Theology as Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany: From F.C. Baur to Ernst Troeltsch
Johannes Zachhuber
Abstract
The book describes the origin, development, and crisis of the German nineteenth-century project of theology as science. Its narrative is focused on the two predominant theological schools during this period, the Tübingen School and the Ritschl School. Their work emerges as a grand attempt to synthesize historical and systematic theology within the twin paradigms of historicism and German Idealism. Engaging in detail with the theological, historical, and philosophical scholarship of the story’s protagonists (F. C. Baur, D. Strauss, E. Zeller, A. Ritschl), the author reconstructs as its basis a ... More
The book describes the origin, development, and crisis of the German nineteenth-century project of theology as science. Its narrative is focused on the two predominant theological schools during this period, the Tübingen School and the Ritschl School. Their work emerges as a grand attempt to synthesize historical and systematic theology within the twin paradigms of historicism and German Idealism. Engaging in detail with the theological, historical, and philosophical scholarship of the story’s protagonists (F. C. Baur, D. Strauss, E. Zeller, A. Ritschl), the author reconstructs as its basis a deep belief in the eventual unity of human knowledge. This idealism clashes however with the historicist principles underlying much of their actual research. This tension runs through the entire period and ultimately leads to the disintegration of the project at the end of the century. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, many of which have never been used in English-speaking scholarship before, the author embeds the essentially theological story he presents within broader intellectual developments in nineteenth-century Germany. In spite of its eventual failure, the project of theology as science in nineteenth-century Germany is here described as a paradigmatic intellectual endeavour of European modernity with far-reaching significance beyond the confines of a single academic discipline.
Keywords:
Tübingen School,
Ritschl School,
historicism,
Wissenschaft,
idealism,
F. C. Baur,
A. Ritschl,
D. Strauss,
A. Harnack,
E. Troeltsch
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199641918 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641918.001.0001 |
