The Kingdom of God

Abstract

This chapter seeks to show how the dogmatic content of Ritschl’s system is closely bound up both with his historical and his philosophical ideas. To this end, the chapter is focused on Ritschl’s central idea of the Kingdom of God. Its principal significance is first established on the basis of the whole range of Ritschl’s writings. Its background is then established in what Ritschl calls ‘biblical theology’, a historical reconstruction of the New Testament setting of the Church, which Ritschl offers in the second volume (hitherto not translated into English) of his theological opus magnum, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation. A third part of the chapter goes on to examine in detail how Ritschl’s leading ideas about the Kingdom of God shape one specific doctrine—his doctrine of God.