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Dr. T.K. Dunn, Associate Professor of History and Theology

The Holy Love of P.T. Forsyth’s Christological Dispute with Liberalism and its Implications

Introduction

The influence of the European “Enlightenment” on Christian dogma has caused significant division within the church, from disputes concerning the nature of revelation to debates concerning the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. This paper will explore one of the implications of the Enlightenment, namely, that the turn from the divine-creaturely relationship to a progressing utopic fraternalism lacks a spiritual and moral foundation for success. Through the lens of P.T. Forsyth, this paper will argue that Forsyth’s conception of “holy love” is that which binds the moral movements of humanity toward progress only as a result of Ҵǻ’s activity in the cross of Christ which enables and empowers holiness. For Forsyth, there can be no lasting, worthwhile, or productive movement towards the “kingdom of God” (however one understands it) without first having a comprehension of Ҵǻ’s own immutable holiness. The people of God, Forsyth explains, must first experience Ҵǻ’s holiness in order to be able to provide and produce meaningful moral change in our world. Without experience of, and submission to, this central historical event of Christ’s cross, the telos of humanity will never rise above the sin which enslaves it; human-driven progress is destined to fail unless it finds its centre and power in the crucis of Christ.[1]

Ritschlian Liberalism and the Influence of the Enlightenment

A critical influence in the life and thought of P.T. Forsyth was his mentor Albrecht Ritschl.[2] Goroncy suggests that it was during Forsyth’s undergraduate studies where he first encountered the writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Immanuel Kant. These theologians, along with Ritschl, would be “the thunderous voices with which he would tussle for the remainder of his life.”[3] It was after opting for ordination that Forsyth spent a semester in Göttingen under the tutelage of Albrecht Ritschl and Carl Stumpf.[4] Although Forsyth would eventually undergo his infamous break with Ritchlianism, he would, nevertheless, continue to exhibit signs of Ritschl’s influence in his thinking.[5] It was this longstanding respect for Ritschl that provided Forsyth with an almost unique interest in Continental thought compared with his English contemporaries. And it is this experience of, and willingness to respectfully dialogue with, the ideas of Hegel, Kant, and Ritschl, that make him an invaluable source for challenging the weak Christological underpinnings of Liberalism’s anthropocentric holiness both in his generation and in ours.[6]

Only by truly appreciating the depth of Ҵǻ’s innate holiness will the majesty of the death and resurrection of Christ be holistically displayed as an expression of His love.

In his analysis of Ritschl’s theology, F.E. Mayer makes the compelling case that Ritschl’s appropriation of Schleiermacher’s theology of individual experience being that which constitutes empirical evidence for one’s “faith” is a key component of the modern conception of the “Social Gospel”.[7] Ritschl does not mince his words in articulating his belief that the kingdom of God is, fundamentally, a fraternal institution whereby utopic progression towards humanity’s eventual teleological end is manifested by Ҵǻ’s creation of “an ethical community of mankind” which is “prompted by universal love to our neighbor.”[8] In other words, Ritschl argues that the activity of the Divine in this age is to bring about “the moral union of all the peoples of the world.”[9] How God achieves this moral union is disputed amongst Liberal scholars,[10] but the overarching principle is the experience of the teachings of Jesus.

For Ritschl, in contrast with Schleiermacher, the experience by which we know we are justified is not our experience, but that of the historical Jesus.[11] The critical difference between the texts of the New Testament and the early church and German Liberalism is that the “determining factor” for theology is experience. This means that, for Ritschl, theology is, in many ways, divorced from God because it is reliant on our experience of the historical Jesus and the impact of any idea upon the kingdom of Ҵǻ’s teleological expression (i.e., the kingdom of Ҵǻ’s ultimate dominion over the world) is grounded in knowledge of His teaching and its application to, or perhaps through, us.[12] Thus, the foundational movement of the telos is, in fact, the telos of humanity itself, rather than the crucis which, to use Forsyth’s word, “establishes” the telos (by which both mean the kingdom of God).

