The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics E-Book

Herman Bavinck

• Herausgeber: Lexham Academic
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 684

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Herman Bavinck on the challenges theologians face - Herman Bavinck's counsel to theologians - A unique window into Bavinck's thought - An overlooked work from a key Neo-Calvinist thinker In The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck identifies the primary challenges confronting Protestant theologians in the early twentieth century. Since the main difficulties do not concern specific heads of doctrine but arise in theological method, Bavinck's focus narrows to the act of faith. Bavinck demonstrates the necessity of viewing faith as knowledge rather than mere trust, recounting the development of doctrine from the biblical authors through the dawn of the twentieth century. This book provides a unique window into Bavinck's thought, as he speaks candidly about the limitations and failures of Reformed theology and the relative merits of modern thinkers.  TheForemost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics was a series of lectures delivered at the Free University shortly after Bavinck moved to Amsterdam in 1902. Edited and translated by Gert de Kok and Bruce R. Pass, these previously unpublished lectures are available for the first time in English.

Leseprobe

HERMAN BAVINCK

THE FOREMOST PROBLEMS OF CONTEMPORARY DOGMATICS

ON FAITH, KNOWLEDGE, AND THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY BRUCE R. PASS AND GERT DE KOK

The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics: On Faith, Knowledge, and the Christian Tradition

Copyright 2024 Gert de Kok and Bruce R. Pass

Lexham Academic, an imprint of Lexham Press

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LexhamPress.com

You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [email protected].

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are the author’s own translation.

Print ISBN 9781683598084

Digital ISBN 9781683598091

Library of Congress Control Number 2024938095

Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Claire Brubaker, Paul Robinson, Mandi Newell

Cover Design: Jonathan Myers

CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface

Introduction

1)HOLY SCRIPTURE

2)THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY OVER PAGANISM

3)ROMAN SUPERNATURALISM

4)THE REFORMATION

I.The Essence of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism

I.iThe Religious Relation in Roman Catholicism

I.iiThe Religious Relation in Protestantism

II.The Development of Protestantism

II.iNatural Theology

II.iiThe Testimony of the Holy Spirit

II.iiiFaith

III.Rationalism and Pietism

III.iRationalism

III.iiPietism

5)KANT, SCHLEIERMACHER, HEGEL

I.The Critical Path of Reconciliation: Kant

I.iCritique of Pure Reason (1781)

I.iiCritique of Practical Reason (1788)

I.iiiReligion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)

II.The Mystical Path of Reconciliation: Schleiermacher

II.iOn Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799)

II.iiThe Christian Faith (1821, 1831)

II.iiiSummation

III.The Speculative Path of Reconciliation: Hegel

III.iThe Phenomenology of Mind (1807)

III.iiLectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1832)

IV.Conclusion

6)THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY THEOLOGY

I.The First Period: The Legacy of Hegel

II.The Second Period: Vermittlungstheologie

III.The Third Period: Neo-Kantianism

7)THE MOST RECENT THEOLOGY, PART 1

I.The Arts

I.iNaturalism

I.iiSymbolism

I.iiiPessimism

II.Science

II.iPhysics and Chemistry

II.iiBiology

II.iiiEvolution

8)THE MOST RECENT THEOLOGY, PART 2

I.Objections to Ritschl

II.The New Trend (History of Religions)

III.Objections to Troeltsch

IV.The Revival of Metaphysics

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Bibliography

Names Index

Scripture Index

EDITORS’ PREFACE

The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics is a series of lectures composed by Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) shortly after he moved to Amsterdam in 1902. While this work is apparently incomplete and remained unpublished during his lifetime, the sizable torso that has been preserved in the Bavinck Archive for the last hundred years presents an important reiteration of and elaboration on some of the leading themes of Gereformeerde dogmatiek. As the title plainly suggests, Bavinck’s concern is what he perceives to be the primary obstacles that must be overcome by Protestant theologians at the dawn of the twentieth century.

While Bavinck identifies metaphysical, epistemological, and methodological problems, he is primarily interested in the epistemological question. More specifically, his focus is the conceptualization of the act of faith. But, as is often the case in Bavinck’s writings, his historiographical mode of approaching theological problems threatens to occlude his chief concern. Bavinck begins with the biblical description of sin as a corruption of faith and recounts an intellectual history of the origin of this foremost theological problem. Only when one arrives at Bavinck’s discussion of Ritschl do things become clearer. At this point it becomes plain that Bavinck’s primary concern is the theological implications of the neo-Kantian reduction of metaphysics to epistemology and the elimination of any noetic dimension from the act of faith. This, for Bavinck, is the foremost problem of contemporary dogmatics.

It is worth pausing to consider how tantalizing these lectures must have seemed for the student corps of the Vrije Universiteit. Given that these lectures were written not long after the ink had dried on Bavinck’s own multivolume systematic theology, the title of this series of lectures must have attracted the attention of his students. And they could easily be forgiven for hoping that their illustrious teacher might in these lectures disclose misgivings otherwise concealed from view in his published works. But if they had entertained such hopes, they would have been more than a little disappointed. There are no startling retractationes. All the same, contemporary readers of these lectures may be surprised at the candor with which Bavinck expresses certain opinions. Readers accustomed to the taciturn prose of Reformed Dogmatics may be more than a little unsettled to hear him speak more frankly about the limitations—even failures—of Reformed Orthodoxy and the relative merits of Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel.

In this regard, The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics is a good reminder to Bavinck’s twenty-first-century readership that he was a thinker in whom the thought patterns of the nineteenth century were deeply ingrained. Contemporary readers, however, will also do well to recall that Bavinck composed these lectures in the twilight of an era. Bavinck’s decidedly nineteenth-century genealogy of ideas and the implications he drew from it would soon be eclipsed by the twentieth-century vision of Karl Barth’s Römerbrief. In this respect, Bavinck’s lectures present a fascinating point of comparison with the younger Swiss theologian’s diagnosis of the foremost problems of contemporary dogmatics and reception of post-Enlightenment thought.1 While these thinkers were grappling with the same set of problems, their proposed solutions chart quite different trajectories. It is precisely for this reason that Bavinck’s lectures hold more than historical interest for contemporary readers. On the one hand, Barth provides a counterpoint to Bavinck’s solution and challenges some of its conclusions. On the other hand, Bavinck’s argument exposes potential weaknesses in Barth’s doctrine of creation by continually drawing attention to the psychological and social aspects of our agency.

