Nineteenth Religious Tought in The West [1] 978-0521228312

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NINETEENTH CENTURY RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN THE WEST

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NINETEENTH CENTURY RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN THE WEST

VOLUME I Editorial introduction I

IMMANUEL KANT

Emil L. Fackenheim, The University of Toronto 2 J. G. FICHTE AND F. W. J. SCHELLING J. Heywood Thomas, The University of Nottingham 3 GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL Peter C. Hodgson, Vanderbilt University 4 FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER B. A. Gerrish, The University of Chicago

5

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Richard Taylor, The University of Rochester 6 spREN KIERKEGAARD Alastair McKinnon, McGill University 7 DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS Hans Freí, Yate University

8

FERDINAND CHRISTIAN BAUR

Robert Morgan, Linacre College, Oxford 9

LUDWIG FEUERBACH AND KARL MARX

Van A. Harvey, Stanford University VOLUME // I

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Claude Welch, The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley 2

RALPH WALDO EMERSON AND THE AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISTS

Sydney E. Ahlstrom, Yale University

3

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND THE TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT

J. M. Cameron, The University of Toronto 4 DREY ,MOHLER AND THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL OF TÜBINGEN James Tunstead Burtchaell, C.S.C., The University of Notre Dame 5

ROMAN CATHOLIC MODERNISM

Bernard M. G. Reardon, The University of Newcastle 6 RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT George L. Kline, Bryn Mawr College 7 BRITISH AGNOSTICISM James C. Livingston, The College of William and Mary

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8 THE BRITISH IDEALISTS H. D. Lewis, King's College, University of London 9 WILLIAM JAMES ANO JOSIAH ROYCE John E. Smith, Yate University VOLUME III RELIGION ANO SCIENCE

John Kent, The University of Bristol 2

FRIEORICH NIETZSCHE

Car! Heinz Ratschow, The University of Marburg 3

JEWISH THOUGHT

Nathan Rotenstreich, The Hebrew University ofJerusalem 4 THE STUOY OF THE OLO TEST AMENT R. E. Oements, King's College, University of London 5

THE STUOY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

J.

C. O'Neill, Westminster College, Cambridge

6

FRIEORICH MAX MÜLLER ANO THE COMPARATIVE STUOY OF RELIGION

7

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION: BRITISH ANO FRENCH SCHOOLS

Joseph M. Kitagawa and John S. Strong, The University of C1iicago Sir Edmund Leach, F.B.A., King's College, Cambridge

8

MAX WEBER ANO GERMAN SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Roland Robertson, University of Pittsburgh 9 ERNST TROEL TSCH Trutz Rendtorff and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, The University of Munich

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NINETEENTH CENTURY RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN THE

WEST VOLUME I Edited by NINIAN SMART, JOHN CLAYTON STE VEN KATZ and P A TRI CK SHERR Y

The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sel/

ali manner of hooks was granted by Henry VIII in 153.f. The Universify has printed and published continuously since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge New York New Rochelle Melbourne Sydney

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melboume, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/978052 l 2283 l 2 © Cambridge University Press 1985

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions ofrelevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1985 First paperback edition 1988 Re-issued in this digitally printed version 2008 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library o/Congress Catalogue Card Number: 84-14207 ISBN 978-0-521-22831-2 hardback (Volume I) ISBN 978-0-521-35964-1 paperback (Volume I) ISBN 978-0-521-22832-9 hardback (Volume 11) ISBN 978-0-521-35965-8 paperback (Volume 11) ISBN 978-0-521-30114-5 hardback (Volume III) ISBN 978-0-521-35966-5 paperback (Volume III) ISBN 978-0-521-32764-0 hardback (Set) ISBN 978-0-521-35967-2 paperback (Set)

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CONTENTS

VOLUME 1 page 1

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

17

IMMANUEL KANT

Emil L. Fackenheim, The University of Toronto

2 J.

J. 3

G. FICHTE AND F. W. J. SCHELLING Heywood Thomas, The University of Nottingham

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

41 81

Peter C. Hodgson, Vanderbilt University 4

123

FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER

B. A. Gerrish, The University of Chicago 5

157

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Richard Taylor, The University of Rochester

