Responses

Comment

Spring 2021

Created: 2021-02-27 Sat 17:48

Roman Catholic Reaction
English Response
Liberal Theology

Roman Catholic Reaction

interplay of Church/State authority (Papacy reluctant to abandon)
condemnation of "modernism" (Syllabus of Errors)
immaculate conception as dogma by means of papal infallibility
Leo XIII & Catholic social justice concerns

English Response

John H. Newman

recognizing that the Protestant claim to return to apostolic origins was fraught with historical perspectives (Hegel)
- doctrine had developed from the very beginning of the church
"England would improve "were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion …" p. 242

Frederick Maurice

high church / evangelical wing
rejecting both Maurice sought a 3rd alternative, identifying with the working class, argued for a gospel that could be embraced by all
Darwin / Huxley couldn't explain "the philosophical and theological implications of these new scientific conclusions."

Liberal Theology

Albrecht Ritschl
Friedrich Nietzsche
Adolf Harnack
Ernst Troeltsch

::: {.NOTES} Note: Ritschl tied Christianity closely to the culture of his time, moving away from metaphysical theories (cp. Maurice re. attacking emphasis on justification and conversion.

Harnack was his student. History of Christian doctrine – corruption of Christ's original teaching through Greek influences.

History of religions theologicans like E. Troeltsch concluded Christianity emerged gradually out of a context of Jewish and middle eastern religions.

Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer argued that Jesus context had been apocalypticism – expectation that a cataclysm was approaching and a new age would be ushered in.

Nietzsche: argued that the influence of Christianity had been negative! We are not moving towards truth but truth is simply whatever a society agrees to call "true".

Fascination with history ending in despair? :::