The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics thus provides a great deal of grist for the intellectual mill of those whose interests lie in historical and systematic theology in the Reformed tradition. For the narrower field of Bavinck studies, however, these lectures present important analyses of specific texts and thinkers unavailable elsewhere in Bavinck’s oeuvre. They also provide insights into Bavinck’s dependence on the judgments of particular secondary sources. Notable in both respects is Bavinck’s analysis of Ritschl and Troeltsch, and the long chapter on Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. While the basic conclusions are reflected in Bavinck’s published works, The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics reveals considerably more of his reasoning. The intermezzo on the arts is also of particular interest for the fact that it represents a rare example of Bavinck’s theological aesthetics. While Bavinck charts out aesthetic principles in his published works, concrete instances in which these principles are applied are scarce.2 This intermezzo also provides important insights on the relation of Christ and culture in Bavinck’s thought. The claim that developments in the arts form a mirror image of the path trod by theology and philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century illustrates Bavinck’s conceptualization of the world as an organism, according to which the real cannot be alienated from the ideal, or vice versa.

There are several features of the manuscript of The Foremost Problems of Contemporary Dogmatics that offer clues to its composition and use. There are several indicators that would suggest that the bulk of the manuscript was written within two years of Bavinck’s translation to the Vrije Universiteit. Toward the end of chapter 6, for example, Bavinck notes that Protestant theologian Hermann Schultz (1836–1903) had recently died. Ferdinand Kattenbusch, who would take up a post at the University of Göttingen in 1904, is also described as professor in Giessen. In chapter 8, we see that Bavinck had read the second edition of Franz Overbeck’s Über die Christlichkeit unserer heutigen Theologie, which was published in 1903. And in the discussion of mechanism and vitalism in chapter 7, Bavinck speaks of Hans Driesch’s “latest publication,” which is an article that appeared in 1904. This suggests that much if not all of the main text was completed by the end of 1904.

A few of the marginal notes, however, date from as late as 1920. This reflects that Bavinck continued to deliver these lectures during and after the First World War. For example, in a marginal note to the final chapter Bavinck jots down that he “got up to Troeltsch and criticism” by the semester break, June 8, 1920. There follows a final remark: “With the last phase, I said that I was not certain whether I would still write a final chapter about the contemporary trends in religion—here or somewhere else.” This would suggest that both Bavinck and his students were aware of the unfinished nature of this project and the unlikely event of its completion.

In this regard, readers will note that the constructive account of these problems that Bavinck promises in his introduction is not forthcoming. Bavinck’s manuscript comprises only the historical section of these lectures. This, however, is not the only indicator that Bavinck did not get around to finishing this expansive project. The final chapter is much more detailed than the previous seven, but it is also demonstrably less complete. The final section on the revival of metaphysics is quite short, and the final booklet of Bavinck’s manuscript contains notes on its structure and content, which would suggest that Bavinck hoped to make further additions or emendations to what he had already written.

Accordingly, we have included the supplementary material in two appendixes. The first appendix accommodates material that appears on the final pages of the last booklet of Bavinck’s manuscript. Here, the reader will recognize reiterations of material covered in earlier sections, summaries of secondary literature that Bavinck either read or had planned to read. The second appendix contains brief notes that may well comprise the beginnings of the book’s constructive section promised in the introduction. Bavinck refers to main points of earlier chapters before presenting some reflections on the content and act of faith in the New Testament. Bavinck refers to Adolf Schlatter’s Der Glaube im Neuen Testament, but the biblical references and content of Bavinck’s notes show that these are Bavinck’s own thoughts rather than a summary of the main arguments of Schlatter’s book. These notes are reminiscent of the transitional paragraphs of Reformed Dogmatics in which Bavinck embarks on a constructive account of the doctrine at hand having set out an account of its historical development. These paragraphs take Scripture as their starting point, building a conceptual basis from its testimony. Of course, this material could also comprise notes for a lecture on faith to be delivered elsewhere. But it is also possible that these notes reflect the beginnings of Bavinck’s solution to the foremost problem of contemporary dogmatics. For this reason, we have included these notes as a second appendix.

In both the manuscript itself and the loose sheets filed with it in the Bavinck Archive, there are also notes for sermons, speeches, and other apparently unrelated speaking engagements. For the sake of clarity, these additional notes have not been included in the main text, footnotes, or appendixes. For the sake of clarity, we have also made a few minor reconstructions to the main text. The manuscript is littered with marginal notes, and Bavinck continued to update its bibliographical references until the end of his working life. Much of this material appears on the otherwise blank-facing page of Bavinck’s booklets. Where these notes and references supplement the manuscript, they have been relegated to the footnotes. In one instance, however, it is clear that Bavinck has rewritten a paragraph. The new paragraph is included in the main text, and the original paragraph appears in the footnotes. In two instances, notes that appear at a distance to the subject matter at hand have been relocated to the direct discussion of these topics. Thus, a paragraph of notes on the emergence of left and right wings of the Ritschlian school has been relocated to the end of chapter 6, and a paragraph about mechanism and vitalism has been relocated to Bavinck’s treatment of that topic in chapter 7. Readers can consult the footnotes for the original location of this material.

Although Bavinck’s handwriting is relatively clear, his use of shorthand frequently complicated and occasionally thwarted our task. Where Bavinck’s abbreviations could be confidently discerned, the main text has been expanded to reflect their referent. But where a word is illegible or the precise referent of Bavinck’s shorthand is unclear, we have used an ellipsis […]. Further textual abnormalities are described in the footnotes. We have also lightly annotated Bavinck’s manuscript to assist contemporary readers who may be unfamiliar with the places and persons under discussion. Although the addition of birth and death dates precipitates anachronism in certain cases, we felt this information would help readers unfamiliar with the various personalities negotiate the gap between Bavinck’s narrative and their own contexts. And in several instances, providing this information is necessary to avoid possible confusion. The best example of this is the reference to Karl Camillo Schneider (1867–1943), who should not be confused with his brother Camillo Karl Schneider (1876–1951).

