Chapter II

CHAPTER II

THE MEANING OF "PROTESTANTISM"

IN "Protestantism" we have, of course, once more a historical general-conception which imperatively calls for more exact definition. The prevalent custom is to resume under this term all the phenomena which fall within the sphere of Protestant religion down to the present day, and then to found on these a general conception which represents rather what Protestantism might be or might become than what it actually is. Thus there usually predominates in these definitions either the conception of an orthodoxy which has become weakened down and lost hold of fixed principles, or of a developing and transforming philosophic outlook. In the one case as in the other, however, it is no longer a question of a posteriori historical

general conceptions which exhibit the real state of the case as a whole, but of ideal conceptions which, attaching themselves to the real, emphasise one or the other element in it, and thereby seek to justify their formula as giving its "essence" or "fundamental tendency."

Such ideal conceptions are, of course, indispensable to present action and volition, but they are by no means historical general conceptions of the kind that we are in search of. If we are seeking a purely historical definition of Protestantism, we soon recognise that, for Protestantism as a whole, it cannot be immediately formulated. For modern Protestantism as a whole, even when it carries on the orthodox dogmatic traditions, is in point of fact completely changed. The genuine early Protestantism of Lutheranism and Calvinism

is, as an organic whole, in spite of its anti-Catholic doctrine of salvation, entirely a Church civilisation like that of the Middle Ages. It claims to regulate State and society, science and education, law, commerce and industry, according to the supernatural standpoint of revelation, and, exactly like the Middle Ages, everywhere subsumes under itself the Lex Naturae as being originally identical with the Law of God. Modern Protestantism, since the end of the seventeenth century, has, on the contrary, everywhere accepted the principle of the State's recognising religious equality, or even remaining religiously indifferent, and has in principle handed over religious Organisation and the formation of religious associations to voluntary effort and personal conviction, recognising in principle the possibility of a plurality of different religious convictions and religious societies existing alongside of one another. It has further, in principle, recognised alongside itself a completely untrammelled secular life, which it no longer attempts to control, either

directly or indirectly, through the agency of the State. In connexion with this it has forgotten its former doctrine-which made possible and encouraged this control-of the identity of the Lex Dei and Lex Naturae; so completely forgotten it as to have lost all understanding of it.

These are fundamental differences. They have naturally manifested themselves also in dogmatic upheavals and transformations, especially in the transformation of the conceptions of Church and State and in the modification of the old absolute authority, of the purely supernatural character, ascribed to the Bible, a modification which has gone so far that it has completely transformed the old doctrines of revelation and redemption, which were the determining factors of the whole system. If this is taken into account, we are certainly justified, from a purely historical point of view and especially from that of the formulation of our problem, in drawing a distinction between early and modern Protest-

antism. Early Protestantism, in spite of its universal priesthood of believers and its principle of inwardness, has to be conceived as a strictly ecclesiastical supernaturalistic civilisation resting on an immediate authority with a strictly defined sphere, distinct from the world and its interests. Indeed, it actually endeavoured to carry through by its own methods this tendency of medieval civilisation more strictly, inwardly, and personally than it had been possible for the hierarchically constituted Church of the Middle Ages to do. The place of this hierarchy, as perpetuating the incarnation of Christ, was taken by the miraculous, all-accomplishing power of the Bible---the Protestant perpetuation of the Divine incarnation. The civil power saw to it that, at least externally, this Divine revelation encountered no contradiction, and that it came in contact with every man so as to exercise its purely inward and personal redemptive influence. The authority and saving power of the Bible alone were held capable

of accomplishing what had been unattainable by the bishops and the Pope in consequence of the externality of the means which they employed, and the secularisation of the Church as an Institution.

But when once this is clearly recognised, early Protestantism differentiates itself clearly from those historical movements which were proceeding alongside of it---which modern Protestantism has more or less completely taken up into itself, but which were inwardly deeply distinguished from it and had an independent influence of their own in history. Such are the humanistic, historical, philological, and philosophical theology, the sectarian Anabaptist movement with its assertion of the Church's independence of the State, and the wholly individualistic, subjectivistic Spiritualism. Early Protestantism distinguished itself from all these sharply and with cruel violence; and it did so, not merely from short-sighted bitterness or theological dogmatism, nor from opportunism or from the

narrow sympathies of a period of decline. in all its leaders, in a Luther, a Zwingli, a Calvin, from the beginning, it was conscious of an inherent and essential opposition to them. And the reason is that by these movements, however Christian they might be in principle, the very idea of a Church civilisation, the absolute certainty of the revelation which formed its basis, or, again, the claim which the Church always deduced from this to Christianise, more or less forcibly, life as a whole, was definitely denied. It was precisely the withdrawal of these people into small pietistic circles, their holding aloof from the State, and their abandonment of compulsion in religious matters, which was opposed to the principles of the Reformers; who were therein at one with Catholicism, that they could not hold a revelation to be a true revelation which did not subordinate everything human to the Divine. Luther's early and occasional spiritualistic inclinations were quickly suppressed by the logical inferences from the idea of the Church, and remained for