6

181

SflREN KIERKEGAARD

Alastair McKinnon, McGill University

7

215

DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS

Hans Freí, Ya/e University

8

261

FERDINAND CHRISTIAN BAUR

Robert Morgan, Linacre College, Oxford

9

LUDWIG FEUERBACH AND KARL MARX

291

Van A. Harvey, Stanford University

329

INDEX

Vll

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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

On both sides of the Atlantic and on both sides of the Channel, there has been in recent years a renewed interest in nineteenth-century religious thought. Reasons for this by now widespread revival of interest need not be rehearsed. lt is perhaps sufficient to recall that several issues which dominated discussion in the decades following the European Enlightenment remain central in contemporary debate within the academic study of religion and within the theological community, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic or Jewish. In order to make this point, one need only call to mind such recently debated issues as hermeneutics and tradition, faith and history, projectionist and other reductionist accounts of religion, the limits of historical relativism and the nature ofrationality, the possibility of a purely 'scientific' study of religion and the legitimacy of theological studies within the university, as well as such religiously intramural concerns as the place of myth in christology or the nature of Jewishness. Each of these problems was either initially raised or significantly recast during the nineteenth century. Whilst taking care not to underestimate the distance between their world and our own, one must nonetheless allow that greater understanding of these and other contemporary issues can often be gained by attending to those thinkers who in the main ha ve determined the direction of modern religious thought in the West. Theirs was a revolutionary time when the older theistic world-view, airead y under attack since the Renaissance and throughout the Enlightenment, gave way to a new, more variegated, more complex circumstance for religious thought. Under the pressure first of Kant's radical break with traditional metaphysics and of his attempt to develop a theology centred in morality, followed by Schleiermacher's efforts to generate theology from reflection on the religious self-consciousness alone, and then by Hegel's response in the direction of an absolute Idealism centred in the world-historical process whereby spirit becomes conscious of itself as

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Editorial introduction

spirit, the nineteenth century in the West became a laboratory of fresh ideas and new hermeneutical techniques in religious thought. Whether one sees these developments as monuments to human genius or regards them with Karl Barth as perverse deviations from the theologian's proper task, there is no denying the extent to which even contemporary religious thought bears the mark of their influence. Whatever may obtain elsewhere, twentiethcentury religious thought is very much the child of the nineteenth. The nineteenth century tells no single story; nor can it be done justice by a single story teller. lts more successful narrators in recent years have almost without exception confined themselves to a single religious or national tradition, such as French Catholicism; or to a single school or movement, such as Romanticism; orto a single issue, such as historicism. E ven though no single story is told in the religious thought of the nineteenth century, the individual story-lines do intertwine in various ways, such that none in isolation tells the whole story. Successful wider-ranging studies there most surely have been, but it would be unreasonable nonetheless to expect a single scholar to give an adequate account of the main developments in Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish religious thought, together with the leading options available within the philosophy of religion and the emergence of the various branches of the academic study of religion. In order for such an account to be convincing, a team of scholars would almost certainly be required. Twenty-nine scholars from five countries ha ve collaborated in an attempt to trace in three volumes the course taken in the nineteenth century by religious thought and its critique in the West. The volumes are not intended to be an anthology of articles merely summarizing historical and exegetical details; they are in tended, rather, to engage the thinkers covered in a rigorous manner in order to see what they said and why they said it, and also to explore what is of lasting value in their work. lt is hoped that contributions to Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West will be found sufficiently clear to be of use to students of religion, theology and cognate subjects, but also to ha ve enough depth to be of more than introductory value. The short bibliographical essays appended to each contribution give guidance to further reading, with especial attention having been given to texts and studies in English. Whilst every effort has been made to make the subject matter accessible to the interested reader, no attempt has been made artificially to 'simplify' the thought of those men who ha ve both stimulated and challenged the best minds of their own and successive generations. A glance at the contents of the three volumes will show that the range of topics covered is wide and varied. We have aimed throughout to strike a 2 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Liverpool Library, on 26 Aug 2019 at 12:52:10, subject to the Cambridge Core Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2010 terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511659508.001