In terms of the translation itself, we have attempted to retain the linguistic structure of Bavinck’s nineteenth-century Dutch grammar and syntax yet in a way that will remain intelligible to twenty-first-century readers of English. We have sought to avoid paraphrasing Bavinck, yet we have nonetheless allowed Bavinck to deliver his lectures in a contemporary idiom. On occasion, this required minimal stylistic adaptations. For example, chains of subordinate clauses have occasionally been rendered as a series of simple sentences. Bavinck’s use of the simple past has sometimes been exchanged for an historical present. We have also opted for third-person plural pronouns where Bavinck consistently uses the masculine singular. And where the historical referent of a certain term would be unintelligible to a contemporary Anglophone readership, we have attempted to convey the meaning of Bavinck’s terms rather than provide a formal equivalent.

Occasionally, Bavinck uses terms such as “redskins,” “eskimos,” and “blacks.” While we appreciate the offence these terms may give, we have allowed these to remain in the text. This does not indicate our approbation of Bavinck’s choice of language. Rather, we feel that the preservation of these terms is important for an accurate representation of Bavinck’s views on race and colonialism. This is an area of Bavinck studies that has gained more attention in recent years. While these lectures do not address race and colonialism directly, Bavinck’s offhand comments may be of interest to those researching these topics.3

One Dutch word in particular warrants special mention: wetenschap. While this could readily be translated “science,” this term is unsatisfactory for a contemporary readership. In contemporary usage, this word has strongly positivist connotations and usually bears reference to the hard sciences and fields of empirical inquiry. Translating wetenschap as “science” would thus potentially obscure the way Bavinck’s use of this Dutch word reflects the German Fachbegriff of post-Enlightenment philosophy of mind and the ongoing nineteenth-century debates about whether theology belongs in the university. Accordingly, we have drawn on a range of terms in an attempt to denote the contextual freight of the term wetenschap more clearly. Where our translation choices might prove contestable, we have included wetenschap in parentheses.

Bavinck’s text is littered with phrases and quotations in languages other than Dutch. These phrases and quotations have been allowed to stand in the main text with a translation in parentheses so that it is obvious to the reader that Bavinck is alluding to or quoting from another source. Where Bavinck uses a non-Latin script, it has been preserved. Where Bavinck quotes an English publication, quotation marks have been added to make this clear. Apparent errors in Bavinck’s quotations have been corrected. Older spellings (of mainly German) words have been modernized, although archaic terms and their spellings have been retained.

In our translation of the technical terms in these languages, we have applied the same principle described above for our translation of wetenschap. For example, the German term Geist embraces both “mind” and “spirit” in the English language. Since the German idealists gained leverage on the breadth of this term’s semantic range, we have opted for “mind” in instances where the word “spirit” would mask the epistemological and psychological focus of the discussion. Similarly, aufheben not only has a wide semantic range but also holds specific connotations in Hegel. Although we have often used the traditional term “sublate” to translate this term, we have also drawn on other words, which, we hope, capture Hegel’s conception of the historical movement and manifestation of absolute mind.

As Bavinck’s lectures were prepared for his personal use rather than for publication, his bibliographical references are rarely complete and often obscure. In most cases, we have augmented Bavinck’s references and brought them into conformity with contemporary bibliographical conventions. In order to do this, a great deal of sleuthing was necessary. In the few instances where we could not identify a particular edition with any certainty, we have retained the abbreviated form of the citation.

We are grateful to Lexham Press for its patience with this project, which has unfolded slowly over the last six years. We would also like to extend our thanks to staff at the Vrije Universiteit who allowed us access to Bavinck’s manuscript, and to Ab Flipse, Henk van den Belt, Andreas Heidel, Michael Bräutigam, and Kylie Giblet, who have each offered invaluable advice on the transcription and translation. While we hope that the shortcomings of this project will be few, we readily acknowledge them as our own.

Gert de Kok and Bruce R. Pass

INTRODUCTION

I am delighted to be able to begin this first lecture at the Free University with a word of heartfelt thanks. Thank you for the friendly welcome and reception you have prepared for me. The circumstances under which I come make this reception doubly pleasant. I leave behind many things that had become dear to me: a tradition, a history, a circle of friends, conversation, which has often refreshed my heart. Fortunately, many have come with me: my colleague and many students. I see them with joy and see you all amiably united.1 May our common living, thinking, and working prove a blessing for you and for the church. Yet may our common living and working also yield rich fruit for both you and me. We are comrades. In an army marching to war, it does depend on the weaponry, but above all it depends on spirit and enthusiasm. So it is with us. We have one faith, one baptism, one Lord: one struggle, one ideal.

That ideal holds and binds us together. Yet this bond must become personal. It must feel that we are brothers to one another. Sympathy of soul must replenish this unity of spirit, deepen it, and bring it to become ever more intimate. One faith, one brotherly love. Let our conviviality be pleasant and trustworthy. In such unity our diversity is preserved. No imitation, no caricature. Each becomes aware of his own gift and develops it—especially at a university, it must be so. Most certainly, let there be unity of foundation, but let each one build on it freely and independently. I wish to form no school. Rather, I wish to form free men who for themselves think and act and do not swear by the word of any master. Only in this way can anything good or great come about through us. May God give us the strength and the desire for this.

In the series of lectures scheduled for this hour (Tuesday, 10 a.m.) and at noon on Wednesdays, I would like to address the foremost problems of contemporary dogmatics. What inspires this theme is the conviction that anyone who may soon have to lead their people must be at home in their own era. He must be a child of his own time, understand his own time. Yet this is extremely difficult. It is much easier to make the past one’s own, for this lies at some distance. There are many sources and there are many guides to lead the way. Yet it is the present that surrounds us. It confuses us with many details; we cannot see the wood for the trees. There are too many sources, they are too widely dispersed, and the guides are too few. And there is something else.

The subject to be treated will bring us to understand the seriousness of our time. We live in a century in which for Christianity, for the idea, for the unseen, it is “to be or not to be.” Thousands have broken with any kind of faith and cast themselves into the arms of theoretical or practical materialism. Yet there too one finds dissatisfaction, sorrow, incompleteness. There is also longing for the ideal, thirst for the truth, earnest seeking. We must know our age, and then shall we be able to pass judgment—condemn as well as vindicate it—and come to value it according to our own yardstick. Talking big is not enough, and neither will sticking our heads in the sand prove to be of any benefit in the long run. We must examine the problems, honestly and uprightly. We must attempt to solve them. We must give account of our own solution or else give account for why we could not solve them.

