IX.

Modern Theology

After the Reformation, a period of theological stagnation set in as the Roman Catholic and Protestant orthodoxies faced one another in rigidly entrenched positions. In the 17th and 18th centuries, both camps were threatened by the rise of rationalist philosophy and empirical science. The long reign of theology as “queen of the sciences” was ending. In the face of these threats, 19th-century German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher brought new life to theology. The authority of orthodoxy was gone, and the old natural theology had been discredited by two 18th-century philosophers, English skeptic David Hume and German idealist Immanuel Kant. Thus, Schleiermacher boldly made his appeal to regarding the present experience of the believing community as the new basis for theology. In his major work, The Christian Faith (1821-1822), doctrine is treated as the transcript of experience. With Schleiermacher, the focus of theology seems to shift from God to humanity, and this was generally true of the liberal theology that dominated the 19th century. Its development was interrupted by the work of Karl Barth, whose monumental Church Dogmatics (1932-1962) represents a return to biblical theology. In the last half of the 20th century, a variety of theological schools coexisted. Notable among them were the revitalized Roman Catholic theology springing from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Other schools employ the principles of 20th-century English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, and even 19th-century German political philosopher Karl Marx for theological construction.