. Let us examine some of them. Before the onset of the passion, John’s Gospel offers a general assessment about the success of the sublime, miraculous activity of Jesus among the Jews ( John 12:37–40). Although Jesus had performed these signs before their eyes, they did not believe in him, so that the Isaian prophecy should be fulfilled. Isaiah says, “Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isa 53:1). They could not believe because Isaiah has said that the Lord closes their eyes and makes their hearts sluggish, so that they do not see with their eyes, and do not understand in their hearts, and they will not turn and be healed (Isa 6:10). With this John the Evangelist says: the unbelief of the Jewish

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242  C   Is History Mythic? people is not accidental and arbitrary (dependent on the inclination of the individual will in the final instance), but rather a necessary appearance based in the divine ordering of the plan of the world and of salvation. The reason for this lies in the correspondence between the event and the prophecy. For as the divine word and as the claim of God’s Spirit, this prophecy must be fulfilled. Thus it follows that the necessity of the event not only corresponds to but also proclaims this prophecy. In terms of disposing of a predestinarian interpretation of this notion, I can only note here in passing that the New Testament writers (who generally share this way of approaching world history with John) did not in the least intend thereby to alter the notion of individual freedom, with which they also fully agreed. This is obvious, and it is to be urged here particularly that such a way of approaching the event guided John’s historical reality more predominantly than any other approach. This historical reality is true in a twofold sense, and this must be so. First, in the sense of the common standpoint; second, in the sense of the teleological perception. The event that is of concern here, which is brought into the most intimate connection possible with a messianic prophecy, presents in fact a historical event that is without any doubt sublime. One hardly needs to mention this. In the above-mentioned verse of Paul (Rom 11:25–27), this prophecy is also presupposed historically, and one can fully anticipate the reader seeing that the apostle to the Gentiles did not intend to be entangled in mythic matters. Let us suppose that through the connection of Old Testament verses to events in the life of Jesus, the higher historical truth of this connection is demonstrated in a fashion such that its profane-historical truth was necessarily presupposed, and that this presupposition thereby constituted a necessary principle of the demonstration. The result nonetheless is that a more abstract notion of this demonstration as well as of that principle presents itself at the same time. One sees from this not only that the two essential elements are of a historical nature, but also that the movement from the one to the other (the immanent development of the demonstration) is itself historical. Precisely this negativity against the didactic, the mere concept, and the pure idea, makes impossible the acceptance of a previous mythical fabrication—even if this turned out to be gradual and

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Is History Mythic?  C   243

unconscious. This acceptance would bring such a confusion to the whole matter, and would make it into such a ruinous manifestation of the human spirit, that only an analogous confusion of the spirit would allow the possibility of its interpretation and understanding. [.....]23 It bears mentioning that in the New Testament both Paul and Peter reject myths (2 Peter 1:16; 1 Tim 1:4; Titus 1:14). The passages from Paul are less convincing and might lead us astray, so we will focus on the passage from Peter, which lies closer to our topic. It will suffice to briefly outline its meaning: “Peter recalls the Christian myths about the appearance and arrival of Jesus that are still found to some degree in the apocryphal gospels. He juxtaposes these with his reports that he gives as eyewitness accounts.”24 Let us return to our third demonstration, that the Gospels (insofar as they are not purely and merely historical representations), in terms of the prophetic moment that essentially permeates them, partly affirmed from a purely historical standpoint the selection of facta from another source, while also partly narrowing their wholeness. According to our notions of history, a history of Jesus’ life would have left intact, for example, the circumstance of the dividing and drawing of lots for his clothing, in the same way that the evangelical history did so; for a thoroughly sufficient and exhaustive history could not omit this circumstance. On the other hand, and in connection to this, the Gospels, without the dogmatic point of view to explain the history of Jesus primarily in terms of its correspondence to Old Testament prophetic utterances, would have chronicled much that would distinguish more sharply the purely historical strand, with the same level of detail, than the given presentation did. One must also say that the history of Jesus’ life would have to be presented as mere history completely independent of the corresponding prophecies. As little as this interferes in the historical truth of the narrated occurrences, just as decidedly it already 23  This text skips an argument about the precise meaning of the scriptures being fulfilled. (Tr.) 24  Christoph Ammon, Die Fortbildung des Christenthums zur Weltreligion [The Development of Christianity into a World Religion] (Leipzig, 1833–35), II, ix. Ammon (1766–1850) was a Protestant and Kantian rationalist, who spent time as a professor in Erlangen and Göttingen. Kuhn cites from the “Second and Final Volume,” though Ammon would issue a revised, four-part volume from 1836 to 1840. (Tr.)

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244  C   Is History Mythic? by itself makes its interweaving with history lead to a dogmatically reasoned presentation. For the reasons given above, one cannot characterize the evangelical presentation as history in the narrower and stricter sense of the word, at least to the degree that it makes use of the prophetic element. According to the evangelical description that stands before us, the history is nowhere near coming undone in the prophetic moment. Justin Martyr’s viewpoint advances far beyond the truth when he calls the Gospel the νόμος πεπληρομένος [the law that has been fulfilled] and calls the law ἐυαγγέλιον προκατηγγελμένον [announcing of the Gospel].25 If this were true, then an entirely different concept of evangelical history would follow than the true one. According to Justin the authorial quality of the Gospels was dogmatic-historic. In fact, however, it is historic-dogmatic. The apostolic kerygma, as mentioned above, contains this quality not accidentally, but rather necessarily according to the nature of its subject. The Christian faith, as has been shown, could accept only this form of historic-didactic recital, and took on this form in the apostolic proclamation as found in the Gospels. As the proclamation, according to its time and subject-matter, arose from this faith, this therefore also authenticates the dependence of the proclamation upon the faith. Irrespective of this essential univocity, several differences between the two can be seen. That the form of the apostolic kerygma (irrespective of identity) can be discerned in many portions of our Gospels is easy to perceive. Suppose that the foundation of its demonstration of faith provided the same summation of the same history of Jesus as the one we find set down in the Gospel. If this were so, the concrete personal relations that the proclamation had accepted would make necessary certain particular modifications. Meanwhile the Gospels—excepting the third one, which made allowances for faithful Gentiles through the person of Theophilus—contemplate generally personal relations. These modifications must distinguish the application of the historical to the didactic and in the consequences that are drawn from the former for the concrete personalities. The apostolic kerygma individualizes the demonstration of faith 25 Kuhn cites an unintelligible reference to Justin. The phrases cited above can be found in (Pseudo) Justin’s Quaestiones et responsiones ad orthodoxos. Contemporary scholarship considers the authenticity of this text doubtful. (Tr.)

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Is History Mythic?  C   245

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that is contained generally and abstractly in the evangelical history. Paul’s speeches in Lystra and Athens (Acts 14; 17) provide illustrative examples of this. A further argument concerning this and similar differences with the apostolic proclamation does not concern the purposes of this essay, which can only point to the outline of their essential agreement. Finally there is the matter of demonstrating the relation between the Gospels and the apostolic letters. As can be easily guessed, the solution can be found in the relationship between the apostolic kerygma and the apostolic letters. The apostolic letters agree with the kerygma in the sense that they— like the first speeches that Paul administered in a given city—applied the basic facts of the evangelical history merely as historical texts. These facts were the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul then connected to these the teachings and correlates of the new faith. He did it in such a way that the teachings, like the events, would tailor the faith and its demonstration according to the particular and most special relations of the communities or persons to whom the letters were directed. The agreement between the letters and the Gospels can be found only in the fact that both recognize and employ the historical as the foundation and text of the didactic, although in the matter of the extent of the historical, at least quantitatively, the letters and the Gospels differ very much from one another.

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Religion as Feeling or Illusion? A Contrary Position Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik

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(1846; first edition), 5–14

The following text outlines Kuhn’s differences with Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), whom many consider the father of liberal Protestant theology. In his 1839 essay on faith and reason Kuhn lavished high praise on Schleiermacher. Not unlike Drey and Möhler, Kuhn considered Schleiermacher’s theology worthy of the highest respect despite being deeply problematic. After being lambasted for praising a Protestant, Kuhn responded by outlining his differences with Schleiermacher in numerous essays. Nowhere are his differences with Schleiermacher more forcefully stated than in the following excerpt. Adding to this ambiguity is the matter that Kuhn borrowed much of the Idealist language and idiom made popular by Schleiermacher. Like other Idealists, Schleiermacher often used the language of consciousness together with various prefixes (God, self, religious, etc.) to talk about the human experience of God. Kuhn employs the same categories of knowing, feeling, and doing that Schleiermacher used at the outset of The Christian Faith. Despite the fact that Kuhn learned and likely continued to appreciate elements of Schleiermacher’s theology, his more developed theology moves away from be246

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Religion as Feeling or Illusion?  C   247

ginning with religious sentiment. This movement stemmed from a growing realization that theology following Schleiermacher would leave itself vulnerable to various critiques, of which Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity was the most prominent.1

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I

C

n i t s e l f , religion is not a mere knowing, feeling, or doing, nor is it a combination or compilation of the three. Rather, in its essence, religion is both simple and all-embracing. Religion is all-embracing in the sense that it does not exclude any of the three basic movements that constitute the life of the human spirit. It is simple because these movements are not opposed or separated from one another; instead they are joined together in such fashion that one cannot flourish without the other two. In this straightforward unity, in the total equilibrium between knowing, feeling, and doing, religion cannot fail to make itself known. Religion can be brought to light only by manifesting itself as religious belief (theoretical religion, i.e., doctrinal assertion), as religious activity (practical religion, i.e., piety, prayer, cultic activity), and as religious feeling (subjective religion, i.e., immediate religious self-consciousness). Religion materializes by allowing one of these realms to develop fully. But one cannot conceive this process in such a way that a certain movement becomes dominant while the other two are wholly excluded. Instead, the other two realms also participate in the emergence of religion. And when this happens the emergence of religion corresponds most closely to its essence, and the idea corresponds to the reality of religion. This treatise covers religious faith and inquires into its content and value. Nobody disputes that religious consciousness deals with the relation between God and man, and between God and the world. The real question concerns the order of these relations: does God or the human ego emerge as the source and initiator of this relation? Is religious faith about bringing God into contact with one’s own ego, or bringing the ego into contact with God? However irrelevant these questions may appear at first glance, every subsequent religious query depends on these prior questions. For 1  The relationship between Schleiermacher and Feuerbach has been recently explained in Michael Buckley’s Denying and Disclosing God (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004). (Tr.)

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248  C   Religion as Feeling or Illusion? they lead one to answer whether religious faith is subjective or objective, and whether this faith is really a knowing or a mere feeling. As soon as one makes a judgment one way or another, the rubrics for determining the content of faith become clear. From the standpoint articulated above, religious belief is not merely or purely a cognition [Erkenntnis], but a willed knowledge [Wissen] infused by feeling. In no way do we mean to deny that belief is a knowing [Erkennen]; indeed we affirm that the cognitional aspect of faith is fundamental and holds preeminence. Religious belief is immediate knowledge. The will’s activity transforms the immediate consciousness of God into a religious experience. Through such an action the content of belief is not imposed, nor is this content first derived from the spirit in any way distorted. Rather, this content is taken as it is. More precisely, religious belief is coupled with an immediate self-consciousness, which is a knowledge of the self ’s dependence and reliance on God. This knowledge arises from the predominant God-consciousness; hence one cannot alter this consciousness or strip it of its objective status. As an ethical activity, faith joins the subject’s experience [Gefühl] of peace and blessedness. Despite the fact that this activity is thoroughly subjective, it does not take away from the objective reality of this experience.2 For without the objective content the subjective [element] would neither arise nor persist.3 A merely subjective notion of God would plunge the subject into unrest and doubt, and could never provide the feeling of security and consolation that accompanies the authentic peace given by God. If one drives a wedge between religious belief as an objective knowledge of God and the philosophical cognition of this reality, the two experiences inevitably come into conflict and each threatens the other’s validity. And it would appear in short order that religious belief stands on shakier 2  Throughout his writings Kuhn expresses dissatisfaction with the modern juxtaposition of subjective and objective. Although at times Kuhn states his point awkwardly, he consistently resists the notion that objective truth must take place “out there” in the verifiable and quantifiable world. Any truths that are not manifested in such a manner are then assumed to be subjective, or mere opinion. Kuhn takes issue with that simple dichotomy here. (Tr.) 3 Kuhn uses the word Gehalt here. One could render this term “element” or “content,” but one should keep in mind that Kuhn does not imply that this Gehalt is some kind of super-matter. Instead it is the reality that logically precedes the human reception and expression of this reality. (Tr.)

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Religion as Feeling or Illusion?  C   249

ground than philosophical knowledge. For religious faith proclaims an immediate and, one could almost say, a crude consciousness of reality, whereas philosophical knowledge posits an advanced, mediated, and scientific consciousness of reality. It is no surprise that recent theologians have taken steps to put religion on a more steady foundation vis-à-vis philosophy. They have declared that religious belief occupies a position inaccessible to philosophy, and they have taken refuge in the realm of feeling.4 These theologians argue that religious consciousness is not an actual knowledge, or an objective cognition. Instead they say that religion is essentially and at its most basic level a feeling. Religion is a certain mode of self-consciousness wherein we experience ourselves as absolutely dependent, that is to say, we are conscious of being in relation to God.5 Accordingly, they consider religious consciousness to be the highest subjective function of the spirit, and they regard speculative (philosophical) knowledge as the highest objective function of the spirit.6 If one accepts these distinctions, then must one seek truth, in the authentic sense of the word, exclusively by means of philosophical consciousness? Is an objective foundation for being convinced available only in the philosophical realm? Are philosophical and theological truths the same? Is it possible to achieve the same level of certainty or conviction in both realms, or is one realm’s truth more complete than the other’s? As one can see, these questions are not only peculiar, but also confused. Religious feelings alone enter into consciousness and become objects of consciousness because the religious subject is a rational, con4  Writes Schleiermacher, “Our dogmatic theology will not, however, stand on its proper ground and soil with the same assurance with which the wisdom of the world [Weltweisheit; rendered “philosophy” by Mackintosh] has so long stood upon its own, until the separation of the two types of proposition is so complete that, for example, so extraordinary a question as whether the same proposition can be true in philosophy and false in Christian theology, and vice versa, will no longer be asked, for the simple reason that a proposition cannot appear in the one context precisely as it appears in the other: however similar it sounds, a difference must always be assumed.” #16 in The Christian Faith, trans. H. R. Mackintosh et al. (Edinburgh, 1989), 83. In fairness to Schleiermacher, he means only to point out that there no longer exists the medieval synthesis, wherein philosophy and theology used the same language. The task of (at least Protestant) theology concerns articulating its dogmas in a language not to be confused with philosophical language (Tr.) 5  See Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, #4. 6  See Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, #28.

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250  C   Religion as Feeling or Illusion?