The foremost problems in contemporary dogmatics occur primarily in prolegomena, in the pars formalis (“formal part”). They concern the foundations of the dogmatic structure. This is not to say that there are no problems in the pars materialis (“material part”). On the contrary, dogmatics always has to do with mysteria, mystērion (“mystery”). But at present, the problems of the pars formalis are so pressing that the problems of the pars materialis recede into the background. Also, one mostly arrives at an answer to material problems, if one draws definite conclusions about the problems of the pars formalis. The foundations do not determine every component, but they do determine the design, the structure of the building.

Now, the main problems are threefold:

1.An epistemological problem: how do we arrive at knowledge in general and particularly on the domain of religion, and specifically, the Christian religion? What is the ultimate source, the ultimate ground, the ultimate proof?

2.A metaphysical problem: What is the Christian religion? What is its essence? What is the difference and the agreement between Christianity and the other religions? What is the general relation between the two?

3.A dogmatic problem: What is the content, the task, the essence, the method, and the source of dogmatics? What is the relation between Christianity and dogmatics? What is dogma? Is there a place for dogma in Christianity? If so, what is the relation between dogma and science (philosophy)? Is dogmatics a science? If so, is it a theoretical or practical science?

It is, however, necessary first to present an overview of the history of these problems in order to discern how they have come to our attention, how they have been formulated and how they must be formulated, and how they have been solved and how they ought to be solved. To this overview let us now proceed.

1

HOLY SCRIPTURE

Sin began with doubt: unbelief in God’s word. And so it will always remain. The human being became fleshly and believes only what can be seen in the present. God’s special revelation, however, has for its content a word, a word of promise that concerns future, invisible, eternal things (Gen 3:15). Hence, there is conflict, enmity. But hence also the demand that human beings first put away their enmity and that they believe, for a promise cannot otherwise become our possession than by faith. In the Old Testament the term “faith” does not yet appear with any great frequency. The activity is indicated mostly by other words: “trusting,” “depending,” “sustaining,” “hoping,” “anticipating.”1 But practically it amounts to the same thing, namely, relying on God, on his word.

We encounter faith in the Old Testament in the lives of the heroes of the faith (Heb 11), especially in Abraham, the exemplar and father of all who believe. But in the Old Testament, in Israel, there was also all manner of doubt and unbelief. There was doubt among the pious, not in God’s existence or revelation but in his righteousness. The physical lot of human beings and peoples appears not to conform to their religious and ethical predisposition. There is no harmony but rather conflict between ethos and physis, between virtue and felicity. The law—the law given by God to Israel—presented a blessing and a curse to the people. Do this and you will live. It nurtured the people in the conviction that it would go well with the one who fears the Lord and badly with the one who did not fear him (Deut 28; Josh 8:34; etc.).

This revelation of the law stimulated consciousness, aroused a good as well as a bad conscience. The bad conscience caused sin to be recognized and banished any claim to righteousness, felicity, and blessing, inasmuch as the law increased sin (cf. Paul). Yet the good conscience [was aroused] too, inasmuch as the pious—convinced of their innocence—dared to hope for blessing, although here it is necessary to draw a distinction between the righteousness of their person and that of their cause. Personally, they know themselves to be guilty sinners, but their cause is righteous. Their cause is God’s cause, they stand on his side, glory in him, trust in him, and may thus demand that God uphold justice (Ps 17:4; 18:21–22; 34:16; 103:6; 140:13).2

But reality does not conform to this. The godless prosper in the world, and the pious are oppressed and afflicted and wait in vain for God’s deliverance. Hence, the question: O God, why do you stand from afar and do not come to my aid (Ps 10:1, 13)? Hence, the prayer that God would awake and arise (Ps 9:20). Hence, the soul struggle in Job and Psalm 73. Hence, finally, a postexilic book such as Ecclesiastes, which maintains faith in the divine government of the world and the moral order yet despairs in quiet resignation of any solution to the problem.3 Doubt extends much further among the godless. They set themselves not only against God’s government of the world but also against his revelation and existence. From the beginning, Israel was a stiff-necked and rebellious people (Exod 32:9; 33:3; 34:9; Deut 9:24). They did not believe in Moses (Exod 5:21; 6:8). They grumbled repeatedly and longed to return to Egypt (Exod 16:3; 17:3; 32:1; Num 11:1–5; 12:2; 14:2ff.).

Now, the faith of Israel from Egypt until the Babylonian exile bore more the character of superstition, idolatry, and fetishism. But later on a faction of determined unbelief manifested itself. This was exacerbated by the disunity of the prophets. They all claimed to proclaim the word of the Lord, but with one this word had completely different content than it did with the other (as it is with the preachers of the Dutch Reformed Church).4 Micaiah son of Imlah stood with his message against that of the four hundred prophets of Ahab and Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 22). Amos rejected the title “prophet” and renounced membership of the guild (Amos 7:10–15). Our prophets usually oppose such prophets and pronounce a severe judgment on them (Mic 3:5–7; Isa 28:7; 30:10; Jer 23:9; 32:32; etc.; Zeph 3:4; Ezek 13:1–14:11; 22:25; Zech 13:2–6).

Jeremiah, called in his youth and appearing as a prophet in 629 BC or 627 BC (when Josiah had already begun his reformation) and who was active in Anathoth and then in Jerusalem, had at first a comparatively untroubled period of twenty-two years, but the year 605 BC (the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the battle of Carchemish, and the beginning of the Babylonian rule of the Near East) marked a turning point, and he developed a prophetic agenda. Judah and Judea, like all the surrounding peoples, would fall into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Opposition would be futile, willing submission is the best. But after seventy years the exile would finish: chapter 25. Then the opposition to Jeremiah began; under Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah his conditions became increasingly dire, particularly when Jeremiah deemed the hope of help from Egypt, the hope Zedekiah had so cherished (Jer 37:6–11), to be a vain hope. He was thrown into prison (Jer 37:11–21) and thereafter into a well (Jer 38:1–13).

