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Chapter 2 The Drive for Difference

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Elasticized Ecclesiology

Part of the book series: Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue ((PEID))

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Abstract

This chapter explores Ernst Troeltsch’s reception of William James. Ulrich Schmiedel argues that Troeltsch’s ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion’ offers a tacit theory of trust in the wake of James’s philosophical–psychological approach. However, in contrast to James, Troeltsch stresses the significance of community for both non-religious trust in the finite other and religious trust in the infinite other. Hence, Troeltsch’s tacit theory of trust charts the contours of a togetherness of trust. Here, the community is neither too solid (as in many ‘postliberal’ ecclesiologies) nor too liquid (as in many ‘liberal’ ecclesiologies), but elastic. The elasticization of ecclesiology for which Schmiedel advocates goes beyond the alternative between liberalism and postliberalism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Troeltsch repeatedly refers to James’s approach to religion. He discusses James’s philosophy in reviews from 1896 and 1897 (R1 and R2). James’s psychology of religion is assessed in a review from 1904, even before his studies were translated into German (R3). Troeltsch takes these reviews up in PE. For a summary in English, see also Troeltsch’s obituary to James (EP).

  2. 2.

    See Schleiermacher, On Religion. For the significance of Schleiermacher for the turn to experience, see Hans Joas, ‘Schleiermacher and the Turn to Experience in the Study of Religion,’ in Interpreting Religion: The Significance of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Reden über die Religion, ed. Dietrich Korsch and Amber L. Griffioen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 147–161.

  3. 3.

    R3, 365. See also EP, 16–17.

  4. 4.

    EP, 401.

  5. 5.

    Here, I am elaborating and expanding on Ulrich Schmiedel, ‘The Trouble with Trust in the Transcendent: Ernst Troeltsch’s Reception of William James,’ in Religious Experience Revisited: Expressing the Inexpressible?, ed. Thomas Hardtke, Ulrich Schmiedel and Tobias Tan (Leiden: Brill: 2016), 187–206. Portraying Troeltsch’s reception of James’s approach to religion is promising because Troeltsch formed and reformed his theories in conversation with colleagues and companions. For a summary of Troeltsch’s approach to reviews, see Maren Bienert, Protestantische Selbstverortung: Die Rezensionen Ernst Troeltschs (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 1–12.

  6. 6.

    R2, 366.

  7. 7.

    PE, 17.

  8. 8.

    See also Bienert, Protestantische Selbstverortung, 173n. 753.

  9. 9.

    SR was published in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 5 (1895) and 6 (1896). I follow the recent republication of Troeltsch’s study in Kritische Gesamtausgabe.

  10. 10.

    Hans Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit religiöser Phänomene: Ernst Troeltsch als Vorbild der Religionsforschung,’ Fuge 6 (2010), 16. Joas excavated SR before the articles were republished in Kritische Gesamtausgabe.

  11. 11.

    Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 15–28. See also Jörg Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’ in Die Aufgeklärte Religion und ihre Probleme, ed. Ulrich Barth, Christian Danz, Wilhelm Gräb and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 431–445.

  12. 12.

    Christian Albrecht ‘Einleitung,’ in Ernst Troeltsch, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1: ‘Schriften zur Theologie und Religionsphilosophie (1888–1902),’ ed. Christian Albrecht in collaboration with Björn Biester, Lars Emersleben and Dirk Schmid (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 17, argues that SR shows the central concerns of Troeltsch’s research which remain relevant throughout his career.

  13. 13.

    Cornelia Richter, ‘Vertrauen – im Wachsen: Eine Skizze zum theologischen Forschungsstand,’ Hermeneutische Blätter 1 (2010), 25–44, indicates that Troeltsch could be characterized as a ‘prominent precursor (Vordenker)’ of the theorization of trust in theology (ibid., 34).

  14. 14.

    See Wilhelm Hennis, ‘The Spiritualist Foundation of Max Weber’s “Interpretative Sociology”: Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber and William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience,’ History of the Human Sciences 11/2 (1998), 83–106. Hennis analyzes how Troeltsch introduced Max Weber to James’s concept of religion, but without taking account of Troeltsch’s reception of James’s concept.

  15. 15.

    For the impact of William James’s pragmatism on European philosophies, see Jaime Nubiola, ‘The Reception of William James in Continental Europe,’ in William James and the Transatlantic Conversation: Pragmatism, Pluralism and Philosophy of Religion, 15–29, although Nubiola makes no mention of Troeltsch. The fact that Troeltsch was vital for the reception of pragmatism in Europe is pointed out by Hans Joas, ‘Pragmatismus und Historismus: Meads Philosophie der Zeit und die Logik der Geschichtsschreibung,’ Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 36/1 (2015), 1–21.

