From The Princeton Theological Review, xvii. 1919, pp. 533–584.
The historical source from which the main streams of Perfectionist doctrine that have invaded modern Protestantism take their origin, is the teaching of John Wesley. But John Wesley did not first introduce Perfectionism into Protestantism, nor can all the Perfectionist tendencies which have shown themselves in Protestantism since his day be traced to him. Such tendencies appear constantly along the courses of two fundamental streams of thought. Wherever Mysticism intrudes, it carries a tendency to Perfectionism with it. On Mystical ground—as, for example, among the Quakers—a Perfectionism has been developed to which that taught by Wesley shows such similarity, even in details and modes of expression, that a mistaken attempt has been made to discover an immediate genetic connection between them. Wherever again men lapse into an essentially Pelagian mode of thinking concerning the endowments of human nature and the conditions of human action, a Perfectionism similar to that taught by Pelagius himself tends to repeat itself. That is to say, history verifies the correlation of Perfectionism and Libertarianism, and wherever Libertarianism rules the thoughts of men, Perfectionism persistently makes its appearance. It is to this stream of influence that Wesleyan Perfectionism owes its own origin. Its roots are set historically in the Semi-Pelagian Perfectionism of the Dutch Remonstrants, although its rise was not unaffected by influences of a very similar character and ultimate source which came to it through the channels of Anglo-Catholicism. Its particular differentiation is determined by the supernaturalization which it shares with the whole body of modifications introduced by Wesley into his fundamental Arminianism, from which Wesleyanism, in distinction from the underlying Remonstrantism, has acquired its Evangelical character.
The Perfectionist teaching of Ritschl presents a highly individual example of a Pelagianizing Perfectionism quite independent of all either Mystical or Wesleyan influences. Mysticism, with all its works, Ritschl heartily hated; Wesleyanism he, with equal cordiality, despised. But he was a Libertarian of the Kantian variety; and, going here beyond Kant—who would allow the existence of a “radical evil” in men—he would not hear of any such thing as a native bias to sin. On the contrary, every man, according to him, comes into the world with a bias to good, and with the formation of his developed moral character in his own hands. No doubt he conceived that, in the circumstances in which man lives, the moral character which every man forms for himself is inevitably an evil one. Human society therefore, in point of fact, constitutes with Ritschl too, in its phenomenal existence, a “mass of corruption”; and reacts as such on each individual as he enters it, infecting him by a sort of “social inheritance” with its evil. No actual individual thus escapes a bias to evil. But this bias to evil, as it is the product of his own free activity, is capable of being counteracted by the same power which created it. All that is needed is the formation, under a sufficiently strong inducement, of a dominating motive in the opposite direction. Acting freely under such an inducement, the individual is capable at all times (except possibly when finally hardened) of reversing his activities, revolutionizing his character, and thus, in conjunction with others similarly moved (under the influence of whom, indeed, it is that he acts) building up, in opposition to the kingdom of sin, a Kingdom of God, in which he may be “perfect.”
For “substance of doctrine,” this is just the ordinary Libertarian Perfectionism. But Ritschl is nothing if not original; and the peculiarities of his general system of teaching give to his Libertarian Perfectionism a specific form which presents many points of interest.
Already in his doctrine of the will Ritschl goes his own way. We have spoken of him as a Libertarian of the Kantian variety. But he does not follow Kant without dissidence. In his view of the mechanism of willing, he was as clear a determinist as Kant himself. He speaks without hesitation of “determinants” of the will and enumerates them not only as “purposes” and “intentions” but also as “dispositions,” and “impulses” which he does not scruple to call “coercive” (nöthigend).1 His son and biographer does not hesitate to use the strongest language in describing the quality of his determinism, outlining it in such crisp sentences as these:2 “In the particular act of the will there is always included a necessitation (Nöthigung) by the motive. In case of conflict the determination follows the stronger motive. So far, every action (Handlung) is necessary (nothwendig).” Despite this clear determinism, however, Ritschl, like Kant, asserts also that the will has power to determine itself, and actually does determine itself, not only apart from but in opposition to its “determinants.” It is precisely in this power that, in his view, the distinction of the human spirit consists, by which it is separated from mere nature.3 It is the primary element therefore in that Selbstgefühl of which he talks so much, and by which he means not abstract self-consciousness but concrete self-esteem—our sense of our value as a self. “In this self-consciousness, and the estimate we place on self in the exalted moments of our moral willing,” he tells us,4 “we experience the might of our self-determination to the good, regardless of every obstacle whether internal or external.” When this almighty self-determination impinges on those coercive determinants, one would think something would be likely to happen.