During this time, he prophesied of the new covenant (chapters 32–33). Jeremiah’s opponents were the priests, the prophets, the rulers, the people. They could not bear it that he preached the demise of the temple and the city (chapter 26ff.). Especially the prophet Hananiah opposed him, preached the breaking of the yoke of the Babylonian king within two years, and in this way made the people put their trust in lies (chapter 28). In the same way the people built their hope on the external privileges—the temple, the law, sacrifice, sabbath, circumcision, and so on—their prophets also articulated this explicitly and so reinforced their presumption. In principle, this was already the Pharisaic trend, which later separated itself, was dedicated to strict observance of the law and tradition, and formed the actual party of the orthodox and pious.5

Next to them there existed and developed among the people yet another party. There was also dissent and mockery of all faith in Israel.6 There were, according to Malachi, those who meant that the God of judgment could not be found and that it was pointless to serve him. Especially in the Psalms, a powerful party of spies, persecutors, enemies, party-men, workers of unrighteousness, the godless, sinners, scoffers stands opposed to the small group of the afflicted who placed their trust in the God of Jacob. They speak falsehood, flatter one another, find their rest in the world, and increase in wealth. They are free from the burdens common to man and are never plagued by human ills. From on high they look scornfully on the afflicted, they leap for joy at their sufferings (Pss 25:2; 38:17; 35:15). Indeed, their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth, and they ask: How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge? The sum of their thoughts is that there is no God (Ps 10; 14; 53). Contemptuously, they ask the pious: Where now is your God? (Ps 42:11). You trust in the Lord; let the Lord rescue you (Ps 22:9). They pay no attention to God’s law. They crushed God’s people. They oppressed his inheritance and they said: the Lord does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed (Ps 94). Later, this developed into the party of the Sadducees, to whom the most prominent priests, aristocrats, and men of the world belonged. They rejected the tradition, believed in no angels and spirits, in no resurrection or recompense. They were Hellenistic, pagan in orientation, and quite indifferent toward matters of religion.7

How would God now make his revelation credible? Often, the appearance of divine speech was of such a manner that the person who reported this appearance or heard the speech could no longer doubt. Those who received revelation are themselves so certainly convinced that God has spoken to them that no doubt arises within them (cf. Adam: Gen 3:8ff.; Noah: Gen 7:1–5; Abraham: Gen 12:1ff.; Moses and all the prophets). Again and again they say, the Lord has spoken to me.8 Furthermore, the Lord often added signs to his revelation: the rainbow (Gen 9:13), circumcision (Gen 17:11). Moses received these signs: the transformation of the staff into a snake, a healthy hand into a leprous hand, and water into blood (Exod 4:1–9, 30). The plagues of Egypt were signs (Exod 10:1–2), the Sabbath was a sign (Exod 31:13, 17), Aaron’s blossoming staff (Num 17:10), and the earth swallowing up Korah and his associates (Num 26:10). Gideon asked for a sign in order to know that the angel of the Lord had spoken to him (Judg 6:17) and also the fleece (Judg 6:37). There were signs given to Ahaz (Isa 7:11), Hezekiah (Isa 38:22), and so on.

Hence, all the prophets, in addition to God’s word, always make appeal to God’s deeds as well—to his works in nature and grace—above all to creation and the deliverance from Egypt. See, for example, the nature psalms and historical psalms (Deut 32; Pss 104–106). It is even indicated in Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:9–22 that this is how a false prophet is to be distinguished from a true prophet. A prophet who incites the worship of other gods is always a false prophet, even if he makes predictions or performs miracles. A prophet who invokes the name of the Lord is therefore a true prophet, if his message comes true.9 For it seems clear in the Old Testament that all of these signs and confirmations are not sufficient to bring someone to faith. Refusal remains a possibility.

Believing is thus an act of an honorable nature, of willingness, of obedience. Those who hear and do not believe are therefore portrayed as a stiff-necked people, as a rebellious house (Ezekiel), as a people who do not want to hear, understand, or see (Isa 6:10, etc.). Disbelief is thus sinful and punishable (Deut 18:19). And so it is in the New Testament. Faith is demanded by the gospel that Christ and the apostles preached. The message preached by them was confirmed with

a) proofs from the Old Testament, which we regard as the fulfilment of the Old Testament promises hina plērōthē (“in order that it would be fulfilled”) according to Scripture (Luke 24:44ff.; 1 Cor 15:4).

b) with signs, sēmeia (“signs”) in connection with John the Baptist (Luke 1:64, 67), Jesus himself (Matt 11:4–5; John 1:48ff.; 2:11; 10:38; 11:40; Acts 2:22; 10:38; 14:11), and the apostles (Mark 16:20; Acts 4:16; 5:10; 14:3; 19:11; 2 Cor 12:12; Heb 2:4).

Disbelief, therefore, is sin (John 1:5; 3:19; 12:37ff.) Nevertheless, in order to believe, one must have repented (Mark 1:15), have been born again (John 3:3ff.), be disposed to do the will of the Father (John 7:17), and be a spiritual person (1 Cor 2:14), and so on.

2

THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY OVER PAGANISM

The first thing that must be considered is the preparation of the world for the word. It was the fullness of time. The Jews were scattered throughout all the Mediterranean lands and exercised great influence and made many proselytes. Those outside Palestine were themselves, for the greater part, unable to keep the ceremonial laws. They had a religion without a temple, offerings, images but only the doctrine of one God, creator of all things, the unity of the human race, one law (especially of morals), which determines good and evil, a day of judgment. In this way, its religion commended itself as something of a philosophical religion, a doctrine, a preaching.1

Second, there was a preparation in the pagan world for Christianity: the hellenization of the East and West, one language, one Roman world-kingdom, the political unity of the peoples, an increasingly global transport network, and the all-conquering conviction of the unity of humanity, the decomposition and moral devolution of ancient society, the Roman policy of tolerance toward all religions, and above all the religious and moral conditions. There was general malaise (Rom 1–2). The wisdom of the wise had been put to shame. Philosophy had ended in a fiasco. The thinkers were thought of as thwarted in their deliberations. There was a longing for something new. Persian and Syrian religions had penetrated the West. The ancient religions had died out. Faith had disappeared. Polytheism had lost its power. Knowledge seemed to be powerless. The mystery cult had become common. One sought out a path other than that of thinking. One tried to ascend to divinity through feeling, intuition, ecstasy (neo-Platonism). One was led a long way down this path. Through syncretism and speculation, certain ideas were now in general circulation: the dualism of mind and body, of god and the world, God is agnōstos (“unknown”), the material world is thus sinful and bad, the close connection between flesh and sin, and thus the demand for redemption from the body, flesh, transience, death; redemption consists in gnosis (“knowledge”), and is successively mediated through eons, through saviors and mysteries. The world was trying to stretch out its hand and perhaps find God.2

