Backup Welch - Protestant Thought In The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 2

Front 1

3 Principal Concerns of late 19th c. religious thought.

Back 1

1. Faith
2. History
3. Ethics

as well as their interrelation (x) and the tension of being a Christian thinkers and a culture that regarded theology as not important.

Front 2

Welch's 'focus'

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Within the genre of intellectual history, "on what some would call the theological problematic" as it developed within the broad stream of Protestantism in the West"
(xi).

"It seemed more important to incorporate discussion of the emerging psychology and sociology of religion, and of the history of religions" ibid.

Front 3

Chapters 1–6

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Welch says regarding the first six chapters:

"So far in looking at the late 19th century scene, we have said little directly about the topic of church and society, approaching the period from somewhat different angles of vision:

- The Views of Faith
- The Views of Faith and History
- THe Views of Religion and the Religions
- The Views of Religion and Science

Front 4

1.1 Albrecht Ritschl - Importance

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- R is the thinker with whom one must first reckon in seeking to understand the theological directions and pathos of Protestant thought in the last half of the 19th cent.
- This period begins with pub. of his Sys. Theo. "Justification and Reconciliation in 1870.
- Lutheran-Calvinist united church
- Tübingen school (F.C. Baur)
- He was embodyment of 19th cent man attempt to hold together 1) personal faith 2) scientific history, and 3) ethical demand while 4) presenting intelligible and persuasive Christiantiy to modern culture (2).

Front 5

1.2 Albrecht Ritschl: Faith, History, and Ethics in Balance

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Faith is reasoned, ethical, and historical, not just feeling or psychology

- Rebuted Fuerbach's psychological explanation of religion and what he saw as Schl. 'feeling' which he saw as too subjective and a false neutrality between spirit and nature (10)

Front 6

1.3 Albrecht Ritschl: History

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- Most of his works were historical (13)
- "Essential character of CHristianity can be determined only by historical study" (13)

Front 7

1.4 Albrecht Ritschl: Ethics

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- Ethical existance as free self-determined person (9)
- Nature is a threat to man contra Schl. harmony and scientific naturalism of his school Göttingen (9)

Front 8

2. Faith Viewed from within: The Problem of Certainty

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Broad late 19th century tendency to emphasize the internal witness of faith and to consider this interior act analytically as a way of showing its autonomy and certainty.
Much of this draws on Schleirmacher

3 Views:
1. Faith more or less with some supports.
2. Certainty in faith without supports: Williman Hermann
3. Belief utterly without support: William James

Front 9

2.1 Faith more or less with some supports.

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Much of the late 19th century appeal to religious experience assumes that faith is a phenomenon, a fact, available to scientific study as are facts of natural science (34)

Here "mysticism" is covered with Evenlyn Underhill as the main proponent.

Front 10

2.2 Certinity in faith without supports: Williman Hermann (1846–1922)

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- Student of Ritschl
- His students included Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann
- Terms like "full certainty" and "Firm Assurance"
- resisted mixing religion and knowledge of world like "two-natures theory in Christology"
- One must look to the inner world of consciousness (49)
- self-certifing faith is found in the experience of the communion of the individual soul with his God (ala Ritchl)
- This is tied to fact in the life of Jesus and the moral law (49)

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2.3 Beleif utterly without support: William James (1842–1910)

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- James was a scientist (medical degree Harvard) and philosopher interested in combing in science and personal religion.
- Holds a pragmatic view of truth and a radical empiricism (61)
- Faith is an act of will that displays "the readiness to believe when doubt is still theoretically possible and to act when the favorable outcome is not certified in advance" (59). locus classics 'The Will to Believe' (1886)
- Opts for a finite God, not the philosophy-shop disease of and omniscient and omnipotent God (66)

Front 12

3 and 4 Psychology, Sociology, and History of Religion.

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- prompted by 19th century turn to the self.
- First work "The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Study of the Growth of Religious Experience" (1899) by Edwin D. Starbuck (80).
- assumes spiritual life follows laws of nature (81).
- theology should become for Leuba, a branch of psychology, to figure out which beliefs work best for self-realization and happiness (85). Sociological approaches are social anthropological (89) with Smith's social basis for religious behavior, Durkheim's essence of religion found in ancient tribal practices, and Weber's Protestant economic factors representing differing approaches.

Front 13

5. The History of Religion and the Finality of the Christian Religion.

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While the Western histories of religion adopted a developmental sociological approach that made Christianity at one level, a flavor among many options, the biased view of the West in its superior culture, resulted in many Western scholars equating cultural development with religious superiority (145). Also, the reigning liberal paradigm of the superiority of the essence of Christianity being its moral character which was either superior or at least transcultural. (145)

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6. Evolution and Theology: Détente or Evasion?

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x

Front 15

7. Ethics, Church, and Culture

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x