Editorial introduction reasonable balance in respect to the main national groups, religious communities, and academic disciplines which contributed significantly to Western religious thought and its critique in the nineteenth century. Many of the contributions deal with the work ofimportant individual figures, such as Coleridge or Strauss, focusing critically on particular aspects of their work whilst at the same time developing wider generalizations about their significance for the subject, their influence and their place in the period as a whole. Other articles, including those dealing with the criticism of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, survey key developments within an important area of study; or trace the emergence oflargely new areas of study, such as the anthropological, sociological or comparative study of religion. Sorne contributions, including those having to do with science and religion or with British Agnosticism, may bring into focus an issue widely disputed in the nineteenth century; whilst others, such as those concerning the Roman Catholic Tübingen school and the British Idealists, isolate for special attention certain influential movements of thought which cannot easily be identified with a single leading figure. Whatever the precise scope of the chapter, contributors have in every case sought to direct attention towards the most important critica! and conceptual issues raised in the period. Except where demanded by the subject, such as in the case of the American Transcendentalists or of Nietzsche, biographical and other background information has been kept to a mínimum. Authors have also been asked to pin-point wherever possible the relevance of the figure or topic or movement to twentieth-century religious thought. Within even three volumes of moderate size, it has not been possible to cover all important aspects of nineteenth-century religious thought. Each author has had to write within strict word limits, the exact length having been varied from topic to topic, so that he has not always been able to say all that he might like to have said about his assigned subject. The editors have likewise been limited in respect to the number of topics which could be realistically covered. For instance, it soon became clear that it would not be possible, as one might have liked, also to survey developments in nonWestern religious thought. Readers who wish to learn more about the likes of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda will have to turn elsewhere for help. Even restricting ourselves just to Western religious thought, the selection of subject-matter still proved difficult in view of the man y competing claims. No attempt has been made to cover major doctrinal and ecclesiastical developments. Sorne names which one would certai.nly expect to find mentioned in any history of, say, specifically Roman Catholic or Protestant theology have also had to be overlooked in an effort to give a more balanced survey of nineteenth-century religious thought. lt has been necessary to deal 3 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Liverpool Library, on 26 Aug 2019 at 12:52:10, subject to the Cambridge Core Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2010 terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511659508.001

Editorial introduction

less directly than hoped with non-intellectual factors - whether social, economic or political - which conditioned the course of religious (and other) thought in the nineteenth century. A social history of religious thought would be a worthwhile project, but a nonetheless separate exercise from that which has been undertaken here. Where appropriate, however, as in the case of the Catholic Tübingen School and ofBritish Agnosticism, contributors have sometimes called the readers' attention to such factors. The editors, in addition, have taken care to ensure coverage of those thinkers - such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Troeltsch- who have made our own century aware of the social and economic constraints on religious thought and its history. In making their final choice of topics, the editors were guided by the following criteria: (i) the intrinsic merit of the writer's or the movement's contribution to Western religious thought or its critique; (ii) the appearance of the individual's or group's major work having been after the ascendancy of Kant's critica} philosophy and before the outbreak of the First World War; (iii) the influence and continuing importance of the writer or movement in the twentieth century; (iv) the relevance of the individual or group to the growth of the study of religion as an academic discipline. The authors of the twenty-seven chapters which make up this threevolume symposium ha ve their own individual tales to tell about the course of Western religious thought in the nineteenth century. Their stories are so many and so varied that it would be hardly feasible to summarize them here. Since the contributors will want to speak for themselves, to anticipate what they each have to say would also serve no useful purpose. Even so, their separate story-lines do overlap and intertwine in various ways. The authors themselves have drawn attention where appropriate to sorne links between their own and other contributions. The editors want in addition to identify certain key issues which throughout the nineteenth century attracted the interests ofits best minds. We would single out the following three clusters of issues as having been determinative: (i) the limits of reason and the nature of rationality; (ii) the idea of' true humanity' and the question ofhuman nature; (iii) the problems of history and the effects of 'historicism '. These three themes, themselves closely interconnected, constitute together the century's Leitmotiv of which all other themes are merely variations.