Third, this world encountered the gospel. It was a very simple message. Jesus preached: repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). Later it was the risen Christ, especially in the book of Acts (Acts 2:30ff; 3:15; 1 Cor 15:4ff). That which Christ had given was unfurled in greater detail (Acts 20:21; 26:18; 1 Thess 1:9–10). One God—the Creator, Christ his Son, through the resurrection made Lord and Judge, repentance to God, faith in Christ, forgiveness, life (immortality), acquittal in the judgment.3Yet however slender this was, it was something completely new, a completely different worldview, which as gnosis (“knowledge”) would soon be more deeply thought out and applied. At the same time, the gospel brought new life (2 Cor 6:11). It was a preaching in word and deed. Jesus lived and died for others. He preached and he healed. His word was deed. His suffering was an act of obedience (active and passive). The Christian religion was, therefore, preeminently for the poor, the simple, plebeians, slaves, and the sick. Christians, having themselves received compassion, had compassion on others, loved one another, loved their enemies, gave alms, maintained their own teachers, supported widows and orphans, the sick and the poor, cared for prisoners and the dying, extended comfort in suffering, in death and in persecution, made working obligatory, honored the pious, regarded slaves as brethren, gave shelter to strangers, and so on. They were creating a new world.

Fourth, Christians were conscious of this. They were carried along by a lofty, mighty self-consciousness. They were a new, holy people, the people of God (1 Pet 2:9), the most ancient people, from which the world was made and everything exists, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the new humanity (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 5:6; 3:20; 1 Cor 12:14; Eph 2:11), the tertium genus (“third race”), in which Greeks and Jews found their higher unity. This lofty self-consciousness was mightily strengthened by the book that one possessed in the Old Testament. The New Testament church was never without the Bible. From Israel, they received the Old Testament as the word of God without criticism and devoted their attention to it. Israel’s prerogatives became those of the church. It was the people of God, the most ancient people. And Christian teaching derived from this book: the doctrine of God, Creator, Lord of all, cosmogony, a view of nature, the prophecies of the Christ in beautiful, unusual, yet simple language, and so on.

Fifth, Christians, therefore, acted boldly and fearlessly among and against the pagans. They went on the offensive and combated

a) Polytheism and idolatry, and belief in demons and ghosts, which exercised such influence on the people. Above all they opposed the multiplicity and the irrationality of the gods.

b) They opposed philosophy very strongly (Tatian, Tertullian), and gently (Clement, Origen), and somewhere in between (Irenaeus), drawing a distinction between that which is true and that which is false, and

c) They opposed pagan political philosophy inasmuch as it was embodied in the emperor and the apotheosis of the state, emperor worship, the deification of human beings, and they drew or at least sought to draw a distinction between religion and public life.

For Christians worshiped God alone, yet they honored the emperor. This was the foremost reason for the persecutions.4 They opposed the pagan lifestyle, theater, games, astrology, magic, fleshly sins, lust, incest, greed, avarice, dishonesty, lies, untruthfulness, and so on.

Sixth, they offered all manner of positive proofs for Christianity,5 the warrant for belief, the compatibility of Christianity with the best and most beautiful elements of the pagan world, preeminence of Christianity over the pagan religions, the moral influence of Christianity on life and doctrine, the steadfastness of the martyrs, the prophecies and their fulfillment, the miracles of earlier and more recent times, the holy life and character of Jesus and the apostles, the witness of Scripture (its consistency, divine language, simplicity and sublimity, its miraculous origin, antiquity, preservation, transmission), the witness of the church and the tradition. This apologetic culminated in Augustine’s De Civitate Dei (The City of God). It was written 413–426 and published successively in sections. Its pretext was primarily that Rome had been sacked by Alaric the Goth in 410. The pagans blamed the Christians for this: they were the cause of the fall of Rome, they drove out the ancient Roman gods by their doctrine. The work has two main parts: books 1–9 have an apologetic-polemic purpose, and in the first place it refutes (in books 1–4) the opinion of the people that polytheism is necessary for earthly happiness, and in the second place (in books 6–10) it refutes the opinion of the Neoplatonic philosophers that polytheism is useful for life after death. The second main section, books 11–22, bear a dogmatic, speculative character and are concerned with the two civitates (“cities”), which in hoc saeculo (“in this age”) are intermingled, both in their origin with the fall of the angels (books 11–14), their progress (books 15–18), and their end (books 19–22). The first main section is thus a refutation of the pagan, false religions in both their mythical (for the people) and their civic (for the state) and physical (philosophy for the educated) forms. It proceeds with two arguments, that is, that the false religions can provide neither temporal nor eternal goods. They do not satisfy the human being, whose heart is oriented toward God.

Therewith concludes the first main section. The second resumes the argument and sets out how one God created everything in blessed harmony. Yet through the fall of angels and human beings on the one hand and through God’s grace in Christ on the other, a civitas terrena (“earthly city”) and a civitas caelestis (“heavenly city”) have come to oppose one another. They have been wrestling one another in the Old Testament ever since Cain and Abel, and now in the New Testament the conflict is between church and state. Indeed, the political state is not identical with the civitas terrena, and the church is not identical with the civitas caelestis. The best states are a mixture of both. Nevertheless, Augustine does not clearly show where the dividing line lies. He holds the church in too high esteem and the Christian state in too low esteem, and in this way prepares the way for the supernaturalism of the medieval era. Both cities terminate in hell and heaven. In hell there is, however, also no longer any city, because everything there is destroyed. The civitatis caelestis, therefore, is ordinatissima et concordissima societas (“a perfectly ordered and fully concordant fellowship”).6

