again calls ethics,24 a view which a hundred years later is confirmed and readopted with some modifications by W. Herrmann25 and E. Troeltsch.26 By means of some simple comparisons K.I. Nitzsch and later Martin Kähler and H.H. Wendt, also in the nineteenth century, renewed the attempt to integrate ethics into dogmatics after the pattern of Thomas and the reformers.27 More typical of the thrust of the age was the reverse attempt of R. Rothe, in accordance with his theory of the gradual disappearance of the church in the state, to swallow up dogmatics totally in ethics apart from assigning to it the miserable role of presenting a theology of the confessional writings.28 It has yet to be seen—I have in mind E. Hirsch on the one side29 and F. Gogarten and R. Bultmann on the other30—whether the renewal of interest in the ethical task and determination of theology resulting from the Kierkegaard renaissance of the last ten years will not finally work itself out in the direction of R. Rothe.31
So much, then, for our sketch of the history of the problem. For the relative newness of the independence of ethics in theology and the ensuing tendency to swallow up dogmatics in it points to a problem. Assuming that in some sense and context theology has to discuss the goodness of human conduct, is it appropriate or advisable to do this in the form of a separate discipline from dogmatics?
First, the negative accent which dogmatics acquires with this distinction, as though it did not deal also and precisely with the goodness of human conduct, could very well mean an emptying out of the task of dogmatics against which the latter ought to appeal in all earnest. It was an insidious move when already in the middle of the seventeenth century theologians began to speak of the two “parts” of theology: first the knowledge (agnitio) of God and then the service (cultus) of God (Wendelinus, Prolegomena IV, p. 38).32 Those theologians showed more tact who did not work out this division in the form of giving dogmatics two main sections (so Wendelinus, P. van Mastricht33 et al.) but like the Lutheran J. Gerhard tried to make it fruitful point by point.34 What does it mean for dogmatics if De Wette (Lehrbuch, p. 1)35 is right when he says that in doctrine our knowledge soars up in faith and surmise to eternal truth while in morality the law is expounded by which our power of action achieves goals in life? Or if A. Schlatter (Ethik, p. 30)36 is right when he says that the dogmatician illumines our consciousness but the ethicist sheds light on our will? Or if G. Wünsch (Theologische Ethik, p. 66)37 is right when he says that dogmatics shows how we believe while ethics should show how we should act on the basis of the holy? If ⌜the knowledge of God is not in itself the service of God,⌝ if eternal truth does not include goals, if illumined consciousness is not in itself will and faith act—then what are they? Does not all this bring dogmatics under the suspicion of being an idle intellectual game? If it really accepts these and similar disjunctions, it has good reason to abdicate in favor of ethics. But it might well be that it cannot do so because it has to carry out a task which ethics with its question of the goodness of human conduct cannot take from it but which wholly and at every point embraces this concern of ethics, so that with Thomas and the reformers, and some more recent scholars who have followed them, it must resolutely contest the necessity and possibility of a theological ethics independent of dogmatics.
Second and conversely the positive accent which ethics acquires with the distinction can from the very outset prove to be a source of error for the way in which the goodness of human conduct can be a theme in theology. Those who radically distinguish dogmatics and ethics undertake to show how far different inquiries and methodologies really underlie the two. But so far as one can see, the result of this is highly suspect. ⌜I will give some illustrations from the more recent history of theological ethics.⌝
According to Schleiermacher (Chr. Sitte, p. 23)38 dogmatics has to ask what has to be because the religious form of the self-consciousness, the religious frame of mind, is, while ethics has to ask what must become of, and through, the religious self-consciousness because the religious self-consciousness is. We in contrast ask how it is possible in theology to posit the religious self-consciousness as being, as a given entity, as a given methodological starting point. And if this is done, will the description of what should become of and through the religious self-consciousness become theological ethics, the theological determination of the goodness of human conduct, or will it become something entirely different?
⌜According to Christian Palmer (Die Moral d. Chrts., p. 21f.)39 the difference between dogmatics and ethics is simply that between the divine and the human. Doctrine sets before us what God has done and achieved for us by his saving revelation, so that we do not first have to act, to bring offerings, or to do works in order to save our souls, but may simply accept what has already been fully done, placing ourselves and grounding ourselves on the foundation that has already been laid for all eternity. But the kingdom of God is also at the same time the result of human and morally free activity, every true moral act being just as much the work of man as of God. Ethics has to do with the human side of the kingdom of God mediated through the human will, i.e., through free human action. We ask whether the kingdom of God is really manifest to us in this sense as the act of man, or whether the shift of glance from the acts of God to the act of man does not necessarily signify a change to another genre which subsequently raises the question whether doctrine as thus coordinated is really dealing with the acts of God and not in the last resort with the Schleiermacherian analysis of the human self-consciousness.⌝
According to A. Ritschl (Rechtf. u. Vers, III4, p. 14)40 dogmatics covers all the stipulations of Christianity in the schema of God’s work, while ethics, presupposing knowledge of these, embraces the sphere of personal and corporate Christian life in the schema of personal activity. We ask how one can manage to embrace the Christian life as such in theology. We also ask in what sense human activity deserves to be called the theme of a true theological ethics.
According to T. Haering (D. Chr. L., p. 9f.)41 doctrine shows how the kingdom of God as God’s gift becomes a kind of personal possession by faith in Christ, while morals shows us that as this faith is a spur and power enabling us to work at the task enclosed in the gift, the kingdom of God will be realized, coming increasingly to us and through us, “here in time and then eternally.” We ask how it can be “shown” in theology that faith in Christ is a power and spur enabling us to cooperate in the actualization of the kingdom of God. Will not the spur and power which can be “shown” be something quite other than faith, and will not the ethics which confidently thinks it can “show” them be something other than theological ethics? |
According to O. Kirn (Grundr. d. E., p. 1)42 dogmatics looks at the Christian life in terms of its foundation on God’s saving revelation and therefore from the standpoint of “believing receptivity,” while ethics looks at it in terms of its active development and therefore from the standpoint of “believing spontaneity.” We ask how either dogmatics or ethics can look at the Christian life which, according to Colossians 3:3, is hidden in God, and whether a presentation of what we can indeed look at in the form of “believing spontaneity” really deserves to be called theological ethics. ⌜All these conceptions are variations on the old Augustinian theme that we must view together divine and human action in grace as two sides of one and the same event. The possibility of doing this, however, is more problematical than is conceded here.⌝ |
According to Schlatter (p. 30) the relation is as follows. We do dogmatics when we take note of what we have become and of what we perceive in us, while we do ethics when we clarify what we are to become and to make of ourselves. When the dogmatician has shown us God’s work that has taken place for and in us, the ethicist shows us our own work that is apportioned to us because we are God’s work. We ask what it means in theology to take note of, to perceive, to clarify, or to show. Does not the particularity of theological perceiving and showing mean that there can be no question of this kind of binding division of the problem into God’s work and ours, that the perception of what we are to become and to make of ourselves, the displaying of our own work (notwithstanding all the protestations that we ourselves are God’s work) can never lead to a theological ethics? |
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