Monism in Protestant Religion Frederick Gregory

7 Todd Weir, "The Secular Beyond: Free Religious Dissent and Debates over the Afterlife in Nineteenth-Century germany," Church History, 77(September 2008), p. 652.

8 Immanueal Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St Martin's Press, 1965), p. 22. Kant's discussion of Copernicus comes in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique.

9 Nature Lost? Natural Science and the German Theological Traditions of the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 18ff.

10 Gerald Holton, The Advancement of Science and Its Burdens (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 25.

11 Jakob Moleschott, Ursache und Wirkung in der Lehre vom Leben (Giessen, E. Roth, 1867), p. 8.

12 On Kant's role in the appearance of the coherence theory, see Nature Lost?, p. 285, n.38.

13Hegel's speculative idealism, which dispenses with the need for the thing-in-itself, so vital to Kant's philosophy of natural science, is sometimes cited as pure coherence theory as opposed to the Kant's impure version. On Hegel's thought as pure coherence theory, see my Nature Lost?, p. 286, n. 43.

14 Ralph C.S. Walker, The Coherence Theory of Truth: Realism, Antirealism, Idealism (New York: Routledge, 1989), p. 2.

15 Cf. Kant's Prolegommena zu jeder künftihen Metaphysik, in the Gesammelte Schriften, Vol IV (Berlin: Reimer, 1911), p. 306.

16 Ludwig Feuerbach, Sämtliche Werke. 2nd ed. Ed. Wilhelm Bolin and Friedrich Jodl. 10 vols. (Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag, 1904), II, p. 271. The scientific materialist Ludwig Büchner later declared that it was knowledge, not ignorance that was the goal of science. He called the back-to-Kant movement of his day "the saddest testimonium paupertatis that modern philosophy could give itself" and declared that truth had never failed to be of service to humanity. Cf. his Aus Natur und Wissenschaft. Studien, Kritiken und Abhandlungen in allgemeinen Darstellung, 3rd. ed. , Vol. 2 (Leipzig: Theodor Thomas, 1884), p. 252. Cf. also Büchner's Im Dienst der Wahrheit. Ausgewählte Aufsätze aus Natur und Wissenschaft (Giessen: Emil Roth, 1900), p.268 and Über religiöse und wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung. Ein historisch-kritischer Versuch (Leipzig: Lenz, 1887), p. 65.

17 Wilhelm Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers, vol 2, part 1, Schleiermachers System als Philosophie, ed. Martin Redeker (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966), p. 451.

18 Schleiermacher credits a follower of Schelling, Henrik Steffens (1773-1845), with helping him to see that Schelling's Naturphilosophie could play a major role in grounding ethics. Cf. Ueli Hasler, Beherrschte Nature: Die Anpassung der Theologie an die bürgerliche Naturauffassung im 19. Jahrhundert (Bern: Peter Lang, 1982), p. 73.

19 Friedrich Schleiermacher, as cited from his writings on ethics in Hasler, Beherrschte Natur, p. 74. The original German is no less difficult: "Die gesamte niedere, irdische Natur ist in ihrem Für-sich-Bestehen vor den (sic!) sittlichen Verlauf gesetzt, und inwiefern das ursprüngliche Hineingebildet-sein der Vernunft in die menschliche Natur als ein Teil in dem Evolutionsprozess der Natur, nämlich als ein höheres Hervorgebrachtwerden des Idealen im Realen durch das Reale kann angesehen werden, ruht der sittliche Verlauf auf dem physichen und ist dessen umkehrende Fortsetzung." Cf. pp. 72ff for an elaboration of Schleiermacher's relating of ethics and nature. For Schleiermacher's understanding of evolution, see pp. 78ff.

20For Schleiermacher's thoughts on the relationship between nature, natural science, and morality, see the English translation of his ethical writings in Robert B. Louden, ed. Lectures on Philosophical Ethics, trans. Louise Adley Huish (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 151-62.

21 Schleiermacher did not make God into nature, although he did insist on their mutual dependence. "There is no God without the world because we come to God only through that which is brought forth in us by the world. There is no world without God because we only find its formula as something unattainable, something that does not correspond to our demand." Quoted in Hasler, Beherrschte Natur, p. 109. In a letter to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) he wrote: "Although my Christian feeling is aware of a divine spirit in me that is something different from my reason, I will never give up seeking for it in the deepest depths of the nature of the soul." (p. 120) Hasler comments that such a statement shows Schleiermacher's indestructible confidence that his understanding, aware of its relativity, recognizes that driving God from nature is a mistake and that theology will keep its independent place along side the "naturalistic" interpretations of the world in the future if it is able to exhibit God's works in nature, not beyond it. (pp. 120-21)

22 Humphry Davy, Consolations in Travel: The Last Days of a Philosopher (London:

Murray, 1830), p. 219. Cited in David Knight, "Higher Pantheism," Zygon, 35(September, 2000), p. 606.