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templative being in search of the truth. The search for what is and what is true (especially whether and what God is) ought not to arise exclusively from the religious realm. If the religious realm essentially constitutes an immediate, higher self-consciousness, especially regarding how we know ourselves in relation to God, then this search cannot be divorced from the philosophical realm, where it will be necessary to determine the truth of religious feelings and the value of religion itself. But if religion permits philosophy to make such determinations, it would concede a complete dependence on philosophy. In addition, it would perpetuate the same mutability to which religion had previously been subject. And the only alternative would be to sequester wholly the realm of subjective self-consciousness or feeling from objective consciousness. From the former standpoint, one must accept this dualistic separation, this split in the human spirit, or else one must concede a total dependence of religion on philosophy. There is no other possibility.7 The first possibility cannot be rationally proclaimed, and even less can it be articulated. But the 7  One can most clearly see Schleiermacher’s inability to arrive at any conclusion for the problematic situation in his own treatment of the issue: “Those members of the Christian communion through whose agency alone the scientific form of dogmatics arises and subsists are also those in whom the speculative consciousness has awakened. Now as this is the highest objective function of the human spirit, while the religious self-consciousness is the highest subjective function, a conflict between the two would touch essential human nature, so such a conflict can never be anything but a misunderstanding. Now it is certainly not sufficient merely that such a conflict should not arise, for the person of knowledge is bound to reach the positive consciousness that the two are in agreement. But this is not the task of dogmatics, since even for the same religious standpoint the procedure would necessarily vary with every different type of philosophy. If, on the other hand, such a conflict does arise, and someone rightly or wrongly finds the sources of misunderstanding to be on the religious side, that circumstance may of course lead to his giving up religion altogether, or at least the Christian religion. To guard against this in any other way than by taking care not to occasion misunderstandings by unconsidered formulae—that again is not the concern of dogmatics, which has nothing whatsoever to do with those who do not admit the fundamental fact” (The Christian Faith, #28 [trans. Mackintosh]). Schleiermacher excludes the possibility of a conflict between the two forms of consciousness, and does so by presuming the essential unity of the person. But for Schleiermacher, the impossibility of a conflict means only that the religious and philosophical activity can emerge and exist in the same subject. The consciousness of their harmony posited by Schleiermacher is nothing but the conviction that every apparent conflict arises from happenstance or misunderstanding. In Schleiermacher’s context, the aforementioned harmony merely implies the capacity to co-exist next to one another in an external unity that coincides with the divisive nature of the actual content of the two realms. Schleiermacher does not fundamentally remove any dualism; instead, to a certain degree, he secures this dualism in order to eliminate religion’s dependence on philosophy. Nor does he remove this

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Religion as Feeling or Illusion?  C   251

second possibility thus emerges more prominently, as can easily be shown. According to the conventional wisdom, religious consciousness is knowledge of absolute dependence, a knowledge of one’s own self and circumstances. This knowledge is not in and of itself, but only in relation to another, and it is not an actual knowledge (objective self-consciousness), but a mere feeling. When this feeling enters the cognitional consciousness (and this must necessarily be the case if feeling and cognition do not exist in a dualistic opposition), the human person will be conscious of the reality that God is the absolute cause of everything, even the human person. This is the objective value of the feeling of absolute dependence. Since the self-consciousness that constitutes the essence of religion is not even objective, one cannot consider as legitimately objective either the consciousness of God or the divine qualities and activities entailed in the different modifications of the feeling of dependence. The dilemma is as follows: is the human interaction with an other, where we experience this other as a cause, merely an interaction of the self with one’s unchanging essence? Or is the other an essentially different, transcendent being that separates itself from the world and humanity? If we affirm the first question, then any appearance indicating that an other is the cause for the creation of the world can ultimately be reduced to one’s own essence. On this matter religion provides no answer, for from the religious perspective one option is just as viable as another. Philosophy, or the objective consciousness, concerns itself with being as such. It may be that philosophy discovers the Absolute to be nothing other than the essence hidden in the appearance of things, or that the Absolute is the unchanging cause that rests at the foundation of all change, or dependence entirely, but concedes this dependence, in part to avoid any dualism. The entirety of Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith takes place in this balance. Again, to be fair, Schleiermacher considers dogmatic theology a branch of historical theology that also includes biblical exegesis and Church history. Dogmatic theology concerns “the comprehensive presentation of the doctrines currently articulated by the church.” On the other hand, apologetics belongs to the philosophical branch of theology, which performs a function analogous to fundamental theology. It is not Schleiermacher’s claim that theology should not address the problem, only that philosophical, rather than historical theology, is the proper arena. For this point in Schleiermacher, see the 1811 edition of the Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums [Brief Outline of the Study of Theology], ed. Dirk Schmid (Berlin, 2002), “II. Teil: Historische Theologie,” esp. 102, #3. (Tr.)

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252  C   Religion as Feeling or Illusion? that the Absolute is the One and indivisible being that is immanent to the many and the divisible. Religion cannot defend itself against these possibilities, nor protect itself from such conclusions that would, at least from its own perspective, lead to ruin. In actuality, after having argued that the general idea of God so central to religion is untrue, philosophy has given its judgment on these matters. Philosophy declares that the idea of God is self-deception, or the “conscious-less self-consciousness” of humanity. The idea of God is self-consciousness in the sense that God is only humanity’s own essence, but a conscious-less self-consciousness to the degree that the person of faith does not know that he only projects his own essence and imagines it as something other, outside, and above himself.8 One can trace these plainly irreligious views to the pantheistic leanings of contemporary philosophy. Still, it cannot be denied that Protestant theology—since, to a certain degree, it affirms the description of religion as something essentially subjective—sanctions contemporary philosophy. By raising such a vociferous opposition to the objective validity of religion, Protestant philosophy has effectively rid religion of any validity. According to Schleiermacher, the idea [Vorstellung] of God is nothing other than the immediate reflection of the feeling of absolute dependence.9 As a product of reflection this idea falls outside the religious realm. And for religion it can seem inconsequential whether this reflection is determined by further thinking to be a mere idea or something objectively true. Then one must maintain that religion could carry on with any idea of God. These conclusions run counter to every experience and to the general view of religion. Schleiermacher himself does not make such conclusions. To the contrary, he defends the position that religion is compatible only with a cognitional system in which the ideas of God and the world 8  One can find such views expressed in the cynically titled work by Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (Leipzig, 1841 [German original; trans. George Eliot (Buffalo, N.Y., 1989 reprint)]). These views differ only formally from what the entirety of Hegelianism teaches. That is to say, Feuerbach starts from Hegelian principles and follows them through to their consequences. Currently Feuerbach’s opinion must be reckoned as quite popular and dominant. Or one could say, as one is wont to in our day, that his views represent the highpoint of contemporary thought. 9  The Christian Faith, #4, 17; see also Julius Schaller, Vorlesungen über Schleiermacher (Halle, 1844), 264. This book was never translated, nor is there any indication that it was reprinted. (Tr.)

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Religion as Feeling or Illusion?  C   253

are somehow distinguished, and the opposition between good and evil is maintained. But Schleiermacher connects the possibility of religion itself with a pantheistic orientation. The way he does so sufficiently demonstrates that the difference trumpeted between God and the world, and between good and evil, could be considered adequate if Schleiermacher considered this difference more than a merely formal one.10 But he completely abandons the notion of an essential difference between God and the world. Consequentially, his claim does not negate the previous conclusion about religion being content with any idea of God. Suppose one accepts that the objective consciousness stands in conflict with the subjective or religious consciousness, and that one could be totally eviscerated by the other. Then one must also accept a reflection that follows from a religious feeling. Namely, that an idea of God and the world, of good and evil, attained by purely speculative means, if it cannot be harmonized with the religious idea, must be considered as an aberration in thought. But if one followed this path, one would then attach an objective meaning to religious feeling, and this would resolve the sharp distinction between religious feeling and actual knowledge. From the previous discussion, it can be concluded that in order to resolve the difficulties threatening the value and essence of religion, one must return to a previous understanding of the matter. According to such an understanding, religious belief is first and foremost an objective knowledge of God, and as such is the authentic foundation of religion. The feeling of absolute dependence is secondary and conditioned by that prior knowledge. Religion can co-exist and sustain itself vis-à-vis philosophy only by having recourse to a theological content independent from philosophy. This can happen only when the foundation of religion is an objective knowledge of God instead of a merely subjective self-consciousness. According to Schleiermacher’s view, the human self and its circumstances constitute the original and authentic content of religion. The divine activities are conceived in part as products of reflection by the absolute knowledge of the self, and partly are found by purely speculative measures. From our point of view, God and his relation to the world and to human 10  The Christian Faith, #8, #32.

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254  C   Religion as Feeling or Illusion? beings is the primary content, the self and the world in their relation to God the secondary content. From Schleiermacher’s, it is possible to forfeit God and the theological realm as something merely represented. In their place the only things left are the cosmological and anthropological realms, and religion itself is left for naught. From our standpoint the theological domain is secured from the beginning, and the cosmological and anthropological are safeguarded at their very foundation. For if I know God simply as the product of the reflection of my absolute dependence, then I think of God as the absolute cause and as that on which everything hangs. However, it is not necessarily the case that the entity on which everything else depends is absolutely for itself. The idea of God is not created through that insight, but the idea comes to fruition in this moment. So according to these two characteristics, God is known in religion, and without such a notion of God there would be no religion. When I know something about God through religious consciousness, and I know the world and myself as absolutely dependent on God, I safeguard the complete and incorruptible idea of God. In addition, I know who I am in and with the world according to my final cause. And I lose myself so little in the world that I know what constitutes both my self and the world. On a concluding note, it behooves us to say something about those Catholic theologians who in recent times have made Schleiermacher’s view of religion their own. They have properly thought out neither the essence of his perspective nor the inseparable consequences. Nor have they adequately taken into account how their own objective standpoint corresponds to the Protestant perspective.

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The Newness of Tradition Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik

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(1859 ed., 217–28)

This argument comes from the middle (chapter 11) of Kuhn’s long (twentytwo chapters) Introduction to Catholic Dogmatics. Here Kuhn offers an argument or a demonstration for the authenticity of tradition that amplifies his work in the earlier chapters.1 Essential to his argument is the claim that the Church, beginning with the apostles, faithfully hands down the salvific truth that came from God’s word, Christ. Due to a misunderstanding of Trent, Catholic theology from the sixteenth through the twentieth century frequently advocated a “two-source” theory of revelation, whereby scripture and tradition were two separate and almost autonomous sources of truth. This period of theology also conceived of tradition as a “sacred deposit” faithfully handed down from one generation to the next. The Tübingen School played an important role in turning the tide toward a less antagonistic understanding of tradition’s relationship to scripture. Perhaps the two most important twentieth-century theologians of tradition, Josef Rupert Geiselmann and Yves Congar, not only served as periti at the Second Vatican Council, but also appreciated Kuhn’s contribution to a more profound, more traditional, and (perhaps paradoxically) more ecumenical un1  Beweis normally means “proof,” but Kuhn does not mean a logically or empirically verifiable proof, but rather a sufficiently coherent and convincing “argument” or “demonstration.” (Tr.)

255

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256  C   The Newness of Tradition derstanding of tradition.2 The current selection gets to the heart of Kuhn’s understanding of this question.

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S

C

i n c e t r a d i t i o n emerges in a twofold manner, the argument from tradition also has a twofold meaning. Insofar as the tradition is the source of truth that flows alongside the scriptures and amplifies the completed apostolic teaching [Lehrausdruck], then this argument simply supplements the proof from Scripture. So relating tradition to the content of Scripture only signals the external side and the subordinate moment of the meaning of tradition. In its true core and essence, tradition is the objective Christian consciousness of the Church; it is the spirit of Christian truth, which the apostles transmitted to the Church. Tradition reveals itself by authentically preserving (purely and completely) and properly applying its teaching tradition [Lehrüberlieferung],3 which yields Christianity’s essential truth. The tradition also reveals itself in the proper use and correct interpretation of scripture. Therefore the proof from tradition will primarily follow the course of historical investigation, and, through linguistic and critical research of the relevant literature, it will determine what the apostles and their immediate descendents believed.4 Further, this method uncovers what subsequent Church Fathers believed to be the Christian truth, what they proclaimed as apostolic teaching, and how they interpreted scripture on the basis of this belief and teaching. The proof from tradition will result when we can demonstrate that the essential content of what has been taught and believed in the Church from the apostolic time forward is still taught and believed today. 2  See above all, Congar, Tradition and Traditions, trans. Michael Naseby and Thomas Rainborought (New York: Macmillan, 1966); Geiselmann, Die lebendige Überlieferung als Norm des christlichen Glaubens [Living Tradition as a Norm of Christian Faith] (Freiburg: 1958). (Tr.) 3 Kuhn uses two different words for tradition: Überlieferung and Tradition. Both words indicate a “handing down,” but the former word, because it is Germanic and not borrowed from the Latin, brings this sense out more clearly. (Tr.) 4 Irenaeus of Lyons deals with this subject in his anti-Gnostic Against the Heretics. Kuhn himself treats this subject in a series of essays titled “Die formal Principien des Katholicismus und Protestantismus” [The formal principles of Catholicism and Protestantism”], ThQ 40 (1858): 3–62; 185–251; 385–442. (Tr.)

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The Newness of Tradition  C   257

We hardly need to recall the insufficiency of the process usually employed by the theologian, whereby he established the argument from tradition through quoting or extracting individual patristic citations.5 For there is no analogous application of seeking to prove [beweisen] the Bible’s veracity with seeking to prove the veracity of the tradition. Such citations and quotations from a given Church Father do not provide the certainty that gets at the true meaning intended by particular Church Fathers, or at the core of their teaching. So it is not about the teaching of this or that Church Father, but about the teaching of the Church. The whole question of tradition concerns the Church’s teaching from its outset through the continuity and perpetuity of the ecclesial tradition. Therefore the proof from tradition must support itself above all through the documents of the universal faith of the Church and their consequent expressions. These include the Apostolic Creed (the rule of faith for the original Church) and the confession of faith of the ecumenical councils—Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon. In addition there are the canons of the ecumenical councils and the local synods of these councils (for example the Second Synod of Orange) that have been universally accepted. Further, these local synods have been approved through the proclamation by the head [Oberhaupt] of the Church as in agreement with the faith of the Roman and the universal Church.6 Examples of this include the previously noted Synod of Orange and the earlier African synods against Pelagius. The Church Fathers occupy only the second level of the argument from tradition, and only insofar as they base themselves on the particularities and form of the given doctrine articulated by these councils and creeds. Their writings should be deployed for the aims above according to the following considerations: first, their time period; second, their reputation enjoyed in the Church; finally, the part they played in the controversies concerning the faith that arose in their time. The period when the 5  Scholastic theologians have neglected this element of scientific dogmatics. From the very beginning, scholasticism presupposes the agreement of the external truth of Catholic dogma with the faith of the Church, and applies all of its energy to the scientific understanding of the inner truth of faith. The immediately preceding period of theology had placed the greatest emphasis on the collection of patristic authorities and hence on the proof from tradition. By presupposing and relying on this procedure, later scholasticism justifies the sufficiency of its method. 6  See Irenaeus, Against the Heretics III, 2.