Reason and rationality lmmanuel Kant, strictly speaking, f Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch to the reviva} of Jewish Orthodoxy serves to remind that the effects of the Romantic respect for the authority of tradition were by no means restricted to Christianity. Nor were all those concerned with tradition 'traditionalists '. Whether or not they may be said to have been largely successful or even be adjudged to have been sufficiently faithful to their respective traditions, a carefully measured effort to adapt that tradition to the needs of the present characterized Reform Judaism, Protestant Liberalism, and Roman Catholic Modernism alike. Reason and rationality, 'humanity' and human nature, history and 'historicism' - these three themes dominate nineteenth-century religious thought and give it unity. Variations on these themes feature centrally in the twentieth century as well. But, that is another story. NINIAN SMART

Professor of Religious Studies, University of Lancaster and the University of California, Santa Barbara JOHN CLA YTON

Principal of Cartmel College and Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Lancaster STEVEN KATZ

Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University PATRICK SHERRY

Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Lancaster

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Editorial introduction

Notes The distinction between 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' agnostics is developed by James Livingston in his contribution on 'British Agnosticism', in volume n. 2 Peter Hünermann, Der Durchbruch des geschichtlichen Denkens im 19. Jahrhundert (Freiburg, Base!, Vienna, 1967). 3 Compare, for instance, the diverse use of the term in the following articles: Georg lggers, 'Historicism ', Dictionary ofthe History ofIdeas, edited by P. P. Wiener (New York, 1973), pp. 456-64; Maurice Mandelbaum, 'Historicism ', The Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy, edited by Paul Edwards (New York and London, 1967), vol. IV, pp. 22-5; and G. Scholtz, 'Geschichte, Historie' and 'Historisinus, Historizismus ', Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, edited by Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer (Darmstadt and Base!, 1974), vol. 111, cols. 344--1)8, 1141--'7· 4 Unfortunately, it has not been possible to include a chapter on these three thinkers. The reader is referred instead to B. M. G. Reardon's useful survey Liberalism and Tradition: Aspects of Catholic Thought in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1975). 1

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1

lmmanuel Kant

EMIL L. F ACKENHEIM

Kant wrote extensively on the subject of religion. Although a child of the Age of Enlightenment and as such suspicious of, if not hostile to, ali religious orthodoxies, he could not lea ve religion alone, whether 'within the bounds of reason' or even beyond it, touching on (if not actually dealing with} the Christian revelation. His three Critiques ali end with religious questions, and one work-Religion Within the Bounds of Reason Only- deals with nothing else. Despite an air of deceptive obviousness, the religious issues in question, as dealt with by Kant, almost ali raise complex questions for the interpreter. Among these are the relation between ritual and morality, between political and religious authority, and - most obscure but surely also most important the room, if any, left by 'reason only' for the Christian revelation. However, one problem in Kant's philosophy of religion surpasses ali others in significance. In Kant's view, morality is the highest sphere of rationally accessible truth. lt also must be autonomous, i.e., unlimited in scope and authority by a sphere beyond it. Despite ali this he asserts the necessity of a 'transition' from 'morality' to 'religion '. Kant must explain and justify the necessity of this 'transition '. In case he fails, his philosophy of religion fails as a whole. His 'moral religion' - as well as any other form of supposedly justified religion - reduces itself, in that case, to morality pure and simple. As for religion -ali religion as such and in principie :--it is, in that case, at best useful humbug. Such, however, was not Kant's view. I On frequent occasions Kant defines religion as the interpretation of our moral duties as divine commandments. This definition, while authoritative, is not without difficulties. F or if the religious interpretation adds grounds or motives to the moral ones already present in the concept of duty, it threatens 17 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 03 Sep 2019 at 08:26:24, subject to the Cambridge Core Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2010 terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511659508.002

EMIL L. F ACKENHEIM

moral autonomy; and if it