378 - From Luther to Tillich: The Reformers and Their Heirs

From Luther to Tillich: The Reformers and Their Heirs
By Wilhelm Pauck
San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1984. 223 pp. $19.95.

When Wilhelm Pauck died in 1981, he had completed only the first chapter of the second volume of Paul Tillich: His Lift and Thought. That chapter appears at the end of this collection of previously published essays and provides new information and insights regarding the early development of Tillich's thought. The first four chapters, three taken from The Heritage of the Reformation, contain well-known essays on Luther, Melanchthon, Butzer, and Calvin, and the rest of the book presents some of Pauck's writings on modern theologians. Only the concluding chapter on Tillich is new.

Pauck's essays on the Reformers certainly justify his preeminence as a Reformation scholar. His attention to detail, his copious and informa-

379 - From Luther to Tillich: The Reformers and Their Heirs

tive notes, and his skillful use of original sources are models for those who work at the history of thought. Pauck could express in a few words the essence of a theological issue and probe with exquisite sensitivity the motivations and intentions of his subjects. One will not find a better portrayal of Luther as a God-possessed man tormented by "the agonies of faith," or a clearer explication of the dialectical nature of that faith, than Pauck offers here. The originality of Pauck's scholarship is demonstrated in his studies of the pivotal, yet neglected, theology of Martin Butzer. Through an examination of Butzer's unpublished writings, Pauck shows that, although Butzer was generally dependent upon Luther, he did not follow him in every respect. This was especially true in his view of the state. Luther insisted that the state is secular and its authority inviolable, while Butzer, anticipating the later Reformed doctrine, viewed civil authority as contingent upon its Christian character. Pauck argues that not only in this, but in many other respects (including his doctrine of predestination) Calvin was dependent upon Butzer long before his retreat to Strasbourg in 1538.

The later chapters on modern theology disclose an interesting ambiguity in Paucks own thought. In his Reformation writings, he never tires of defending the priority and superiority of Luther's evangelical theology against what he judges to be the empirical/ethical approach of Butzer and Calvin. And yet, in his essays on Harnack, Troeltsch, and wholly Pauck frankly identifies himself with their historicist and ethical interpretation of Christianity. He applauds Otto Webers influence upon Troeltsch, because it added a socio-economic dimension to Troeltsch's cultural analysis of Christian faith, and approves even more Harnack's historical relativism. "Dogmatic speculation, even if it is based upon the Bible, cannot help us. What we need most is historical understanding and not theosophy. The churches have more need of a Harnack than of a Barth." That is a strange thing to hear from a champion of Luther's biblically saturated theology! But, however puzzling his own theological commitments, Pauck's exposition of the liberal tradition displays the same scholarly excellence as his Reformation studies.

The same cannot be said for his brief chapter on Barth. Its brevity, its lack of scholarly notation, and its anecdotal and even prejudicial tone make it more appropriate for an after dinner talk than for a collection of scientific essays. Harnack said that he "had no antenna for Barth," and neither, apparently, did Pauck. Referring to the Church Dogmatics, he can only wonder at Barth's "wizardry" with words, suggest that he "must do his thinking while writing," and finally dismiss the whole as needlessly repetitive. For Pauck, Barths doctrine of revelation contains only one idea, "that God is known by God and by God alone'" The rest is but a vain and superfluous effort to explain the unexplainable. Such an attempt to reduce the theological, exegetical, and historical richness of Barth's work to banality is as unworthy of Pauck as it is of Barth, and merely reflects that ressentiment toward Barth that has too long characterized the attitude of American theology.

382 - From Luther to Tillich: The Reformers and Their Heirs

This book is brought to a happy conclusion, however, with Pauck's important investigation of Tillich's early thought. Having at his disposal unpublished correspondence and manuscripts, he is able to shed new light on the influence of Tillich's father, of Schelling, and of others upon his intellectual development. Pauck's major discovery is that Tillich was very early in possession of some of the controlling concepts of his mature theology. In a letter to his father, Tillich spoke of his search for a system that could unite faith and culture. In Martin Kählers classes, he learned to speak of God as the "Absolute," the "Unconditioned," and as unarticulated "being." He also learned from Kähler to think of the Bible as interpreted faith, and to conceive of the figure of Christ as a product both of "an event and the reception of that event." More fascinating still is the fact that in 1912 Tillich proposed that he be employed as the official "apologist" for the Lutheran churches of Berlin. While he was not granted that appointment, he did, in a way reminiscent of Schleiermacher's Speeches, give a series of apologetic lectures called "Vernuft Abende," which contained such original Tillichian concepts as "the courage to be" and the "method of correlation."

Pauck's failing health prevented his reporting the cataclysmic changes wrought in Tillich by the First World War. What is offered, however, answers a number of questions about Tillich's theological pilgrimage and raises others that will keep scholars busy for some time to come. This chapter presents Pauck at his best, and the book as a whole provides an appropriate occasion to remember with respect and gratitude one of the church's finest historians.

Alexander J. McKelway
Davidson College
Davidson, North Carolina