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258  C   The Newness of Tradition

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most reputable Church Fathers of the differing ecclesial provinces agree should be regarded as the true expression of the Church’s belief during this period.7 In order to understand properly the task of the demonstration from tradition, we must remember the concrete concept of tradition developed earlier.8 The tradition of Catholic doctrine does not say that the unchanging truth, which remains one and the same and is always taught in the same manner, is propagated through the same expressions [Vorstellungen] and concepts. Tradition is not the continual repetition of the original truth in its original [urgeschichtlich] form, but rather the continual reproduction of this truth in ever-new historical forms. However, these forms cannot be made to fit their content in a simply external manner, as the clothes fit the body. They must instead be related to their content in an organic way, and they must, as it were, grow forth from the content. In this manner one can conceive the Catholic doctrine of tradition [die kirchliche Lehrtradition] as an objective development of substantive truth (the objective dialectic of Christian consciousness). Therefore, the proof from tradition has the task of demonstrating that, throughout the various phases in which church teaching has developed over time, it has taught the same substance of truth, the same faith that has determined and given form to the tradition as its essential truth. Further, the proof from tradition must demonstrate that the Church has handed down the same doctrine from its beginning 7  Cardinal Du Perron expresses this rule for the proof from tradition: “Then one must regard with esteem the unanimous consensus of the Fathers, when they agree in the given matter with the most eminent scholars of individual countries. Thus nobody from those countries who is orthodox and always cleaves to orthodoxy, would dissent in such a case.” (See Stephan Wiest, Institutiones theologicae III [Eichstätt, 1782–86], 626.) When the Reformers and later the Jansenists name or label Augustine as the instar omnes [the greatest of all] or the praeter omnes [before all] when considering the doctrines of freedom and grace, and all that follows there from, they do so on their own initiative. As highly as the Church reveres Augustine, she has never accorded him an exclusive position and never aimed to do so, for as a consequence the remaining Church Fathers would lapse into irrelevance. Jacques-Davy Duperron (1556–1618) was a convert from Calvinism, polemicist, and later cardinal who engineered the conversion of several English kings to Catholicism. The only reference found to Kuhn’s cryptic Latin citation is the French: “Réplique à la Réponse du Roy de la GrandeBretagne,” which is found in Duperron’s collected works and was published posthumously in 1620. It is highly plausible that Kuhn cited from Wiest’s Latin translation of this phrase, which has been translated into English above. (Tr.) 8  See “Authority and Interpretation” above.

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The Newness of Tradition  C   259

and through the centuries as an unbroken thread in its manifold forms of expression. The argument from tradition unites entirely with the biblical argument, and with it produces a unified whole. The biblical teaching does not simply reflect the purely essential content of Christian truth, but reflects this in a particular, historical form. Doctrine derived from scripture is the first link of a consequent, objective formation of the same truth, which enters into existence through the development of Catholic doctrine, and is joined to the scriptural as further links of a chain. Only from this standpoint, from this conception of Catholic doctrine in its relation to the apostolic teaching from Christ, can we arrive at a persuasive argument concerning the truth of Church doctrine. From all other standpoints one merely arrives at assurances. Can one not in this manner bring the demonstration from tradition into concert with the history of dogma? And does not dogmatics take the path (as we have put forth) that it applies this demonstration from tradition to the history of dogma? If this were so, it would follow that the history of doctrine would not be able to claim its independence as a discipline. For dogmatics provides the proof from tradition. It cannot be doubted that dogmatics must provide the proof from tradition scientifically so that this proof actually proves something. Dogmatic theologians themselves hardly even dispute this, discussing it only in brief theses. In point of fact the demonstration through tradition amounts to something much different from the history of dogma. Granted, this proof follows the objective development of dogma, which continues successively and is consequently a historical development. But the history of this development has nothing to do with the demonstration from tradition and extends beyond its realm. The demonstration from tradition indeed follows the process of the construction of dogma. It does so by highlighting the different dogmatic distinctions, the different applications and forms of a dogma as the organic development of the same content of truth, and as one and the same substance of truth. However, the demonstration from tradition finds all of the following irrelevant: the historical circumstances under which these formations resulted, the historical relations of the figures that either affirmed or negated these doctrines, the role of the scienc-

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260  C   The Newness of Tradition es, as well as the philosophical and theological schools that influenced the dogmatic formulations. In short, the demonstration from tradition does not concern itself with what makes the course of these processes an empirically historically process. This demonstration is interested only in the knowledge that the truth lying at the basis of the historical course of the doctrinal construction remains unchanged, and at no time has been essentially changed (through either addition or subtraction). The demonstration takes care that the thread of tradition remains uninterrupted from the apostles through these many centuries, never having been cut off or abandoned, never having adopted a new starting point for the Church, or a new principle of truth. And finally, this demonstration is concerned that Church doctrine has from the outset disallowed the doctrinal models that gave recognition to a foundation and a motivating principle other than the tradition, and that Church doctrine has expelled all of the markings of heresy. In this manner the proof from tradition follows the history of doctrinal development for the purpose of pulling this main thread through history, but this proof does not supply a history of this development. It does not make the history of dogma superfluous; much to the contrary, it needs this history and is supported by this history. If the history has been properly begun and carried out, its full result will be nothing less than the proof from tradition for the whole of dogmatic theology. The Church’s message as well as its articulation of faith and its decisions depends on oral tradition. This tradition began with the apostles and was immediately taken up by the Church and was passed on in the unbroken succession of its bishops from one generation to next. This being so, we must address the following questions: why is the scriptural argument rather than the argument from tradition universally considered the foundation and the principle of the entire, positive dogmatic process of proof?9 Further, why are the holy Scriptures used and regarded as the actual instruments of theological doctrine?10 If we understand the argu9 In the Commonitory Vincent of Lerins says that one must “fortify one’s faith in a twofold manner: first, by the authority of divine law, and second, by the tradition of the Catholic church” (ch. 2). 10 In chapter 38 of De Praescriptione Haereticae, Tertullian distinguishes between scripture

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The Newness of Tradition  C   261

ment from tradition in the sense that was articulated above, then it contains within itself the proof from scripture as the first link. On this basis the scriptures seem to occupy a position of priority among other instruments of demonstration. This is so because they are the oldest documents of the Christian faith and of Christian doctrine. The apostolic writings and the subsequent ecclesial literature adjoin themselves to the Scriptures. For from this standpoint, the oral pronouncements of Christ, his apostles, and their followers up to the current day constitute an unbroken, continuous whole. The truth of Christ’s and his apostles’ teaching can be understood and demonstrated only from its agreement with the Old Testament, and the truth of Catholic doctrine can be understood and proven only through its agreement with the apostolic writings. Since Church doctrine is the doctrine of the Church in the course of time, and since it is not something episodic [Punktuelles] but instead something continual, it apportions the demonstration of Church doctrine to the demonstration for this doctrine within each of its various epochs. A condition for the demonstration of Church doctrine from a particular time must be its agreement with the doctrines from the time immediately preceding it. One ascertains this through the Catholic documents of the given time, presupposing that these documents agree with the apostolic writings. The apostolic writings do not exist merely to give a particular historical expression of the divine truth. Instead, these writings, along with the Old Testament, are more accurately understood as the original and principal expression, as well as the source of truth. Church doctrine and the ecclesial writings, on the other hand, are neither the original expression nor source of the truth, but only a particular historical expression of it. On this basis one must distinguish between the teachings of Christ and his apostles as the source of the truth and the teachings of the Church as a stream that springs from this source. This distinction lies at the basis of the argument from tradition. The immediate source of Church doctrine— the apostolic tradition—is the immediate and living source of Church and the immediate source of faith, which is carried through the oral tradition. Scripture is the instrument of doctrine or instruments through which doctrine is treated. In other words, scripture is the means of distinguishing, founding, and demonstrating the immediate doctrine of faith [Glaubenslehre].

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262  C   The Newness of Tradition doctrine. This being so, the apostolic tradition does not move next to and alongside Church teaching like the apostolic writings, nor does it exist in a set, unchangeable form. Instead the apostolic tradition enters into the stream of tradition and forms its living principle. Thus from this angle the distinction has been sublated [aufgehoben], and the proof from tradition cannot be constructed one-sidedly upon and through the supposed difference. If one proceeds thusly, then the Scripture emerges as the means of demonstration not only for the veracity of the Church doctrine as such, but also for the truth of the apostolic tradition; it emerges also as the means of demonstrating the fact of its pristine preservation in the Church. Hence the apostolic tradition is not just the first means of fundamental demonstration, but also the universal means of dogmatic argument. For if apostolic teaching melds into Church doctrine in this manner, then the truth of this teaching can be understood only by comparing it with the scriptural teaching. The argument from tradition follows the scriptural argument. The argument from tradition in no way says that the apostolic tradition has been purely upheld in the Church. Instead it only demonstrates that nothing different was taught in the second century than in the first, and nothing different in the third than in the second, and so forth. In relation to apostolic tradition, the scriptural demonstration can be only indirect and negative, and it can base itself only on the claim that tradition cannot contradict Scripture. (This claim results necessarily from the inner and essential agreement of the apostolic word with itself in its two forms of existence—both as written and as verbally proclaimed.) When the biblical argument shows that Church teaching (with the apostolic tradition understood as its inner, living foundation and its fixed measure) agrees substantially with its own teaching, then it follows that apostolic tradition could serve as the set measure of Church doctrine. Presupposing the facticity of the apostolic tradition, it is the same thing to say that Church doctrine is maintained in its purity through the apostolic tradition. For any impurity in Church doctrine must become evident in its contradiction with Scripture. Suppose one wished to attribute a positive meaning to the proof from Scripture not only in relation to Church doctrine as such, but also in re-

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The Newness of Tradition  C   263

lation to its immediate foundation and source, the apostolic tradition. If this were so, then one would be denying the equality between tradition and Scripture as sources of truth, and declaring Scripture the only source of truth for Church doctrine. On the other hand, tradition and the argument from tradition would go beyond scripture and the argument from it. The divine origin and the writing of Holy Scripture by divinely inspired people are not only authenticated through the traditional witness, for the tradition is also the objective principle of the interpretation of Scripture. This makes tradition pertinent for the scriptural argument, regardless of the fact that the meaning and purpose of scripture is also known through historical, scientific interpretation. We want to explain the relation between scripture and tradition through an example from the early church. Cyprian famously opposed tradition in the case of the baptism of heretics, when he claimed that these baptisms were not scriptural.11 Unlike Stephan, he did not deny the principle of tradition, and was at the opposite end from him regarding the attempt to establish scripture as the sole and immediate source of faith. Cyprian, however, applied scripture as a standard to the tradition of baptizing heretics, and thereby wanted to have it recognized as inauthentic by showing its clear contradiction with scripture. On the other hand, Stephan did not dispute Cyprian’s principle of testing tradition through scripture, at least in saying that if a tradition contradicted scripture, then it could not be considered true. Stephan only disputed the correctness of applying that principle to the case since the result suited Cyprian. He regarded Cyprian’s judgment to result from his subjective view and interpretation of scripture. For his part, Stephen trusted the tradition and found it not to be in contradiction with scripture properly understood. By emphasizing the principle of tradition: nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est [nothing is innovated unless it has been handed down], Stephan wants not only the external fact to be shown in its best light, but also subjective interpretation of scripture to be placed within the traditional interpretation, and thereby to find its objective norm. He conceded that every tradition should be tested against scripture, but not that subjective scriptural interpretation is absolutely normative. But did 11  See Cyprian, Letters 63 and 71.

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264  C   The Newness of Tradition Cyprian believe this second point? Certainly not in principle. But in the case at hand he took up this line of argument. One gathers from this that the question of dogmatic argumentation and science conditions the principal questions of theology. It is illuminative what these arguments yield—that the essence of dogmatic science must be determined through the essence of the theological principle of knowledge [Erkenntnisprincip] or the formal principle. The tension between Catholicism and Protestantism regarding the doctrine about sources and regarding the knowledge of Christian truth finds its solution in the opposition between Protestant and Catholic theological science. We can only briefly allude to how this opposition emerges in the positive dogmatics of our day. The Protestant formal principle is articulated as follows: “that what is actually the teaching of the Bible is true, and what contradicts this teaching is false, and, that nothing may be correctly posited as the Christian faith which does not have its basis in scripture.”12 Never mind that the second part of the sentence denies tradition as a source of the truth, and claims scripture as the only sure source of truth. The falsity of this position consists in that it permits only the subjectively scientific principle of interpretation, and posits this position as the solely normative one. The first part of the sentence is entirely true in and of itself, and we admit this completely. For we also claim that everything that contradicts scripture is false, and we apply this without a second thought to each and every tradition. But if one combines this part with the second part of the sentence and makes them into a unity, then the first part becomes false as well. For the second part posits only the principle of subjective knowledge and science as the sole knowledge of scriptural content, and excludes the tradition as a source of faith and principle of dogmatic scriptural interpretation. As Protestant dogmatics (and theology in general) is determined by its formal principle (the so-called scriptural principle), it is indeed a historical and in this sense a positive science, but is no longer in the strict sense of the meaning a positive science. Protestant theology is a science of faith (of the scripture and its content as positive authority and truth), but is not a science of faith from the standpoint of faith. Therefore one is justified 12  See Twesten, dogmatische Vorlesungen I, 287.

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The Newness of Tradition  C   265

in saying, “According to its nature, Protestantism is related to science,”13 for Protestantism permits science to operate freely in regard to its subject. But one cannot say that Protestantism is identical to science, for it gives the scripture to science as a positive object, whose content should be the material of faith for everyone. Science as such concerns itself with objectivity and universality, and to this extent one can talk of a possible harmony with the material at hand. But to the extent that it is the activity of the subjective mind, the objectivity and universality of the science will be a never-ending task and a merely ideal reality. Tradition and ecclesial authority are the real forces of the universality and objectivity of faith and knowledge. Only by recognizing this does one really arrive at the harmony between knowledge and its subject matter. Only on the grounds of tradition is a truly positive theology possible. Only fides quarens intellectum [faith seeking understanding] and credo ut intelligam [I believe so that I understand] can be the mottos of true theology, as it was with Catholic theology from the outset.

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13  So went the saying of the deceased Leipzig theologian, Winer. George Benedikt Winer (1789–1858) was known primarily for publishing aids for biblical study. (Tr.)

