Background
Troeltsch, Ernst was born on February 17, 1865 in Augsburg.
(These essays reflect Troeltsch's vast knowledge and deep ...)
These essays reflect Troeltsch's vast knowledge and deep insight into modernity which led him to discern radical implications of historicity for religion and to redirect the study of religion and theology.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800632087/?tag=2022091-20
(This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfec...)
This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.
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( Ernst Troeltsch focuses his Protestantism and Progress ...)
Ernst Troeltsch focuses his Protestantism and Progress on two main areas. First, he centers on the intellectual and religious situation, from which the significance and the possibilities of development possessed by Christianity might be deduced. This leads to an engaging historical investigation regarding the spirit of the modern world. Troeltsch argues that the modern world can only be understood in the light of its relation to earlier epochs of Christian civilization in Europe. He notes that for anyone who holds the opinion that in spite of all the significance that Catholicism retains, the living possibilities of development and progress are to be found on Protestant soil, the question regarding the relation of Protestantism to modern civilization becomes of central importance. Troeltsch also distinguishes elements in modern civilization that have proven their value from those which are merely temporary and lead nowhere. He gives the religious ideas of Christianity a shape and form capable of doing justice to the absoluteness of religious conviction, and at the same time considering them in harmony with what has actually been accomplished towards solution of the practical problems of the Christian life. A new introduction by Howard Schneiderman brings this monumental work into the twenty-first century, and explains why its ideas are more important than ever, one hundred years after its original publication.
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(The first English translation of Troeltsch's Glaubenslehr...)
The first English translation of Troeltsch's Glaubenslehre. The first attempt to do systematic theology from a deep Christian commitment with full awareness of Christianity's social and historical relativity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800632095/?tag=2022091-20
(This book presents the first English translation of four ...)
This book presents the first English translation of four of the best-known essays on method in theology and the scientific study of religion by German theologian and philosopher of history Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080420554X/?tag=2022091-20
Troeltsch, Ernst was born on February 17, 1865 in Augsburg.
Universities of Erlangen, Gottingen and Berlin.
Assistant Pastor in Munich. Lecturer in Theology. Gottingen, 1891 2; Extraordinary Professor.
University of Bonn, 1892-1894.
Professor of Philosophy, University of Berlin, 1915-1923.
(This book presents the first English translation of four ...)
(These essays reflect Troeltsch's vast knowledge and deep ...)
(This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfec...)
( Ernst Troeltsch focuses his Protestantism and Progress ...)
(The first English translation of Troeltsch's Glaubenslehr...)
(Format Paperback Subject Religion)
A leading member of the ‘History of Religions’ school, Troeltschs writings bear upon the disciplines of theology, history, philosophy and sociology, all of which have to face the fact of the clash between absolute religious or moral values and historical relativities. Modestly confessing his inability finally to resolve matters, Troeltsch nevertheless clearly exhibited the nature of the problem and suggested, for example, that while the laws of morality are permanent, we are only aware of morality as it has developed and been expressed under the impress of, and modified by, historical, social and political forces. Hence the tension between values and norms which are held to transcend history, and our need to understand what actually presents itself to us in history. Regarding the latter, we must seek to make a concrete historical occurrence ‘as intelligible as if it were part of our own experience'.
In Christianity the problem takes the form: how can we hold together the absolute claims of revelation and the diverse ways in which the religion has actually developed into churches, sects and mystical types? Even among the churches there are distinct differences, as Troeltsch showed in his comparison of the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions—both of them products of the Reformation, yet differing significantly in doctrine, ethos and polity. Again, since the primary facts of history are inherently uncertain, the findings of historians must be deemed provisional only, and révisable in the light of fresh evidence. It follows that no specific set of historical facts—those, for example, concerning Jesus—can be taken as final in the sense of non-supersedable. It is conceivable that Christianity may lose its status as the supreme world religion. It may, pro tem, be final for those of the West ‘because we have nothing else’, but ‘other racial groups.. may experience their contact with the divine in a quite different way’- Further, since all historical events are of the same order, we have no option but to assess particular historical probabilities by analog)' with our personal experience and knowledge ol occurrences elsewhere. There can be no interventions of a transcendent divine, and the supernatural is excluded.
It is important to observe that for all his emphasis upon the historico-social conditioning of religious ideas, Troeltsch repudiates the Marxist view that religion is but a perverted product of such conditioning. Rather, religious convictions derive from the autonomous religious consciousness. This is consistent with his determination, for all his indebtedness to group theories of personality and his studies of familystate and Church, not to submerge the individual in the corporate. This is clearly exemplified in his political thought.
Active in politics, Troeltsch became convinced that the root cause of the First World War lay in a deficient political philosophy which emerged in the wake of the Romantic glorification of the state. His remedy was the elevation of the Enlightenment emphasis upon the importance and rights of the individual, and of groups of individuals ordering their corporate life democratically. Troeltsch’s cautionary words of 1911 were nothing short of prophetic:
Let us jealously preserve that principle of freedom which draws its strength from a religious metaphysic; otherwise the cause of freedom and personality may well be lost in the very moment when we are boasting most loudly of our allegiance to it, and of our progress in this direction.
Troeltsch's exclusion of the supernatural, his openness to religious experience in the broadest sense and his willingness to conceive of the demotion of Christianity sparked criticism from some quarters. It has been pointed out that his use of analogy may be countered by the construction of other analogies. The concept of group personality has been subjected to criticism since his day, and his method of categorizing expressions of Christianity as church, state, mystical has been questioned.
Although such thinkers as F. von Hiigel and C. C. J. Webb have heeded Troeltsch’s ideas, to many British philosophers and theologians he has been a ray of light, or a cloud, of which they were more or less aware, but which never quite reached their shore. Sources: Obituary notices.
Social philosophy.
A. Ritschl. W. Windelband. H. Rickert and W. Dilthey.