  16. 16.

    Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 17–18. See also Kristian Fechtner, Volkskirche im neuzeitlichen Christentum: Die Bedeutung Ernst Troeltschs für eine künftige praktisch-theologische Theorie der Kirche (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995), 38–39.

  17. 17.

    SR, 367. Accordingly, Troeltsch follows what Schleiermacher called a general philosophical rather than a special theological hermeneutics. See Friedrich Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of the Study of Theology, trans. William Farrer (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850), 142–145. See also the succinct summary in Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics, 159–164.

  18. 18.

    For Troeltsch’s concept of the study of religion, see Michael Pye, ‘Troeltsch and the Science of Religion,’ in Ernst Troeltsch, Writings in Theology and Religion, trans. Robert Morgan and Michael Pye (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1977), 234–252.

  19. 19.

    SR, 365. Ulrich Barth, Gott als Projekt der Vernunft (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 363–365, argues that Troeltsch understands ‘apologetics’ in a non-dogmatic rather than a dogmatic way. Troeltsch’s critique of dogmatism follows from his collaboration with the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule. According to the ‘History of Religion School,’ Christianity is to be contextualized in the history of religions which includes both Christian and non-Christian traditions. For a succinct summary, see Mark D. Chapman, ‘History of Religion School,’ in The Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth Century Theology, ed. David Fergusson (Chichester: Blackwell, 2010), 434–454. Because of its turn to the history of religion, ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion’ marks a striking step in Troeltsch’s disengagement from his theological teacher Albrecht Ritschl. See also Christophe Chalamet, ‘Ernst Troeltsch’s Break from Ritschl and his School,’ Journal for the History of Modern Theology 19/1 (2012), 34–71.

  20. 20.

    RP, 468. See also Lori Pearson, Beyond Essence: Ernst Troeltsch as Historian and Theorist of Christianity (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2008), 71–85.

  21. 21.

    Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 434.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 455.

  23. 23.

    SR, 399. For the significance of the ‘relation (Beziehung)’ to the transcendent for religion, see also SR 397, 398, 401, 416, 419, 441, 457, 466, 497, 506, 507, 509.

  24. 24.

    SR, 395.

  25. 25.

    Ibid. Michael Mack, ‘The Other,’ in The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Michael N. Forster and Kristin Gjesdal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 736–750, distinguishes between a Kantian notion of the other in which otherness is disengaged by the self and a post-Kantian notion of the other in which otherness is engaged by the self. For Mack, Friedrich Schleiermacher exemplifies the post-Kantian notion of the other—a notion which would also be applicable to Troeltsch’s thinking.

  26. 26.

    SR, 393–394.

  27. 27.

    Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 433.

  28. 28.

    SR, 400–405. See also Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, esp. §2, where Feuerbach interprets religion in terms of a satisfaction of needs (ibid., 12–32).

  29. 29.

    SR, 405.

  30. 30.

    SR, 405–409.

  31. 31.

    SR, 412–413.

  32. 32.

    SR, 419. See also Brian A. Gerrish, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and the Possibility of a Historical Theology,’ in Ernst Troeltsch and the Future of Theology, 132–134.

  33. 33.

    The concept of phenomenology is anachronistic if applied to SR, where Troeltsch refers to ‘psychology’ rather than ‘phenomenology.’ However, in his autobiographical account, Troeltsch argues that his interdisciplinary thinking anticipated the phenomenology of religion. See MB, 370. Moreover, James L. Cox includes Troeltsch into his A Guide to the Phenomenology of Religion (London: T&T Clark, 2006), esp. 67–102.

  34. 34.

    SR, 412.

  35. 35.

    SR, 430.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    See Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, trans. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1924). For Troeltsch’s anticipation of Otto’s phenomenology, see ZR. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 432. Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit religiöser Phänomene,’ 20, points to the critique of Schleiermacher which lurks between the lines of Troeltsch’s phenomenology of religion: religion does not emerge from a feeling of dependency. Rather, religion engenders complex constellations of feelings which Troeltsch circles with the concept of Ehrfurcht.

  38. 38.

    Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 434–435. See also RP, 478.

  39. 39.

    SR, 439.

  40. 40.

    SR, 460.

  41. 41.

    SR, 472.

  42. 42.