two centuries without influence. The Church as an external Institution, the certainty of the Bible, and the clear direction, by the combination of Church and State, of society, or of the undivided Corpus Christianum which each Church established at least within the sphere put under its jurisdiction by the civil government, came to form the main interest; and it was precisely this main interest which was threatened from various sides by their opponents. It was not until modern Protestantism had lost sight of the idea of a universal Church-civilisation that it could characterise as genuine Protestant principles, the duty of historico-philological criticism, the Organisation of Churches formed by voluntary association, independent of the State, and the doctrine of revelation by inner personal conviction and illumination. The older Protestantism disposed of these under the categories of " Naturalism " on the one hand, and " Fanaticism," "Enthusiasm," "Sectarianism," on the other; and to-day, so far as it sur-

vives---after effectively accepting these heresies---attacks their spirit all the more passionately. For our present purpose this distinction is, in fact, extremely important. Movements very closely allied with Protestantism and yet quite sharply distinguished from it---the humanistic philological theology which acquired a separate Organisation in Arminianism and Socinianism, the sectarian Baptist groups which organised themselves under the banner of either Catholicism or Protestantism, the mystics and spiritualists, who are either completely isolated or attach to themselves only a purely personal and literary following, and do away with the whole Church conception of revelation and redemption: all these have an extremely high significance for the arising of the modern world, and certainly cannot without more ado be put down to the ac- count of Protestantism. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, after long and cruel oppression, they had their hour in the history of the world. Free-Churchism, philologico-

critical theology, the subordination of objective revelation to the practical ethico-religious content of life, an immediacy of the religious consciousness which turns the historical element into a mere means of self-stimulation, a subjectivism which makes little of cultus, ceremonial and ecclesiasticism, have since then irresistibly broken in upon the Protestant Churches, like a flood sweeping away the old landmarks. There is no longer any question of a single-moulded Church civilisation based on a creed, embracing the whole of society; and its former dogmatic foundations are, even within the Churches, and in conservative circles, in process of complete disintegration.

Finally, we have still to emphasise the

difference which appears, within early Protestantism, in the two Confessions, Lutheran and Calvinistic. This is by no means solely due to the different local conditions of civilisation in which the two arose, but lies, in spite of the essential agreement in their dogmatic basis, in certain subtle differences of religious and ethical thought, corresponding to differences in the character and disposition of the leaders, which were intensified to an extraordinary degree by the difference of general conditions in the two cases. They appear first as quite subsidiary matters, but produce developments which diverge so widely that it becomes hardly possible to bring them under a common formula, and that, for our purpose, not only one but two , Protestantisms " have to be taken into account. The significance of Calvinism in reference to our problem differs in important ways from that of Lutheranism, and it is necessary to make a very accurate psychological analysis to detect, in regard to each detail, with which system it is connected.

In any case, their significance for the modern world lies in quite different directions; and as the development of Calvinism has led to its leaving. behind Lutheranism, which has remained stationary, and becoming a great power in the world, in all matters of ethics, Organisation, politics, and social questions, its practical influence is much the greater.

Of course, if one takes one's stand on a very lofty point of vantage, it is possible to make the attempt to bring all these phenomena---Lutheranism, Calvinism, humanistic Christianity, Baptist sects, and spiritualistic Individualism under the common concept of Protestantism. All these groups are united in their ultimate roots, the personalisation of religion and the setting up of the Bible as the sole standard of faith. And, on the other hand, the course of historical development has brought the originally divergent streams once more into one bed. Ultimately, there- fore, from the most general point of view, they may, no doubt, be regarded as together

forming a single whole. But such a conception only becomes possible from the standpoint of modern Protestantism, in which the mutual adjustment or fusion of the various elements has taken place, and even from this standpoint the general conception of the whole is still very difficult to define. And especially for our problem, to distinguish these different tendencies is much more important than to obliterate their differences

in a sufficiently elusive general conception. For it is only in relation to the older Protestantism in its various groups that there can be any question of an influence of Protestantism in producing modern civilisation; seeing that modern Protestantism is itself an element in modern civilisation, and has been deeply influenced by it. Our answer would have a false orientation from the out- set if we were to start from a conception of Protestantism which dated back into the older Protestantism all, or the principal, characteristics of modern Protestantism as a factor in civilisation, and thus made the road from this imaginary construction to modern civilisation simple and easy for ourselves. Not less important is it to distinguish between the two Confessions; for that prevents us from treating the conception of Protestantism too much as a mere abstraction, and compels us to give due weight to the quite distinct influence exercised by the special concrete elements in its constitution as a real entity.

And it is of quite peculiar importance to treat on a separate footing the humanistic theology, the Baptist movements, and the spiritualistic mystics. These groups, in spite of their originally close relations with it, were as remote from early Protestantism as they have come near to later Protestantism, and it would be a complete mistake to take the Protestantism of our own day, which has been influenced and transformed by them, and is, moreover, exposed to the full pressure of the problems of modern life, as the more or less definite point of departure of the development of modern civilisation. That would be to bar the way to the understanding of the real influences of genuine Protestantism, and, moreover, to ascribe to it influences in the causation of the modern world, the credit of which unquestionably belongs to those much harassed and much calumniated movements. And, finally, it would be to ascribe to Protestantism the production of things which have not grown up on religious soil at all.