went to Berlin, although he wanted to go Marburg. In time, Barth was enthusiastic about going up to Marburg, which he described as “my Zion.”4
By the early 1890s the theology of Albert Ritschl exercised a dominant influence upon the theological faculties in Germany. Members of Ritschl’s school included scholars such as Wilhelm Herrmann, Adolf von Harnack, Ferdinand Kattenbusch, Johannes Gottschick, Julius Kaftan, Friedrich Loofs, Theodore Haering, and Martin Rade. Die christliche Welt, the representative journal of the day, powerfully represented the view of the Ritschlian school. Although Ritschl was in conflict with Lutheran orthodoxy during this time, Ritschl found Luther himself to be a great figure to use in combat against Lutherans. It was Ritschl who paved the way for new Luther research in the early twentieth century in pupils such as Karl Holl. Moreover, he represented new historical work and exercised a strong impact upon church historians such as Harnack in view of the history of dogma and Ernst Troeltsch in the study of Christian social ethics.
According to Ritschl, Christianity finds its basis in historical study rather than in immediate religious experience. All theological assertions should be based on the historical life of Jesus; in fact his personal relationship with God, his obedience and trust, and his ethical vocation and fellowship with humankind are personal vehicles of God’s self-revelation. Justification and sanctification are the constructive principles underlying Christian doctrine. From the standpoint in which reconciliation involves an ethical commitment to the kingdom of God, the idea of the unio mystica has no place at all. Thus, the new relationship with God in reconciliation originates in the community of faith directed toward the kingdom of God.
Finally, the idea of the kingdom of God achieves the needed reconciliation between Christianity and culture. Lebensführung (i.e., a religious, ethical lifestyle) becomes a main focus for Ritschl in dramatizing justification, sanctification, and the kingdom of God.5
Seeing the kingdom realized through Christian vocation in the world, Ritschl moves to identify even Christian morality with the cultural consciousness of his day in Germany. As a theologian of culture, Ritschl has been often accused of becoming a strong representative of “Culture Protestantism,” a form of Christendom baptized by bourgeois Prussian society. Cultural Protestantism held that the ethical demands of Jesus and cultural values are in harmony; in cultural Protestantism the true ideal of life led to no potential conflict with social or cultural structures. While uncritical of the political social system in Prussia, Ritschl saw Bismarck’s policies as genuine progress, in contradistintion to the aristocratic conservatives and the social revolutionists.
Theologically, as a student of Herrmann, Barth was critical of Ritschl.6 According to Barth, Ritschl’s ideal of the Christian life is regarded as “the very epitome of the national-liberal German bourgeois of the age of Bismarck.”7 In the mid-1890s, Troeltsch had initiated and led the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (history of religions school), focusing on a historical-critical basis that challenged dogmatic assumptions. The belief in the absoluteness of Christianity, which was based on a supernatural conception of revelation and thus at the heart of Ritschlism, became deeply questionable and was challenged by the historical-critical method of Troeltsch. In 1897 a split emerged between the older, dogmatically oriented school of Ritschlians and the younger, historical-critically oriented school of Religionsgeschichte.
In editing Die Christliche Welt Martin Rade supported younger radical members by accepting their contributions as part of the history of religions school. At the start of the twentieth century, Troeltsch emerged as the most important figure, exercising profound influence upon the theological situation in Germany. However, it was Herrmann, with his engaging style, who became the counterpart of Troeltsch, helping Barth to overcome relativism and historicism in theology.8 As a student of Herrmann at Marburg, Barth stated: “The name of Troeltsch, then at the heart of our discussions, signified the limit beyond which I thought I must refuse to follow the dominant theology of the age. In all else I was its resolute disciple”9
Karl Barth in Berlin
Characterizing the intellectual surroundings of Barth as a student in Germany was his pursuit and penetration of the poles between Ritschl and Troeltsch. Barth became a student with a high regard for Harnack in Berlin. He had little concern about Reinhold Seeberg. Instead of indulging in cultural life in Berlin, Barth saw and heard Harnack very thoroughly. “I . . . wisely avoided Seeberg, foolishly, alas, took no notice of Holl; and instead went enthusiastically to listen to Harnack (and equally keenly to hear Kaftan and Gunkel).”10 Harnack’s great lecture on the history of dogma touched Barth’s heart. According to his recollection, he heard Harnack’s argument directly in the classroom that “the dogma of the early period was a self-expression of the Greek spirit in the sphere of the gospel.”11 In Berlin, furthermore, Barth became preoccupied with the Ethics of Herrmann (1846–1922). Reflecting on this experience, Barth stated, “Herrmann was the theological teacher of my student years. The day twenty years ago in Berlin when I first read his Ethik [Ethics] I remember as if it were today. If I had the temperament of Klaus Harms, I could speak of Herrmann in the way he spoke of Schleiermacher, or I could say as Stilling did of Herder. ‘From this book I received the push into perpetual motion.’ With more restraint, but with no less gratitude, I can say that on that day I believe my own deep interest in theology began.”12
In addition to Immanuel Kant, Schleiermacher became the leading light for Barth during his student time in Berlin. Along with Herrmann’s Ethics, Barth purchased a copy of Schleiermacher’s Speeches on Religion to its Cultured Despisers. In the winter semester of 1906–1907 in Berlin Barth was interested in socialism. Incidentally, he participated in a series of lectures by Walter Simons on “Christianity and the Social Question.” According to Marquardt, Karl Vorländer’s book The New Kantian Movement in Socialism (Die neukantische Bewegung im Sozialismus) is located in Barth’s book shelf with the inscription: “Karl Barth. Cand. theol. Berlin WS 1906/07.”13 Barth would have read it during his time at Berlin. In addition, in 1906 Werner Sombart was a professor in the Department of Economics at Berlin. Sombart’s influence on Barth in Safenwil is evident in Barth’s 1911 lecture “Jesus and the Social Movement.”
In a meeting at the Worker’s Association in Küngoldingen (February 1914), Barth recalled his learning of socialism through someone he called “S.” “Through S. I was acquainted with socialism and I was driven to more exact reflection and the study of the matter. Since that time, I have considered socialist demands an important part of the application of the gospel. Certainly, I also believe that they cannot be realized without the gospel.”14 Although Barth did not identify “S,” Marquardt’s assumption that it was Sombart is credible. Notably, Barth had already read Sombart during his semester in Berlin in 1906.
Sombart (1863–1941) actually started his career with a powerful academic critique of capitalism. During his lifetime he was presumably the most influential and prominent social scientist in Germany. While Heidegger provides a counterexample, Sombart’s embrace of Nazism relegated to near oblivion his fame as one of the most brilliant and influential scholars.15 When Sombart was offered an opportunity to become a successor of Max Weber at Heidelberg, he couldn’t take the position because of his socialistic orientation, which became uncomfortable for Grand Duke Friedrich II (1857–1928). In 1896 Sombart’s first edition of Sozialismus
