Welch - Protestant Thought In The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1

Front 1

Welch (Who)

Back 1

Graduated from Upper Iowa University with a B.A. in history,
B.D. and M.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 1945,
Ph.D. from Yale in 1950.
His doctoral dissertation was later published as In This Name: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Scribners, 1952) and is considered to be a seminal 20th century work on the Trinity.

Teaching/Research:
-Princeton from 1947–1951
-Yale University Divinity School from 1951-1960. Director of Graduate Studies in Religion at Yale from 1954-1955. From 1956 to 1957 he engaged in research on Karl Barth at the University of Heidelberg on a Fulbright scholarship.

-University of Pennsylvania in 1960. Berg Professor of Religious Thought and Chairman of the Department of Religion. In 1964 Welch was appointed Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Another Fulbright was spent in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, from 1964-1965 where he did work on the first volume of his survey of 19th century Protestant thought.
-Director of the Study of Graduate Education in Religion by the American Council of Learned Societies in 1969.
-President of the American Academy of Religion in 1970. --Dean and Professor of Historical Theology of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California in 1971, and was appointed president of GTU the following year (1972).
-Retired from teaching in 2006 when he moved to Illinois.

Welch's research interests focused primarily on modern theology and philosophy of religion, 18th to 20th centuries, and theology and natural science. He claims to have intended to become a systematic theologian and spend more time on the 20th century, but maintained that one cannot do 20th century theology without understanding the 19th century first.

Front 2

Welch (thesis)

Back 2

Nineteenth century protestant theology was a transnational, revolutionary process characterized by making theology relevant, affirming the humanity of Christ, and making Christianity relevant for society through modern cultural categories, all of which continue in the 20th C. (4-5, 7).

- One cannot understand the 20th C. without studying the 19th C. (4-5).
- 19 C. Protestant theology is not centered around a single theologian (e.g., Schleiermacher) or a single nation (e.g., the Germans).
-Welch loves the creative and imaginative theologians of the mid-19th C. like Maurice, Buschnell, Dorner, etc. because they avoid the extremes of Strauss/Fuererbach and restorationist movements (142-44).

Front 3

Welch (Dislikes or Believes Is Insufficient)

Back 3

1. These wrongly equate Protestant theology with GERMAN theology:
-Barth: Protestant Theology of the 19th C. (8)
-Kähler: A History of Protestant Dogmatics in the 19th C. (8)
-Mackintosh: Types of Modern Theology (9)
-Tillich: Perspectives on 19th and 20th C Protestant Theology
-*Pfleiderer: The Development of Theology in Germany since Kant, and its progress in Great Britain since 1825.
-*Hirsch: Geschichte . . .
-*Reardon: Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century (11)

Problem--"The almost universal tendency to treat theological history in the 19th c. as a form of national history, a tendency that has been present also in the interpretations of British and American thought, though with the acknowledgement of German influence" (10).

2. British and American sources are more general histories and less about theological development (10-11)

Front 4

Welch (3 major segments to 19th C. thought)

Back 4

All themes present, but in each period one theme trumps the other two.

1799-1835 The possibility of doing theology in light of the criticism of the enlightenment . . . "the vindication of theology as an academic discipline with distinctive truth-claims."

1835-1870 The possibility of Christology upon the foundations laid in the first movement

1870-1914 The question of Christianity and culture (4)

Front 5

Welch (historiography)

Back 5

Problems to be avoided:
1. "Avoid reducing the theological efforts of the nineteenth century to precursors, either negative or positive, or more recent programs, and thus we must constantly listen to what the thinkers themselves understood to be THEIR theological intention" (17). Barth commits this error in Protestant Theology

2. Avoid relying on one or two patterns, either an individual theologian or theological school/party, in explaining 19th century theology. It clouds a sense of the whole. Barth is guilty here too for focusing on Schleiermacher and the Germans too much.

3. "Avoid fixing on philosophical influences and relations as the all-importnat clues to theological development." (21)

Basically, avoid oversimplification and let these authors speak for themselves in all the complexity of their lives.

Front 6

Welch (18th C. background)

Back 6

3 Pervasive movements influence 19th C. thought.

1. Pietism: Recovery of "apostolic simplicity" and active faith (as opposed to articles of belief). Religion of the heart and the interiorization of Christian truth. Emphasis on mission and centered on Jesus Christ. Moravian (Zinzendorf) pietism influence Schleiermacher and Wesley

2. Rationalism: Reasoned articulation of Christian faith. Antidogmatic, antienthusiastic temper of an age tired and disgusted with religious controversies, persecutions, and wars. "Omnicompetence of criticism," everything is subject to criticism (W. follows Gay's thesis). Three main topics in Enlightenment: miracles, problem of evil, and the Bible (or biblical studies, 41).

3. Romanticism: "Where the dominating quest of the Enlightenment had been for the UNIVERSAL beyond the individual, or for the participation of the individual in the universal, romanticism self-consciously and enthusiastically tuned in the other direction" (53).