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The Personhood of God Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen

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Dreieinigkeit (1857 ed., 545–58)

This selection comes from the second part of Kuhn’s Dogmatics. It takes up the problem of analogy in speech about God. These problems are not new, but the context of Fichte’s critique of theological predication certainly gave more bite to the issue. His 1798 essay, “On the Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” even called into question the predication that God exists. Fichte’s technical point about predication led to an accusation of atheism by the local government, which eventually resulted in his being stripped of his professorship in Jena, quickly filled by the twenty-three-year-old Wunderkind Friedrich Schelling. Kuhn revisits the issue by critiquing his earlier foil, David Friedrich Strauss, who had recycled Fichte’s argument in his 1840 Glaubenslehre. Another relevant point here is Kuhn’s use of the “idea of God” [Gottesidee]. Although he expands on this notion more fully in other texts, Kuhn’s “idea of God” plays an important role in the structure of the argument below. For Kuhn, this idea functions similarly to Rahner’s supernatural existential; it pre-shapes our mind so that when we experience God, we recognize the experience for what it is. It is like the light in the room that lets us see the shape of the room and its contents. Although brief, this selection addresses an area of Kuhn’s theology that has inspired significant scholarly attention: his explanation for how we know God. 266

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The Personhood of God  C   267

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o k n o w t h e d i v i n e Trinity means knowing God as personal being. Our task is to understand God thusly, and our exposition will proceed from this angle.1 Howsoever one aims to understand or interpret the doctrine of the Trinity more closely, it is indisputable that the personality of God is the hinge upon which everything depends. For the doctrine of the Trinity defines God’s personality according to God’s absolute essence. Reason knows God on the basis of the immediately present idea given by God. This knowledge of God (the content of the first part of the Dogmatics) is the pretext and foundation that we are building on by introducing the positive, Trinitarian content into the purely rational element of the natural idea of God. It is not as though, convinced of the futility and inadmissibility of the dogmatic content, we are attempting to build a “bridge” between the purely rational concept of God and the dogmatic.2 Instead we aim to build on the idea of God expanded through the doctrine of the Trinity. By doing so we will bring this complete and entire content to an understanding, and in this manner we will lead the rational understanding of God further and to its conclusion. Human reason, which is supported by the idea of God that imbues reason, understands God as personal essence. But depending solely on itself, reason is not in the position to penetrate into the most inner essence of God and to ascertain the unique quality of God’s personality. Reason neither proceeds forward to this darkness that conceals from reason the contours of the truth, nor drifts sideways, away from the truth known to reason (even if this truth is not transparent) toward the path of error. Instead, reason awaits, with its gaze directed toward the Father of all lights ( James 1:17), and waits for illumination from wherever. Reason considers faith in a personal God, regardless of reason not knowing how to ascertain 1  This essay renders erkennen as “to know,” Erkenntnis as “knowledge,” and verstehen as “to understand.” (Tr.) 2  Or to put it more precisely, to build a bridge between the self-consciousness and the God-consciousness and from the knowledge of oneself as personal spirit to the knowledge of God as the triune Spirit.

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268  C   The Personhood of God faith with certainty, as absolutely final. It does so because the highest interest of reason (the religious interest) is connected with the interest of faith. Human reason can cling to this interest because reason would like to overcome and regard as invalid the difficulties raised against this faith. Reason has a natural starting point in this faith. In addition, in the knowledge previously alluded to, reason possesses the active [lebendige] receptivity for the acceptance of the supernatural revelation of God as triune and personal [dreipersönlich]. At the same time, the consciousness of the indeterminate and hence insufficient idea of the personality of God availed to reason suggests the need and desire for further enlightenment. By being prepared and inwardly moved through divine grace by the revealing God and by faith, reason fulfills the condition of knowledge: nisi credideritis, non intelligetis [If you do not believe, you will not understand]. Faith is the star that shows both the truth and the way for reason’s knowledge. The present argument will proceed as follows: first we shall remove the barriers that stand in the way of the concept of the personality of the Absolute and of the knowledge of God as triune and personal. Then it will be shown that the negation of the personality of God, whether in pantheism or in the abstractly deist position (monarchical unitarianism), is untrue and untenable. Finally, we will outline the analogical understanding of the divine Trinity in the succession of its moments, under the auspices of speculative construction, as it is called. It has been said that the concept of personality is predicated of finite minds [Geisteswesen]. When one applies this concept to God, one attributes a finite spirit to God.3 But this is the case only if one applies to God 3  Fichte writes, “You attribute personality and consciousness to God. But what do you mean by personality and consciousness? Do you mean what you have discovered within yourself, what you have become familiar with in yourself, and have called personality and consciousness? By paying the slightest attention to how you construct such concepts, you would learn that you simply do not and cannot think of these terms apart from limitation and finitude. By ascribing these predicates to God, you make this being into a finite being like yourself. Thus, you have not, as you had wanted, succeeded in thinking of God, but only of a magnified version of yourself.” See “On the Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” in J. G. Fichte, Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 151–52. For the German, see Fichte, Fichtes Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), V, 187. Kuhn quotes from Strauss, Die Glaubenslehre, I, 504. The first sentence is not in Fichte. (Tr.)

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The Personhood of God  C   269

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the predicate of personality immediately and in the same sense as one applies it to us! But nobody who understands the situation does this. In the predication of personality to God, one abstracts from the limitations that are understood by personality when applied to a finite spirit. When applied to God, personality is thought of as an other, absolute personality. To put it briefly, one applies personality just as one applies all other qualities derived from finite and especially human contexts. The only thing accomplished through applying this term to God, and the accomplishment is only partial, is to achieve a knowledge regarding the content of the Absolute. To challenge this mode of knowing God is equivalent to challenging theistic knowledge of God in general, in order to put in its place a purely negative and hence nihilistic, or a false, pantheistic concept of God. Any argument directed against applying “personality” to God is not against the concept of the Trinity, but is constructed against its presupposition. The argument aims to prove too much and as a consequence proves nothing. In order to accomplish the only purpose that there can be, one must say the following: the characteristic of limitation and finitude is essential to the concept of personality. To imagine otherwise is to eliminate the very concept of personality. Along such lines Strauss says, Personality is a comprehensive selfhood against the Other, which the personality separates from itself. Absoluteness, however, is the comprehensive, unlimited, and what excludes from itself the exclusivity inherent in the concept of personality. Absolute personality is a non ens [non-being] wherein nothing can be thought. [.....] We understand ourselves as persons by distinguishing ourselves from other persons, i.e., from such essences that are independent from us at their very foundation, and that irreducibly, exclusively and forcefully stand apart from us.4

The Absolute cannot have such a personal difference within itself. As the Absolute, God should be prior to and independent from finite persons. Hence, finite persons do not occupy a self-sufficient position in relation to God in the same way that the personalities that we encounter relate to us. Thus it appears that the concept of personality would lose all meaning outside the realm of finitude.5 4  Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre, 506. 5  So argues Strauss, ibid.

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270  C   The Personhood of God It seems that this rationale is fundamentally incontrovertible, but in fact it is not. Upon closer examination the clarity disappears, along with the truth that was joined to it. For this rationale relied upon the most superficial and the most sensatory concept of the Absolute and of the finite personality. The Absolute is the limitless, expansive, universal, and allencompassing; the Personality is the limited, particular, in a certain point, the self-contracting and isolating individuality. This is the crux of the argument. In such a description, however, the inner essence of the Absolute and of the finite personal remains completely untouched. Strauss proceeds from the sensible representation of the individual person. Augustine eradicates this representation when he wants to use the symbolic expression person in no particularly positive sense. And Augustine is correct, for this representation of the person does not lead to an understanding of the faith, but only leads away from such an understanding. Using such a representation, the divine Trinity must be regarded either as an absolute mystery, and one must cease any further understanding, or as untenable, since it is incomprehensible. Boethius gave the formal definition of the person, rationis naturae individua substantia [individual substance of a rational nature], that caused so much confusion. Before this, one almost never perceived the concept of the person in this limiting sense that also leads [one to understand belief in] the divine Trinity as tritheism. For this reason the Eastern Orthodox have been prone to reject this concept, because they saw in this term the danger of monarchicalism, and the Sabellian misunderstanding of a merely revealed Trinity [Offenbarungstrinität]. The concept of personality employed by Strauss is nothing other than the nominalist concept of substance applied to intelligent beings. For Strauss, when one is speaking of intelligent beings, the nature-individual [Naturindividuum] is a person. [.....]6 What we see in the case of Strauss is that God is the essence of essence, the universal, the infinite substance, and the infinite formal concept [Gattungsbegriff], perceived realistically. Therefore God cannot be the particular, single, individual, and cannot be 6 Here Kuhn refers to an earlier argument against Socinianism, which equated belief in the Trinity with tritheism. (Tr.)

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The Personhood of God  C   271

a person. And assuredly, these concepts of personality and absoluteness absolutely exclude one another. If the Absolute is the universal substance, and person is an individual substance, then God can be neither mono- nor tri-personal. God can be only impersonal, or, if one prefers, pan-personal [allpersönlich]. In other words, God can only be conceived as personifying the indefinite and at the same time the infinite into finite subjects. In the end, Strauss arrives at this pantheistic conception.7 At a later point we will discuss in greater detail the pantheist concept of the Absolute. The previous paragraph outlining this position simply serves as a foil. At present we aim to articulate the proper concept of the personality. And, to assure that the concept has been correctly perceived, we apply it to the Absolute. This application also pertains to the Christian distinction of persons within the divine being. The personality of the finite spirit is an individual personality. Due to this quality, the personality is limited and cannot be applied to the Absolute. In itself the personality is unlimited, because what cancels limitation and strives toward infinity is in no way an agent that defines itself against and excludes itself from others. Of course the personal [das Persönliche] is the most unique and particular, and to this degree it stands totally opposite from the universal and the collective [Gemeinsamen]. But the personal is not such in the sense of exclusion and rejection of the universal and the collective from itself. On the contrary, it consists in the bringing together and attraction from a certain midpoint. The higher an essence stands on the ladder of created reality [Dinge], the more being it partakes in, and the more fully (that is, with greater concentration) it does so. The Absolute is the all-attracting; it is the center sufficient in and containing itself [in sich befassende und haltende], both the infinite and the most complete being, the most concentrated unity. This, however, is the completely abstract and universal concept of individuality as beingin-itself [Insichsein]. In the concrete meaning, only the spirit is personal regarding the being-in-itself of the thinking and willing essence that is beyond nature. Self-consciousness and self-determination—especially the consciousness of one’s identity, despite all the variability of one’s con7  See Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre, 524.

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272  C   The Personhood of God ditions and one’s self-construction in all of one’s thinking and acting— are the characteristics of the active personality. I am I. “The unity of selfconsciousness constitutes the personality. Any being that has the consciousness of its identity, is a lasting Ego [Ich] in itself, knowing of itself. It is a person.”8 The Ego has in the non-Ego both its confirmation and its rejection. The non-Ego confirms the Ego to the degree that the non-Ego is also an Ego and an Ego equipped with the same human nature such that the Ego finds itself again in this non-Ego, and forms a unity of the same essence (substantia secunda) with the non-Ego. It rejects the Ego insofar as it is an other Ego with an individually unique nature. To value this latter point excessively or exclusively would involve conceiving the individual personality in a one-sided and nominalist manner. The falsity of such a conception is seen when we consider the actual, moral personality. For in this manner nobody disputes that the true personality does not consist in the rejection of other persons, or in closing oneself off against the non-Ego, and in limiting and isolating oneself into one’s own Ego. Instead it consists in mutual self-giving [Selbstentäusserung], which is love. Human beings can certainly form themselves into a moral unity (both with themselves and with God), since the power of egoism can be conquered through the power of ethical self-determination. Despite such a possibility, human beings do not amalgamate into a unity of essence because the natural individuality is an indissoluble entity, and is posited absolutely. Therein lies the limitation and finitude of the personality of finite spirits [Geisteswesen]. In the previous paragraph we aimed to show that the true concept of personal essence is not the one-sidedly nominalist one, but rather the realistic one that sublates the one-sided concept. As a direct result, the concept of the infinite and of the Absolute Spirit does not in itself exclude the concept of the personality, but instead brings out the complete and unlimited meaning of this concept. The incompleteness that belongs to the finite personality of the spirit consists in the fact that the personality comes to be represented only through the opposition of individually differing spir8  F. H. Jacobi, Briefe über die Lehre des Spinoza [Letter on Spinoza’s Doctrine]. For the English version, see Jacobi, Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill, trans. and ed. George di Giovanni, 173–252 (tr.). Strauss cites this passage (ibid., 502n), but does not reflect any further on its content.

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The Personhood of God  C   273

its. But this opposition alone does not exclude. The moment of unity between these two is not only posited, but also posited as the moment that turns the tide for the completion of the person. The more complete (in the metaphysical sense) the finite spirit, the more completely fulfilled is the condition of his personality. Hence it cannot be a contradiction to conceive the infinite, the most complete essence, as a personal essence. Everything depends on how we know and understand God as intelligence or spirit, that is to say, as a thinking and willing essence, and not as the Absolute, as an eternal, infinite, root of all things, and not as a natura naturans, and as a first instigator [Springfeder].9 As we think of God in terms of intelligence, we also think of God as personality. Both concepts are inseparable from one another. Indeed, the most elevated [höchste] personality and the consummation of being-in-itself and of knowledge of himself must be accorded to the absolute Spirit. The concept of God’s personality that we have located in the preceding manner is still abstract. Concrete personality is unthinkable without a difference between persons; individual identity [Ichheit] is likewise unthinkable without an opposition in itself or with a non-Ego. At a later point we will consider the possibility of an inner opposition between nature and spirit in God. When we do so, we will find that God’s personality cannot be established on this opposition without endangering God’s absoluteness. With a similarly rapt attention we shall direct our interest to the other side, where we discover the Christian differentiation of the three persons within the divine essence. These persons embrace, fulfill, and affirm each other absolutely. They do so not by being separated through a unique, individually different essence, nor through a particular or personal possession of the same, absolutely identical essence that each one has. Instead, they embrace, fulfill, and affirm one another by being bound into one through the singular (numerical) unity of the indivisible divine nature. The persons are one godhead [Gottheit] and One God. Therefore the biblical saying remains entirely and in the strictest sense true, that “Jehovah is our God, besides whom there is no other, for Jehovah is the only God.” In this distinction and bringing together of the three divine persons 9  Jacobi, ibid. Compare to Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 661, cited below.

