While the nineteenth century saw the emergence of self-consciously modern forms of theology, many of these theologies were also undergirded by sophisticated historical narratives reaching back to the Patristic age. Arguably, the broad outlines of doctrinal history that were constructed by major nineteenth-century theologians from Schleiermacher to Baur, Dorner, Ritschl, and Harnack have continued to inform historical theology even where their underlying dogmatic judgments were emphatically rejected. This session considers this fascinating and often overlooked aspect of nineteenth-century theological scholarship and suggests a fresh portrayal of nineteenth-century theology. It highlights how historical and systematic theology worked hand in hand throughout the century offering exemplary analyses of individual figures and broader, diachronic trends.
This paper maintains that Ferdinand Christian Baur’s seminal retrieval of patristic models of deification (theōsis) functions to make the doctrine newly relevant for modern Christian theology while simultaneously misrepresenting some of its most central features. Specifically, in an effort at bringing ancient Christian understandings in line with a German Idealist model of divine-human union (which had generated considerable interest in the early nineteenth century), Baur portrays patristic figures as advocating essential union between God and humanity. Under a protection of sorts provided by Idealism, then, patristic models of deification are made germane to the most leading-edge theologies of the nineteenth century, even if such a development comes at the cost of distorting patristic views. Crucially, too, even after the collapse of Idealism in the mid-nineteenth century, Baur’s interpretation continues to wield influence beyond the cultural moment that gave rise to it, particularly among Albrecht Ritschl and those in his “school.”
Albrecht Ritschl was the most prominent German theologian of the second half of the nineteenth century. According to Ritschl, modern theology’s task was to draw upon Luther’s chief insights in order to complete the Reformation. Ritschl’s students set out to demonstrate by “scientific” means that Luther’s insights were incompatible with the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas of the Greek Fathers. Ritschlian theologians sought to foster the establishment of a distinctively Germanic form of Christianity free from these dogmas that is intellectually and morally superior to its Latin and Greek predecessors. Toward this end, they invested a great deal of energy into patristic scholarship to show that patristic dogma emerged from a soteriology of deification borrowed from pagan Hellenism rather than the teachings of Jesus. Ritschlian patristic scholarship was motivated in part by German nationalism and the quest to unite Germany. Thus, the teachings of the Greek Fathers and Eastern Orthodox churches serve as a foil against which to demonstrate the superiority of Luther’s theology, German culture, and “scientific” theology.
Adolf von Harnack is often thought of as the “father” of modern church history. But Harnack saw himself as a theologian offering a normative vision. This paper probes the relationship between Harnack’s historical scholarship and his theological and ethical proposals by focusing on his engagements with Augustine of Hippo and how that informed subsequent generations’ engagements with Augustine. I argue that Harnack’s engagements with Augustine reveal an ambivalence within his own scholarly practice that informs the tension between engaging Augustine as a sui generis master of the spiritual life and engaging him as a representative of an entire epoch. Drawing from Ernst Troeltsch and Karl Holl’s works on Augustine, I delineate some post-Harnackian scholarly trends in the study of Augustine, including dispensational frameworks (early vs. late Augustine), evaluative frameworks (good vs. bad Augustine), and methodological frameworks (primary text vs. secondary literature).