What Went Wrong? Albrecht Ritschl and his Influence on Liberal Theology

April 10, 2009 by: Roger Bain | The Bain Journal Leave a reply

In the early 1800’s the increase of higher criticism of the Bible and modern scientific ideas gave way to the rise of liberal theology. Liberal theology though difficult to define is most popularly used to describe theology that denies traditional beliefs of the Christian church such as the “Virgin Birth” or “The Inerrancy of the Bible.” Liberal theology developed in light of new ideas within the scientific community that at times seemed adjacent to traditional biblical theology. One of these was the development of the earth sciences lead by scientists like James Hutton and William Smith.¹

Scientific researchers began to suggest the idea that the earth was old, existing for millions of years. While Christian scholars tended to hold to an idea of a younger age for the earth, existing only a few thousand years. Reaction to supposed discrepancies between scripture and modern science were handled differently with some holding to traditional beliefs and others proposing the freedom to reconstruct or do away with beliefs contradictory to modern thought. One of the most influential leaders involved in this debate was the germen theologian Albrect Ritschl. Ritschl’s teachings which stressed the element of experience within Christianity, in part, resulted in the redirection of theology away from scripture and towards human experience.

Albrecht Ritschl’s Life & Theology

Albrecht Ritschl became a major influential figure in the debates between science and theology in the nineteenth century. Ritschl’s theology, which became known as Ritschliansm, became synonymous with liberal Protestantism because of his influence from 1875 to 1925. Albrecht Ritschl was born in 1822 into the family of a bishop of the Prussian Protestant church. He was musically inclined and as a child showed great intellectual ability. There seemed to be no other plans on the mind of the young Ritschl or his parents other than that he should make theology his calling.² Ritschl began theological studies at Bonn and continued at Tübingen and Halle, eventually returning to conclude his academic preparation at Bonn. During his university training he was influenced by Schleiermacher, Kant and the Hegelian New Testament scholar F. C. Baur.³

Ritschl joined the ranks of the Tübingen School, a theological movement involved in reconstructing the origins of Christianity and the early history of the church and its theology. Ritschl’s first significant publication, Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche (1850; “The Origin of the Old Catholic Church”), revealed both his initial indebtedness to and gradual breach with the Tübingen school, which, in its analysis of the early history of Christianity, he found too indebted to Hegelian presuppositions. Virtually all of his research came to fulfillment in his major work, Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung (The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation), which deals with historical and biblical materials (vols. 1–2) along with Ritschl’s own reconstruction (vol. 3).⁴

Ritschl’s original intent with his ideas concerning theology was not to attack the Christian church, but rather he felt that the church needed to be more practical in its application of theology in light of recent findings within the scientific circles. He was motivated to make the teachings of Christianity more relevant and meaningful to his contemporaries. He thought that the New Testament history of Jesus Christ should be viewed simply as history and not as miracle, and that this view could lead to a practical rather than a speculative judgment affirming Jesus’ divine mission. Ritschl criticized leaders who seemed to crawl into a hole when it came to giving an answer for Christianity in the face of contradictory ideas. In a major historical study, Ritschl wrongly associated Pietism with the mystics of the Middle Ages who reduced Christianity to a type of monastic life. He thought Pietists lacked any sort of social concern, confining their faith to conventicles or private, spirituality elite groups.⁵ Although his intentions were not to divert people’s attention from the teachings of the bible his ideas lead to the reliance on human experience and facts rather than faith in Jesus and the scriptures.

The Break-down of His Ideas

As mentioned earlier liberal theology was birthed by not only the feeling of insignificance among certain Christian leaders but also by the rejection of traditional doctrinal beliefs. According to Ritschl, a community of believer’s knowledge about God arises from special revelation. By special revelation he meant Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, not truths about the eternal being God miraculously communicated in the Bible. As a result, his view of Jesus differs significantly from that which we find in Protestant scholastic theology. Ritschel rejected the doctrine of the Trinity believing that Jesus’ deity simply meant his oneness with God in purpose not person. He also rejected the deity of Jesus believing that he had not always existed, but that he had only been an idea in the mind of God. Ritschel proposed that the Son was eternal but not an eternal being- only a sort of idea in God’s mind, the eternal knowledge of Jesus Christ.⁶

Ritschl shared with Friedrich Schleiermacher the belief that for Christianity God is not known as self-existent; he is known only insofar as he conditions human trust in his self-revelation through Christ. Ritschl rejected such doctrines as original sin, the miraculous birth of Christ, the Trinity, and the Incarnation. His attempt to apply the tenets of Kantian philosophy to Protestant Christianity was typical of an era that had little feeling for the mystery of religion and no dread of a divine judgment. His effort to maintain a theology of divine revelation without the faith in miracles underlying the older dogma was bitterly attacked by both liberal and conservative critics, but his influence on German Protestant theology in the second half of the 19th century was nevertheless immense.⁷

Albrecht Ritschl’s emphasis on experience and practical theology is an example of the break-down which occurs when scholars try to explain the supernatural work of God meant to be believed upon with faith with natural science and reason. Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and gives us proof of what we cannot see (Heb. 11:1). When it comes to the miracles of Christ, they were preformed by him to cause us to believe. Scientific fact was not the means of communication given to us, but rather the scriptures. We can learn from the blunders of those who went before us that we cannot reject the gospel in order to make it more understandable to the world. The gospel message is to be preached and then believed upon for men and women to become Christian.

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