Ritschl’s theological schema is often described as having the twin foci of “the religious conception of redemption, and the ethical conception of the kingdom of God.”[13] Although Ritschl attempts to hold these two aspects together, he ultimately fails because, as Sell rightly notes: “The latter takes precedence over the former … which is … in keeping with Ritschl’s understanding of the kingdom as the means to the end.”[14] Not only, therefore, does the telos dominate redemption, but, as it does so, it fundamentally reshapes the mechanisms of both by reorienting the objective actor in both redemption and the kingdom: “In Christianity the religious motive of ethical action lies here, that the kingdom of God, which it is our task to realize, represents also the highest good which God destines for us as our extramundane goal.”[15] The work of bringing the kingdom is the work of humanity; we are tasked, according to Ritschl, with the religiously-motivated ethical action of bringing the kingdom to this world.

The pertinence of this discussion to the doctrine of holiness is that, in Ritschl’s schema, holiness is defined by the kingdom of God itself, which is, itself, Ҵǻ’s activity to bring about a moral utopia of an ethical mankind prompted by our love for our fellow man rather than Christ’s work on the cross effecting spiritual change which impacts our moral behavior. In essence, Ritschl’s conception of morality is akin to Ҵǻ’s love being reduced to an “empire” of ethics rather than a holy love which actively reconciles the world to Himself.[16] This kingdom of God, in Ritschl’s articulation, is a union of mankind; it remains only an anthropocentric society in which morality is defined by human society itself (i.e., the impossible to define “common good for all”) and holiness is reduced to obedience to that standard: ’s ethical standard.[17]

The implications of Ritschl’s theological assertions for the Social Gospel are most visible in connection with sin: “When God pardons a man God experiences no attitudinal change towards the erstwhile sinner; rather, the latter’s guilty fears are removed.”[18] This means that “the essence of sin lies in the opposition which the kingdom of sin offers to the kingdom of God.”[19] If sin is redefined on a horizontal axis, therefore, and justification is understood as being experiential rather than definitive, it is only because Ҵǻ’s absolute holiness has been set aside. In place of Ҵǻ’s holiness, therefore, Ritschl has enthroned Ҵǻ’s love.[20] Holiness, according to Ritschl, is sublimated to, and, indeed defined by, ethical love. And, as has been demonstrated, ethical love is human-oriented both in its scope and activity. The end point of Ritschl’s theological assertions is the deification of man as the ethical actor in, for, and through the kingdom of God, as well as reducing the holiness of God to a mere curiosity of His being that is only important as it relates (positively) to His generous love.[21]

What is also particularly curious to Ritschl is that he expands the kingdom from being associated with the church to being simply the place where fraternal action is undertaken.[22] This means that, as Nelson states: “Any loving act “counts” … [so that] God works out Ҵǻ’s kingdom in all cultures and at all times.”[23] By this expansion, Ritschl has moved the historic Gospel away from its tightly-governed association with the personal work of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection, and instead located kingdom admission in a somewhat ungrounded “love of neighbour”.[24]

With this background in place, it requires little imagination to see how the Social Gospel today is rooted in the empirical theology of Albrecht Ritschl. Ritschl had laid the foundation for a bible without history, holiness without the cross, a kingdom without God, and a social movement without moral absolutes grounded in the character and nature of Ҵǻ’s own, direct, self-revelation. Such a movement, indeed such a religion, is destined to fail because it is a human edifice without a firm foundation; it will blow with the winds and collapse with the storms of conflicting ideals of justice and ethical behavior.