Front 7

Welch (Natural Religion)

Back 7

17th century was Christian in orientation, but the 18th C. proved the Christian tradition came into question; supernaturalism was laid waste. However, 18th C. theology sought a religion beneath religious phenomena, beneath all religions. Hence, natural theology, from Lord Herbert of Cherbury's De Veritate (1624).

In it, he posits doctrines of all religions:
1. there is a Supreme Being
2. He ought to be worshiped
3. virtue joined with piety is the chief part of worship
4. vices and crimes should be expiated by repentance
5. there are divine rewards and punishments in both this life and the next. (35)

Evolution of Natural Theology:
1. Locke and Wolff: Reason and Revelation (although revelation was determined by what was reasonable) left room from mystery
2. Toland, Semler, Michaelis (Neologens): Christianity equated with Natural Religion; nothing rises above reason
3. Reimarus, Lessing: Only Natural Religion; no need for revelation

Destruction of Natural Theology:
1. Hume and miracles: miracles are not evidence, Christianity relies on miracles, belief in Christianity means belief in miracles at the expense of reason, thus belief in miracles is absurd; also rejection of causality
2. Kant: rejection of arguments of god from nature fail an reason alone

Front 8

Welch and 1799-1835 Possibility of Theology

Back 8

In the previous century, first Hume and then Kant had virtually undermined the foundations of traditional metaphysics, so that progressive theologians were now actively in search of a new philosophical rationale to support belief in the existence of God and the other articles of Christian belief. Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Coleridge responded to this challenge with a new synthesis of philosophy and theology.

[JOSEPH A. BRACKEN, S.J., St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, III.]

Front 9

Welch (Schleiermacher)

Back 9

Schleiermacher maintained the co-existence of science and religion (63). Religion being centered in the immediacy of human existence, undercut both the weaknesses of orthodoxy and the criticism of orthodoxy (68). Theology is therefore possible b/c it is expression of intuition of people in history (69, 79). All religious self-consciousness is oriented around the historical Christ, thus begins the construction of Christology "from below" not "from above," from humanity up (83).

Front 10

Welch (Hegel)

Back 10

Hegel sought to redeem ancient dogmas of Trinity and Incarnation. He accounted for conflict in history development better than Schleiermacher (S. maintained no real tension in history b/c all was the manifestation of God in the world) (91). Resisted positivistic explanations of religion, instead seeing the Absolute that underlies all history. Religion, not art (Schelling) or ethics (Fichte) is the highest stage of the unfolding Spirit. Unlike Schleiermacher, Hegel emphasized humanity's freedom not dependence. He emphasized consciousness rising and merging with the infinite. Religions are the development of religious consciousness--history of religions important (96, 99). Religions are fragmentary, moving toward unity, but Christianity is Absolute Religion. Trinity and Incarnation pattern the dialectic nature of the development of Geist.

Front 11

Welch (Coleridge)

Back 11

In England, C. reacted both against knowing by rationalistic and Schleiermachian standards. "Faith must be a reasoning faith, and a reason must be understood more deeply than by either rationalism ro the religion of the heart" (115). (1) Reason is above the senses and is the source and substance of truth; understanding pertains to what we know from our senses. (2) Reason involves imagination--creative interchange between us and God and others. (3) Reason is intrinsically moral--includes conscience or the moral sense. (4) Reason must will to be faithful to Reason--"a throwing of oneself into the act of apprehending spiritual truth" (119). Rejection of deism, but also identifying God with the totality of nature (ala Spinoza, Schelling, and Schleiermacher). Denied infallibility because no objective evidence can or is needed to validate the Bible's authority. Its ability to answer human need is the Bible's validation.

Front 12

Welch (Taylor and Channing)

Back 12

In America, both Taylor (New Haven Theology) and Channing (Unitarian) relied on Scottish Common Sense philosophy for moral principles and desired to see ethical formulations of theology (135). More in the trand of Benthan and Paley, not Coleridge and Schleiermacher (137). Taylor asserted depravity; Channing rejected it. Taylor left in tact tension between sovereignty and human responsibility; Channing sought unity through the redefinition of old categories.

Front 13

Welch and 1835-1870 Possibility of Christology

Back 13

"Thence the whole of the 19 century may be seen as a struggled to affirm the humanity of Jesus" 6

The second part of the book covers the middle period of the nineteenth century, that extending from the publication of David Friedrich Strauss's Leben Jesu in 1835 to the appearance of the first .volume of Albrecht Ritschl's Justification and Reconciliation in 1870. In the years between, Protestant theologians in Germany, England, and the U.S.
were trying to cope with the new problems created by the application of historical method to both speculative theology and Scripture. In particular, the reality and significance of Jesus Christ as a historical person became a subject of sharp controversy. Strauss opened the debate with his hypothesis that the historical Jesus is to be distinguished from the Christ of faith and worship. An analysis of the mythical basis of Scripture reveals that in Christ men worship an Idea of their own glorified humanity rather than a historical person. Strauss's conjectures in scriptural studies were confirmed on purely philosophical grounds by Ludwig Feuerbach: not only is the concept of God strictly correlative to man's self-understanding, but theism itself will eventually be replaced by a new religion of humanity. Likewise in America, Ralph Waldo Emerson was promoting the divinization of man through the philosophy of transcendentalism.