23 Knight, "Higher Pantheism," p. 203.

24 On Tyndal's pantheism, see Knight, "Higher Pantheism," pp. 609ff; on John Nichol, see David Knight, "The Spiritual in the Material," in R. M. Brain, R. S. Cohen, and O. Knudson, eds., Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), p.420.

25 Von der Weltseele, eine Hypothese der höheren Physik zur Erklärung des allgemeinen Organismus (Hamburg: Perthes, 1798).

26 On Ørsted's religious background see Andrew D. Wilson, "The Way from Nature to God: The Theological Foundations of H. C. Ørsted's Philosophey of Nature," in Brain et al, eds., Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science, pp. 5ff.

27Quoted by Wilson in "The Way from Nature to God," pp. 7-8.

28 Ibid., p. 8.

29 Quoted from the 1783 work by WIlson, "The Way from Nature to God," p. 9.

30 Ibid., p. 10,

31 Ibid., p. 3.

32 Ibid., p. 2. Wilson quotes here from Ørsted's To Capitiler af det Skjönnes Naturlaere.

33 Ibid., p. 2.

34 Ibid.

35 I have not found an English translation of the exchange between Gruntvig and Ørsted, but the above account and quotation may be found in the translators introduction of a work by Hal Koch, Grauntvig, trans. L. Jones (Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press, 1952), pp. ix,. xii. Cf. also A. M. Allchin, N. F. S. Gruntvig: An Introduction to His Life and Work (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997), pp. 12-13.

36 For example, "The Culture of Science Examined as Religious Exercise, and "The Spiritual in the Material". I have examined this work elsewhere. "Hans Christian Ørsted's Spiritual Interpretation of Nature," in Brain, et al. eds., Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science, pp. 399-416. Cf also in this same volume David Knight, "The Spiritual in the Material, pp. 417-32.

37 "Die Kultur der Wissenschaft als Religionsübung betrachtet," Der Geist der Natur, 2 vols. (Munich: Cottaschen Buchhandlung, 1850, I, p. 136.

38 Knight, "Spiritual in the Material,", p. 431.

39 A one-volume English translation of Der Geist der Natur, which contains several additional essays not in the German edition, appeared in 1852 and was later reprinted. The essay "Christianity and Astronomy," from which the above quotation comes, was among the essays not in the German original. See The Soul in Nature, trans L. and J. B. Horner (London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1966), p. 443.

40 This query originated while Feuerbach was at Erlangen, where he went to study the natural sciences. It is listed under a section labeled "Doubts" when it appeared in print almost twenty years later. Cf. my Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1977), p. 15.

41 See above, n. 6.

42 This in his review of Carl Friedrich Bachman's Anti-Hegel of 1835. Cf. my Scientific Materialism, p. 18.

43 As cited in Scientific Materialism, p. 23.

44 Ludwig Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christenthums, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1848), p. ix.

45 Grundzüge der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843), in Sämtliche Werke, II, p. 309.

46Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie (1842) in Sämtliche Werke, II, p. 232.

47 I have addressed this issue in "Mystik methodisch maskieren", in Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ed. Biomystik: Natur- Gehirn - Geist (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2007), pp. 97-114.

48Das Wesen des Christenthums, p. ix.

49 "Die Naturwissenschaft und die Revolution," in Sämtliche Werke (Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag, 1911), X, p. 22. So extreme is Feuerbach's materialism in this review that scholars have argued about how well it represents Feuerbach's true position. See, my Scientific Materialism, p. 234, n.60.

50 Cf. my Nature Lost?, Chapter 3.

51David Friedrich Strauss, DieChristliche Glaubenslehre in ihrer Geschichtlichen Entwickllung und im Kampfe mit der modernen Wissenschaft Dargestellt, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Osiander, 1840-41), I, pp. 623-25, 681-86.

52 David Friedrich Strauss, Der Alte und der Neue Glaube: Ein Bekenntniss (Leipzig:Hirzel, 1872), pp. 5-6.

53 Ibid., p. 146.

54 On the distinction between pure and impure coherence theory, see above, n. 13.

55Éin Nachwort als Vorwort," pp. 255-78 in Der Alte und der Neue Glaube, 4th ed. (1872), in Eduard Zeller, ed. Gesammelte Schriften (Bonn: Verlag von Emil Strauss, 1877), Vol. 6, p. 268.

56 In the fourth edition Strauss replied to critics to remind readers that he had only claimed to create a new faith, not new knowledge. Ibid., p. 271. But critics like Friedrich Nietzsche had not seen it that way. See below.

57 Der Alte un der Neue Glaube, p. 222.

58 Ibid., pp. 208-09.

59 Ibid., pp. 268-69, 278. 280-93.

60 Friedrich Nietzsche, "David Friedrich Strauss as Confessor and Writer," pp. 3-55 in Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Cambridege University press, 1983), pp. 8-9, 27.