Forsyth’s Theological Nexus: The Cruciality of the Cross as the Producer of Holiness

In response to this bleak re-evaluation of the Biblical witness, P.T. Forsyth, although respectful, presents a different perspective on social progress. In this section, this paper will present Forsyth’s position and then explore how this conception of “holy love” can be applied both at an individual and corporate level in a more consistent manner than that offered by Ritschl and Liberal scholarship.[25]

In The Cruciality of the Cross, Forsyth lays his position contra Ritschl from the outset. He states: “That book [the New Testament] represents a grand holiness movement, but it is one which is more concerned with Ҵǻ’s holiness than ours, and lets ours grow of itself by dwelling on His.”[26] He then explicitly draws his distinction between his argument and that of his onetime mentor: “This starting-point of the supreme holiness of Ҵǻ’s love, rather than its pity, sympathy, or affection, is the watershed between the Gospel and the theological liberalism which makes religion no more than the crown of humanity and the metropolitan province of the world.”[27] Forsyth explains that in order for anything within the realm of “religion” to make sense, or operate ethically, it must first have a groundedness in something beyond our own, weak, humanity. This starting point, rather than being the adaptation of Ritschl’s twin foci, is the nature of God Himself, who is both loving and holy. Indeed, His holiness is qualified by His love just as His love is understood by His holiness. The center of his interpretation of the kingdom of God is not human ethics, but a soteriology flowing from a high Christology.[28]

This soteriological emphasis brings Forsyth to the crux of his own argument, which is that the death of Christ, the atoning work of the cross, is the central point of theology just as it is the central moment of human history.[29] The cross of Christ, therefore, is the work of God to establish the kingdom but that kingdom can only exist if the citizens within it are reconciled to God based upon Ҵǻ’s standard of holiness, not upon ’s ethical standards.[30] Indeed, Forsyth explains that “God alone can create in us the holiness that will please Him … this He has done in Jesus Christ incarnate.”[31] Contrary to the conception of the kingdom as something progressively attained by an increasingly-ethical humanity, Forsyth reminds us that the kingdom itself is an imposition. It is brought upon by God through the work of Christ. It is comprised of individuals who are reconciled to God, but the kingdom itself is a social order of a new humanity: a humanity created by the cross-work of Christ.[32] This new humanity, in turn, was not in itself the end goal of Ҵǻ’s redemptive work, but that Ҵǻ’s will would be accomplished so that Ҵǻ’s own honour would be upheld and His holiness unmaligned.[33]

The basis of this understanding is rooted in our grasp of sin as being an assault against Ҵǻ’s holiness. True Christianity is a religion of redemption and is therefore concerned with our sin against Ҵǻ’s holiness. The Liberal Christianity espoused by Ritschl, however, “is engrossed with the wrong done to our brother and not to our God.”[34] The cure for our sin, Forsyth argues, is not a greater charity towards our fellow beings, however, because “the social organism has a common and organic sin.”[35] Instead, there is no treatment of sin against a holy God other than Christ’s cross.[36]

The issue of holiness is not one of morality or ethics but concerns Ҵǻ’s nature and our position before Him. As God is holy, He is set apart from us because we are creaturely and also because we are marked by unholiness; this requires judgement.[37] As a consequence of this Godward orientation, therefore, Forsyth criticizes the Social Gospel movement by noting that even if “the whole race organized to the completest social justice and kindness … it would still be something less than the fulness of the whole counsel of the universe … it would be unjust to God.”[38] The reason for that is because the standard of holiness must be God Himself, and so even if society could somehow progress to a utopic ethical morality by which all were in agreement, it would nevertheless still fall far short of breaching the cavern established between God and humanity on the basis of our sinfulness.[39] The only way such an effort could work is if the humanity was in fact the deity; and we know that this is not the case.[40] Such a hope in earthly communion, Forsyth explains, is a depressing yearning because, whilst the desire for ethical and moral community is good, the application of it on a purely human plane is doomed to fail.[41] This utopic failure is inevitable because the power to enact it is rooted within humanity. Forsyth states: “You would change men without changing the inmost heart, change conduct and relations without changing life.”[42] The moral life of humanity is not located merely in the will so that I can tomorrow simply “be holy”; rather it is imperative that something is done to me by the “superhistoric” Christ’s atoning work on the cross so that I can “be made holy”.[43] In essence, to be holy is, in reality, to be made holy. And this holiness is positional, not conditional; it is positional in that it is in relation to God, and it is not conditionally-based upon how I treat my neighbor.

