Ernst Troeltsch and the Study of Religion

Extract

Ernst Troeltsch is not one of the more accessible of twentieth century theologians as can be seen from a bibliography of his works translated into English which appears at the end of Ernst Troeltsch: Writings on Theology and Religion, translated and edited by Robert Morgan and Michael Pye, Duckworth, London, 1977, £12.50. Whether the translation of the four papers presented in this volume will make him more popular is rather doubtful as he here shows himself at his most heavy and turgid mainly because he writes in abstractions about methodologies. When Troeltsch does discuss issues and authors he is usually concerned with Protestant theology in the Nineteenth Century and it sometimes seems very dated (as in ‘Half a Century of Theology: a Review’ [1908]). This book, however, aims to introduce Troeltsch to a wider public particularly in Germany where he has never had much impact and this volume, curiously, is a translation of the original German including introductory articles by the English editors. These three articles by Robert Morgan and Michael Pye are tremendously helpful in giving an overall view of Troeltsch and his place in modern theology.

Troeltsch is important, it would seem, mainly as a philosopher of religion rather than as a systematic theologian. He is at his best when discussing theological methodology, but when he tried to do straight theology, as in the article ‘The Significance of the Historical Jesus for Faith’ (1911), the effect could be disastrous. In this article Troeltsch assumes at the outset that traditional orthodox dogmatics had crumbled by the beginning of this century and that no one who was at all sensitive to modern intellectual sensibilities could accept the doctrine of the incarnation and that Christ had done anything concrete to redeem or save mankind. Salvation, whatever that might mean for Troeltsch, comes directly to the individual from God and, he says, is a matter of personal experience.