    Following Coakley’s Christ Without Absolutes, Troeltsch’s theology is often characterized as a critique of the notion of incarnation. Coakley refers to the ‘“Cumulative Case” against Incarnational Christology’ (ibid., 103–135). However, by transposing the notion of incarnation from the Christian religion to the Christian and the non-Christian religions, Troeltsch, it could be argued, is not rejecting but radicalizing incarnation.

  43. 43.

    See esp. Georg W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion I-II, Werke 16–17, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl M. Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986). For a short summary of Hegel’s philosophy of history, see Sally Sedgwick, ‘Philosophy of History,’ in The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, 436–452. For Troeltsch’s reception of Hegel in ‘Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,’ see Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 436–437.

  44. 44.

    SR, 458.

  45. 45.

    SR, 460.

  46. 46.

    See Edward Caird, The Evolution of Religion: The Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of St Andrews in Sessions 189192 (Glasgow: Maclehose, 1893), 2 vols.

  47. 47.

    The distinction between developed and undeveloped religions is also apparent in James’s account of religion. See James, The Varieties, 12. For a summary, see Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 20–21. Troeltsch’s theology is not free from it either. See FV, 134–187.

  48. 48.

    Caird, The Evolution of Religion, vol. 1, 43.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 47.

  50. 50.

    Caird, The Evolution of Religion, vol. 2, 296.

  51. 51.

    SR, 473. In The Future of an Illusion, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1961), Sigmund Freud argues that religion offers a mechanism to cope with the dissatisfaction of drives—drives which are rooted in each and every person. Writing prior to Freud, Troeltsch asks how drives are rooted in a person.

  52. 52.

    SR, 473.

  53. 53.

    Ibid.

  54. 54.

    Ibid.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    SR, 504.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    SR, 505.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    SR, 506.

  61. 61.

    For the concept of ‘the myth of purity,’ see Espen Dahl, Phenomenology and the Holy: Religious Experience after Husserl (London: SCM, 2010), esp. 10–12. Dahl argues that the myth of purity, according to which the immanent is purely immanent and the transcendent is purely transcendent, prevents phenomenology from exploring the in-breaking of the transcendent into the immanent.

  62. 62.

    SR, 506.

  63. 63.

    SR, 509. For a sociological–philosophical account of the sacralization of the person inspired by Troeltsch, see Joas, The Sacredness of the Person.

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    SR, 519.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    Ibid. See also SR, 520–523. The quest for the absoluteness of Christianity followed from Schleiermacher’s approach to theology. Once Schleiermacher had anchored Christianity in a concept of religion rather than a concept of revelation, the Christian theologian had to prove that the Christian religion is superior to non-Christian religions: Christianity as the religion. For a study on the quest for the absoluteness of Christianity, see AC. Throughout his career, Troeltsch becomes less and less sure about the absoluteness of Christianity. See his 1922 lecture on ‘The Place of Christianity Among the World Religions,’ in FV, 134–187.

  68. 68.

    The notion of the axial age points to processes in the history of religion which come close to those identified by Troeltsch. See the contributions to The Axial Age and its Consequences, ed. Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

  69. 69.

    Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 28.

  70. 70.

    In The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 309–323, Tomoko Masuzawka assumes that Troeltsch’s integration of Christian and non-Christian religions within the study of religion failed, arguing that his concept of religion originates in Christianity. However, notwithstanding Troeltsch’s concentration on Christianity, he is not interested in a concept of religion which fits each and every case. For Troeltsch, it would be conceivable to create a variety of concepts of religion for a variety of contexts of religion. For a convincing critique of Masuzawaka’s account of Troeltsch, see Aimee Burant Chor, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and the Politics of “Christianity”: Context, Pragmatics, and Method in the Historiography of Modern Theology,’ Mitteilungen der Ernst-Troeltsch-Gesellschaft 20/21 (2008), 78–97.

  71. 71.

    See Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 27–28. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 444.

  72. 72.

    Joas, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 27–28.

  73. 73.

    RP, 484.

  74. 74.

    SR, 520–523.

  75. 75.

    See Hans Joas, ‘Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbindung: Ernst Troeltsch als Ausgangspunkt einer modernen Religionssoziologie,’ in Religion(en) deuten, 58. The historicization which leads Troeltsch from the ahistorical ‘non-relative’ concept of absoluteness to the historical ‘relative’ concept of absoluteness anticipates the argument advanced in AC.

  76. 76.

    SR, 526. Coakley identifies ‘faith’ in the superiority of Christianity as a ‘Ritschlian’ remainder in Troeltsch’s concept of religion. She argues that it counters his interpretation of the evolution of religion. See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 55. What Coakley calls a ‘half-way’ (ibid.), however, seems to me to follow from Troeltsch’s zigzag between teleology and non-teleology in his interpretation of history. When he moves from teleology to non-teleology, he emphasizes the significance of faith. When he de-emphasizes the significance of faith, he moves from non-teleology to teleology.