The means by which we can be positionally reconciled to God becomes of the utmost importance because, as Forsyth argues, society cannot conditionally moralize itself. The key idea that elucidates the answer to this conundrum is what Forsyth terms “holy love”.[44] For Forsyth, the question of societal morality is only answerable by the power of the cross which is brought to bear through the holy love of God.[45] Forsyth writes that “the grand human strike against God would ruin both the workers and the Master did he not, in His love’s tremendous resource, find means … to save both His cause and theirs.”[46] What this points us towards is the realization that, eschatologically, Ҵǻ’s teleological endeavor is manifested in the cross of Christ. As such, any expression of the kingdom without an appreciation of the holiness of God, the justification of sinners, and their reconciliation on the basis of Christ’s cross is devoid of human compassion because it cannot treat the actual disease that has corrupted the society of mankind: rebellion against God.[47] The only way in which mankind can affect society is if we have experienced Ҵǻ’s grace first. This is because Ҵǻ’s heart is most powerfully displayed in dealing with our disease so that we can be restored to Him. By dealing with our sin, He can then employ us in dealing with our society.[48] As Forsyth explains: “The greatest human need is not only holy love, but holy DZ.”[49] A love without holiness is a love without respect; holiness without love is legalism.[50]

If the cross is the central historical fact of Ҵǻ’s activity in this world to establish the kingdom of God, then it is achieved on the basis that the cross makes satisfaction for Ҵǻ’s holiness which has been slighted by our rebellion. The cross only matters if God is holy. If the cross is solely an expression of Ҵǻ’s “love”, it has no power to effect our reconciliation to God; it would be a poetic demonstration but powerless. Without holiness, there is no judgement. And if there is no judgement at the cross, then there has been no expiation for our sin.[51] Thus, Forsyth explains that “the holiness of God is a deeper revelation in the cross than His love; for it is what gives His love divine value … and it is meaningless without judgement.”[52] This assertion of Ҵǻ’s holiness is one that accentuates the divine aspect of reconciliation as being God-oriented and God-driven. The cross is Ҵǻ’s means of displaying His love because it maintains His holiness as the standard for repentance and reconciliation. By maintaining His holiness and still redeeming mankind through the cross, His love is shown to be that much greater than if He merely ignored our sin or refused to redeem us. His love is in fact magnified because of His holiness. This is why Forsyth can then say: “What a holy God requires is the due confession of His holiness before even the confession of sin.”[53] We cannot acknowledge our sin until we acknowledge Ҵǻ’s standard of holiness as being the thing against which we have rebelled.[54]

The holy love of God, therefore, stands in stark contrast to the Ritschlian conception of the kingdom of God. The holy love of God is something that examines our value in terms of our orientation before God rather than as part of our self-determined human collective. We are, Forsyth appears to be saying, valued because God has valued us in Christ which has been profoundly demonstrated at the cross. In order to understand Ҵǻ’s love, we must refrain from the temptation of looking horizontally to my neighbor. Rather, we must turn our gaze upon the cross where Ҵǻ’s holiness is laid bare in the judgement of Christ for our sinfulness. Only by truly appreciating the depth of Ҵǻ’s innate holiness will the majesty of the death and resurrection of Christ be holistically displayed as an expression of His love.[55] Consequentially, it will only be after we experience Ҵǻ’s holy love that we, individually, can be effective in our corporate responsibility.

