- THE criticism to which the doctrines of Christ’s satisfaction and of its imputation were subjected by Faustus Socinus did not prevent these doctrines, which had been derived from the Church Reformation, from reaching their full development for the first time in the century at the beginning of which Socinus died. But the two opposing theories of the condition of the forgiveness of sins could neither of them obtain the victory, not only because they did not understand one another, but also because they had currency in separate communities. The debate that continued in the seventeenth century between the two parties, however, was not carried out without producing a recognisable effect upon both sides. The Lutheran and Reformed divines had undertaken the development of those doctrines, on the assumption that they rested upon a rational as well as upon a biblical foundation. But by the Socinian arguments that assumption was shaken. At the close of the period of orthodoxy, therefore, occur admissions that the Divine plan of Christ’s penal satisfaction is contrary to the rules of human justice, and that it is tenable only by the authority of the Bible; but at the same time some did not shrink from recognising in the irrationality of the doctrine a special proof of its divine origin (p. 308). But, conversely, the later Socinians yielded to the force of the authority of the New Testament so far as to adopt the Arminian interpretation of the death of Christ, and renounce on this point the violent exegesis of Faustus.1 Thus, as far as Church Protestantism was concerned, the orthodox doctrine of reconciliation remained unmoved to the middle of the eighteenth century, although for a considerable time previous to that a variety of modifying circumstances had come into operation outside of the Church, by which the continued acceptance of this doctrine was threatened. But in the sphere of the German Lutheran Church which, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, showed itself accessible to the scientific influences that broke up this doctrine, the Wolfian philosophy itself contributed in the first instance rather to the strengthening of the orthodox feeling. So late as the year 1737, the Wolfian, Jacob Carpov, establishes the right of distinguishing revealed from natural theology, by making the doctrine of reconciliation in its Lutheran form, in its speciality as a truth that transcends the reason, the criterion of Divine revelation.2
Only a generation intervenes between this striking testimony to the acceptance of this doctrine, not merely by the Church, but also in scientific circles, and the efforts made by leading Lutheran theologians to do away with it, and to substitute for it principles of a Socinian tendency. And with these preparatory undertakings is connected the rejection even of the religious thought of the forgiveness of sins which was common to orthodox Protestants and to the Socinians. Without doubt a multitude of predisposing causes can be alleged to account for this radical change in theology. The question, however, ought not to be directed merely in a general way towards the possibility or necessity of this development: it is of particular importance that we should understand why it was that theologians in the Lutheran Church rather than any other men, should oppose themselves most entirely to the doctrine of reconciliation, while theologians belonging to other parties took no part in this undertaking—not even the theologians of those parties which up to that time had chiefly assumed a heterodox attitude. How much the task of historical explanation of the theological revolution of the eighteenth century depends upon the limitation of the question, may be gathered from the way in which Baur expresses himself in his Geschichte der Lehre von der Versöhnung (p. 479): “So wide a breach had been made in the spirit’s consciousness of the objectivity of the dogma, that the spirit, now in disharmony therewith, could no longer rest till in pure subjectivity it had again set itself free from the fettering power of all those determinations. Herewith there commences in the Protestant Church itself a movement thoroughly conscious that its cause is good, and which advances with ever-increasing indifference towards orthodoxy. Thus Töllner’s inquiry into the active obedience of Christ forms the point of transition to a new era.” I am unfortunately not in a position to avail myself of this historical myth for my purpose. What spirit was in disharmony with the objectivity of the dogma? Baur’s previous historical sketch makes it possible only to think of the spirit of the Socinians. Now, if I grant that the standpoint of pure subjectivity was not quite reached by that party, then the natural law of the spirit indicated by Baur, to the effect that every tendency of thought that has once been entered upon must be pursued to its utmost consequences, would prove itself correct, if the Socinians, after their founder had made the remission of the punishment of sin to depend on the moral activity of the subject, had gone on to show the utter inconceivability of such a remission of Divine punishment. The Socinians, however, who came into collision with the objectivity of the idea of atonement, not merely gave their spirit perfect rest in that regard, they even in the eighteenth century closed the mighty breach in their spirit’s consciousness of the objectivity of the dogma, by reverting to the Arminian type of doctrine. But the Lutherans who, in the second half of the eighteenth century, could not rest until they had rid their subjectivity from the fettering power of all those determinations, previously to that had experienced no breach at all in their disposition to the doctrine of reconciliation, and thus were in no position to complete a movement imposed upon them by the accelerating force of a spiritual impulse once begun. These observations thus prove the necessity of setting about an explanation of the facts by quite other means. For, to demolish the dogma of reconciliation, it was not the “spirit” in general that was the efficient agent, but, as has been said, only a party among the Lutheran divines, who were assisted in their undertaking by no theologian of the Socinian, Remonstrant, Reformed, and much less of the Romish party.