60. On “Contributions to the Further Development of the Christian Religion”

“ Contributions to the Further Development of the Christian Religion” is the title of a book (published in Munich in 1904 by J.F. Lehmann's publishing house) for which “a large number of scholars from various professions and sciences joined forces for a common task”. This task is characterized as follows: “to explain and promote the state of religion in contemporary life; each contributor reports on the subject with which he is familiar, but together they address not their fellow specialists, but all those who care about the highest questions and who share in the movement and striving, the doubt and restlessness. ... Only those who stand on the ground of Christianity, who are convinced that an eternal truth has broken through in Christianity, that a way of life has been developed to which lasting spiritual domination is due, can contribute to the further development of the Christian religion. But only those who are also convinced that the present state of the Christian religion does not correspond to the demands of the world-historical situation, that in that eternal truth is combined with many things that today many, exceedingly many, perceive as temporal and human, to which they therefore cannot possibly pay the reverence that is due only to the eternal and divine, can work for a further development.

In the book, the teachings of Christianity, insofar as the individual authors have penetrated them, are now themselves measured against a truth that, from a higher point of view, is felt to be no less temporal and human. In almost all the essays, it can be seen that the authors are rooted in the present-day cultural-historical way of looking at things, which tends towards materialistic ideas. It is understandable that it is not stated everywhere that such a standard is applied. The authors are also hardly aware of the “temporal and human” in their judgment. And they may have many objections to the term “materialistic.” But it is not the dogmas that someone represents that are important, but the habits of thought that are peculiar to him. He who can accept only what the modern world view calls “natural” lives in materialistic habits of thought, even if he defends a doctrine that comes from the spiritual world in the highest sense. — When considering Christianity, it is possible, through true immersion in its core, to draw the newer world view up to it, instead of drawing it down into the realm of modern thought. And only the former can have a truly educational effect. That is why the sober coldness of current ideas emanates from the book everywhere, not the warmth that one feels emanating from Christianity when one penetrates into its deep secrets.

Books of this kind show, precisely through what they cannot achieve, the necessity of the theosophical perspective for a revival of Christian truths. The approach from which these “contributions” arose devotes all critical energy to ruffling the garment of Christianity because this garment does not match the modern costume; the theosophical method, on the other hand, attempts to penetrate the essence of that which wears this garment. The latter then shows itself in the character of another time, but it itself still contributes to the understanding of its wearer. In this way, theosophy does justice to the modern scientific way of thinking in that it naturally replaces the garment of a bygone age with one of the present. After the garment has been torn to shreds, nothing remains of the essence in the description in the “Beiträge”, which it has not really approached at all, but rather an arbitrary construct of what the observer perceives as Christianity. And that is in most cases a profession of faith without psychic and spiritual power. There is not the slightest necessity for this profession to be traced back to a Christ who has been completely “temporally and humanly” made, and the fact that this Christ is still presented as the same one of whom the Gospels tell appears to be the height of arbitrary conceptual constructions. The only contribution that is somewhat noteworthy is R. Eucken's on “Science and Religion,” in which an attempt is made to understand the independence of intellectual life and to break it down into three stages: 1. the spirit that seeks to understand nature is placed as something peculiar above placed above nature itself, 2. the spiritual life in the history of mere succession of human-personal effects is regarded as something special, and 3. the creative power of the individual personality is understood as an emanation of his divine power. But this attempt also gets stuck in bare abstractions and does not penetrate to a true conception of a spiritual world. The other contributions deal with: The Nature and Origin of Religion, its Roots and their Development (Prof. Dr. L. v. Schroeder, Vienna), entirely in line with modern rationalist cultural history; the Old “Testament in the Light of Modern Research (Prof. D. H. Gunkel, Berlin), only a protective writing for modern biblical criticism; Gospel and Early Christianity (the New Testament in the light of historical research by Prof. D. A. Deißmann, Heidelberg), no vigorous advocacy of clear ideas; Faith of Salvation and Dogma (Prof. D. Dr. A. Dorner, Königsberg); Religion and Morality (Prof. D. Dr. W. Herrmann, Marburg); Christianity and Teutons (Sup. D.F. Meyer , Zwickau), a very subjective picture of Christian life in Germany in the centuries before Luther; Religion and School (Prof. Litt. D. Dr. W. Rein, Jena); the community-building power of religion (Lic. G. Traub, Dortmund); The Essence of Christianity (Lic. Dr. G. Wobbermin, Berlin). It should be emphasized that the book is written in the spirit of modern university theology, based on the “latest scientific findings”.