The Rediscovery of Ferdinand Christian Baur: A Review of the First Two Volumes of His Ausgewählte Werke

Abstract

The appearance of the first two volumes of a reprint edition of some of Ferdinand Christian Baur's most important writings marks an important event in contemporary historical theology: the rediscovery of a man whom Emanuel Hirsch has called “the greatest and at the same time the most controversial theologian to be produced by German evangelical Christianity since Schleiermacher.” Baur's greatness consists in his recognition of the radically historical quality of the Christian Church and Christian faith, and in his concomitant development of an historical method appropriate to a critical and theological study of the Church and its founding events, a study which he understood to be an intrinsically proper and necessary theological discipline. The controversy over Baur has been generated partially with respect to the extent of his alleged “Hegelianism,” and partially with respect to the validity of his attempt to discover the “truth” of Christianity by means of historical-critical theology. Criticism of him has arisen more often out of misunderstanding, but sometimes precisely out of recognition of what he was trying to achieve theologically. This new edition of some of his major works will help to base both acclaim and criticism on the latter rather than the former ground; and it surely will enhance our appreciation of the greatness and originality of this strangely neglected man, who stands as such an essential link between Schleiermacher at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the Ritschlians at the end, but who belongs to neither.