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274  C   The Personhood of God we have the concrete truth of the absolute personality of God. For, as one can see, all of the finite qualities that unite human personality are quite simply negated and sublated in the divine personality. Therefore the divine personality must be completely inaccessible and incomprehensible for us, if we were not able to conceive this personality according to the analogy of the human personality. If we were not so able, then we would be missing every point of contact for this concept, since we are capable of conceiving only that for which we are in position to bring forth an intuition (a type), by which we can then conceive whatever may be. However, we stand completely justified to conceive the divine personality according to a human analogy. For one finds a similarity between the divine Spirit and the human spirit, insofar as the human spirit is a spirit in the image of God. We already recognized that the essential qualities of the finite personality so to speak converge with the qualities of the divine personality, such that the finite personality seeks through this process to realize and to fulfill its particular personality. For in the convergence of the human and divine personalities, we are able, through the light of faith, to see the divine personality eternally fulfilled in itself. We discern that there is no coinciding nor congruence of the human and divine personality, and that the qualities of the absolute personality quite simply go beyond those of the finite personality. By so discerning, we must also admit that our analogical knowledge of God, precisely because it is analogical and nothing more, is an incomplete knowledge, and that the absolute personality of the triune God is ungraspable [unbegreiflich]. We do not even possess in our mind [Geist] a seed-like [spermatische] essence of the divine, not even a ray of the pure, unbroken light “in which there is no darkness.” The divine light shines into our mind, and our mind alone knows it, because it is mind. But it is not a case of “light from light.” The analogy taken from our mind leaves us, so to speak, on the limit of the finite at the point of the transition into the religion of the absolute being. That is to say, this analogy lets us conceive the qualities of a finite personality as essentially ephemeral, but the analogy does not show us the entrance into the qualities of the absolute personality. We have these qualities only in their negation of the finite. Suppose we were to exceed the limit of the finite concept by maintaining as objectively true the (given, positive) qualities

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The Personhood of God  C   275

of the absolute personality—irrespective of the fact that we do not verify these qualities through an adequate intuition (which amounts to being able to establish these qualities in a speculative manner). In effect, we do this by relying on faith, and of necessity this knowledge of the content of faith is incomplete and inadequate because it is merely analogical. With Saint Augustine we must confess: verius est Deus, quam cogitatur [God is more truly, than he is thought].10 But this is all that we have to concede. The incongruence of our concept with its object, and the incommensurability of faith for the thought, remains amidst the truth and does entail an objective conflict or a logical contradiction. It is not on account of our position that one would be justified in saying that the theistic concept of the absolute personality is self-contradictory, and hence must be eliminated and replaced with the pantheistic concept of an impersonal Absolute.11 Furthermore, it is not true that the human mind finds itself in a conflict with its essential interests, in that theism, demanded by the heart [Gemüt], does not appease understanding and reason. Meanwhile, pantheism placates understanding and reason, but it contradicts the heart’s religious convictions. The tension between the religious idea and speculative thought does not lie in the nature of the matter, in the relation of our mind to the Absolute as object of religious faith and scientific knowledge. Instead, the tension is constructed, imported, and derives from the arbitrary exaggeration of human knowledge. For one would like to possess this knowledge as a purely speculative and absolute knowledge, and would like to make it completely independent from faith. All of our interest in God lies in the personality of God.12 A God who is not personal is no God for humanity. Everything that religion does, it 10  The full Latin sentence comes from Augustine’s De Trinitate, VII, 7: “For God is more truly thought than He is uttered, and exists more truly than He is thought.” 11  Strauss does this, and invites his readers to enter the narrow gates of Spinozism (Glaubenslehre, I, 506). This footnote has been abridged. (Tr.) 12  See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 661: “Since we are wont to understand by the concept of God not merely an eternal nature that works blindly, as the root source of all things, but a supreme being who through understanding and freedom is the Author of all things; and since it is in this sense only that the concept of a living God (summa intelligentia) interests us.” (Norman Kemp Smith trans.) Kuhn leaves out two lines from the quotation. (Tr.)

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does through the belief in a personal God, who is the condition of religion’s existence and the soul of all of its truth. What would humanity and the person be without religion? When the cultured [Gebildete] lacking this faith do not act like beasts, this is not a credit to their formation [Bildung], but to the law and the social mores that hinder them, as well as the atmosphere in which they live and breathe, and which derives its goodness from religious faith. Thus all humanity is either directly or indirectly the fruit of religion, of faith in a personal God. The power of thought and the legitimacy of knowledge are just as legitimate and justified as the religious idea and faith. They must endure one another. The religious idea must prove itself to the rational [denkend] mind, and the rational mind must respect the religious idea as the essential truth. By no means may the rational mind turn the religious realm into an arbitrary and worthless truth. From such a method comes the source of all error.

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The Place of Theology in a University A Response “Bemerkungen zu einer Abhandlung des Herrn Freiherr von Andlaw über die Gründung einer

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‘freien katholischen’ Universität” (1863)

The final essay of this collection presents Kuhn’s objections to the founding of a Catholic university in Germany. His response reignited the neo-scholastic assault on his theology. This selection offers an interesting vista on what university life in Tübingen must have been like. It also offers the contours for what would evolve into Kuhn’s final articulation of his fundamental concern: to outline the differences between the natural and supernatural orders. The most recent decades in American Catholicism have witnessed a renewed scrutiny into the Catholic identity of the Church’s institutions of higher learning. We have also seen a bevy of essays and manuscripts that identify problems or propose solutions to the problem of how to promote the Gospel while promoting science and free inquiry. Some speak today of a lingering anti-Catholicism in American culture and in the academy, but it is difficult for American Catholics to imagine the lack of rights that Catholics experienced under certain Protestant-ruled states in Germany. This essay reminds us of those realities while also showing the solutions that Catholics considered. It is also interesting, if not lamentable, 277

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278  C   The Place of Theology to see how legitimate differences could occasion accusations of bad faith, or “bad” Catholicism, which the current essay provoked.

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B

C

a r o n v o n A n d l a w does not want to admit that, under the current structure of German universities, Catholic science [Wissenschaft] has witnessed a marked improvement. He names several universities and professors that have gained much acclaim under the current circumstances. Hence he is kind enough to praise a series of men who currently occupy these university positions. By doing this, Andlaw does not want to say much good about the instruction done at universities, as he understands them, especially regarding the theological sciences. Such outstanding theologians as Alban Stolz have been more than willing to credit their success (presupposing of course the necessity of divine grace) to their own independent study rather than to their university teachers and instruction. For Andlaw, therefore, one must not take such anecdotes lightly: some indeed have learned to swim themselves, but how many others have drowned by this method! Therefore it is indispensable to have a good swimming instructor. Excepting the school system, many aspects of life are much better than they were earlier, especially since von Andlaw’s youth. One cannot explain this solely as a result of human merit, but also divine grace. Should things truly and continuously improve, then instruction must necessarily and entirely change from what it now is. What Andlaw means is primarily the instruction that takes place in universities, even if all of these examples are brought to attention so that the need for founding a Catholic university is demonstrated as unavoidably urgent. In addition, he shows instruction in departments of law, natural science, and philosophy to be thoroughly unsatisfactory. For von Andlaw, these considerations function as the bases for his recommendation to found a Catholic university. He derives the necessity for this from his judgment that our German universities systematically attack the Catholic viewpoint and that the supposed parity in these universities is a lie. We aim in this essay to scrutinize the project of a Catholic university with Andlaw’s concerns in mind. We are not blind to the many problems that emerge these days in the fields of natural science, law, and philosophy,

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The Place of Theology  C   279

and we bemoan them along with von Andlaw and all well-meaning people. In addition we do not fail to notice the manifold difficulties and misfortunes germane to current university instruction. Still, we do not conclude therefrom the need to condemn the university system out of hand and to lay an entirely new foundation. Instead we consider ourselves bound to warn against hasty conclusions and measures. We are also opponents of radicalism. Who does not err? Should we therefore abandon our use of reason because philosophical research [Vernunftforschung] these days promotes much that is erroneous? Or should we weaken and minimize our free use of the will because this would protect against wrongdoing and sin? Suppose for instance that we abandon the method of the natural sciences because of their errors and confusions. This method is the only scientific method [within natural science]. And nobody can deny the immeasurable advances in the understanding of natural phenomena, of natural powers, and of laws owed to this method. Its application has transported human commerce and trade to heights heretofore not seen, imagined, or even thought possible. Would a Catholic chemistry, physics, astronomy, engineering, etc. in the sense of what the founding of a “thoroughly” [durch und durch] Catholic university would entail, have made such progress? For those who know the history of these sciences, the answer must be No! The main complaint raised by von Andlaw has been against university pedagogy [Universitätsunterricht]. Let us examine the heart of the matter. A university has the following tasks: to impart insight [Einsicht] and education [Bildung], knowledge [Erkenntnis] and science, as well as those practical career skills that rely on scientific viewpoints. It is the task of domestic and ecclesial education [Erziehung] to implant and secure religious and moral convictions in [young people’s] minds. Catholics—both religious and lay—should take every measure so that nothing is ruined and so that the above-mentioned catechesis happens. Supposing so, we need not fear that the university pedagogy will inflict the devastation lamented by von Andlaw. The well-raised [gut erzogenen] students and those who stand secure in their religious and moral convictions will depart the lecture halls that threaten to harm them, and search for better lecture halls. In any case they will be in the position to divide the chaff

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280  C   The Place of Theology from the wheat and will not allow the threatening [courses] to ruin them too much. The complaint is so readily echoed that one not only fails to be developed/educated [bilden], but is miseducated [verbilden] in our universities. When this is echoed, one should also investigate whether this miseducation is the pure and necessary result of university pedagogy, or whether it rests in pre-existing factors, which might also cause this miseducation. The pedagogy that is the natural and necessary companion of education [Erziehung] until maturity and self-sufficiency is a pedagogy based necessarily on authority. Such a pedagogy differs wholly from scientific pedagogy, which encourages and supports independent thought and research. The first kind must cease at the university, for it is not intended to be the only kind of pedagogy. A different kind of pedagogy must emerge at the university level: one that presupposes that the students think for themselves, and one that unlocks for them the inner principles of truth, brings them to consciousness, and teaches them to grasp the connection of truths. Only within such a pedagogy can the students be efficiently trained for their future careers, whether it be as teachers, or as some sort of experts. Only through such a pedagogy can one assemble the ever-new powers for building and improving the sciences themselves. In this process one can hope that a teacher’s personal influence (in the sense of formation [Erziehung]) takes place in the students and takes root in them. But in no case may one reduce university pedagogy to an authoritative formation [erziehenden], and in no case may one seek to lead university pedagogy in that direction. Does the idea of an improved pedagogy underlie the project to found a purely Catholic university? We too believe in principle that we have not achieved this goal. We are convinced that realizing such a project might successfully address the current, deplorable conditions (for we share the lament, and our concern is longstanding), at least to a certain extent. We could do so without turning all of those who enjoy such a pedagogy into exquisite instruments for either the Church or the state. From our perspective (i.e., as a university professor) to make such a separation would lead to an impairment that would affect our current relations most acutely. Now let us turn to the lack of parity in our German centers of higher

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The Place of Theology  C   281

education. Of this lack of parity we are certain! As Catholics we have been stripped of our right to equal consideration for university professorships. Granted, we have played some part in this, but it has happened primarily through the Protestant government. Let us aim to solve this disparity, and let us make this parity that nobody refutes into reality. All well-meaning Catholics can take part in this struggle. There is no threat of a party spirit here, and one cannot smear us with the claim of exclusivity and special alliance. Baron von Andlaw says that the purported parity in the German universities is a lie, and that the principled and systematic expulsion of Catholic science and viewpoints is no secret. Under such conditions there remains for Catholics no other course than that of removing themselves from the arena of voluntary suppression, and attempting to construct their own house. Such a statement is quite forceful in its universality. We do not want to carp on it because it contains certain undeniable truths. We have read the 1862 pamphlet titled, “On the Parity of the University of Bonn, with a View towards Breslau and Other Prussian Centers of Advanced Education [Hochschulen].” It contains almost irrefutable evidence that confirms this discrimination. We can discern from this noteworthy example how in a Protestant state the Catholic bishops are almost totally unhindered in the practice of their rights and Jesuit priests can establish themselves without any opposition. In the face of these and other examples, fundamentally decisive and truly vital Catholic interests remain nonetheless almost entirely ignored and are brusquely put on the back burner. The case of Bonn remains in many ways highly instructive. It should be properly acknowledged by all sides. The disadvantage and damage are growing not just one-sidedly, but almost monopolistically when one considers the distribution of teaching positions in the German Hochschulen for Catholicism. Will Baron von Andlaw barely surpass us in assessing the damage and disadvantage to result from this? For both he and we believe wholeheartedly that knowledge [Wissenschaft] is power. For these reasons we do not share his solution, to create a purely Catholic university in opposition to Protestant universities, which is both much too rash and also untenable. If we Catholics declare it our need to have a “thoroughly” Catholic university, “where all sciences are taught in complete

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282  C   The Place of Theology harmony with divine revelation,” then we must insist that all instructors occupy the same foundation of the Catholic faith. They must neither deny nor place in doubt a single doctrine of the Church. We must also immediately make as a condition of a teacher’s effectiveness the celebratory invocation and periodic repetition of the Tridentine confession of faith, and the like. It follows from the demands of the principle of parity that the Protestant teachers are bound to their own confessional books, and that it be imposed on them as a condition of their teaching, to present all the sciences in a total harmony with divine revelation as it is understood according to the Protestant confession and explained in their confessional writings. Baron von Andlaw does not doubt that the proposed recovery of parity, at least at the present time, is absolutely impractical. For, at least in all subjects excepting theology, Protestants resolutely uphold academic freedom [Lehrfreiheit] for themselves. We Catholics have no right to deprive them of this freedom or to diminish it. Thus we cannot complain about the fact that such a parity does not exist in the universities in states without a confessional predominance. Even if we declare the need to found a new Catholic university because of the actual imparity, we would only exonerate the Protestant governments on matters of parity. We would even justify these governments because it would emerge quite clearly that they are not able to accomplish at their universities what we in fact want. Ultra posse nemo tenetur [if one is not able, one is not obligated]. The accusation of imparity, if justified, should not be formulated such that the research and points of view of a Catholic, that is, of a confessional nature, are prevented passage at existing universities. Excepting of course the theological department, we could demand the right to parity for confessional Catholic science, that is, pedagogy, only if Protestant confessional sciences were similarly instilled, but this is not the case. Taking into account the law and presupposing the given situation, we can and should demand something else entirely: that in terms of occupying university professorships, academically trained Catholics are protected in the same manner as like-trained Protestants. This improvement can be promoted on the basis of science itself and resonates entirely with principle of academic freedom. Suppose there is someone who brings with him his own particular

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The Place of Theology  C   283

view of things that arises from his instruction, formation, and confession of faith (or whatever it may be). In this case, it would obviously lie in society’s interest to give him a comprehensive cultivation and training, especially in the moral sciences. The given person would receive as universal an instruction as possible in this field. This method would show the advantage not only of Protestant subjectivity, but also of the Catholic view. Hence we are fully justified in protesting against the exclusion or disproportionately sparse representation of Catholic jurists, doctors, and philosophers in the alleged “parity” universities. We have no right to demand Catholic jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy; law, medicine, and philosophy are neither Protestant nor Catholic sciences. They can and should be established, practiced, and cultivated independent of confessional faiths. Hence, in all departments excepting the theological ones, we must respect even more the academic freedom that on the one hand is based on the nature of its subject matter, and on the other hand is demanded by our own argument. For, if we do practice and teach science according to this principle, we will effectively gain influence through science into the arena of social and political activity. Science will thus become for us what it can be—a power [Macht]. These are the main internal reasons that speak against the project. The external reasons for the project are not beneficial given the current situation in Germany. I want to point out only one such circumstance. We have a number of universities in Germany that house Catholic theology faculties. These faculties give an authentically Catholic as well as a fundamentally scientific formation [Bildung] to natives and foreigners training to be clergy. Imagine what detrimental effects and problems would result if a purely Catholic university were erected amidst these universities, and would necessarily place its primary focus on its theology faculty? Some take the case of Belgium as an example for founding a purely Catholic university in Germany. Belgium, however, does not provide a good analogy in this case, for the actual state of relations in Germany is entirely different from those in Belgium.1 Given everything mentioned above, I can only conceive the project 1  The university in Louvain (Leuven) was shut down during the French revolution. In 1835 the Belgian bishops restored the university and gave it a Catholic identity. (Tr.)

