568 



RATIONALISM 



RATISBON 



support views which they themselves treated as 

 highly dangerous twenty or thirty years earlier. 

 Rationalism of this kind is a transition stage, but 

 not neccarily a transition to unbelief. 



The rationalistic temper may l>e traced in almost 

 every age of the church's history : no doubt the 

 extremer representatives of the I'etrine party in 

 sub-apostolic times regarded Paul's views as lax 

 ami rationalistic. If the Reformation was not 

 root.il in rationalism (as to Catholics it seems 

 to have been ), many of the contentions of the 

 reformers were such as all rationalists accept and 

 sMnpathise with. Zwingli was a rationalist to 

 Luther and the Lutherans ; Socinus was of course 

 a rationalist of an extreme ty|>e. The dry and 

 liarren dogmatic orthodoxy of Germany in the 17th 

 century fostered a rationalism as cold and un- 

 spiritual. In the England of the 18th century, 

 during the Deistic controversies, the Evangelicals 

 of Germany thought, not altogether unjustly, that 

 some of the most conspicuous opponents of the 

 deists were not themselves free from the charge 

 of rationalism ; and the Evangelicals of Scotland 

 regarded the ' moderates ' of the 18th century, 

 however orthodox in dogma, as thoroughly ration- 

 alistic in spirit. Rationalism is not so much 

 opposed to orthodoxy as to mysticism, and what 

 was called variously fanaticism, enthusiasm, ' high- 

 Ih in;:.' fiml nietliixlism. A soulless orthodoxy has 

 not seldom been opposed by a fervent piety that 

 by a not unnatural antithesis has tended to run 

 into heretical extremes ; while, on the other hand, 

 actual rationalists have often l>een foremost amongst 

 the champions of religion, and of revealed religion, 

 against radical freetninking, deism, naturalism, 

 and materialism. 



In Germany the term rationalism is more definite 

 in its reference than in England, but is not always 

 used in quite the same sense. The two defective 

 and mutually opposed schools of thought that Kant 

 sought to supersede by his critical philosophy were, 

 on the one hand, a shallow empiricism, and on 

 the other a ba-seless and overweening metaphysical 

 dogmatism or rationalism. Bacon also contrasted 

 empirical philosophers with rationalists who spin 

 their systems as spiders do cob\vel>s out of their 

 own bowels. Wolff presents the most conspicuous 

 example of the philosophical rationalism which 

 held that all that is in heaven above and earth 

 beneath could he 'proved' by |>seudo-mathematical 

 methods : and as Coil, responsibility, and immor- 

 tality were amongst the things that could be 

 proved at endless length and in various ways, 

 this philosophical rationalism led directly up to a 

 rationalist theology, which consisted mainly in a 

 series of dogmas to be demonstrated from the philo- 

 sophical axioms, including some at least of the 

 doctrines of revealed religion. What in revelation 

 could not be demonstrated according to this scheme 

 was disallowed or explained away. Practical 

 religion liecame in the Aufklarung a system of 

 ni'-n- utilitarian morals. 



Kant prepared the way for a deener view of man, 

 history, and the universe ; but his own explicit 

 statements on positive religion were pronouncedly 

 rationalistic : and the negative side of his philo- 

 sophy was well calculated to lay the foundations 

 of another school of theological rationalist* (often 

 called Vulgnr-rationnlifmut), of whom Tieftrunk 

 (1759-1837). BrctAchneider (1776-1848), and We- 

 cheider (1771-1849) mav be taken as representa- 

 tive*. De Wette ( 1780-1849) shows the transition 

 to Schleiermarher. who ( though in the English 

 sense of the word he was an outspoken rationalist) 

 combined what was best in the opposing schools of 

 rationalists and Hii|-rnatnralists, founded a higher 

 and 1 1 HIT religious philosophy, and heralded even 

 the < pectoral theology ' of tlie mediation school. 



