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The “Meaning of History” and the Writing of History *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

E. Harris Harbison
E. Harris Harbison
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Since the outbreak of the Second World War we have witnessed what may best be described as a “Renaissance of Christian Thought.” Christian belief is more respectable among intellectuals than it was a generation ago. Philosophers, novelists, and poets who present the case for Christianity are widely read and taken seriously even by fellow-intellectuals who do not share their beliefs. Among the Christian intelligentsia there has been a striking rebirth of theology, and Christian theologians are read more widely outside clerical circles than they have been for perhaps a hundred years. The names of Barth, Brunner, Nygren. Maritain, Tillich, and Niebuhr are known at least vaguely to the same sort of people who could not have named a single theologian a generation ago. Both the quality and range of the revival are impressive. Christianity appears to be attracting first-rate minds, and Christian speculation is ranging all the way from social and political theory to ethics, philosophy, and history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1952 , pp. 97 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1952

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References

1 See e.g. “Religion and the Intellectuals: A Symposium,” in Partisan Review, Vol. XVII (1950)Google Scholar. The discussion runs through the numbers front February to June, and was separately published in 1951.

2 Berdyaev, N. P., The Meaning of History, New York 1936 (first sketched in lectures of 1919–20)Google Scholar; Tillich, Paul, The Interpretation of History, New York 1936Google Scholar; Wood, H. G., Christianity and the Nature of History, New York 1934Google Scholar; MacMurray, John, The Clue to History, New York, 1939.Google Scholar

3 See The Catholic Philosophy of History, ed. Peter Guilday, New York 1936.Google Scholar

4 See The Kingdom of God and History, ed. H. G. Wood, Chicago 1938.Google Scholar

5 A few of the more significant are: Rust, E. C., The Christian Understanding of History, London 1947Google Scholar; Löwith, Karl, Meaning in History, Chicago 1949Google Scholar; Butterfield, Herbert, Christianity and History, New York 1949Google Scholar; Thus, G., Théologie des réalités terrestres: Vol. II Théologie de l'histoire, Bruges and Paris 1949Google Scholar; von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Theologie der Geschichte, Einsiedeln 1951Google Scholar; Baillie, John, The Belief in Progress, New York 1951.Google Scholar

6 With the possible exception of H. O. Taylor's address in 1926. See Ausubel, Herman, Historians and Their Craft (New York 1950)Google Scholar, Chaps. VI, VII. The address is printed in Amer. Historical Review, Vol. LIV (January. 1949), pp. 459–476.Google Scholar

7 See Horton, W. M., in Protestant Thought in the Twentieth Century, ed. Nash, Arnold S. (New York 1951), pp. 113ff.Google Scholar

8 Williams, G. H., in Protestant Thought, ed. Nash, p. 167.Google Scholar

9 The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. II, p. 320.Google Scholar

10 See particularly the penetrating analysis of recent Catholic literature by Malavez, L., “Deux théologies eatholiques de I'histoire,” in Bijdragen, uitgegeven door de philosophisehe en theologisehe Faculteiten der Noord- und Zuid-Nederlandse Jezuieten, Vol. X (1949), pp. 225–240Google Scholar. I do not know enough about contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy to determine whether the same broad divisions of thought are evident there too. There is material in the incarnational doctrine of the Greek Fathers for the development of both extreme views mentioned. Further bibliographical surveys are to be found in Aubert, R., “Diseussions récentes autour de la théologie de l'histoire,” Collectanea Mechliniensia, Vol. XVIII (1948), pp. 139–149Google Scholar; and Thus, G., “La théologie de l'histoire: Note bibliographique,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. XXVI (1950), pp. 87–95Google Scholar. The following journals are particularly apt to carry articles on the general subject: Cross Currents, Dieu Vivant, Month, Révue Thomiste.

11 Löwith, , Meaning in History, pp. 190–97Google Scholar; Dawson, , in The Kingdom of God and History, ed. Wood, H. G. (Chicago 1938), p. 216Google Scholar; Maritain, , in Partisan Review, Vol. XVII (1950), pp. 233–327.Google Scholar

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13 American Historical Review, Vol. LIV (January 1949), pp. 272–6.Google Scholar

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16 L. Malavez, loc. cit. [note 10], p. 234.

17 The Nature and Destiny of Man, particularly Vol. I, chaps. VI, VII.Google Scholar

18 Both in his Whig Interpretation of History (1931) and his Christianity and History (1949).

19 Cullmann, Oscar, Christ and Time, Philadelphia 1950Google Scholar; also Brunner, Emil, and Daniélou, Jean, in Cross Currents, Vol. I (1950), pp. 24–34, and 18–90Google Scholar; Reinhold Niebuhr, Faith and History, Chap. III.

20 Momnisen, Theodor, “St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XII (06 1951), pp. 346–374CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herding, Otto, “Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsdenken im Mittelalter,” Theologische Quartalschrift, no. 2 (1950)Google Scholar; Lacroix, B.M., “The Notion of History in Early Medieval Historians,” Medieval Studies, Vol. X (1948), pp. 219–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, Lynn Jr, “Christian Myth and Christian History,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. III (04 1942), pp. 145–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lilje, Hans, Luthers Geschichtsanschauung, Berlin 1932Google Scholar; Polman, P., L'élément historique dans la controverse religicuse au XVIe siécle, Gembloux 1932Google Scholar.

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25 This discussion has deliberately avoided the important but tangled question of textbook treatments. See the chapter on European History in College Reading and Religion: A Survey of College Reading Materials sponsored by the Edward W. Haven Foundation … (Yale University Press, 1948)Google Scholar; and Smith, Lacey Baldwin, “A Study of Textbooks on European History during the last Fifty Years,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. XXIII (09 1951), pp. 250–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Coulton, G. G., Medieval Panoroma (Cambridge 1939), p. 439.Google Scholar

27 The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. II, pp. 291ff.Google Scholar

28 Whitehead, A. N., Adventures of Ideas (New York 1933), p. 41.Google Scholar