Forsyth’s “Holy Love” Applied Individually

The holy love of God, manifested in the work of Christ at the cross, effects our reconciliation to God. Another way of phrasing this is to say that, by the work of the cross, we are enabled to enter Ҵǻ’s kingdom. This is the historic teaching of the church and of the New Testament, but it is a facet which the Social Gospel derived from Ritschl has misunderstood. Forsyth reminds us that even “the disciples had been forgiven,”[56] and that it was forgiveness, given as a gift, “that made them members of the kingdom.” In this same sermon he also makes clear that the kingdom is “not founded on social righteousness, but on the forgiveness of sins; on which all social justice is founded.”[57] From this sermon, then, we have a lens by which to understand the framework of Forsyth’s understanding of the kingdom. On the one hand, it is something established by the cross of Christ so that individuals can become citizens of the kingdom, while on the other hand, the kingdom as an institution ought to be involved in ethical morality[58] because of Ҵǻ’s holy love. Thus, both individually and corporately, the kingdom of God is something that is dependent upon Ҵǻ’s holiness and Ҵǻ’s love. It is, therefore, Ҵǻ’s kingdom, not ’s; and it does have an earthly, societal aspect to it at the corporate level, even if only in this age.

Our admittance into the kingdom is predicated not upon our experience of faith, nor our experience of the teachings of the historical Christ, but that we have been regenerated.

In terms of the individual, it is clear that Forsyth holds the view that human beings need redemption because we have transgressed Ҵǻ’s holiness.[59] Our individual redemption cannot merely be found in a corporate expression of the kingdom such as Ritschl would have us believe. Rather, Forsyth explains: “Christ is our reconciler because on the cross he was our redeemer from sin’s power into no mere independence or courage or safety, but into real holiness.”[60] This means that “we are not saved either by Christ’s ethical character or our own, but by His persons’ creative power and work on us.”[61] This means that God has saved us from His judgement by Christ’s being judged for our sinfulness so that “in His saving act He is the creative power of which our new life is the product.”[62] This is the nexus of Forsyth’s argument concerning the relationship of our positional holiness before God and our admittance into the kingdom: we are made new by being made holy.

Our admittance into the kingdom is predicated not upon our experience of faith, nor our experience of the teachings of the historical Christ, but that we have been regenerated. The kingdom of God, biblically understood, is that of a people re-created. Individuals who come to faith in Christ are not, fundamentally, moral citizens of a fraternity of humankind.[63] Rather, Christians are brought into the kingdom through the re-creative work of Christ’s holy love which was manifested on the cross.

Forsyth’s “Holy Love” Applied Corporately

Just as the holy love of God reveals our union with Christ by admittance to His kingdom through a reconciliation brought about by the cross of Christ, Ҵǻ’s holy love applies to the community of believers as well.[64] God in Christ died for humanity and, having secured the redemption of mankind, the newly-created race of redeemed men and women is gathered into a community. This community is the church.[65] This view of the church, as being a community of redeemed people who have been made holy by God stands in contrast to Ritschl’s kingdom whereby our human impulse is an imperfect progression towards utopia driven by humanity’s ethical standards.[66] Forsyth explains that the major difference between the church and civilization is that “civilization at best represents the most man can do with the world and with human nature, but the church, centred upon Christ, His cross, and His work, represents the best that God can do upon them.”[67] This must be understand through the framework of Ҵǻ’s holy love because, as he continues: “It was not heroic man dying for a beloved and honored God; it was God in some from dying for man. God dying for man.”[69] Again, the orientation of this community is not primarily towards our neighbor, but has us looking to Christ for our identity and therefore our value.[70]

That being the foundation of our identity as the church, or the church within the kingdom, therefore, the question of what this community of people are to do in this life becomes pertinent, and it is where Forsyth’s suggestion that Protestantism has too often prioritized individualism and downplayed the corporate responsibilities of our faith is prescient.[71] So, what is the purpose of this new creation humanity which continues to reside amongst old creation realities?