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284  C   The Place of Theology as having resulted from an effusive Catholic sentiment. In fact Baron von Andlaw regards this activity as inspired by Catholic enthusiasm and demands the support of this project because it would further Catholic identity [Bewusstsein]. To this we respond that Catholic identity today is as vivacious, receptive, and willing to make sacrifices as one could possibly hope for. And for this we should thank those to be credited for this magnificent resurgence. This should serve all the more to warn against directing this resurgence into unfruitful or even false paths. I would rather not discuss the material difficulties that confront the project and its completion. From a practical perspective the project appears, if not completely hopeless, then at best as something whose fruits should be preserved for a future generation, and whose shape we cannot yet construe. At the moment I reckon that the architects and proponents have reduced the great plan to the founding of a Catholic faculty of law. Insofar as the plan’s implementation is conditioned by material means, its implementation must be conceived as possible within these parameters. However, he who cannot condone the entire plan must declare himself against watering of such a promising seed, as according to the principle: principiis obsta [stop it in the beginning]. So many reasonable factors weigh against this suggestion. We have recalled these factors in the above arguments against the project in its entirety. At this point we want to mention briefly some special considerations connected with curtailing the Catholic university to a Catholic faculty of law. Can a faculty of law subsist in total isolation from a university? Will there be important Catholic jurists who want to take such isolated positions? Does one have reason to believe that a thoroughly Catholic faculty of law will effect a restoration of the doctrine of law according to these principles, as Baron von Andlaw anticipates of such a faculty? Is not the greater fear that the architects of these plans in fact are pouring oil on the fire, and that they offer new fodder for the anti-Catholic and radical tendencies of our time? More pointedly, would not such a faculty of law itself pose a danger to ecclesial interests? Insofar as they believe themselves so called, would they not have to create a Catholic civil law [Staatsrecht], and a Catholic politics? Would they not have to bring Catholicism into

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The Place of Theology  C   285

an internal and indivisible connection with a certain system that would compromise Catholic ecclesial interests in a variety of ways? From our perspective, the most obvious reasons caution against making the Prussian Kreuzzeitungspartei into an example and a model.2 Though I place myself in opposition to the founding of a Catholic university, or at least against such a faculty of law, I do not want to imply that nothing of import has happened, and that one should simply let matters take the current course. For this reason I cannot persist in the purely negative [position] because I recognize that our universities do not operate as they should. In our German institutions of higher education [Hochschulen] located in predominantly Protestant states, parity is in part not recognized, and in part they do not implement the principle [of parity], nor make it a reality. It is my deeply held conviction that this is a great evil and source of pain for Catholics. At this point I cannot undertake to discuss the means and ways that this evil can be confronted. This would take far too long. The Catholic press, estate, and professors in these universities would like to do their duty in a practical and understandable way. Perhaps the esteemed bishops, given their expansively influential position in the state, can do something along these lines. But I cannot advise taking the path of isolation and exclusion. Against this I will allow myself to propose something analogous to one of the aforementioned projects, because it includes the given relationships and it promises real success. One would collect funds to support and satisfy the most pressing needs of our fundamentally equitable [paritätischen] universities, in a way similar to how we [Catholics] support the Church’s needs through the Bonifatius Club, and how Protestants get financial resources through the Gustav-Adolf Club. One would apportion small sums—for a place like Tübingen perhaps a few thousand Gulden [Swabian unit of money]—into the hands of reputable Catholic teachers. This will encourage young, talented Catholic scholars to enter academic careers. The same fund will provide a decent income for these scholars when they 2  The Kreuzzeitungspartei was an ultra-conservative Christian party in Prussia. They formed in 1848 and took their name from their literary organ, the Kreuzzeitung.

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are private docents [roughly the equivalent of assistant professor]. If they proceed skillfully, perhaps they will able to succeed in receiving a call for a position at their current university, or at another university. I will abstain from expounding this plan in its details, taking for granted that the thoughts that lie at the foundation of this plan have become clear through these brief remarks. I have concluded this essay with my deepest conviction that arises from my own experience, that something great and profitable can be accomplished in the manner outlined above and with limited means.

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Selected Bibliography

The following bibliography gives selected texts that may be helpful for the reader. To that end, German bibliography has been kept to a minimum.

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Literature on the Catholic Tübingen School Dietrich, Donald. The Goethezeit and the Metamorphosis of Catholic Theology in the Age of Idealism. Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1979. Dietrich, Donald, and Michael J. Himes, eds. The Legacy of the Tübingen School. New York: Crossroad, 1997. Fehr, Wayne. The Birth of the Catholic Tübingen School: The Dogmatics of Johann Sebastian Drey. Chico, Calif.: American Academy of Religion, Scholars Press, 1981. Geiselmann, Josef Rupert. Die Katholische Tübinger Schule: Ihre theologische Eigenart. Freiburg: Herder, 1964. Himes, Michael. Ongoing Incarnation: Johann Adam Möhler and the Beginnings of Modern Ecclesiology. New York: Crossroad, 1997. Hinze, Bradford. Narrating History, Developing Doctrine: Friedrich Schleiermacher and Johann Sebastian Drey. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993. ———. “Roman Catholic Theology: Tübingen.” In The Nineteenth Century Theologians, ed. Christoph Schwoebel. Oxford: Blackwell, in press. O’Meara, Thomas. Church and Culture: German Catholic Theology, 1860–1914. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. ———. Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism: Schelling and the Theologians. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982. Reinhardt, Rudolf, ed. Tübinger Theologen und ihre Theologie: Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1977. Thiel, John E. Imagination and Authority: Theological Authorship in the Modern Tradition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991.

287

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288  C   Selected Bibliography Works on Kuhn Geiselmann, Josef Rupert. Die lebendige Überlieferung als Norm des christlichen Glaubens. Die apostolische Tradition in der Form der kirchlichen Verkündigung—das Formalprinzip des Katholizismus dargestellt im Geiste der Traditionslehre von Joh. Ev. Kuhn. Freiburg: Herder, 1959. Kaplan, Grant. Answering the Enlightenment: The Catholic Recovery of Historical Revelation. New York: Herder and Herder, 2006. Madges, William. The Core of Christian Faith: D. F. Strauss and His Catholic Critics. New York: Peter Lang, 1987. ———. “Johannes Kuhn: the Nature of Christian Doctrine and the Theological Task.” In Revisioning the Past, ed. Mary Potter Engel and Walter E. Wyman, 215–36. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992. Oelsmann, Markus. Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn: Vermittlung zwischen Philosophie und Theologie in Auseinandersetzung mit Aufklärung und Idealismus. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1997. Wolf, Hubert. Ketzer oder Kirchenlehrer? Der Tübinger Theologe Johannes von Kuhn (1806–1887) in den kirchenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen seiner Zeit. Mainz: Matthäus Grünewald, 1992.

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Selected Writings by Johannes Kuhn Das Leben Jesu, wissenschaftlich bearbeitet. Mainz: 1838. Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik. Tübingen: H. Laupp’schen, 1846; 2nd ed. 1859. Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Dreieinigkeit (Katholische Dogmatik II). Tübingen: 1857. Katholische Dogmatik. Tübingen: 1859–1862. Philosophie und Theologie: Eine Streitschrift. Tübingen, 1860. Die dogmatische Lehre von der Erkenntniss, den Eigenschaften und der Einheit Gottes. 2nd ed. Tübingen, 1862; reprint Frankfurt, 1968. Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade. Tübingen: H. Laupp’schen, 1868. Jacobi und die Philosophie seiner Zeit. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1967. Fries, Heinrich, ed. Johannes von Kuhn (Wegbereiter heutiger Theologie). Graz: Styria, 1973. (This selection contains parts of Kuhn’s work spanning his entire academic career.)

Selected Works by Tübingen Authors in English Drey, Johann Sebastian. Brief Introduction to the Study of Theology. Trans. Michael J. Himes. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994. ———. “Toward the Revision of the Present State of Theology.” In Romance and the Rock: Nineteenth-Century Catholics on Faith and Reason, ed. Joseph Fitzer, 60–73. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.

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Möhler, Johann Adam. The Spirit of Celibacy. Trans. Cyprian Blamires, ed. Dieter Hattrup. Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2007. ———. Symbolism: Exposition on the Doctrinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by Their Symbolic Writings. Trans. James Burton Robertson. New York: Crossroad, 1997. ———. Unity in the Church, or the Principle of Catholicism, Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries. Ed. and trans. Peter C. Erb. Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996.

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general index

Absolute dependence (Schleiermacher), 251–54 Absolute, the, 54, 82, 251–52, 268–73, 275 Adam, 66, 128, 208 Adam, Karl, 3, 5, 6 Alexandrians, 62, 67 Analogical predication, 43, 76, 239, 266–69, 274–75 Andlaw, Heinrich Freiherr von, 36, 277–79, 281–82, 284 Angels, 132, 144, 146 Anselm of Canterbury, Saint, 48, 49, 50, 51, 56, 69, 131. See also credo ut intelligam Anthropology, 14, 15, 28, 122, 128–30, 134, 136, 142 Anti-modernism, 2 Apologetics, 17, 21, 59, 67, 101, 251 Apostles, 74, 86–87, 98, 104–9, 150–55, 157–69, 176–78, 181, 187–89, 191–97, 200–204, 207– 8, 214, 216, 218–22, 227, 255–56, 260–61 Appointment (ecclesiastical), 27, 32, 34–35, 43, 208 Aquinas, Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas Aristotle, 72 Athanasius, Saint, 31 Aufhebung, 43, 47, 53, 63, 73, 79, 83, 117, 138, 139, 262 Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 37, 48–49, 56, 62, 76, 122, 126, 134–35, 139–40, 162–63, 197, 258, 270, 275

Augustinian, 8, 67, 128, 133, 138–39 Autonomy, 14, 70, 81, 103 Baader, Franz von, 2, 24 Bañez, Domingo, 143–45 Baptism, 154, 163, 191, 198, 219–22, 224, 263 Barnabas, Saint, 197 Barth, Karl, 101 Baur, Ferdinand Christian, 4, 15, 19, 23–24, 29, 93 Bautain, Louis, 2, 28, 29, 30, 39, 77 Bellarmine, Robert, 13, 14, 86, 108 Benedict XVI, Pope, 45 Bible, 17, 20, 92, 98–99, 152, 161–64, 168–74, 177–79, 181–84, 195–96, 201–2, 205–9, 257, 264. See also scripture Biel, Gabriel, 144 Bildung, 97, 166, 276, 279, 283 Bishop, 3, 31, 35, 38, 77, 135 Boethius, 270 Bossuet, Jacques, 23, 77 Calvinist, 127, 258. See also determinism; Predestinarian Catholicism: compared with Protestantism, 2, 10, 12, 17–19, 65, 91–92, 101, 158, 171, 189, 203, 205–7, 256, 258, 264, 277; and the Enlightenment, 6, 24, 84, 91, 118; and politics, 27–31, 277–78, 281, 284

291

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292  C   General Index Certainty, 29, 50, 56, 60–61, 67–69, 71, 169, 176, 178, 214, 249, 257, 268 Christianity: early, 86–88, 91, 99, 163, 192, 195, 214, 229, 243; essence of, 17–22, 67, 86–88, 160, 166, 178, 184, 205–6, 247, 252; Hegel on, 88–89; is historical, 12–13, 17–22, 82–83, 118–19, 150; and philosophy, 61–62, 76, 79, 80–81, 86, 94–95, 118, 170, 172, 247, 252; Schelling on, 12–13, 88, 91 Church Fathers, 15, 30, 38–39, 46, 49–50, 76, 131, 134, 151–52, 163–65, 180–82, 193, 197–198, 256–58, 289 Clemens, Franz Jakob, 35–36, 70, 73, 76, 77 Clement of Alexandria, 62, 106, 178 Clement of Rome, Saint, 193 Cognition, 47, 72–73, 76, 81, 214, 248–51 Cologne Affair, 27, 31 Community, 14, 16–18, 20, 23, 57, 64–66, 97, 99, 108, 126, 178, 191, 196, 216–17 Congar, Yves, 151, 255–56 Consciousness, 2, 11, 14, 25, 49–52, 55–64, 67–68, 81, 82, 86–98, 100–105, 109, 115, 132, 137, 156, 160, 165, 174–75, 184, 191, 195, 204–5, 230, 246–58, 267–68, 271–72, 280 Council of Chalcedon, 257 Council of Constantinople, 163, 257 Council of Ephesus, 198, 257 Council of Nicea, 163, 257 Council of Trent, 2, 122, 139, 147, 151–52, 162–3, 255, 282 Creation, 53–54, 102–4, 109–13, 126, 129, 132–33, 136–38, 144–46, 149, 191, 251 Credo quia absurdum, 45–46, 49–50. See also Tertullian Credo ut intelligam, 46, 50, 80, 265. See also Anselm of Canterbury, Saint Creed, 162, 191, 257 Critique, 12, 15, 17, 19, 26, 28, 32–33, 48, 84, 101, 212–14, 247, 266 Cyprian, Saint, 26, 163, 197–98, 263–64, 289 Dei Verbum, 151, 186, 212 Der Katholik, 26–28, 36, 48–49, 73, 76–77 Descartes, Rene, 25, 71, 82 Determinism, 136, 138. See also Calvinist; Predestinarian Dialectic, 16, 23–24, 32, 85, 100, 142, 258