  77. 77.

    SR, 528. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 437.

  78. 78.

    SR, 381.

  79. 79.

    Ibid.

  80. 80.

    Troeltsch employs a number of concepts in order to argue that the event of religion (in James’s terminology, pure experience) and the expression of religion (in James’s terminology, impure experience) co-constitute the experience of religion. See esp. SR, 399, 419–420, 423, 448. See also Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 434–435.

  81. 81.

    PE, 16–17.

  82. 82.

    SR, 388.

  83. 83.

    Ibid.

  84. 84.

    Ibid.

  85. 85.

    RP, 476–477.

  86. 86.

    SR, 395.

  87. 87.

    SR, 436.

  88. 88.

    SR, 420.

  89. 89.

    Ibid.

  90. 90.

    SR, 423.

  91. 91.

    SR, 441.

  92. 92.

    However, Troeltsch never discusses in detail how the personal, the textual or the musical function as mediations of religion. See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 193–194.

  93. 93.

    SR, 378–388, 423. Here, Troeltsch anticipates the core concern of Mircea Eliade’s, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (London: Harcourt, 1959), esp. 10–15.

  94. 94.

    HI, 722. See also Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 84–85.

  95. 95.

    SR, 427.

  96. 96.

    SR, 427–428.

  97. 97.

    Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 57–58. I will return to Troeltsch’s interpretation of the relation of Jesus and Judaism implied in his contextualization of Jesus in Chap. 4.

  98. 98.

    SR, 423.

  99. 99.

    Ibid.

  100. 100.

    Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 55. She argues that SR marks a transition in the development of Troeltsch’s christological thought.

  101. 101.

    CF, 100.

  102. 102.

    CF, 41. In German, Troeltsch distinguishes between ‘dynamischer Offenbarung’ and ‘mechanischer Offenbarung.’ See GL, 41.

  103. 103.

    CF, 49.

  104. 104.

    Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 45–79, 136–163, 164–187, traces how Troeltsch’s theology shifts from assuming the direct relationship of the believer to Jesus to assuming the indirect relationship of the believer to Jesus.

  105. 105.

    See Gerd Theissen, The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in Narrative Form, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1987).

  106. 106.

    Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 82.

  107. 107.

    Ibid., 86.

  108. 108.

    See Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 69.

  109. 109.

    In CF, 38, Troeltsch rejects what he calls the ‘inexact word “progress.”’ In German, GL, 37, he characterizes the word ‘progress’ as ‘spießig’ which also renders as ‘stuffy.’ Troeltsch argues that a process has to be assessed again and again in order to decide what must be considered progress and what must be considered regress.

  110. 110.

    See Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 85.

  111. 111.

    CF, 41–43.

  112. 112.

    CF, 39.

  113. 113.

    CF, 47.

  114. 114.

    Accordingly, Troeltsch’s concept of revelation comes closer to the classic position of Catholicism rather than the classic position of Protestantism. See CF, 45. See also BF, 64.

  115. 115.

    Coakley, Christ Without Absolutes, 194. Coakley’s concept of christologie totale adopts the historiographical method of ‘l’histoire totale.’ See ibid., 194n. 3. Incidentally, Troeltsch’s christologie totale inspired Coakley’s ‘théologie totale.’ See Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 33–65, although she dropped the reference to Troeltsch here.

  116. 116.

    Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 443.

  117. 117.

    For a short summary, see Simon Morgan Wortham, ‘Deconstruction,’ in The Derrida Dictionary (London: Continuum, 2010), 31–33, who argues that the ‘nickname’ deconstruction is neither exclusively negative nor exclusively positive, but affirms difference and deferral (ibid., 32). Deconstruction ‘puts a question mark against the very grounds of the subject and object alike’ (ibid.), thus arriving at ‘a strategic overturning of the hierarchies implicit in binary oppositions’ (ibid., 33).

  118. 118.

    See Jacques Derrida, ‘Faith and Knowledge,’ trans. Samuel Weber, in Acts of Religion, ed. Gil Anidjar (London: Routledge, 2010), 40–101.

  119. 119.

    Ibid., 56.

  120. 120.

    Ibid., 82.

  121. 121.

    Ibid., 72.

  122. 122.