Herein is Forsyth’s solution: “We can do most for the kingdom of God in this world when we are rooted in a kingdom not of this world.”[72] The offerings of the Social Gospel fall at the first hurdle because of the location of the power to effect change. Ritschl and our modern contemporaries find this power to be, ultimately, in ourselves, whether individually or corporately, but Forsyth has reminded us that the kingdom is exclusively made up of those who have been re-created by the work of Christ’s cross. Now, in respect to the corporate application, Forsyth explains that, if our problem was a sinfulness that spat at Ҵǻ’s holiness, so, too, is the world around us governed by the same ailment. Therefore, the answer to the ‘social problem’ is not to “set up the kingdom of God among men, but in .”[73] The implications for this shift are vast: “What it has to set up is the kingship, the effectual sovereignty of God in men, the experienced rule of the Father; it is not a humanistic ideal, nor an ideal humanity.”[74] The contrast with Ritschl and Liberalism couldn’t be more stark. The role of the kingdom is to be about the ministry of the gospel of Christ so that lives still in rebellion can be reconciled to God. Forsyth argues that “Christianity did not come to reveal ’s natural brotherhood, but to create a spiritual.”[75] The fraternity of mankind could be considered those who are able to put into practice the Sermon on the Mount (and indeed it is occasionally phrased that way); Forsyth shoots this down by reminding us that our sinfulness precludes our ability to be obedient to the commands found in the Sermon: “The Sermon on the Mount presupposes such men as the cross alone can make. And it is this cross, not the Sermon on the Mount, that is fundamental Christianity.”[76] The distinction, therefore, is that Ritschl’s fraternity is an anthropocentric utopia that will never be realized whereas Christ’s cross has created a holy community out of the embers of the old creation: “When Christ came to bring the kingdom of God, He did not come to make a society God could live in, but to bring a God that society could live in, to make God the real King, shaping His own society from within.”[77]

The application of holiness to the individual is that men and women are forgiven and given citizenship within the kingdom of God. Corporately, they are then empowered and expected to participate in the work of expanding the kingdom through the works of Gospel ministry, namely, evangelism, the sacraments and, to a smaller, though no less real degree, social care and activism.

Forsyth’s Concept of “Holiness” as it Pertains to Society

The work of the church, therefore, is to be so aware of the heart of Christ that the holy love which sent Him to the cross would be visible in how we endeavor to serve the communities in which He has placed us.

Forsyth’s concept of holiness as it pertains to society is that, although the kingdom does not ‘make’ society holy, it nevertheless works to restrain the power of sin’s hold over humanity. The kingdom is not established, nor brought about, through legislation nor activism. However, in Godly laws and in moral activism driven by Ҵǻ’s holiness, the kingdom may be glimpsed and it will have a positive effect on the nature and state of secular society. The social problem, as Forsyth terms the very real societal problems resulting from the sinfulness of mankind, is something that the redeemed community should care about and should attempt to address as a means of sharing Ҵǻ’s holy love with the world. But, that being said, as Forsyth says elsewhere, the church itself “has not to solve the social problem, but to provide the men, the principles, and the public that can.”[78] The work of the church, therefore, is to be so aware of the heart of Christ that the holy love which sent Him to the cross would be visible in how we endeavor to serve the communities in which He has placed us. Poverty, illness, abuses, violence, hatred, and all other manner of evils borne of sin should have no place within the community of faith and should actively be opposed and attacked by believers because we desire to see the expansion of the kingdom as well as the stabilizing of the fallen institutions of the world. We ought not to accept that this world will be a dystopia merely because it will not evolve into a utopia. The church has the influence, the wisdom, the power, and the holy love of God to impact society as a method of evangelism.

Conclusion

As has been argued above, the Ritschlian conception of the kingdom overwhelms his view of reconciliation which, in turn means that the primary driving force of the teleological end of humanity is love, namely a social or fraternal love such as was foundational to the Enlightenment, and most articulately enunciated by the cry of the French Revolution: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” In response, it has been argued that Forsyth’s alternative expression to the Social Gospel’s attempt to redefine holiness was to redirect the attention of the believer back to Christ’s cross. This purpose of this is so that the believer more clearly understands the nature of God so that we can, in turn, be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. This idea is epitomized by Forsyth’s phrase: “holy love”.

