Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/307

Rh R A T R A T 289 380 square miles in extent, which existed as such from 1288 to 1532 and afterwards passed successively into the hands of Austria and Prussia (1742). In 1815 a small mediate principality was formed out of the old lordship of Ratibor and certain ecclesiastical domains, and was conferred upon the landgrave Amadeus of Hessen- Rothenburg as compensation for Rhenish territory absorbed by Prussia. The title of " duke of Ratibor " was revived for his suc- cessor in 1840. EATIONALISM. In modern usage the term " rational- ism " is employed almost exclusively to denote a theological tendency, method, or system, and is then applied in a narrower and a wider sense. In its wider sense, which is most common in English theological literature, it is the name of that mode of thought generally which finds the final test of religious truth in the human understanding, conscience, or reason, and particularly in the understanding. In its narrower sense, which is almost the only sense it bears in Germany, it denotes a definite school, or rather phase of theological thought, and a phase of thought which has now been outlived. It is with rationalism in this limited sense and as a tendency of German theological thought that this article deals. Rationalism had as its antitheses on the one hand supernaturalism, and on the other naturalism or simple deism. The matter of the contention between the rationalists and these two classes of opponents was supernatural revelation its necessity, its existence, its possibility. The naturalists denied revela- tion altogether ; the supernaturalists maintained the fact of a supernatural revelation, possessing an authority above "reason," though capable of being proved by "reason." The rationalists did not deny the fact of a revelation, though in the end they ignored it and claimed the right to submit every supposed revelation to the judgment of the " reason " or the moral sense. The rationalists themselves are, however, divided by some German writers into two classes relative and absolute those who hold that the matter of revelation is identical with the truths of reason, but admit that of necessity, or as a matter of fact, re- velation anticipated reason, and those who really call in question the fact of a revelation, without going quite the length of the naturalists in the rejection of Christianity. Kant drew a distinction between the "rationalist" and the " pure rationalist," defining the former as one who maintains that natural religion alone is essential, and the latter as one who admits the fact of a supernatural revelation but denies that it is a part of religion to know and accept it. German rationalism was a specific theological form of the general intellectual movement of the last century known as " illuminism " or Aufklarung; but, while the illu- minati generally ended in rejecting Christianity, the ration- alists retained and defended it in a form approved by the logical understanding or the moral sense. While ration- alism, as a child of the general intellectual movement of the age in which it appeared, owed much to the philosophy, science, and humanism of the intellectual life of Europe, as a specially theological tendency it was powerfully influ- enced by English deistical writings. Both Lechler and Ritschl assign to these writings a great immediate effect on the development of German rationalism. Of German thinkers it was especially the philosopher Wolff who threw into a compact and systematic form, suited for Ger- man students, the philosophy of Leibnitz who initiated German theologians into the rationalistic habit and method, though Wolff himself was a supernaturalist. The condition of the German church and the state of theology also con- tributed to the creation of rationalism. The hard intellect- ual orthodoxy of Lutheranism had already done its part towards producing the pietistic movement, and, while pietism helped to free men's minds from bondage to the Lutheran creeds and once more directed attention to the Bible, the cold intellectual habit of orthodoxy nurtured the same habit of rationalism while it failed to satisfy it, and so created a reaction against itself. Thus both orthodoxy and pietism were agents in calling forth rationalism, which was to prove the most dangerous opponent to both. More than one of the foremost rationalists had passed through the school of pietism. Regarding rationalism as the opponent of supernatural- ism and naturalism, and as an opponent which appealed in the conflict almost exclusively to either the logical under- standing or the moral sense as the criterion of religious truth, it may be said to have existed in Germany for nearly a century (c. 1740-1836), and to have flourished about half that length of time (c. 1760-1810), that is, it took its rise simultaneously with the publication of Wolffs writ- ings (1736-50) and the translation into German of the works of the English deists (Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation was translated in 1741), displayed its greatest strength in Semler's critical works (1760-73) and in Kant's philosophy (1781-93), began then to decline gradually under the influence of the works of Herder, Jacobi, Fichte (in his later period), and Hegel, and at last died out when Schleiermacher especially, in the department of theology proper, and Baur and Strauss, amongst others, in the de- partment of Biblical criticism, had given currency to ideas and issues which rendered its main contentions objectless and its criteria of religious truth invalid. The English deists, the German illuminati, and the French philosophers had before the middle of the last century, with a vast array of argument, called in question the idea of a supernatural revelation, and had seriously attacked the supernatural origin of the Hebrew and Chris- tian Scriptures. Christian Wolff undertook the defence, and claimed to have demonstrated the supernatural reve- lation of the Bible. He made the old distinction between natural and revealed religion of fundamental importance, and maintained that demonstrable truths alone can be re- garded as part of natural religion. Revealed religion he drew solely from the Scriptures, and sought to prove by a chain of reasoning and historical evidence their divine ori- gin. Thus in reality the intellect alone was constituted the faculty for ultimately determining the truth of revelation as well as for constructing a natural religion. The general adoption of the distinction between natural and revealed religion, of the appeal to logical and historical evidence and argument for proof of the truths of both, and of the supposition that the truths of natural religion could be demonstrated while those of revealed religion were above, if not contrary to reason, and rested solely on the authority of Scripture, naturally divided theologians into two hostile camps, and proved, contrary to Wolffs expectations, more favourable to the naturalists and rationalists than to the supernaturalists. If it was admitted by all that the appeal in the contention was to be to the understanding, and the religious nature and higher reason were left out of account, and if, moreover, the truths of natural religion God, duty, immortality were supposed by all to be de- monstrable, supernatural revelation was certain in that age to be put to great disadvantage. The result of Wolffs philosophy was a natural theology, a utilitarian system of morals, without any religious fervour or Christian pro- fundity. Wolffs philosophy thus inaugurated in Germany a theological period corresponding, in its way, with the period in England between 1688 and 1750, when "Chris- tianity appeared to be made for nothing but to be 'proved,' " and the only test to be applied was " reason," which was simply the philosophy in vogue. In both cases religion was regarded as substantially a set of doctrines, revelation as the publication of them, and God as teaching them after the most anthropomorphic manner. No profound concep- XX. 37