A Plea for Ritschl

Abstract

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