3

ROMAN SUPERNATURALISM

With his civitas caelestis (“heavenly city”), which was manifested here on earth and more so in the church, Augustine posed a problem that would remain unsolved for centuries and remained on the agenda throughout the Middle Ages. Already, Charlemagne made acquaintance with it in order to solve this problem; and he gladly had Augustine’s De Civitate Dei read aloud to him at meals. Nevertheless, that to which this great prince aspired was beyond the reach of any his successors. The demise of the Carolingian dynasty made space for the papacy. This was the institution that labored for the realization of Augustine’s ideal in the Middle Ages, and at least in part it succeeded. During the Middle Ages, the whole of the Western world was Christianized, or to be more precise, it was “ecclesialized.” The life of the individual and the family, the social relationships of the state, society, scholarship, art, trade, and transport came under the influence of the church. It did this primarily by means of law. The papacy created for all these domains, for the whole of life, an ecclesial law, the corpus juris canonici (“body of canon law”) as distinct from the corpus juris (“body of law”) of Justinian’s civil law, that bound the whole of Christendom to Rome, regulated the relationships of all domains to Rome and to each other, and thus comprised the soul of the medieval theocracy.1

The medieval worldview is characterized by two elements: flight from the world and dominion of the world. Christians then were generally convinced that the whole of creation—human beings, the family, society, nature, and so on, all that is earthly—was pervaded by sin, bore an ungodly character or was even opposed to God, and stood under the dominion of Satan. The boundary between nature and sin was not sharply defined. Augustine named the domain of sin the civitas terrena (“earthly city”), and it was identified—in theory but especially in practice—with nature, with creational ordinances, with the family, marriage, one’s occupation, the state, and so on. Although none of these were themselves sin, they were still a dangerous opportunity for sin, one big concupiscence, which as such dwells in the flesh and avails itself of any opportunity to pass over into action. Any contact with the world leads to sin. Family, marriage, wealth, occupation, and so on were all pitfalls. They all belonged to the profane sphere, were all of a lower order and stood under the domain of Satan. Thus, flight from the world was the best option: monastic life, celibacy, poverty, obedience was the real vita religiosa (“religious life”), and so on. The papacy acknowledged and sanctioned this view through its promotion of the ascetic life, through its support for monasticism, through its introduction of the celibacy of the priesthood. And this is still the view of Rome.2

Yet this flight from the world had world-dominion as its flipside. For precisely because the world was profane and stood under Satan’s influence, it could and must not be left to itself. On the contrary, it must be reformed, filled with divine content, made serviceable to a divine end. In other words, it must be made subject to the civitas caelestis (“heavenly city”), to the church. And the pope was the head of the church. He was the visibility of Christ on earth, his representative, his image and likeness. What Rome undertook to subject the world to itself was actually a struggle for Christ, for the kingdom of God. Popes such as Gregory I, Gregory VIII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII were borne by that lofty consciousness, and it enabled them to achieve great things. Labiae Romano pontifici (“To the lip of the Roman pontiff”)! That was the salvation of the individual person and humanity, of emperor and subject, of state and society, of the whole world. Hence, the conflict between pope and emperor. The church is the sun; the state is the moon. Hence, asceticism (cosmism) and worldliness stood side by side in the Middle Ages. Hence, the character of medieval art. The natural was not ennobled but suppressed by the Christian spirit.

Hence, there arose scholasticism. Christianity came to the Teutonic peoples ready-made. It lay objectively before them—completely finished and perfected—in its dogmas, in its sacraments. It was a given, positive. There was nothing to change, to add, or subtract. This was how the Teutonic peoples took on Christianity. They became acquainted with it in this way, as a complete and imposing system, invested with divine authority from within and without. The Teutonic peoples never doubted but simply accepted it with naive, childlike faith. Scholasticism sprang from faith, but now it also strived to conquer the truths received through faith intellectually: negligentia mihi videtur, si, postquam confirmati sumus in fide, non studemus, quod credimus, intelligere (“so, to my mind it appears a neglect if, after we are established in the faith, we do not seek to understand what we believe”).3 And at first, the scholastics naively thought that this was possible. Anselm (1033–1109) proved the existence of God from the idea of God (Monologion and Proslogion) also the necessity of the incarnation (Cur Deus Homo) from the characterization of sin as a robbery of divine honor: Volo me perducas illuc, ut rationabili necessitate intelligam esse oportere omnia illa, quae nobis fides catholica de Christo credere praecipit (“I would like you to go further with me and enable me to understand, by force of reasoning, the fitness of all those things which the Catholic faith enjoins upon us with regard to Christ”).4

Toward the end of the twelfth and into the thirteenth century, the works of Aristotle and also those of the Islamic and Jewish philosophers were discovered, and they were used by Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), Albert the Great (d. 1280), Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) in both philosophy and theology. This wrought all manner of influence on both form and content. The dialectical, syllogistic question form came into vogue. Thesis and antithesis were juxtaposed, each defended with reasons, and then at the end the answer was stated. Yet there also arose a sharp separation between believing and knowing, theologia supernaturalis and naturalis (“supernatural and natural theology”), articuli puri (“pure articles”) and articuli mixti (“mixed articles”), especially in the case of Thomas. The existence of the unity of God, for example, can be discerned and proven by reason, but the Trinity only by faith in revelation.5 There are, therefore, two [species] or groups of truths.

The first group is formed through that which is knowable from nature through reason. Here, four things warrant our close attention:

a) They are called articuli mixti (“mixed articles”) because they are not knowable exclusively from special revelation but also from nature. They are also called praeambula fidei (“forerunners of faith”) because they are logically prior to special revelation and faith even if they are not stated first, and therefore they form the natural presupposition of special revelation and faith.6

b) The content of these veritates naturales (“natural truths”) is primarily the existence of God, the unity, the goodness, wisdom, and other attributes of God. In addition there was the creative (especially under the influence of Aristotle, as explained above) and the providential activity of God (in creation and providence), the spiritual nature and the immortality of the soul, the wisdom of the will, the laws of religio naturalis (“natural religion”), of natural ethics (morals), and of jus naturae (“natural law”).7 Thus, there is a complete system of truths such as those that are necessary for homo naturalis (“natural man”).

c) These truths are not discerned merely from nature but are also taken up by God in his revelation because

i) Without revelation, hardly any people would come to a knowledge of these truths. The intellectual quest is difficult, and on account of lack of interest, time, and energy it can only be undertaken by a few.

ii) These truths are also very profound and therefore can only be found with much exertion by means of disciplined thinking. Without revelation, therefore, many people might well arrive at these truths at the end of a long life, but if their life was cut short, they would not.

