04/06/2022 – Who was Ernst Troeltsch?

We’re going to talk about one of the big figures in the application of historicism to religion, specifically Christianity. His name is Ernst Troeltsch. Ernst Troeltsch? Ernst Troeltsch. We’ve got a great episode for you today so stick with us dudes, dudettes and everyone else who doesn’t identify with my horrifying gender labels. That actually wasn’t supposed to be that funny. This is TenOnReligion.

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A polymath is described as someone who possesses a substantial amount of knowledge over a large range of subject areas. Ernst Troeltsch is often described as being one such figure. He applied methods of history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology to religion in a way never really done before. Troeltsch was born in Germany in 1865 and died an early death in 1923. The academic field of religion in Germany at the time was dominated by a figure named Albrecht Ritschl whose ideas of faith and spiritual experience was dependent upon a supernatural interpretation of events described in the Bible. Troeltsch was an early follower but quickly diverged from Ritschl and his followers. To explain Troeltsch’s importance for the academic field of religion we’re going to talk about five things. His development of historicism, the Absoluteness project, the history-of-religions school, his more open position later in life, and why those who labeled him a failure after he died was a mistake.

First, Troeltsch’s historicism, which is probably what he’s best known for. Near the end of her well-known book The Invention of World Religions, Tomoko Masuzawa highlights the idea that Troeltsch’s discovery of historicity and development of historical consciousness had a profound levelling effect on truth claims and values, especially truth claims concerning religion. That’s huge, but I’m getting ahead of myself. So how did he accomplish this? It was actually three simple steps all contained in an essay he wrote in 1898 titled the “Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology.” He called these the principles of criticism, analogy, and correlation. The principle of criticism states that only judgments of probability are possible in history. One can only understand history as much as the evidence allows. New discoveries provide new perspectives and changes one’s view of history, but since past events cannot be repeated, one can only make a judgment regarding the understanding of past events as more or less probable. The principle of analogy states that one’s own experience becomes the criterion for understanding the past. The understanding of history starts not with the past events, but with the “understander” investigating those past events. The principle of correlation states that everything is conditioned by everything else creating a situation of mutual influence. Past events are not isolated, but interwoven with all other historical events. The levelling effect that Masuzawa refers to is that the result of these three principles means there is nothing inherently special about religion from a historical perspective. One investigates religious history the same as any other historical event.

Second, the Absoluteness project. In 1902, Troeltsch published The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions and slightly revised it ten years later. Troeltsch wrote this work to push back against the old way of showing that the idea of religion culminates in Christianity such as Hegel and others had done. Troeltsch’s way was to identify a limited number of clear and stable norms to determine criteria which could function as standards of judgment. The concrete criteria devised then could differentiate religions on three levels: primitive vs. higher religions, religions of salvation vs. religions of law, and finally salvation as elevation of the personal vs. absorption of the personal. By using such criteria Troeltsch was rejecting the idea that Christianity can be judged solely on the basis of supernatural revelation since it is historical like everything else. Remember the three principles? Now a large part of the problem in fully understanding this book for English readers is that the title of the English translation referring to the absoluteness of Christianity is a bit misleading. Troeltsch’s book focuses on the absolute validity of Christianity meaning it possesses the highest conceptualization of the religious idea. In doing so Troeltsch is formulating a concept of religion in general, as some sort of independent basic factor in human life, either psychologically or philosophically. He did this because he thought that the concept of “Christianity” itself was a product of the Enlightenment abstracting from history what he sometimes called the idea, the spirit, or the essence of Christianity. If this could be done for Christianity, then it could be done for any other religion making religion itself a concept.

This leads to the third point in Troeltsch’s importance, the history-of-religions school, which is not really a school but a loose association of a group of scholars who applied a similar historical method to religion which rejected the idea that there is no distinction between natural and supernatural revelation. I’m pretty sure that last sentence was a run-on sentence. Grammar police! How could different religions be judged and compared if they all claimed to have unique supernatural origins? Troeltsch wrote that the problem of the origins of Christianity became a problem in the history of religions because of all of the various influential factors in the development of the earliest narratives and texts. Human religion exists only in multiple individual forms and these forms develop into complex relations of mutual interaction and influence. This made Christianity one religion among others because the same historical method was applied equally to all of them. He then became close friends with the sociologist Max Weber and under the influence of this friendship Troeltsch wrote The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches which was an analysis of 1800 years of Christian history. Troeltsch utilized Weber’s concept of an ideal type to categories Christianity into church, sect, and mysticism types. He later said this was one of his favorite books to write.

The fourth point is Troeltsch’s more open position later in life. In 1923, Troeltsch wrote a series of lectures and was scheduled to deliver them in England but unexpectedly died before he could deliver them. The first one was titled, “The Place of Christianity Among the World Religions” where he critically revised his position from the 1902 book on the absoluteness of Christianity. He still thinks Christianity possesses absolute validity but now sees it intimately connected with the history of European civilization making Christianity’s validity “for us.” Other groups, living under entirely different cultural conditions may experience the divine in a different way and thus might be absolute validity “for them.” As each religion strives to get closer to the divine, each religion will simultaneously get closer to each other. Troeltsch’s introduction of a principle of plurality denies relativism and indicates that religious tolerance is necessary and meaningful. The consequence of the plurality is a notion of toleration which understands Christianity in “liberal” terms, as being open both to other religions and to culture. Religion involves the coming together of the divine and the human. The idea of exclusiveness is to be corrected by a greater or lesser disclosure of the depth of the divine. Troeltsch refers to this as a “modification of my former theories” in that in our earthly experience the Divine Life is not One, but Many. Christianity is only another wave in the ebb and flow of the history of humanity.

The final point today is why those who labeled him a failure after he died was a mistake. Troeltsch was seen as rejected because of the inward turn taken in German theology after his death. H. Richard Niebuhr thought of Christianity within the limits of Christian community. Karl Barth was deeply concerned about the effects of the challenge that Troeltsch’s three principles of historical criticism, analogy, and correlation had on Christianity and he attempts to disarm them by arguing for a theology “from above” thereby restoring Christian supernatural revelation as the norm by which to judge. But these two responses, though popular at the time, only dodged the questions Troeltsch brought to the table and they do not directly respond to them. In many ways, Troeltsch’s questions remained unaddressed. The natural implication of Troeltsch’s position is to deny the necessity of the historical Jesus for the Christian faith, but this was not a step Troeltsch was willing to take in his lifetime. In practical terms, the historical Jesus must somehow remain an important component of the picture as a social and psychological necessity. But would that be enough to sustain the Christian faith for the masses? He realized a bifurcation had already occurred between the religion of the people and the religion of the educated – one which still largely continues on today. But he saw no good way of combining the two to create a version of Christianity which would be appealing to both groups as intellectually viable and religiously effective. Troeltsch’s historicism posed hard questions, and even if he could not find satisfying solutions, his method would be taken up by a few others. One such person was Paul Tillich who takes up Troeltsch’s challenge by correlating reality with religion psychologically, philosophically, and historically by interpreting religious history as myth and symbol. If you’re interested, I have two videos which explains how Tillich does this. Check ‘em out!

As always, this was just an introduction and there is so much more to say, but we’re going to have to close the book on Troeltsch for this episode. So, what do you think about the historical method that Troeltsch delineated? Does it make sense? Is it consistent to apply the historical method to both religious and non-religious historical data equally? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.