Bibliography

  • Forsyth, P.T. Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909.
  • —. Socialism, the Church and the Poor. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908.
  • —. The Church, The Gospel, and Society. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1962.
  • —. The Cruciality of the Cross. London: Hoddor and Stoughton, 1908.
  • —. The Principle of Authority (1913). London: Independent Press, 1952.
  • Forsyth, P.T. “The Problem of Forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer.” In Descending on Humanity and Intervening in History, by Jason A. Goroncy. Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2013.
  • —. The Work of Christ. London: Hoddor and Stoughton, 1909.
  • Garvie, Alfred E. The Ritschlian Theology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1899.
  • Goroncy, Jason A. Descending on Humanity and Intervening in History. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013.
  • Mayer, F.E. “Ritschl’s Theology.” Concordia Theological Monthly 15, no. 3 (March 1944): 145–157.
  • Nelson, Derek R. “Schleiermacher and Ritschl on Individual and Social Sin.” Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte 16, no. 2 (2009): 131–154.
  • Ritschl, Albrecht. A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation. Translated by John S. Black. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872.
  • —. The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliaton. Edited by H. R. Mackintosh, & A. B. Macaulay. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004.
  • Schwarz, Hans. “The Centrality and Bipolar Focus of the Kingdom: Ritschl’s Theological Import for the Tentieth Century.” In Ritschl in Retrospect, by Darrell Jodock. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
  • Sell, Alan P.F. “Ritschl Appraised, Then and Now.” The Reformed Theological Review 33, no. 2 (1979): 33–41.
  • Wright, N.T. History and Eschatology. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019.

