Albrecht Ritschl

Life

Ritschl was born in Berlin in 1822. His father, Georg Karl Benjamin Ritschl, served as pastor of St. Mary's Church in Berlin and from 1827 to 1854 was general superintendent (the highest official responsible for church administration) of Pomerania. Beginning in 1839, Ritschl studied theology at Bonn, Halle, Heidelberg, and Tübingen. As a student he was deeply absorbed in Hegelian philosophy, and after completing his studies he worked within the so-called Tübingen School led by the Tübingen theologian F. C. Baur.

From 1846 he taught at the University of Bonn as a Privatdozent (a lecturer qualified to teach but not yet holding a professorship); he became an associate professor in 1852 and a full professor in 1859. In 1864 he moved to the University of Göttingen, where he taught until his death. In 1859 he married Ida Rehbeck; their son Otto Ritschl also became a professor of theology. Ritschl died in Göttingen in 1889.

Work and Contributions

In his first major work, The Origin of the Old Catholic Church, Ritschl initially followed the views of his teacher Baur. Baur held that the early church took shape through conflict between Jewish Christians who followed Peter and Gentile Christians who followed Paul. In the revised edition published in 1857, however, Ritschl broke with this theory.

His principal work is The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, published in three volumes between 1870 and 1874, which sets out his theological system. His other writings include History of Pietism and Theology and Metaphysics (1881). He regarded justification as the heart of the Christian gospel and sought a return to Martin Luther and the Reformation. At the same time, he criticized Pietism for departing from the foundations of the Reformation.

The following are commonly cited as distinctive features of Ritschl's thought:

• Theory of value judgments: He held that faith arises not from proving objective facts but from value judgments. He explained, for example, that the divinity of Christ expresses the revelatory value Christ holds for the community that trusts him as God.
• Rejection of metaphysics: He rejected theology that relies on speculative philosophical systems. In this respect he is generally thought to have been influenced by Kant, Schleiermacher, and the philosopher Lotze.
• Kingdom of God: He understood the kingdom of God as a community of love with both religious and ethical dimensions.

Those influenced by him, including Adolf von Harnack, Wilhelm Herrmann, and Julius Kaftan, are collectively known as the "Ritschlian school."

Influence on the Korean Church

No record has been found of any direct connection between Ritschl and the Korean church. In Korea he is introduced mainly in theological education and academic circles as a representative figure of nineteenth-century liberal theology. Korean scholars have also published academic studies of his understanding of Luther and his view of Scripture.

Assessment

Ritschl is regarded as having exerted enormous influence on nineteenth-century German Protestant theology. He is noted for seeking, at a time when scientific advances were narrowing the space for Christian belief, to preserve a distinct sphere for faith by distinguishing scientific knowledge from religious knowledge.

He has also drawn considerable criticism. Evangelical and conservative theologians argue that his theory of value judgments and his rejection of metaphysics weaken the objective character of doctrines such as the divinity of Christ. Others point out that his underlying premise—that scientific knowledge is objective and free of value judgments—is itself difficult to sustain. In the twentieth century, dialectical theology (a theological movement emphasizing the radical break between God's revelation and humanity), led by Karl Barth and others, is generally understood to have criticized nineteenth-century liberal theology as a whole, including the Ritschlian school.