Wilhelm Herrmann: A Reassessment

Abstract

Wilhelm Herrmann remains of importance in present theological debates, particularly those between Bultmann and Barth, two of his most distinguished pupils. Barth's own break with liberal theology was to an extent a break with his teacher Herrmann, a rejection of revelation as essentially the mode of inward appropriation within the religious subject and a rejection of the psychological pragmatism which determines the soteriological significance of Jesus in terms of the moral need of the individual. Barth sees Bultmann as setting forth in existentialist categories the transformation of the inner life of the believer and reminds us of all that Bultmann learned from Herrmann long before he had ever heard of Heidegger. When we consider the distinction drawn by Herrmann between historico-critical research and the certitude of faith, his conception of revelation as event in the life of the individual, his sharp rejection of dogmatics as a normative discipline, we discern motifs which continue to be determinants of Bultmann's theology.