Divine persons, 65, 110, 115, 273. See also Trinity Divinity, 65, 86, 94, 109, 152, 203 Divino Afflante Spiritu, 212 Docetist, 193 Dogmatics, 8, 26, 35, 67, 100, 250, 257, 259, 264 Döllinger, Ignaz von, 2, 27, 34, 38, 81, 209 Doubt, 6, 11–12, 15, 29, 56, 59, 69, 71, 76, 98, 122, 131, 157, 166, 169, 176, 179, 189–90, 195– 96, 199, 202, 220, 228–29, 235, 242, 248, 282 Drey, Johann Sebastian, 4–5, 8–13, 16–24, 29, 33–34, 39, 246, 287–88 Duns Scotus, 144 Ecclesiology, 3, 13–16, 28, 57, 167 Egoism, 133, 136 Elijah, 235 Enlightenment, 6, 8, 11–15, 21, 24, 27, 32, 34, 37–38, 45, 54, 84, 87, 91, 93, 118, 288 Essence, 5–8, 14–18, 21, 47, 52, 56, 59–60, 66–67, 77, 85, 91–96, 102, 104, 108–16, 121, 125, 129–32, 136–41, 148, 159, 164, 166, 175, 186, 217–18, 222, 224, 226, 229, 235, 247, 251–56, 264, 267, 270–74 Evil, 113, 123–26, 136–38, 140, 143, 224, 253, 285 Exegesis, 18, 27, 91, 251 Existence, 14–15, 64, 75, 89, 102–4, 120, 123, 128–29, 132, 192, 241, 259, 262, 276 Faith: and the believing community, 13, 18, 22, 57, 64–68, 161, 163, 165, 177–80, 190–92, 210; the Catholic, 19, 49, 51, 56–57, 90, 100, 131, 152, 164, 166, 198–99, 282; confession of, 156–57, 163, 180, 199, 257, 282, 283; content of, 62, 68, 102, 166, 181, 247–48, 275; defense of, 29, 31–32, 40, 67, 80, 172, 181, 217; definition of, 46, 102, 151; demonstration of, 217–18, 220–23, 227–28, 237–40, 244; a gift of grace, 39, 59–60, 68, 80, 136, 207, 211; and Greek wisdom, 62–63; grounding or source of, 26, 51, 59–60, 66–67, 86, 104, 130, 152, 156, 159–64, 169–71, 173, 175, 179, 183, 200, 202, 219, 261, 263–64; and philosophy, 70, 73–74, 76, 80; posi­tive, 22–23, 51–52, 55, 63, 133; rational or natural, 51–53, 63, 80; and reason, 25, 28, 30, 36, 39, 42, 45–51, 70, 79, 83, 118, 131, 137,

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General Index  C   293

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246, 267–68, 275; rule of, 156–59, 163–65, 180, 192, 196; scholastic understanding of, 49–50, 58–59; science of, 57–59, 67, 100, 264; in the Trinity, 55–56 Fall, vii, 106, 110, 112, 114, 129, 140 Father, 65–66, 77, 80, 104, 109, 115, 117, 178, 194, 207–10, 216–18, 232, 257, 267 Febronian, 3, 28 Feilmoser, Andreas Benedikt, 9 Fenelon, Francois, 77 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 247, 252 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 16, 33, 51, 52, 266, 268 Fides quarens intellectum, 79, 131, 265 First Vatican Council, 31, 37 Foreknowledge, 112. See also Providence Formula of Concord, 161, 180–81, 200 Freedom, 112, 119, 122–24, 126, 135–40, 146, 187, 242, 258, 275, 282–83 Free will, 123–24, 132, 134–41, 145–49 Fries, Heinrich, 7, 8, 34–35, 41, 44, 288 Geiselmann, Joseph Rupert, 5–7, 17, 32, 209, 255–56, 287–88 Geist, 17, 22, 42, 54, 57, 78, 85, 109, 128, 175, 274 Gentile, 109–11, 131, 141, 154, 217, 240, 242, 244 Gnosis, 22, 62, 156 Gnostic, 19, 68 Gnosticism, 19, 183 God-man, 64. See also Jesus Christ; Logos; Lord; Messiah; Savior; Son Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 58 Good, 34, 62, 111, 113, 123–26, 135–43, 145–49, 178, 187, 200, 222, 253, 278 Gospel, 60, 85, 98, 116–17, 152–56, 158–60, 167– 69, 171, 175–77, 184–87, 190, 206–45, 277 Grace, 36–39, 59, 60, 61–64, 68, 80, 90, 104, 107, 110–16, 122, 123–49, 154–55, 178, 205–6, 258, 268, 278 Greek, 44, 62, 66, 99, 190, 201, 221–22, 225, 237 Günther, Anton, 2, 35 Habituation, 113, 138–39, 145, 148, 235 Hefele, Karl Josef, 5, 31, 34, 38 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 4, 21–25, 32–33, 42–43, 45, 51–52, 54, 64, 88–89, 97 Hegelian, 24–26, 30–32, 43, 52–54, 64, 89, 93, 97, 252

Heresy, 19–20, 30, 163, 180–81, 192, 260 Hermeneutics, 3, 84, 150, 212, 237–38, 240 Hermes, Georg, 2, 27–30, 35, 39, 50 Hermesian, 8, 9, 27–31 Heterodoxy, 28, 37, 48 Hinze, Bradford, viii, 7–8, 11–12, 19, 33–34, 287 Hippolytus of Rome, 165–66 Hirscher, Johann Baptist, 5, 8–9, 24, 31–35 Historian, 9, 121, 230 Historical-critical method, 27 History, 8–13, 16–23, 26–27, 51, 58, 61, 88–89, 118–21, 155, 169, 172, 178, 182, 183, 213–39, 242–45, 251, 259–60, 279 Holy Spirit, 10, 16–19, 22–23, 42, 59–60, 66, 86, 107–9, 147, 151, 154, 158, 160, 168–79, 181–84, 188–92, 199, 202–8, 211, 216, 217, 224 Hugh of St. Victor, 69, 144 Human being, 16, 41–42, 95–96, 113, 120, 129–39, 141–49, 203 Humanity, 46, 54–55, 61, 65–68, 74, 86–89, 94–97, 103, 106, 108–17, 121, 126–30, 132–41, 145, 148–51, 160, 166–67, 179, 196, 203, 209, 251–52, 275, 276 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 121 Hünermann, Peter, viii, 5, 8, 29 Ideal, 16, 24, 54, 85, 115, 120, 265 Idealism, 2, 16, 19, 25, 43, 51–52, 120, 246 Ignatius of Antioch, Saint, 193 Immanence, 50–51, 63, 82, 242, 252 Immortality, 110 Incarnation, 20–21, 64, 110, 209 Indeterminism, 136, 137, 138. See also Pelagianism Index, v, 28, 212 Individuality, 14, 55–57, 64–66, 97, 121, 167, 217, 270–72 Inspiration, 19, 44, 86, 93, 98, 105–8, 135, 154, 158, 172, 181, 203, 205, 217 Intellect, 73, 132, 134 Intuition, 11, 16, 40, 53, 274–75 Irenaeus of Lyons, Saint, 19, 87, 150, 158, 163– 64, 177–78, 183, 189–95, 205–6, 256–57 Irrationality, 39, 45 Israel, 109, 111, 216, 228, 233, 240

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Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 25, 27, 32, 51, 55, 68, 272–73, 288 Jansenist, 126 James, Saint, 159 Jehovah, 273 Jerusalem, 46, 154, 162, 168, 216, 219 Jesus Christ: apostolic presentation of, 150, 155–56, 159–61, 194, 216–17, 220, 230, 235– 36; death and resurrection of, 117, 216–20, 234, 239, 241, 245; historical life of, 20, 21, 26, 29–30, 48, 88, 150, 155, 214, 216, 219–24, 226, 228–30, 232, 235, 238–39, 243–44; the Messiah, 110, 215, 219–26, 228, 231–39 and Moses 230–34; personal teaching of, 84, 87, 98, 105, 155, 161, 220, 222, 225, 228, 232, 237; the Son of God, 109, 114–15, 223. See also God-man; Logos; Lord; Messiah; Savior; Son Jew, 43, 66, 86–87, 109–10, 116, 153–55, 168, 216–17, 229, 231–35, 238, 239, 240, 241 John Paul II, Pope, 45 John the Baptist, Saint, 219–23, 225, 229, 235 John the Evangelist, Saint, 62, 155, 193, 207, 219–25, 227–28, 241–42, Judaism, 62, 86, 192, 217, 235 Justification, 3, 64, 129, 147–48, 183, 218, 234 Justin Martyr, Saint, 244

Light, 40–41, 46, 56, 62, 67, 87, 102, 111, 115, 119, 131, 136, 145, 162, 165, 172, 191, 197–98, 203, 213–17, 223, 226, 227, 241, 247, 263, 266, 274 Logos, 62, 74, 115, 150–155, 214, 224–225. See also God-man; Jesus Christ; Lord; Messiah; Savior; Son Lord, 62, 80, 105–7, 147, 155–56, 160, 174–80, 187, 189, 193–94, 201, 208, 215–20, 233, 241. See also God-man; Jesus Christ; Logos; Messiah; Savior; Son Luke the Evangelist, Saint, 155, 214–18, 221–24, 227–28 Lutheranism, 11, 18, 25, 93, 106, 172–75, 180, 188. See also Protes­tantism Luther, Martin, 2, 17, 20, 131, 172–73

Kant, Immanuel, 2, 21, 43–45, 82, 120, 122, 273, 275 Kasper, Walter, 5 Kerygma, 213–19, 228, 244, 245. See also Proclamation Knowledge, 2, 12–15, 18, 23, 40, 42–45, 48–49, 53–63, 68–85, 89, 94–99, 103, 105–11, 115, 133, 141, 152, 159–60, 164, 169, 172–73, 176, 184–91, 194–96, 199–200, 205, 213–14, 248–53, 260, 264–69, 273–76, 279, 281 Kraus, Franz Xaver, 29, 37 Kustermann, Abraham Peter, 6, 8

Magisterium, 107, 168, 179, 188–89, 199–202, 205 Manichaeism, 49, 86, 138 Manichean, 49, 137, 138 Mark the Evangelist, Saint, 218, 221–24, 227 Marx, Karl, 34 Matthew, Saint, 155, 221–22, 227, 233 Melanchthon, Philipp, 182 Messiah, 110, 217, 221–25, 228–31, 234–38, 240–42. See also God-man; Jesus Christ; Logos; Lord; Savior; Son Metaphysics, 59, 72–73 Mind, 1, 13, 33, 38, 42, 54, 57, 61–62, 71, 74, 78–80, 85, 102–5, 108, 111–15, 145, 189, 200, 213, 217, 248, 264–66, 274–78 Mission, 21, 103, 152–54, 220, 233–34 Modernism, 2, 6 Möhler, Johann Adam, 5, 9–10, 13–20, 23–30, 33–34, 39–40, 50, 57, 150, 152, 188, 209, 246, 287–89 Morality, 92, 118–20, 151–52 Moses, 109, 115, 152–53, 228, 231–34, 237 Multer, Johann Christian, 5 Muslims, 98 Mysticism, 149

Latin, 19, 43–44, 49, 128, 151, 158, 172, 180, 197–200, 221, 256, 258, 275 Law, 116–17, 154 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 21, 78, 86–87, 215, 230–31

Nature: of Christ, 86, 113–14, 215, 270; of development, 23, 82; of God, 14, 148–49, 273, 275; and grace, 39, 60–64, 106, 126–31, 134–35, 145–46; human, 63, 94, 104, 109–14, 130–49, 250, 272; realm of, 39, 82,

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General Index  C   295

102, 104, 106, 119, 120, 123, 141–42; of the Tübingen school, 5, 24 Neander, Johann August Wilhelm, 172, 183–84, 188–89, 205 Neologists, 86 Neo-Protestant, 92 Neo-scholasticism, v, 30, 36, 70, 127–49, 277 Neo-Thomism, 37, 300 Newman, John Henry, 2, 23, 186 New Testament, 9, 25–29, 43, 85–86, 108, 115, 150–53, 155, 157–62, 165, 168, 208, 212, 221, 225, 232–38, 241–43 Nihilism, 52, 54, 269 Nominalist, 270, 272 Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), 11, 15–18

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Object, 51–54, 63, 75, 82, 119, 135, 149–51, 206, 213–15, 265, 275 Objectivity, 51–53, 57–58, 100, 169, 172, 176, 181–82, 185, 203–4, 265 Old-Protestant, 91–92 Old Testament, 26, 85, 89, 105, 116–17, 152–54, 161–62, 208, 215, 218, 223, 225, 227–37, 239–43, 261 Origen, 178, 200 Orthodoxy, 2, 11, 29–30, 38, 172, 176, 204, 258 Pantheism, 54–55, 72, 75, 148–49, 252–53, 268–71, 275 Papal infallibility, 38 Papias, 193 Paraclete, 86, 172, 176, 208 Paradosis, 22 Parousia, 234 Paul the Apostle, Saint, 6, 25, 45, 60, 62, 105, 156–61, 172, 180, 197, 201, 215–20, 237, 240–45 Pedagogy, 279–82 Pelagianism, 39, 122–26, 133–38 Pelagius, 135–37, 140, 257 Pentecost, 107, 154, 217 Perception, 53, 67, 80, 115, 215, 231, 242 Peter, Saint, 104, 158–59, 207–08, 216–21, 234, 240, 243 Philosophy, 2, 12, 16, 21–22, 25–29, 32, 35–36, 39–42, 46–47, 51–55, 58–67, 70–83, 97, 118–20, 170, 198, 209, 249–53, 278, 283

Pietism, 18, 25 Plato, 62 Platonism, 23, 170 Polemics, 17, 19, 21, 26, 29, 30, 92, 101, 171, 184 Politics, 2–3, 8–9, 29–30, 34–35, 38, 40, 283–84 Polycarp of Smyrna, Saint, 193–94, 197 Polytheism, 109–10 Power, 15–16, 40, 56, 59–61, 69, 72, 77, 80, 98, 102, 107–17, 123, 132, 135, 149, 173, 175, 190–91, 198, 207, 225, 272, 276, 281–83 Preaching, 153–56, 160, 191, 208–10, 215, 218, 228 Predestinarian, 122–126. See also Calvinist; indeterminism Proclamation, 15, 107–8, 114, 150, 155–63, 166–70, 177, 188–94, 200, 208, 214–20, 223, 237, 244–45, 257. See also kerygma Prophet, 74, 86, 103–10, 115–16, 151–53, 169, 172, 176, 181, 201–4, 237--40 Protestantism, 2–4, 10–13, 17–20, 25–34, 39– 40, 65, 84, 91–92, 101, 106, 150, 156–58, 161, 170–73, 176–89, 199, 202–7, 210, 214, 225, 243, 246, 249, 252–56, 264–65, 277, 281–85, 289. See also Lutheranism Protestant principle, 19–20, 206–7. See also Scriptural principle; Sola scriptura Protestant Reformation, 10, 13, 19, 91, 106, 184, 205. See also Re­formers Providence, 102–103, 112, 157–158, 188, 239. See also Foreknowl­edge Qur’an, 98 Rahner, Karl, 7, 266 Rationalism, 7–10, 25–30, 39, 50, 74, 79, 86– 96, 110, 137, 169, 170–72, 188, 205, 243 Rationality, 14, 51, 73–76, 79, 138, 232 Rational understanding, 42, 46–53, 57–61, 96, 267 Realism, 52 Reason, 21, 25, 30, 36, 39, 45–46, 50–51, 55–57, 60, 67–83, 86, 87–92, 95–100, 109, 112, 118, 125–37, 140–48, 156, 168–79, 182, 184, 198–204, 213, 221, 227, 231, 242, 246, 249, 267–70, 275, 279, 284–85 Reformers, 174, 183–85, 202, 258 Reinhardt, Rudolf, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 31, 287