But it was not in the sphere of speculation and 

 dogma, lint in that of biblical criticism, that Ger- 

 man rationalism accomplished its main work, and 

 left it* deepest mark on subsequent theological 

 development. In the early 18th century the 

 'Hermans in deck were sadly to seek,' as 

 English scholars thought: the t lei mans them- 

 selves admitted that in studying the Scriptures 

 they failed to escape from dogmatic presupposi- 

 tions, and that it was the English divines who ap- 

 proached the New Testament in a historical spirit, 

 which in the Germany of that day caused mis- 

 givings. It is noteworthy that Seinler (1725-91), 

 ' the father of rationalism,' obtained the doctorate 

 for a thesis written against Whiston, Bentley, and 

 other English scholars in defence of the ' three 

 heavenly witnesses ' of 1 John, v. 7. Semler in 

 the schools, supported by Lvssing and Herder in 

 literature, was soon teaching that the books of the 

 Bible must be studied as human productions: Eich- 

 honi ( 1752-1827) thoroughly accented and applied 

 that principle. Rationalist criticism was carried 

 to an absurd length by Paulus ( 1761-1851 ), who 

 taught that the Gospels contained natural and 

 not supernatural events, and whose most ingenious 

 but inept 'explanations' of the miracles of the 

 New Testament, ' retaining everywhere the husk 

 but surrendering the religious kernel,' were made 

 a laughing-stock by Strauss. Strauss's mythical 

 theory' (excessively rationalist in the English sense 

 of the term) was in its turn superseded by Banr 

 (q.v.) and the new Tubingen school, whose' epoch- 

 making work marks the opening of the most recent 

 period in scriptural criticism. The ' notes ' of the 

 newer criticism, whether more or less rationalist 

 from the older English point of view, are the con- 

 viction that all truth is one, whether derived from 

 the natural sciences, historical research, the dic- 

 tates of conscience, or the records of divine revela- 

 tion, and the willingness to accept what is appar- 

 ently established by the consensus of scholars ex en 

 where this involves giving up the belief in the 

 inerrancy of Scripture. Afany of the contentions 

 of self-confident and aggressive rationalism have 

 long since mutually destroyed one another. No- 

 thing can l>e more contrary to the true historic and 

 scientific spirit than the assumptions of a reckless 

 sciolism : there is a false and a true rationalism ; 

 and it should be remembered that much that is 

 now most surely believed by all has at one time 

 or another been branded as rationalistic. 



See the church histories ; Tholuck, Vorgrtchichle del 

 Rational itmuii (1853) and Getchichte des Ratioiialiitnut 

 ( 1865, unfinished ), and earlier monographs by Maudlin 

 and Ruckert ; H. J. Rose's essay On the State of Rtliyion 

 in Protutant Germany (1825), and Pusey's Hi*t<>rical 

 Inquiry into the Cauta of the Jiationalut Chamrlir nf 

 the Thro/oyy of Germany ( 1828-30); A. S. Farrar, Criti- 

 cal Hitlory of Free Thought ( 1862 ) ; K. \V. Mackay. The 

 Tubingen School and itt Antecedent* ( 1863 ) ; Lecky, Hi*- 

 tory of Ralionalitm in Europe (1865); Hurst, Hi*ti>ru 

 of JKationalum (New York, I860); Fisher, t'niili ,m<t 

 Jlationalitm (New York, 1879); Tulloch's Rational Th.- 

 ology ( 1872 ) and Movement* uf Religion* Thought ( 1885 ] ; 

 Draper, Intellertual Development of Eurojx (1867 ) and 

 Conflict between Science and Religion (1874); Cairns, 

 Unbelief in the Eiyhteenth Century (1881); Pfleiderer, 

 The Development of Theology in German;/ rinre Kant 

 (Lond. 1890); also the articles in this work on CHURCH 

 HISTORY, REFORMATION, DEISM, EXEGESIS, and works 

 there cited, with the articles on the chief rationalist 

 critics ami thinkers. 



It.-iiisltoii (Ger. REOENSBURG), a town of 

 Bavaria, stands on the right bank of the Danul>e, 

 S'2 miles by rail NNE. of Munich. Formerly a 

 free city of the empire and seat of the Diet, Ratis- 

 bon presents a strongly marked medieval character, 

 with narrow crooked streets, and high, many-cor- 

 nered, gabled houses. Among its churches the most 