    Combining both theological and anti-theological arguments, Derrida’s notion(s) of God are notoriously nebulous. His core concern is to counter concepts of God which concentrate on pure presence. See again Acts of Religion. See also Steven Shakespeare, Derrida and Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 77: Derrida’s ‘work does open possibilities for theological imagination … In the difference between God and God, there may be no resolution, but the coming of something unexpected.’ For Shakespeare, the unexpected implies attraction and aversion alike—a notion which closely corresponds to the phenomenological account of ‘Ehrfurcht’ offered by Troeltsch. For the diverse ways in which Derrida reflects on God, see Shakespeare, Derrida and Theology, esp. 69–148.

  123. 123.

    See Niebuhr, ‘William James on Religious Experience,’ 232.

  124. 124.

    James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 301.

  125. 125.

    Walter E. Wyman, The Concept of Glaubenslehre: Ernst Troeltsch and the Theological Heritage of Schleiermacher (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), established that these lectures were delivered in 1912 and 1913 rather than 1911 and 1912 (ibid., xv, 208n. 37).

  126. 126.

    In CF, 48–50, ‘Vertrauen’ has been rendered as ‘confidence.’ See GL, 51–52. For Troeltsch’s account of trust, see also Richter, ‘Vertrauen – im Wachsen,’ 33–34.

  127. 127.

    CF, 49.

  128. 128.

    Ibid. Garett E. Paul has chosen to translate ‘Glaube’ with ‘faith’ rather than ‘belief.’ I follow Paul’s translation, especially since William James, as mentioned above, usually uses both terms interchangeably.

  129. 129.

    Ibid.

  130. 130.

    CF, 48.

  131. 131.

    See again Rorty, ‘Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance,’ 84–102. See also the analysis of James’s concept of experience in Chap. 1 above.

  132. 132.

    Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 89–110, identifies isolationism as the core concern in Troeltsch’s critique of Wilhelm Herrmann. See also Brent W. Sockness, Against False Apologetics: Wilhelm Herrmann and Ernst Troeltsch in Conflict (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).

  133. 133.

    See Andreas Hunziker, ‘Glaube als radikales Vertruaen?,’ in Gottvertrauen, 157–294.

  134. 134.

    Wilhelm Herrmann, The Communion of the Christian with God: Described on the Basis of Luther’s Statements, trans. J. Sandys Stanion (London: Williams, 1906), 59–64. See Brent W. Sockness, ‘The Ideal and the Historical in the Christology of Wilhelm Herrmann,’ The Journal of Religion 72/3 (1992), 366–388.

  135. 135.

    Sockness, ‘The Ideal and the Historical in the Christology of Wilhelm Herrmann,’ 384–485.

  136. 136.

    Ibid., 387.

  137. 137.

    See Wilhelm Herrmann, ‘Grund und Inhalt des Glaubens,’ in Wilhelm Herrmann, Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. Friedrich W. Schmidt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923), 275–294. See also Hunziker, ‘Glaube als radikales Vertrauen,’ 269–270.

  138. 138.

    Chapman, Ernst Troeltsch and Liberal Theology, 97.

  139. 139.

    Ibid., 93.

  140. 140.

    Ibid., 107.

  141. 141.

    Again, see Richter, ‘Vertrauen – im Wachsen,’ 34.

  142. 142.

    SR, 425.

  143. 143.

    SR, 436.

  144. 144.

    SR, 425.

  145. 145.

    See again Lash, Easter in Ordinary, 54–56.

  146. 146.

    Here, Troeltsch anticipates Lash’s critique of James. See ibid., 51–70.

  147. 147.

    See also WL, 825–826.

  148. 148.

    Ibid.

  149. 149.

    See KG, 104.

  150. 150.

    Lauster, ‘Die Selbständigkeit,’ 443, argues that Troeltsch offers a ‘program for the de-dogmatization of religion (Programm einer Entdogmatisierung der Religion).’ However, in comparison to James’s demand for de-dogmatization, Troeltsch’s ‘program’ is to be located in-between dogmatization and de-dogmatization.

  151. 151.

    PE, 17.

  152. 152.

    SR, 427–428.

  153. 153.

    SR, 436.

  154. 154.

    SR, 427.

  155. 155.

    SR, 436.

  156. 156.

    SR, 427–428.

  157. 157.

    SR, 435–436.

  158. 158.

    CF, 48–49. See also, Lauster, Religion als Lebensdeutung, 24–25. For explorations of poetic expressions of transcendence, see the contributions to The Poetics of Transcendence, ed. Elisa Heinämäki, P. M. Mehtonen and Antti Salminen (Leiden: Brill, 2015).

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Schmiedel, U. (2017). Chapter 2 The Drive for Difference. In: Elasticized Ecclesiology. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40832-3_3

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