iii) These truths can be arrived at by thinking, but that thinking is subject to many errors and always goes astray. Without revelation, many people might remain in doubt, seeing that the educated are divided, and they themselves might recognize the weakness or strength of the arguments.8

d) In natural truths, a genuine, true knowing is possible. Thomas can go so far as to say that anyone who has come to know these truths from nature through reason no longer needs to accept them on the authority of faith. For him, faith in such situations is superfluous, although not in the sense that one is also ready to believe these truths on [appeal to] authority, if one cannot be convinced by rational proofs.9 Rather, whoever cannot acquire a demonstrative knowledge of these truths must believe them on authority,10 which Thomas narrows down a little. Later on, others have also rightly said and expressed themselves in such a way that the certainty of the knowledge of these truths can indeed be strengthened by faith.11 In any case, it is Roman dogma that natural reason can come to know God as creator and Lord from nature. For the Vatican Council’s Constitutio Dogmatica de Fide Catholica says, Si quis dixerit, Deum unum et verum, Creatorem et Dominum nostrum, per ea, quae facta sunt, naturali rationis humanae lumine certo cognosci non posse: anathema sit (“If any one shall say that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human reason through created things: let him be anathema”).12 Indeed, this knowledge of natural truths is not immediate, and it is inadequate, for it is acquired from nature and is analogous. Nevertheless, it is a genuine knowledge, a genuine knowing, for reason perceives on rational grounds that God exists and it perceives what he is.13 Rome must, therefore, always stand opposed to the philosophy of Kant and place great value on the proofs for God’s existence, on the spiritual and immortal nature of the soul, on natural religion, morality, and law.

Things stand differently with the supernatural truths:

a) Revelation of these was strictly necessary

i) in order to know the highest good and to cause it to be pursued. For this highest good far exceeds nature and everything the human being can know and desire in nature. What is unknown cannot, however, be desired and pursued. God must, therefore, reveal such truths that are supra rationem (“above reason”), so that the human being may know them and so learn to strive for the good that exceeds nature.

ii) to support and promote the truth of our knowledge of God in general. For by the supernatural truths we come to know God truly as exalted above all that the human being can know of God from nature, and so we gain an understanding of God that exceeds all our thinking.

iii) in order to suppress human pride, which is the mother of all error, and in order to teach us modesty, humility, and obedience.14 Revelation, therefore, is primarily necessary, according to Rome, not for the purification but for the elevation of nature: Si quis dixerit, hominem ad cognitionem et perfectionem, quae naturalem superet, divinitus evehi non posse … anathema sit (“If anyone shall say that man cannot be raised by divine power to a higher than natural knowledge and perfection … let him be anathema”).15 God can make himself known in a supernatural manner and give a supernatural power of illumination to human beings in order to know him. Thereby the human being becomes more or less alike to God here in grace and in the hereafter through the glory, which then bestows the visio Dei (“vision of God”), the theologia beatonem (“blessed knowledge of God”).16

b) To this group belong the mysteries in the strictest sense of this word. In special revelation much is revealed that does not, strictly speaking, belong to the mysteries, and in general revelation much is revealed that nevertheless remains incomprehensible. One must, therefore, interpret the term “mystery” precisely. We know that God exists, that he is good and wise, and so on, by reason from nature, but we do not for this reason comprehend God. God in heaven always remains incomprehensible. Yet on account of this, such truths that are known by reason do not necessarily number among the mysteries (and nor do many of the puzzles of nature and history). Furthermore, many things are also revealed in special revelation that, strictly speaking, do not belong to the mysteries, for example, the descent of humanity from a single pair of parents, the existence of angels, the Sabbath command, many facts of sacred history, and so on, for these are not [special revelation] per se but are only coincidentally known through special revelation. Yet there are also truths revealed in special revelation that were and are for the homo naturalis (“natural man”) unknowable per se. They transcend normal human intellect, and not only the intellect of human beings but also of angels. They can only be made known to rational creatures by supernatural revelation. To these belong especially the Trinity, the incarnation, grace (and sacraments mediated by priests) and the glory, the visio Dei (“vision of God”), which together make up the ordo supernaturalis (“order of supernature”) and remain strictly and essentially distinct from all other truths elevated far above them: quia praeter ea, ad quae naturalis ratio pertingere potest, credenda nobis proponuntur mysteria in Deo abscondita, quae, nisi revelata divinitus, innotescere non possunt (“because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely revealed, cannot be known”).17

c) Since human beings are obligated to accept such supernatural truths, these truths must in one way or another commend and prove themselves to human beings. There must be motives that move the human being to believe them, motiva credibilitatis (“motives of credibility”). To these belong miracles and prophecies, the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, miraculous transformation of heavenly bodies (the changing of the sun, etc.), the elevation of simple people to the highest wisdom, the miraculous expansion of Christianity in spite of the fact that it does not flatter people but casts them down, and the fulfillment of predictions.18 Later, this was further developed in Roman Catholic dogmatics and apologetics. And in the main, this is the form that it acquired: human reason can through reflection arrive at the knowledge of the praeambula fidei (“forerunners of faith”) such as God’s existence and so on. Furthermore, by reflecting on nature it can also arrive at the insight of the possibility, relative necessity, and knowability of a special, supernatural revelation. Faith in God also brings with it the faith that he can yet reveal himself in ways other than nature, that human beings can receive a different revelation, that such an extraordinary revelation is also relatively and hypothetically necessary (see above).19 Christianity, Scripture, and the church each meets reason from the other side, as it is being instructed by nature through reflection, and says, “I am this revelation,” and adduces proofs for it.

[These motives] are also internal and external. The internal criteria are again either negative or positive. The internal negative criteria are all the proofs that emphasize that special revelation consists in nothing that is in conflict with natural reason, religion, or morality (not in the rationalist sense of understanding, as if one had to be able to prove and comprehend the whole of special revelation, and this not only in the sense that it should not contain anything contrary to reason but also that it should not contain anything supernatural). The internal positive criteria are the proofs that show that special revelation only clarifies the mysteries of life, the inner contradictions of the human soul, the nature of history (Christianity casts light on everything; the fall clarifies the misery of the world; the cross reconciles suffering; etc.), and also that it alone meets the needs of the human heart, feeling, soul, gives them complete comfort and satisfaction, and renews and sanctifies them.20