Volume 19, Issue 2

This essay analyses Ernst Troeltsch’s writings on Protestantism and modernity in light of recent scholarship on the category of the secular. In his historical work on the relationship of Protestantism to the rise of the modern world, the essay argues, Troeltsch was not engaged primarily in a narrative of secularization; nor does he promote what current scholars call an ideology of secularism. Instead, Troeltsch was exploring how religion (and Protestantism in particular) changes in different cultural contexts, and was intervening in debates in his own society about the political structure, cultural ethos, and future of Germany. The essay therefore cautions against the hasty projection of concepts like secularism and secularization as theorized today back onto the works of nineteenth-century thinkers such as Troeltsch. The political and cultural concerns that animate Troeltsch’s work can be better captured by a more subtle understanding of the multiple meanings of abstract categories (such as Verweltlichung, Diesseitigkeit, and Säkularisation) in their own intellectual-historical contexts.

As dialectical theology rose to prominence in the years following World War I, the new theologians sought to distance themselves from liberalism in a number of ways, an important one being a rejection of Schleiermacher’s methods and conclusions. In reading the history of Weimar-era theology as it has been written in the twentieth century one would be forgiven for assuming that Schleiermacher found no defenders during this time, as liberal theology quietly faded into the twilight. However, a closer examination of this period reveals a different story. The last generation of liberal theologians consistently appealed to Schleiermacher for support and inspiration, perhaps none more so than Georg Wobbermin, whom B. A. Gerrish has called a “captain of the liberal rearguard.” Wobbermin sought to construct a religio-psychological method on the basis of Schleiermacher’s definition of religion and on his “Copernican turn” toward the subject and resolutely defended such a method against the new dialectical theology long after liberal theology’s supposed demise. A consideration of Wobbermin’s appeals to Schleiermacher in his defense of the liberal program reveals a more complex picture of the state of theology in the Weimar period and of Schleiermacher’s legacy in German Protestant thought.

The article compares the doctrine of election in the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, particularly his magisterial essay on the topic from 1819, and the theology of Karl Barth between 1920 and 1925. It argues that both positions are strikingly similar, in regard to both their critical evaluation of the tradition and their constructive proposals for a new foundation. Both theologians offer a theocentric reassessment that shuns the particularism of previous approaches and affirms the unity of the divine will. Schleiermacher defends the Augustinian-Calvinist view of election as a bulwark against Manichaeism and Pelagianism. Still, he criticizes the idea of eternal damnation and argues that the concept of reprobation instead should be understood as a temporal ‘passing over’. The kingdom of God is realized gradually, not in one instant. Similarly, for Barth predestination is not a pre-temporal decree that divides human beings into two separate groups of persons but is actualized ever anew in history, when God’s address entails the miracle of faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. The twofold possibility of faith and unbelief is constitutive for the human encounter with God, and it concerns believers and unbelievers alike, since no person is forever exclusively elect or reprobate. Barth also insists that the relation between reprobation and election is non-dualistic and teleological: predestination is a movement from reprobation to election, and never the other way around. The ultimate goal is salvation.

Little is known on the history of reception of Carl Schmitt's works by Christian theologians. One trace can, however, be identified: it leads us back to Paul Tillich, who began using the term “Politische Romantik” (political romanticism) no later than the early 1930s. The present contribution demonstrates this fact by citing a key text of Tillich's, the 1932 essay entitled “Sozialistische Entscheidung” (socialist decision). One of the central insights lies in the fact that this text was not, as is usually assumed by extant research on Tillich, subjected to Nazi book burnings, was not even banned, but remained on the shelves relatively unscathed. This can be shown by looking at the inventories of domestic and foreign libraries.

Pannenberg's thought intends the unity of faith and reason. This is attested by a hitherto unpublished lecture dealing with the topic „Theology of reason” from the year 1969. It develops a typology of different understandings of reason, and drafts the main features of Pannenberg's theological system.

This edition contains the last radio essay of the church-historian Kurt Nowak (1942-2001). It has the title: “Is it able, to write the history of the GDR yet?” The introduction takes up this question in the context of his reflections about the former GDR in other texts.