RITSCHL'S great work on Justification and Reconciliation waspublished in three volumes in the years 1870 to I874. The first of these volumes, which deals with the history of the doctrines, has been translated into English. The most important of the three, the last volume, which contains the systematic exposition of the system, presents serious difficulties to the translator. Not only is Ritschl's style complex in the extreme, but it proceeds entirely upon lines of German theology.Every idea is traced in its genealogical ascent through a mass of authorities, of many of whom English readers have never heard; so that the book is hopelessly German. This is unfortunate, more especially as up to the present time the English and American reader, if he is limited to literature in the English language, is almost wholly dependent for his knowledge of the German theologian upon unfavorable criticisms. It is indeed, in my opinion, a theological calamity that, since the publication of Orr's The Ritschlian Theology and the Evangelical Faith, scholars among us are looking upon Professor Orr as the final authority upon Ritschlianism. Any man who does not read German, but who wants to know something about the system with which all Germany is alive, will take up Orr's book. And after reading it he will probably dismiss the subject with the comfortable conclusion that after Orr has given his verdict nothing more is to be said; and he will close the book with a sigh of relief: " That settles Ritschl."It was first thought in Germany to settle Ritschl in the same easy way; but Ritschl would not be settled, nor will adverse criticism permanently settle him in this country or in England.Nothing, indeed, is so easy as to criticise a system in detail, as Orr has done. Think of what unanswerable criticism could be made upon the doctrine of the Trinity, upon prayer, in fact uponThis content downloaded from 035.161.254
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGYdoes not expect that they will. To our minds he is entirely mistaken in the frequent assertions that monism necessarily ends in pantheism, and in what he says of the pantheistic and Unitarian trend of modern theology. His work will be widely read, and the reading will be a tribute to its treatment of an abstruse and difficult subject, and equally to the deep interest of the public, not only in historical, but also in speculative questions.AMORY H. BRADFORD. THIS is a most valuable critique, in six chapters, of Ritschl's philosophical premise, the value-judgment. Ritschl starts with the assumption that religion and "theoretical cognition" are "different functions of the mind," "heterogeneous modes of cognition," and the contrast between the two is found in the application in religion of " ideas of value." His speculations are in a line with Kant and Lotze; he differed from Schleiermacher, who found the substance of the religious "value" in the human sense of dependence; Ritschl defining the fundamental religious fact to be man's sense of his own supernatural destination: "our salvation consists in the superiority to the world in the kingdom of God to which we are destined." It is objected to Ritschl's theory of values that he deals only with internal experiences -an objection often reiterated among us, Ritschl's theology being supposed to be purely " subjective."The second chapter analyzes the terms of the value-judgment. The third classifies value-judgments. There are (I) natural valuejudgments, based on the physical tastes and feelings; (2) ideal valuejudgments; these are aesthetic (all judgments in art), moral (the ten commandments), intellectual (truth in any sphere of thought). These ideal value-judgments are based upon ideas: the idea of beauty, the idea of the good, and the idea of the true. In the sphere of religion there is also an idea, the idea of piety (Frdmmigkeit), and in the simplest religious judgments this idea of piety is operative, "where the man gives himself up to the supreme power over this world and this life and herein finds salvation (Seligkeit)." It is furthermore observed of these ideal value-judgments that, being based upon "ideas," they claim general validity and go beyond the natural judgments, which are purely individual.does not expect that they will. To our minds he is entirely mistaken in the frequent assertions that monism necessarily ends in pantheism, and in what he says of the pantheistic and Unitarian trend of modern theology.His work will be widely read, and the reading will be a tribute to its treatment of an abstruse and difficult subject, and equally to the deep interest of the public, not only in historical, but also in speculative questions.AMORY H. BRADFORD. THIS is a most valuable critique, in six chapters, of Ritschl's philosophical premise, the value-judgment. Ritschl starts with the assumption that religion and "theoretical cognition" are "different functions of the mind," "heterogeneous modes of cog...
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