Key Theologians of the Modern Period

Paul Tillich

Although Paul Tillich (1886-1965) originally studied theology in Germany, he was forced to resign his teaching positions due to his opposition to Nazism. He emigrated to the United States, and initially taught at Union Theological Seminary, New York, before accepting a position at Harvard University. He became an American citizen in 1940. Tillich can be seen as continuing and extending the theological program of F. D. E. Schleiermacher. His theological agenda can be summarized as an attempt to correlate culture and faith in such a way that "faith need not be unacceptable to contemporary culture and contemporary culture need not be unacceptable to faith." Making extensive use of existentialism, Tillich set out to present and interpret the Christian faith to modern western culture, stressing the "correlation" between the "ultimate questions" of humanity and the answers provided by the Christian faith. Although this approach is clearly set out in works such as The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), it is best studied from his major work, Systematic Theology (1951-63).

John Henry Newman

Few English-language theologians have had such an impact as John Henry Newman (1801-90). Newman studied at Oxford University, and went on to become vicar of the University Church, Oxford. He became a leading figure in the Oxford Movement, which sought to renew the High Church tradition within Anglicanism. In 1845, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, becoming a cardinal in 1879. Although Newman wrote several works of historical theology, these do not show him at his best and often rest on questionable judgments. His most important work concerned the development of doctrine in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), and the clarification of the relation of faith and reason (see especially his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent , 1870).

F. D. E. Schleiermacher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is widely regarded as the most important Protestant theologian of the nineteenth century. He rose to fame through his recognition of the need to make Christianity relevant and accessible to its "cultural despisers" of the Enlightenment. His Christian Faith (1821-2; revised edition, 1830-1) set out a systematic approach to Christian theology, based on an appeal to the "experience of absolute dependence." Although widely respected for his contributions to the interpretation and criticism of Kant, and his work on hermeneutics, Schleiermacher is best seen as a theologian who laid the intellectual foundations for the rise of liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Karl Rahner

Of the many Roman Catholic theologians to rise to prominence during the twentieth century, the German writer Karl Rahner (1904-84), a member of the Society of Jesus, is generally regarded as the most significant. One of Rahner's most impressive achievements is the rehabilitation of the essay as a tool of theological exploration. The most significant source for Rahner's thought is not a substantial work of dogmatic theology, but a relatively loose and unstructured collection of essays published over the period 1954-84, and known in English as Theological Investigations . These essays show how a relatively unsystematic approach to theology can nevertheless give rise to a coherent theological program. Perhaps the most important aspect of Rahner's theological program is his "transcendental method," which he saw as a Christian response to the secular loss of the transcendence of God. Whereas earlier generations attempted to meet this challenge through liberal or modernist accommodationist strategies, Rahner argued that the recovery of a sense of the transcendent could only be achieved through a reappropriation of the classical sources of Christian theology, especially Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Rahner's particular approach involves the fusion of Thomism with central aspects of German idealism and existentialism.

Jürgen Moltmann

The German Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann (b.1926) developed his interest in theology during his time spent in a prisoner-of-war camp near Nottingham, England, where he recalls reading Reinhold Niebuhr's landmark work The Nature and Destiny of Man . After returning to Germany, Moltmann began his career as a theologian. The work that brought him to international attention was his trilogy: The Theology of Hope (1964), The Crucified God (1972), and The Church in the Power of the Spirit (1975). In the first of these, Moltmann addressed the question of hope in dialogue with the Marxist writer Ernst Bloch. The Crucified God explored the relevance of Christ to a suffering world, and developed a pioneering approach to the notion of "a suffering God." Although Moltmann has subsequently made landmark contributions to other areas of theology (especially the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of the Trinity, and ecological issues), he is still chiefly remembered for these earlier works.

Wolfhart Pannenberg

The German Protestant theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg (b.1928) rose to prominence during the 1960s on account of his work on "revelation as history." This approach to theology argued that revelation could be discerned within the historical process itself. For Pannenberg, God conducts his self-disclosure through his actions, primarily in the history of Israel, and in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Developing this theme in Jesus - God and Man (1968), Pannenberg pointed to the resurrection of Christ as providing the vantage point from which history could be properly interpreted. Pannenberg's interests include questions of theological method (best seen in his early work Theology and the Philosophy of Science ), which have more recently been extended to include an important discussion of the interaction of Christian theology and the natural sciences. The definitive statement of his mature theology is to be seen in his Systematic Theology (1988-93).

Hans Urs von Balthasar

The Swiss Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-88) has had a major impact on recent theological debate, especially in relation to questions of beauty. Von Balthasar's chief work, published over the period 1961-9, is entitled The Glory of the Lord . It sets out the idea of Christianity as a response to God's self-revelation, laying special emphasis upon the notion of faith as a response to the vision of the beauty of the Lord. His analysis of theology in terms of contemplation of the good, the beautiful, and the true has won many admirers. Other major works include his Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory , a five-volume work on what he terms "theodramatics," the action of God and the human response, seen especially in the events of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day; and his Theo-Logic , which deals with the relation of Jesus Christ to reality itself

Karl Barth

The Swiss writer Karl Barth (1886-1968) is now virtually universally regarded as the greatest Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, and possibly since the Reformation. Initially brought up within the context of liberal Protestantism, Barth placed an emphasis on divine revelation which forced a reevaluation of much existing theology. The style of theology associated with Barth was initially termed "dialectical theology" or "neo-orthodoxy," although neither is particularly helpful in understanding his theological agenda. For Barth, theology was an autonomous discipline, whose task was to respond to what it found in God's self-revelation. Although Barth's early writings are often critical, rather than constructive (such as his famous Romans commentary of 1919), his Church Dogmatics (incomplete at the time of his death) is a positive, constructive presentation of his theological program. Barth has had a major impact on many areas of theology, particularly in relation to the concept of revelation. The twentieth-century renaissance of Trinitarian theology is widely put down to his influence.