Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 36:142 (Apr 1879)
Article: Lange’s Christian Ethics
Author: J. P. Lacroix

BSac 36:142 (April 1879) p. 373

Lange’s Christian Ethics1

Prof. J. P. Lacroix

Though Dr. Lange is chiefly known in America by his Commentaries, yet this is by no means his main field of labor. He is also a fruitful laborer in systematic theology. Some of his productions here are of very high rank.

Most recent among his works is the one now before us: Elements of Christian Ethics. A glance at this work will show that it is a marvel of compact erudition and suggestiveness. Like most German works, and unlike most English works, it gives great prominence to the history and literature of the subject. On the latter point it is very comprehensive, thorough, and recent. Every ethical writer worthy of mention, from Menes to Rothe, Wuttke, and Kaulich, is critically examined and judged. Indeed there runs a very incisive polemical element throughout the whole book. We purpose here to give simply an outline of the subject-matter of the work, and then to cite some of the positions of Lange on several vital points.

After a preface of eight pages there follows a critical-historical introduction of fifty pages. This consists largely of a sharp criticism of the systems of Schlciermacher and Rothe. At the opening of this discussion we find a suggestive synoptical view of the two streams (Protestant and Catholic) of ethical development since the revival of learning: 1. Reformed and Tridentine ethics; 2. Orthodox and Jesuitic ethics; 3. Pietistic and Jansenistic ethics; 4. Rationalistic and Josephinistic ethics; 5. Christological and confessional forms.

In the midst of the introduction occurs a valuable discussion of the subject of conscience. We submit a synopsis: The idea of conscience is as universal as that of God; for its very notion is that of a revelation of God in man. Despite the varieties of its actual manifestation, it is a direct activity of the Spirit, and its witnessing power is comparable to that of revelation itself. It is hardly conceivable that the reality of conscience should be denied. But it has been denied. Rothe does it; and yet his denial amounts to nothing but a denial of its name. It is simply one of Rothe’s magnificent eccentricities.

BSac 36:142 (April 1879) p. 374

Unfortunately the essay of Ritschl —Ueber das Gewissen — furnishes but little light. He denies that conscience makes its validity universally felt. He attributes the upbraidings of conscience to the effects of moral education; and he overlooks the difficulty in which he thus involves himself of accounting for the beginnings of conscience in society at all. If society creates conscience, what are the elements out of which it creates it? Is not such a position contradictory? Does it not ...