Martin Dibelius And The Relation Of History And Faith -- By: Ned B. Stonehouse

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 02:2 (May 1940)
Article: Martin Dibelius And The Relation Of History And Faith
Author: Ned B. Stonehouse


Martin Dibelius And The Relation Of History And Faith

N. B. Stonehouse

AS ONE critical school has followed another across the constantly shifting theological scene, however distinctive its fundamental principles and basic elements, each has been preoccupied with the problem of the relation of history and faith. The common absorption with this problem may be explained most satisfactorily perhaps by the observation that those who have come to reject the gospel story concerning Jesus Christ rarely have been able to break completely with Christianity or to leave Jesus entirely out of account in the formulation of their religious faith.

Even some of the most drastic efforts to destroy confidence in the evangelical records have gone hand in hand with an avowed concern to honor Jesus and to defend the Christian religion. So David Friedrich Strauss, to choose a conspicuous example, in spite of the pervasiveness and severity of his criticism of the contents of the gospels, maintained, on the basis of the presuppositions of Hegelian Idealism, that the true foundation of Christianity remained unimpaired since the concern of religion is only that the idea of the God-man should be realized in every personality as the ultimate goal of humanity, and that this idea of the God-man, in the nature of the case, could not be realized perfectly on the historical plane. The validity of the idea could not depend, he maintained, on its external representation, not even in the history of Jesus, and consequently no amount of historical criticism could possibly destroy the idea which constitutes the real element of Christianity.

While the Hegelian interpretation represented an almost complete devaluation of history, the movement inspired by the theology of Albrecht Ritschl seemed once more to restore history to a place of honor. Indeed, its positive evaluation

of history was so basic to its whole approach that it came to be known as historism. Historism to be sure was far from maintaining a high judgment of the trustworthiness of the gospels, for this school, in spite of its moderateness as compared with the Tübingen School, likewise undertook, because of the demands of its consistent naturalism and its distinctive interpretation of history, a thorough-going reconstruction of the story told by the gospels, a reconstruction which took form characteristically in the numerous Liberal lives of Jesus. Its distinctive judgment upon history is observed in its readiness to attribute to a certain phase of history which, according to its own judgment, was purely human in character, the evaluation of “revelation”, and to the purely human “historical Jesus”, whom it confidently claimed it could recover from the records b...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()