Divine simply in the unique and perfect snti.sfaotion He. supplies to the needs of the Ijclievin;,' coiiscienie ; and in the unicjue and perfect nnuiiicr in wliich nj Himself realized tliis sati.-lactioM in llis iN-r.-Min.
The culiiiiiiatiiig point of Siiiieieniiaciierh theory is the atlinnation of the .siiperniitiinil com sciou.sness of Christ and the ah.-^olute vuliii! of Hi.-, Person. In this regard his inlluciice on .subseciueiit tlieology has been of rare fruitfulness. From u multitude who own his inspiration, two may In; selected as having, in an original maniicr, corrected and enlarged his principles : Kotiie and lUt.schl.
Rothe ( 1799-18G7) was probably the most eminent divine of the middle of la.st century. He main- tained throughout his career, ami'tl the strong intellectual and critical currents of tliat time, in all of which he .shared, a personal faith of extreme warmth and tenderness in Christ's IVrsoii. ' Hear with you the living certainty of the rejility of the historical fact Christ, and simply live your hunitin life in the light of that certainty,' was the ruling motive of his inner life and also of his whole theo- logical work (Theol. Ethik and DMjmutik).
Rothe takes his start with S<'hlcifnna<-her in the conwious- ness, the feeling of God which is found therein, in the pre- sonality of man, this, the Divine princijiie, is at war with tlie lower or material principle, its contrary spirit. Not until the lower is vanquished is man free or truly himself. Its con- quest is the moral task of mankind. The task can be dis- charged onlj- in a moral progress of two stages, in which the whole nature of the material principle shall make itself felt and be transformed, and in which tlic whole nature of the spiritual principle shall display itself. The first stage involves the passage of man through sin. In the second, man will reach complete unity with God. The race of Adam is humanity in the first sta^e ; Christ crowns it. In completing its ta-sk, He brings with Him a new ix)wer, a miraculous force, which senin as the point of departure for a new development of the race. Here the moral evolution is at the same time religious, since the more subordinat* the insistence of sin, the more direot the emergence of the spirit of holiness of the new jniwer, the more l>erfect, i.e., the assimilation to (Jod. The appearance of Christ is due to a creative act. For although the world and man are made by God in an organic oneness, they are not so made that He cannot enter in. In Christ He does thus enter. In Christ He posits a new commencement of humanitv ; and in order to prepare for it Kothe admits a spe<'ial revelation in miracle and inspiration. The new power, the a<lvent of ChrJBt, are by supernatural conception. The ministry of Christ was a con- tinuous spiritualization and growing deification ; in actualizing the constant conquest of sin. He at the same time unfolds llie wealth of the life of God. The living substance of God comes forth in Him. The historical growth of Jesus is the divinization of man at the same time as it is the Incarnation of the I/ogo« ; its course is uninterrupted from His birth to the sacriHcf of Calvary which marks its last step and its triumphant clotse. Triumi)hant, for the Redeemer could not die ; fa<-c to face with Him, the Holy of Go<l, death had no i>ower. When then His spiritualization is achieved, Jesus lets fall His earthly envelope ; and from that hour is truly God. Not that He is to t>e Identified with God the Father. God-man on earth, He reniains such in the heavens, liberated from His physical orgaiiis.ni, and inveiite<1 with a body corres]X)nding to Hiscciestial estate. Hut no material barrier now restrains His jKiwer, His Spirit acts without himl- ranee on the world. The glorified Ixinl reveals Hiniselt an 'central individuality,' i.e. the secret of the increasing triumph of the spiritual principle from age to age. When the totality of His disciples are gathered, the Incarnation will In- mniiilete and the creation of the universe closed. At this stage «;od will live no longer in man only, but in the organism of reiiewwl humanity ('Auf diesein Punkt isl das Meiis<hs«in (iottes zu seineni .Menschheitsein,' I)rnjm. ii. 170).
Kothe's is a grandiose conception of Mornl In- rnnintion exhibited with incomparal.h' vigour of thought. Christ is no incarnation of the niylhical sort, as in the imagination of India. Nor i.s He as (me of the Heroic age. such as most i>rimitivc peoples magnify. He is man truly, yet le»» in- dividual man tlian man generic, while at tliewime time God, the potency that rules the whole world- proce.s.s. In its cosmlcal signifitame the Christian interpretation of Ciirist has never l>efore ri-<eiviil so impressive a statement.
Less original than Schleiermacher or Kothc, RitschI (1822-1889), taking impulse from l>otli, elaborates a .system less sjK'culative, more positive and Scriptural. His, like theirs, is a doctrine of redemption, and rests on exiierience. He con.st rn<s
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CHRIST IN MODERN THOUGHT
his material, however, by a widely divergent method. The critical results of Tiibingen had aflrighted him with their divorce of the facts of Christ's life from the idea of His Person. The metaphysical and emotional elements in the idea of Christ's Person current in the schools around repelled him. Ritschl had a singularly self-con- scious and self-reliant character, and at the bar of the rich ethical experience yielded by the inner secrets of conscience his sense of the insufficiency of contemporary tendencies deepened. Injustice was done, he felt, to the historical and social and practical asjiects of Christian truth. From that standpoint he directs a pungent criticism against the theological methods in vogue. They sought to construe Christianity by reference to the con- ception of God reached by a consideration of His relations to the finite world and human history and experience. Ritschl seeks the meaning of God as it is disclosed in the workings of the soul of Christ and in the activities of His earthly life. It was in that soul and in His earthly experience that the work of Christ in the salvation of men was achieved. Not in the heavens by transactions on man's behalf within the Trinity, as the orthodox schools taught ; nor by His immanent operations in cosmic and human progress, as speculation dreamed ; but in the moral personality and acts of the Redeemer. The process of redemption is not metaphysical or evolutionary, it is psychological. It was not to provide the prior conditions which should release the mercy of God, on the one hand ; or, on the other, to overthrow an enemy encamped in man. Yet it was more than the announcement as by a prophet that God had forgiven or was ready to forgive. Both Anselm and Socinus failed Kitschl. According to his view, what is meant by God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself is that when God took human nature in Christ He actualized the forgiving presence of God. God in Him was in human nature, not on a visit, not arranging the conditions on which it could be redeemed, but actually redeeming and appro- priating it. Christ revealed the Father not by holding Him up to be seen, but by bearing Him in upon us, leavening us with Him practically and consciously. Tiie field of Christ's work lay there- fore in His own spiritual history, and among the conditions of spiritual human nature (cf. Forsyth, Religion in Recent Art, Lect. 7). This is Ritschl's first important deflexion from Schleiermacher's procedure. The Christian consciousness or ex- perience to which he appeals is found in the con- templation of the historic Jesus, as made known in the Gospel records. It is not to be regarded in isolated individualism, as was the case with Schleiermacher's appeal to the inner consciousness. It has in consequence an objective character alien from his method and from the subjectivism and sentimental piety often accompanying it. There is a second deflexion of not less importance. The Christian experience to which Ritschl appeals is realized socially and practically in the Kingdom of God.