RATIONALISM
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RATIONALISM
the rational (Fries, 1773-1S43; Jacobi, 1743-1819;
Herder, 1744-1803;— all opposed to the Intellectual-
ism of Kant), and ultimately found expression with
Schleiermacher (1768-1834), for whom rehgion is to
be found neither in kxiowledge nor in action, but in a
peculiar attitude of mind which consists in the con-
sciousness of absolute dependence upon God. Here
the older distinction between natural and revealed
religion disappears. All that can be called religion —
the consciousness of dependence — is at the same time
revelational, and all religion is of the same character.
There is no special revelation in the older Protestant
(the Catholic) sense, but merely this attitude of de-
pendence brought into being in the individual by the
teaching of various great personalities who, from time
to time, have manifested an extraordinary sense of the
religious. Schleiermacher was a contemporary of
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, whose philosophical
speculations had influence, with his own, in ulti-
mately subverting'Rationalism as here dealt with. The
movement may be said to have ended with him — in
the opinion of Teller "the greatest theologian that the
Protestant Church has had since the period of the
Reformation". The majority of modern Protestant
theologians accept his views, not, however, to the ex-
clusion of knowledge as a basis of religion.
Parallel with the development of the philosophical and theological views as to the nature of religion and the worth of revelation, which provided it with its critical principles, took place an exegetical evolution. The first phase consisted in replacing the orthodox Protestant doctrine (i. e. that the Sacred Scriptures are the Word of God) by a distinction between the Word of God contained in the Bible and the Bible itself (Tollner, Herder), though the Rationalists still held that the purer source of revelation lies rather in the written than in the traditional word. This dis- tinction led inevitably to the destruction of the rigid view of inspiration, and prepared the ground for the second phase. The principle of accommodation was now employed to explain the difficulties raised by the Scripture records of miraculous events and demoniacal manifestations (Senf, Vogel), and arbitrary methods of exegesis were also used to the same end (Paulus, Eich- horn). In the third phase Rationalists had reached the point of allowing the possibility of mistakes having been made by Christ and the Apostles, at any rate with regard to non-essential parts of religion. All the devices of exegesis were employed vainly: and, in the end. Rationalists found themselves forced to admit that the authors of the New Testament must have written from a point of view different from that which a modern theologian would adopt (Henke, Weg- scheider). This principle, which is sufficiently elastic to admit of usage by nearly every variety of opinion, was admitted by several of the Supematuralists (Reinhard, Storr), and is verj' generally accepted by modern Protestant divines, in the rejection of verbal inspiration. Herder is very clear on the distinction — the truly inspired must be discerned from that which is not; and de Wette lays down as the canon of in- terpretation "the religious perception of the divine operation, or of the Holy Spirit, in the sacred writers as regards their belief and inspiration, but not respecting their faculty of forming ideas. . . ." In an ex- treme form it may be seen employed in such works as Strauss's "Leben Jesu", where the hji^othesis of the mythical nature of miracles is developed to a greater extent than by Schleiermacher or de Wette.
(2) Rationalism, in the broader, popular meaning of the term, is used to designate any mode of thought in which human reason holds the place of supreme criterion of truth; in this sense, it is especially applied to such modes of thought as contrasted with faith. Thus ,\theisin, Materialism, Naturalism, Pantheism, Scepticism, etc., full under the head of rationalistic systems. As such, the rationalistic tendency has al-
ways existed in philosophy, and has generally shown
itself powerful in all the critical schools. As has been
noted in the preceding paragraph, German Ration-
alism had strong affinities with English Deism and
French MateriaUsm, two historic forms in which the
tendency has manifested itself. But with the vulgar-
ization of the ideas contained in the various systems
that composed these movements. Rationalism has
degenerated. It has become connected in the popular
mind with the shallow and misleading philosophy
frequently put forward in the name of science, so that
a double confusion has arisen, in which (i) question-
able philosophical speculations are taken for scientific
facts, and (ii) science is falsely supposed to be in
opposition to religion. This Rationalism is now rather
a spirit, or attitude, read}' to seize upon any argu-
ments, from any source and of any or no value, to urge
against the doctrines and practices of faith. Beside
this crude and popular form it has taken, for which the
publication of cheap reprints and a vigorous propa-
ganda are mainly responsible, there runs the deeper
and more thoughtful current of critical-philosophical
Rationalism, which either rejects religion and revela-
tion altogether or treats them in much the same
manner as did the Germans. Its various manifesta-
tions have little in common in method or content,
save the general appeal to reason as supreme. No
better description of the position can be given than
the statements of the objects of the Rationalist Press
Association. Among these are: " To stimulate the
habits of reflection and inquiry and the free exercise
of individual intellect . . . and generally to assert the
supremacy of reason as the natural and necessary
means to all such knowledge and wisdom as man can
achieve". A perusal of the publications of the same
will show in what sense this representative body inter-
prets the above statement. It may be said finally,
that Rationalism is the direct and logical outcome of
the principles of Protestantism; and that the inter-
mediary form, in which assent is given to revealed
truth as possessing the imprimatur of reason, is only
a phase in the evolution of ideas towards general dis-
belief. Official condemnations of the various forms of
Rationalism, absolute and mitigated, are to be found
in the Syllabus of Pius IX.
(3) The term Rationalism is perhaps not usually applied to the theological method of the Catholic Church. All forms of theological statement, however, and pre-eminently the dialectical form of Catholic theolog>', are rationalistic in the truest sense. Indeed, the claim of such Rationalism as is dealt with above is directly met by the counter claim of the Church: that it is at best but a mutilated and unreasonable Rationalism, not worthy of the name, while that of the Church is rationally complete, and integrated, moreover, with super-rational truth. In this sense Catholic theology presupposes the certain truths of natural reason as the preambula fidei, philosophy (the ancilla theologice) is employed in the defence of re- vealed truth (see Apologetics), and the content of Divine revelation is treated and systematized in the categories of natural thought. This sy.steniatization is carried out both in dogmatic and moral theology. It is a process contemporaneous with the first attempt at a scientific statement of religious truth, comes to perfection of method in the works of such writers as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. .\Iphonsus, and is con- sistently employed and developed in the Schools.
Hagen'Bach, KxTchenQench. des 18. Jahrhunderl.t in Vorlesungen Gber Wesen u. Gefich. der Reformation in Deutschlart/i etc., V-VI (Leipzig. 1831-43): Idem (tr. Bpch). Compendium of the History of Doctrines (Edinburgh, 1846); Hase. Kirchengesch. (Leipzig, 1880); Hexke, Rationalismus u. Tradilionalismus im la. Jahrh. (Halle, 1864); Hurst, History of Rationalism (New York. 1882); Lermi.vier, De f influence de la philosophie du XVIII' siicle (Paris, 1833) ; Saistes. Hist, critique du rationalismc en Allemaane (Pari.i. 1841); Schleiermacher. Der christl. (llaube nach der GrumlsOlzen der evangelischen Kirche (Berlin. 1821-22); Semler, Von freier Untersuchung des Kanons (Halle, 1771-7.i); Idem, Institutio ad doctrinam christianam liberaliter discendam (Halle.