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296  C   General Index

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Religion, 1–2, 11–17, 45, 48, 62–63, 73, 82, 86–92, 99, 119–20, 158, 170, 192, 198–99, 213, 218, 229, 247–54, 274–76 Representation, 16, 21, 45, 53, 93, 97–99, 102, 222, 270, 283 Ressoursement, 22 Restoration, 110, 113, 128–29, 284 Revelation: central to Kuhn, 38; since the Council of Trent, 255; divine 62, 72, 74, 78–79, 85–86, 90, 98, 102–6, 109, 110–15, 151, 153, 169, 170, 176, 196, 200, 203–4, 282; historical, 20, 23, 32, 62, 66, 70, 79, 85, 89, 90, 96, 97, 102, 114, 118, 150; immediate, 71, 74–75, 78, 79, 170; natural, 103, 109, 110; original, 92, 103, 109, 113, 200; and philosophy, 72, 74–79, 81–84, 86, 89, 92, 95, 98, 106, 108; positive, 20; Schelling on, 32; supernatural, 73–74, 80, 106, 109–10, 268; as a whole or complete, 15, 62, 66, 86, 94, 96, 103, 105, 116, 199 Romantic 2, 11–16, 19, 21, 24, 287 Roscellinus, 50 Sailer, Johann Michael, 24 Salvation, 19–21, 48, 60, 66–68, 86, 108–10, 114, 119, 126, 147–51, 158, 177, 186–88, 194, 205–6, 209–11, 223, 226, 242 Savior, 65, 76, 129, 216, 234. See also God-man; Jesus Christ; Logos; Lord; Messiah; Son Schäzler, Constantin von, 36–37, 127, 134–35 Scheeben, Matthias, 2, 34, 37 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 2–4, 10–13, 16–17, 21, 24–25, 29, 32–33, 39, 54, 85, 88–93, 118, 266, 287 Schism, 19, 193, 248 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst, 2–3, 10–16, 30, 31, 45, 56, 65–66, 175, 205, 214, 225, 246–54, 287 Scholasticism, 2, 6, 10–17, 22–25, 30, 36–39, 49–51, 56–58, 70, 101, 127–29, 139–40, 144, 147–48, 167, 257, 277 Schweitzer, Albert, 26, 212 Science, 1, 12–13, 16, 18, 31, 40–42, 48, 52, 55–63, 67, 71–77, 97–100, 121, 152, 168, 213, 264–65, 277–83 Scriptural principle, 150, 157–59, 166, 264. See also Protestant prin­ciple; sola scriptura

Scripture, 8–12, 18–22, 44, 50, 57, 66, 87–93, 97–101, 106, 119, 131, 216, 223, 228, 231, 237–39, 243, 255–56, 259–65 Seckler, Max, 5 Second Vatican Council, 2, 151, 167, 255 Self-consciousness, 25, 55, 104–5, 132, 175, 247–53, 267 Septuagint, 235, 240 Sermon on the Mount, 233 Sin, 64–66, 85–86, 112–17, 128–31, 134–35, 138–42, 147, 179, 208, 279 Smalcald Articles, 172, 202, 206 Socrates, 62 Sola scriptura, 20. See also Protestant principle; Scriptural principle Son, 20–21, 76, 103–4, 109–17, 151–56, 177, 208–9, 223. See also God-man; Jesus Christ; Logos; Lord; Messiah; Savior Soul, 76, 105–6, 113, 132–34, 140–41, 191, 276 Spinozism, 11 Staudenmaier, Franz Anton, 5, 26, 86, 108 Stephen, Saint, 234, 263 Strauss, David Friedrich, v, 26, 29–32, 35, 40, 65, 86–88, 94, 97, 212–13, 224, 229–36, 266–72, 275, 288 Subject, 2–3, 14, 18, 32, 38, 42, 64, 75, 82, 90, 102, 105, 112–14, 119, 134, 139, 144–46, 173, 179, 182, 187–88, 205, 218, 226, 229, 244, 248–50, 256, 265, 283 Subjectivity, 57, 192, 198, 283 Subsistence, 132 Substance, 92, 132–35, 140–42, 146–48, 155, 229, 258–59, 270–71 Supernatural, 37–39, 52, 58–62, 67–69, 73–74, 77, 80, 103, 106, 109–12, 127–30, 133–43, 146–49, 157, 172–75, 204, 225, 266–68, 277 Supernaturalism, 62–67, 92, 110, 130 Synod of Orange, 257 Synthesis, 7, 23, 249 Teaching, viii, 27, 38, 74, 78–81, 86–87, 95, 104, 108–10, 137–40, 144–45, 149, 152–64, 167–89, 192–97, 200–201, 211, 214–17, 225, 228–29, 256–64, 281–82 Tertullian, 45–46, 49, 163, 164, 165, 178, 197, 260. See also Credo quia absurdum Theologian, 1–10, 15, 23–24, 30–34, 37–40,

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General Index  C   297

47–50, 56–57, 64, 68–69, 77, 93, 128–35, 139–44, 149, 178, 188, 213–14, 225, 249, 254–59, 265, 278, 287 Theological Quarterly (Theologische Quartalschrift), 4–7, 10, 22, 25–32, 36, 93, 118, 127 Theology: Catholic, 10, 29, 31, 40, 55, 150, 186, 212, 255, 283; of doctrinal development, 2, 3, 8, 10, 14, 18, 21–24, 34, 45, 51, 54–55, 78, 82, 84–85, 89, 90–96, 99, 103, 119, 186, 218, 226, 242–243, 252, 259–260; dogmatic, 8, 95, 101, 130–31, 212, 251, 261, 264–65; fundamental, 30, 36, 70, 101, 251; historical, 12, 251; Kuhn’s 32, 33–34, 38, 40, 42, 101, 134, 266–67, 276–77; and philosophy, 27, 35–36, 42, 46–47, 55, 57–61, 67, 71–77, 79, 81, 249, 251; Protestant, 10, 33, 39–40, 173, 246–47, 249, 252, 264, 282; scholastic, 13, 56–59, 129, 139; Tübingen, 3, 5, 7–9, 12, 13, 15, 17–18, 20, 24, 34, 255 Theophilus, 155, 214, 244 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 2, 30, 34–37, 56, 59–60, 69, 122, 129, 130–34, 139–46, 256, 287 Thomism, 2, 37, 128–29, 143–47 Timothy, Saint, 90, 172, 197, 215 Tongues, 106, 154 tradition, 7, 10–12, 18–23, 33, 39, 50, 57, 71, 101, 131, 150–202, 205, 210, 230, 241, 255–265, 287, 288 Traditionalism, 110 Trinity, 35, 42, 49, 55–56, 86, 101, 267–70, 274

Tübingen School, viii, 1–9, 12–15, 19, 23–24, 31–35, 50, 186, 255, 287 Twesten, August, 106, 180, 188–90, 194–95, 198–200, 205–6, 264 Union, 66–68, 75, 111, 126, 172, 176, 206–11 Unity, 12, 15–16, 19, 47, 55, 60–68, 75, 83, 90–101, 110–15, 138, 148, 161, 177–79, 187, 191, 206, 210, 247, 250, 264, 271–73 Universalism, 21, 67 University, 3–5, 12, 17, 32, 36, 94, 277–86 Vincent of Lerins, Saint, 90–92, 150, 165–66, 179, 192, 197–98, 260 Virtue, 79, 136, 140–45, 148, 187 Volkmuth, Peter, 30, 31 Wessenberg, Heinrich von, 6 Wisdom, 40, 48, 60, 62, 66, 92, 107–9, 183, 249–51 Wissen, 28, 30, 42–43, 46, 72, 94–97, 152, 248 Wissenschaft, 17, 36, 42, 67, 72–73, 87, 278, 281 Witness, 18, 29, 61, 79, 154–56, 167–68, 178, 181, 187, 190–93, 199–201, 207, 214, 217–22, 225, 235, 238, 263 Word of God, 160–61, 169–74, 181–83, 196, 200–206, 210 World, 2–4, 7, 52–54, 66, 77, 82, 97, 102–4, 109–10, 119–23, 126, 154, 166–67, 176–77, 191, 199, 204, 212, 226, 242, 247–52

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i n d e x o f b i b l i c a l c i ta t i o n s

Old Testament Genesis 1.27: 102 Exodus 31.2: 90 33.20: 115

Deuteronomy 9.18: 232n 18.15: 232, 233, 234 18.19ff: 234 1 Kings 19.8: 232n

2 Kings 1.8: 235 Psalms 16.10–11: 216 22.18: 240 41.10: 239 50: 114

Isaiah 6.10: 241 53.1: 241 57.13: 240 58: 114 59.20: 240 60: 114 Malachi 3.1: 223

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New Testament Matthew 3.2: 218 3.4ff: 235 4.2: 232n 4.23: 153 5.1ff: 153 5.17: 153 5.17–18: 115 5.17ff: 218 7.29: 225 10.5: 104 11.1–3: 235 11.4: 235 11.9: 235 11.18: 235 11.27: 104 13.11: 153

16.16ff: 207 16.17: 104 16.18: 108 18.18: 207 18.20: 108, 154 26.48: 225 28.18ff: 154 28.19: 209 28.20: 108

1.4: 214, 238 2.11: 218 4.32: 225 10.16: 177 10.22: 104 22.32: 208 24.18: 217 24.19: 217, 225, 238 24.25–27: 228 24.25ff: 153 24.26: 239 24.27: 153, 237 24.45: 153 36: 225

Mark 1.2: 223 Luke 1.1: 214 1.2: 86n, 154 1.3: 221

John 1.4: 103 1.9: 115 1.12: 116 1.14: 104, 109, 218 1.17: 102, 115 1.18: 104, 115 2.11: 226 2.18: 225 3.16: 109, 116 4.9: 109 4.22: 109 5.39: 153 5.45ff: 153 5.46: 232 5.46–47: 228 6.1ff: 232

299

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300  C   Index of Biblical Citations John (cont.) 6.14: 233 6.30: 225 6.44: 208 6.46: 104 8.31: 153 10: 177 10.30: 104, 115 12.37–40: 241 12.45: 104 13.18: 239 14.6: 86, 208 14.16: 109, 158, 208 14.16ff: 154 14.18: 208 14.26: 107, 109, 154 15.15: 107 15.27: 218 16.12: 107 16.12–13: 107 16.13–14: 86 16.29: 107 17.3: 48 17.8–9: 208 17.11: 180 17.12: 239 17.18: 104 17.21: 180 17.21–23: 65 20.22: 154 20.29: 68 20.30: 225 20.31: 156, 215, 226 21.15ff: 207 21.24: 218 Acts 1.8: 154 1.16: 239 1.21–22: 219, 220 1.22: 220 2: 107, 154, 211 2.14–36: 216 2.16ff: 153 2.22: 225 2.22ff: 110 2.25ff: 153

2.28–39: 217 2.32: 219 2.37: 154, 217 2.41: 154 2.42: 154 3.13ff: 234 3.15: 219 3.18ff: 234 3.22: 232, 233, 234 3.24: 234 4.12: 86 4.20: 219 4.29: 216 5.32: 219 6.3–4: 154 7.37: 232, 233, 234 9.2: 105 10: 217n 10.34–43: 218n 10.37ff: 219 13.16–41: 218n 13.16ff: 153 13.31–32: 220 14: 245 14.15: 110 14.16: 102 15: 154 15.12: 225 15.28: 200 17: 245 17.11: 153 17.22ff: 110 17.26–27: 102 17.30: 117 22.15: 220 25.23: 115 26.23: 239 28.23: 153 Romans 1.10ff: 155 1.16: 109, 116 1.16ff: 60 1.18: 111 1.19–20: 102 1.20: 109 1.21: 111

2.13: 116 2.14–15: 109 3.31: 117 4.11: 225 4.14: 116 5.5: 15 5.8: 117 5.10: 117 5.12: 66 5.20: 116 6.3ff: 210 7: 179 7.12: 116 7.13: 116 7.14: 116 7.24: 113 8.3: 116 8.31ff: 109 8.32: 117 10.4: 115, 117 10.5: 116 10.13–17: 160 10.14: 166 11.25–27: 240,   242 16.17: 196 16.25: 109 1 Corinthians 1.10: 180 1.17: 60 1.17ff: 60 1.30: 62, 48, 109 2.2: 196 2.4: 107 2.4–5: 60 2.6: 60 2.6–7: 107 2.7: 109 2.9: 109 2.9–10: 107 2.13: 107 2.13ff: 60 2.15–16: 62 2.20: 109 3.1ff: 90 3.11: 86

4.1: 196 11.2: 196 11.12: 156 11.19: 164n 11.23: 105 13.12: 176 14.22: 225 15.8: 220 15.14ff: 219 2 Corinthians 1.12: 109 2.11: 114 3.15ff: 153 4.5: 196 5.11ff: 117 11.4: 196 12.1ff: 105 Galatians 1.12: 105 1.12–16: 220 3.10: 116 3.12: 116 3.19: 116 3.24: 114 3.27: 210 4.3ff: 114 4.4: 109 Ephesians 1.4ff: 107 1.4–5: 109 2.8: 68 2.20: 86n, 108n 3.5: 109 4.3–4: 178 4.4–6: 180 4.13: 90 4.13ff: 86 4.24: 109, 112 Philippians 1.27: 196 2.7–11: 117

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Index of Biblical Citations  C   301

Colossians 1.10–11: 90 1.26: 109 2.2: 109 2.7ff: 196 2.8: 114 2.8b: 114 2.9: 104, 115, 116

2 Timothy 1.9–10: 109 1.12: 197 1.13ff: 156 1.14: 197 2.15: 156 4.5: 215 4.17: 215

2 Thessalonians 2.15: 196

Titus 1.3: 155 1.9: 156 1.14: 243 2.1: 156 2.15: 156 3.3–7: 109 3.8ff: 156

James 1.17: 267 2 Peter 1.4: 109, 113, 148 1.16: 243 1.18–20: 238n 1.19a: 238n

1.20–21: 204 1.21: 240 3.16: 164 3.18: 90 1 John 1.1–3: 104, 105 1.1ff: 220 1.3: 156 2.2: 117 4.9: 109 5.4–5: 166 Revelation 1.2: 220

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1 Timothy 1.2: 197 1.4: 243 1.18: 156 6.16: 102 6.20: 154, 156,   196, 197

Hebrews 1.1: 103, 109, 114,   204 2.9: 114 2.14–15: 114 8.6: 114 8.10: 109 9.15: 117 11.1: 169 11.13: 153

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C Faithfully Seeking Understanding:Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn was designed and typeset in Arno Pro by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 60-pound House Natural Smooth and bound by Sheridan Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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