UNSETTLED QUESTIONS FOR THEOLOGY TODAY (1920)
Christentum und Kultur. Thoughts and observations on modern theology by Franz Overbeck, formerly Doctor of Theology and Professor of Church History at the University of Basel. Edited from his papers by Carl Albrecht Bernoulli. Basel, Benno Schwabe & Co., 1919.
How was it possible that the early protagonists of the theology that is today dominant could ignore a colleague like Franz Overbeck and remain so indifferent and so untroubled by the questions which he put to them? How could they possibly have been content to admire his historical scholarship and then deem it sufficient to congratulate themselves on the futility of his ‘purely negative approach’ and shake their heads in astonishment and disapproval at the fact that he was and remained a professor of theology in spite of himself and the world’s opinion?
Some of us have long puzzled over how it happened that at that time (I mean thirty years ago) theologians managed to pay no attention at all to the older and younger Blumhardt and their friends. There would have been something significant to learn—as later developments prove—from the books of Friedrich Zündel, for example. Theology would have been spared all sorts of round-about ways and false paths if we had let ourselves hear it. Were Blumhardt and Zündel too monolithic for us, too pietistic, too unscientific and technically inaccurate? That refusal to listen must be confessed, hard as it is for us to put ourselves back into the lofty academic atmosphere so characteristic of that time, which obviously closed many otherwise attentive ears to sounds from that direction.
But—we must ask today—why then did no one listen to Overbeck? If theologians were unwilling to give further consideration to the rather too murky performances at Möttlingen because the stumbling-block was much too great for the spirit of the time, why did they not turn to consider all the more carefully the equally promising and the closer stumbling-block offered them by the Christlichkeit der heutigen Theologie (The Christian-ness of Present Day Theology)?
Actually, Blumhardt and Overbeck stand close together; back to back, if you like, and very different in disposition, in terminology, in their mental worlds, in their experience, but essentially together. Blumhardt stood as a forward-looking and hopeful Overbeck; Overbeck as a backward-looking, critical Blumhardt. Each was the witness to the mission of the other.
Why did no one listen to Overbeck? He was no pietist, no believer in miracles, no obscurantist; he was as acute, as stylishly elegant, as free from all assumptions as could be desired. Was it because we wanted no stumbling-block at all that we did not allow ourselves to hear the call to our real task, even when it was given by a critical Blumhardt, the senior of the Basel Faculty? If we keep before our eyes only this one refusal, can we ever again hold the Lord God responsible for the slow and meandering course of the movement of Christian thought? Can we wonder, when we consider the opportunities missed, that the signs of the time in theology and church today point so definitely to deviation and disintegration? Should not those who today stand secure on the conclusions established by the consummation of the old war against orthodoxy and the like now in all seriousness turn back to the place where so many fruitful possibilities were disregarded? Such were the questions which occupied me as I read C. A. Bernoulli’s edition of Overbeck’s papers.
The book is a collection of fragments fitted together and given titles by the editor. It is ‘part material, part blueprint; half quarry and half foundation’, as the editor calls it (p. xxxvi). This is exactly the right form for what Overbeck has to say. The subject itself was too vast and the situation too complicated for him to do more than to make test borings. The well itself will finally be drilled—who knows when and by whom? Overbeck only took some soundings.
But in this prolific period which is so exhaustively exploring the whole meaning of our Hellenistic or pre-Reformation age, we must strain our ears to listen to this man, so that he may teach us to hear him aright, if now finally we have ears. I may add that the origin and form of the book are such that it cannot be read cursorily. It must be read as a whole, read more than once, and be viewed from different angles if it is to have its full effect.
‘Christianity and Culture’ is the title Bernoulli gives it. He could equally well have called it ‘Introduction to Theology’, for that is basically its theme. But it is necessary to note that this introduction could easily transform itself into an energetic expulsion of those uncalled. I very much wish that our students might gain from this book a real preview of what they are about to undertake—or rather will stumble into. But we pastors can still less afford to lose this opportunity for a basic survey of that which is our inheritance, so that we may actually take possession of it.
But be warned! The book is an inconceivably impressive sharpening of the commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain’. If it is read and understood, the normal effect would be that ninety-nine per cent of us all will remain caught in its net and will make the discovery that it is impossible for anyone really to be such a thing as a theologian. And the few who escape must leave behind them so much beloved trash, so many dear illusions and practical, all too practical, naïvetés, that they find themselves freezing afterwards and know not where to turn for shelter.
All of us who are at all content with our calling will see the book printed and read with the same discomfort with which a normal physician views Weressajew’s Bekenntnisse eines Arztes (Confessions of a Physician). For it is a dangerous book, a book filled with the apocalyptic air of judgement. It is a balance sheet, a book which calls the comprehending reader away from the fleshpots of Egypt into the desert, to a place of durance where he can neither lie nor sit nor stand, but must of necessity keep moving, where he can neither gain nor possess, nor feast, nor distribute, but only hunger and thirst, seek, ask, and knock. That place recalls the words of the ‘Cherubic Wanderer’. ‘The foxes have holes and the fowls of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.’ All who wish to avoid this place should leave this book unread.
But perhaps the impressions and experiences of the last years have shown us that we have been living until now in a house built on sand; and that theology—if this venture ‘Theology’ is to continue longer to exist—would do better to clench its teeth and take the road to the desert. In view of the general situation, that would be more fitting than the unchilled confidence with which in many places men continue to assume the possibility of being theologians—as if it were nothing extraordinary.
Some of us are not wholly surprised by Overbeck’s revelations. We rejoice at this book. We greet it gladly in the hope that it will raise up comrades for us in our loneliness. For it will not be easy for some men of integrity to kick against these pricks. To all of us without exception, the book has some serious words to say.
I
The editor leaves it to the reader to decide whether on the basis of the material before him he will choose to regard Overbeck as a sceptic or as an inspired critic. Actually Overbeck stands just on the boundary between the two. And one side of his nature (if one can speak of two sides) will be comprehensible only through the other.
If one understands him, as his contemporaries did and as Bernoulli prefers, as a sceptic, one must at least call him as Bernoulli does ‘a happy, loving, doubter’ (p. xix). If he is understood, as I myself think is more rewarding, as standing guard ‘at the threshold of metaphysical possibilities’ (p. xxxvi), then his position must be labelled that of an ‘inspired critic’. In either case the reader must be able to separate sharply the irreconcilable antitheses of death and life, the world and the kingdom of heaven, and then again to see them both as one, before he can evaluate the concealed power of this unique spirit. For ‘this was a man and to be a man means to be a fighter’.
Decisive for any insight into Overbeck’s fundamental position are the sections ‘Concerning the Investigation of Super-History’ (Urgeschichte) (pp. 20–8) and ‘Of Myself and of Death’ (pp. 287–300). In the light