[JOSEPH A. BRACKEN, S.J., St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, III.]

Front 14

Welch and 1835-1870 Possibility of Christology (#2)

Back 14

It was no surprise, then, says W., that a conservative reaction soon took place among Protestant churchmen in all three countries. Confessionalism among German Lutherans, the Oxford Movement in England, and the Princeton school of theology in the U.S. were each in its own way a deliberate response to the growing secularist tendencies of mid-nineteenth-century Protestant theology. Fortunately, this return to orthodoxy in Protestant circles produced some highly imaginative, instead of strictly reactionary, thinkers. W. singles out for special treatment Frederick Denison Maurice in England and Horace Bushnell in the United States. Both of these theologians were profoundly concerned with the philosophical problem of truth and its theological counterpart, the development of dogma. Kierkegaard emphasized the element of personal choice in the process of becoming a Christian and thus anticipated the existentialist theologies of the twentieth century. But in his insistence on the ultimate subjectivity of religious truth he only reaffirmed under another guise the basic insight of Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Coleridge earlier in the century.

[JOSEPH A. BRACKEN, S.J., St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, III.]

Front 15

Welch (Strauss and FC Baur)

Back 15

Strauss's claim, essence of the Christian fail will remain untouched. Sought to understand the idea of Christ in relation to the historical figure. "Myth" equals Hegel's Idea in the form of a historical account. Application of historical-critical method leaves a human Jesus unworthy of being the object of faith. Schleiermacher eased tension between faith and hermeneutics; Strauss raised those tensions.

Baur, Strauss's teacher, started with a critic analysis of the historical Jesus. Christianity needed to be historically grounded. Churches faith historically grounded not in miracle or supernaturalism, but in Jesus's own idea of the God-manhood unity. In Hegelian terms, religion is a historical phenomenon (157).

Front 16

Welch (Feuerbach and Emerson)

Back 16

Negative development of Hegel. Radical empiricist. Used Hegel's dialectic in an anti-Hegelian way. "Divine is human and human is divine." Complete reversal of Hegel: "not the Absolute objectifying itself in the human and returning to itself, but the human self objectifying itself, projecting the infinitas the divine, and returning to itself" (172). Religion is man's self-projection of himself as the divine. Christianity is "perfect religion" for in it man negates himself to affirm God, where God is the the projection of all that is good in humanity (175). The historical Christ is of no importance. He is important in so much as he's the embodiment of all that is good in humanity. Religion defined by sensuous (think empiricism) man; religion scuttled from the inside out. THEOLOGY IS ANTHROPOLOGY.

Hegelian version of Feuerbach--positive view of man. Man as a divine reality.

Front 17

Welch (Restorationist Movements)

Back 17

Lutheran Confessionalism: Return to inerrancy of Scripture, authority of the church.

Johann Beck: Kingdom of God as supernatural realism.

Princeton Theology: Biblical inerrancy, anti-darwinism, anti-New School (immanentism).

Liddon (Oxford): Absolute divinity of Christ.

Oxford Movement: reassertion of ecclesial authority, apostolic doctrine, catholicity (John Henry Newman)

Erlangen Theology: center of gravity in theology was sin and regeneration, return to confessionalism and Scripture

Kenotic Christologies: Negative response to Strauss and Baur Christologies. Jesus was divine who laid it aside or changed into a human.

Front 18

Welch (Maurice)

Back 18

Englishman. Sought theological reconciliation through a critica reappropriation of the gospel and the theological tradition. Theology not speculation, but reflection of self to others, to God, and to society. Unity was a key pursuit, but that unity is grounded in the realties behind religious expression, not in religious expression. The Trinity is such a reality. Also, grace is prior to sin. Man is social being, redemption intrinsically social.

Knowledge of God comes from revelation in Scripture. The Bible is a collection of facts--God's working in the world. Historical question not important.

Front 19

Welch (Bushnell)

Back 19

American. Dissolved dogma to reveal the content of religion historically. Immediate knowledge of God. Desire to align with orthodoxy, but gave greater position to human experience.

Front 20

Welch (Kierkegaard)

Back 20

Sought Christianity, which Christendom snuffed out. Christianity means conflict with the world and suffering. Anti-Hegelian and logical realist. Eternal truth independent of history. Eternal truth does not unfold "in time." Emphasis on become Christian; emphasis on subjective truth with an objective object. Didn't mess with Chalcedon.