End Notes

  1. My book, Prophet, Priest, Prince, and the Already, Not Yet, which contains much of my doctoral research, covers the nature of the kingdom of God in Forsyth’s understanding by considering how Christ is the holder of the munus triplex, and consequently argues that the kingdom must be interpreted through the work of Christ’s prophetic work and His atonement as well as His reign. His being the sacrificial messiah is itself an act of His holy love and inaugurates the kingdom of God in this age in anticipation of the coming consummation of the kingdom. Prophet, Priest, Prince, and the Already, Not Yet: A Theology of the Kingdom of God in Dialogue with Dispensationalism and P.T. Forsyth (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2023).
  2. In a curious parallel, the American evangelical J. Gresham Machen similarly had a Liberal scholar, Johannes Weiss, as a mentor before rejecting the false promises of Liberal theology and becoming an ardent opponent. Whilst there may be certain areas of disagreement between Forsyth and Machen, it is, nevertheless, a fascinating coincidence.
  3. Jason A. Goroncy, Decending on Humanity and Intervening in History (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2013), p. 7.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Forsyth says of this break with Ristchl that he turned “from a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace.” P.T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), p, 193.
  6. In a helpful comment, N.T. Wright suggests that our modern culture has been developed with the overarching idea that the turning point of history was the Enlightenment, not the resurrection of Christ. As such, his contention continues, the supernaturalism present in the Bible can be disregarded and discarded by ‘modern’ thinkers and theologians because we no longer need to have any conception of ‘love’ at all, except that which is, at root, selfish. N.T. Wright, History and Eschatology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019), p. 211.
  7. F.E. Mayer, “Ritschl’s Theology,” Concordia Theological Monthly, 15 no 3, (March 1944): p. 146.
  8. Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004), edited by H.R. Mackintosh and A.B. Macaulay, p. 30.
  9. Ibid.
  10. In his A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, Ritschl masterfully recounts the many different interpretations of Ҵǻ’s “justification” of mankind, demonstrating just how varied this field of study has been (and continues to be).
  11. Mayer, “Ritschl’s Theology”, pp. 148–149.
  12. Ibid., p. 149.
  13. Alan P.F. Sell, “Ritschl Appraised, Then and Now,” The Reformed Theological Review, 38 no 2 (May–August 1979), p. 38.
  14. Ibid. Cf., Alfred E. Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1899), pp. 253–263.
  15. Albrecht Ritschl, A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872), Volume III, trans. John S. Black, pp. 205–206, as quoted in Sell, “Ritschl Appraised”, p. 28.
  16. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation III, p. 30.
  17. Derek R. Nelson, “Schleiermacher and Ritschl on Individual and Social Sin”, Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte, 16 no 2 (2009), p. 148.
  18. Sell, “Ritschl Appraised”, p. 39.
  19. Ibid.
  20. Nelson, “Schleiermacher and Ritschl”, p. 149.
  21. P.T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority (1913) (London: Independent Press, 1952), p. 381.
  22. Ibid.
  23. Ibid.
  24. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation II, pp. 292–293, quoted in Hans Schwarz, “The Centrality and Bipolar Focus of the Kingdom: Ritschl’s Theological Import for the Twentieth Century,” in Darrell Jodock, ed., Ritschl in Retrospect (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), p. 106.
  25. It should be noted at the outset of this section that another perspective on the Inaugurated Kingship of Christ has been posited by N.T. Wright. In his Gifford Lectures, later published as History and Eschatology, Wright attempts to address the same issue concerning the kingdom of God. His answer was to pivot around the love of God as revealed in the resurrection. My critiques in this essay of Ritschl could be equally addressed to Wright’s perspective, even though Wright doesn’t deny the historicity of the supernatural event of the resurrection; the issue, for both Ritschl and Wright, is that, for the former, holiness has become horizontal, and for Wright, arguably, holiness has become sublimated by the resurrection. The vital distinction between Wright and Forsyth is that Forsyth’s articulation of the work of Christ at the cross satisfies both Ҵǻ’s holiness and His love, without any negation, translation, confusion, sublimation, or reinterpretation. The resurrection, it is true, could be more heavily focused upon in Forsyth’s argumentation, but his focus on the cross typically implies the resurrection even if not frequently stated. N.T. Wright, History and Eschatology.
  26. P.T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908), p. 5.
  27. Ibid., p. 6.
  28. Ibid., p. 25.
  29. P.T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), p. 224. Cf., Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 111.
  30. Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 208.
  31. Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 208.
  32. Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 208.
  33. Forsyth, Cruciality, pp. 29–30; p.44.
  34. Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 35.
  35. Ibid., p. 36.
  36. Ibid., p. 36.
  37. Ibid., pp. 141–142.
  38. Ibid. p. 145.
  39. Ibid.
  40. Ibid.
  41. Ibid., p. 148.
  42. Ibid., p. 153.
  43. Forsyth, The Work of Christ (London: Hoddor and Stoughton, 1909), pp. 51–59; Forsyth, The Church, The Gospel and Society (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1962), pp. 24–25
  44. Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 168.
  45. Ibid., p. 167.
  46. Ibid.
  47. Ibid.
  48. Ibid.
  49. Ibid., p. 168.
  50. Ibid., p. 173.
  51. Forsyth says elsewhere: “It is the holiness of God which makes sin guilty. It is the holiness of God that necessitates the work of Christ, that calls for it, and that provides it.” Forsyth, Work of Christ, p. 79.
  52. Forsyth, Cruciality, p. 203.
  53. Ibid., pp. 206–207.
  54. Ibid.
  55. Ibid., p. 217.
  56. P.T. Forsyth, “The Problem of Forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer” in Goroncy, Descending on Humanity, p. 323.
  57. Ibid.
  58. Ibid.
  59. I avoid repeating his phrase ‘social justice’ on the basis that the modern usage of it means something different than what he would have meant by it.
  60. Forsyth, Work of Christ, p. 208.
  61. Ibid.
  62. Ibid.
  63. Ibid.
  64. This approach by Hegel and Ritschl, Forsyth argues, actually “united to obscure the idea of atonement or expiation.” Ibid., p. 66.
  65. “There is no such thing as an absolute individual.” Ibid., p. 121.
  66. Ibid., p. 25.
  67. Ibid.
  68. Ibid.
  69. Ibid.
  70. P.T. Forsyth, Socialism, the Church, and the Poor (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908), p. 48.
  71. Forsyth, Work of Christ, p. 96.
  72. Forsyth, Socialism, p. 49.
  73. Ibid., p. 51, emphasis his.
  74. Ibid., p. 51.
  75. Ibid., p. 6.
  76. Ibid., p. 7.
  77. Ibid., p. 49.
  78. Ibid., p. 72.

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