4

MYSTICISM AS A SOCIAL TYPE OF CHRISTIANITY?

ERNST TROELTSCHS INTERPRETATION IN ITS
HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC CONTEXT

JOHANNES ZACHHUBER
The topic of this paper is neither a mystical author nor a mystical text. Instead I shall be investigating one particular example of how mysticism has been understood or constructed. Ernst Troeltschs interpretation of mysticism in his magisterial Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, which first appeared almost exactly 100 years ago,1 has not been the most influential scholarly account of mysticism in fact, Troeltsch was not a scholar of mysticism at all but his theory can nevertheless help us understand some of the complexities surrounding the conceptualisation of this particular type of religiosity (although admittedly even the use of this word might already be considered problematic). At the same time, it raises interesting questions concerning the broader appeal of mysticism today. My interest is thus less in assessing the value of Troeltschs interpretation for, say, our understanding of medieval mystical authors; rather I shall use him to illustrate certain long-standing and influential perceptions and preconceptions of this religious phenomenon. If successful, then, my contribution may serve a second-order discourse about modern, scholarly and popular, ideas of and fascinations for mysticism. These are, I shall argue following Troeltsch, closely related to some of the most fundamental transformations of religion under the conditions of modernity. I. In order to appreciate Troeltschs particular thesis about mysticism as a social type of Christianity in The Social Teaching2 it is imperative first of all to call to mind what one might call his project in this work. As the author himself explains, The Social Teaching is driven by a dual concern: on the one hand, Troeltsch is worried about the contributions Church and theology at his time sought to make to public debates about social issues. He believed (quite correctly, as we can see today) that social policy was increasingly taking centre stage in the modern state and that the churches would, accordingly, be expected to have their own views about it. Their interventions, he argued, could only be successful, however, on the basis of a clear grasp of the way in which a religion, such as Christianity, plays out not only in the field of doctrine, but

E. Troeltsch, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1912; 2nd ed. 1922). E. Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, trans. Olive Wyon (2 vols, London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1931). 2 I limit myself in this paper to this specific writing. For a more comprehensive account of Troeltschs various references to, and discussions of, mysticism throughout his extended oeuvre see A. L. Molendijk, Bewusste Mystik: Zur grundlegenden Bedeutung des Mystikbegriffs im Werk von Ernst Troeltsch, Neue Zeitschrift fr Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 41 (1999), 3961.

also in terms of what one may call social formation and what Troeltsch in the tradition of Schleiermacher often calls ethics: This, then, is the question: What is the basis of the social teaching of the churches? From the point of view of their essential nature in principle what is their attitude towards the modern social problem? And what should be their attitude?3 For Troeltsch, the historicist, this was tantamount to demanding a historical account that would pay attention to the development, and the internal logic, of systems or types of social ethics within Christianity over the two millennia of its existence. This, then, is the second motivation behind his grand project: to offer not a rebuttal but a correction of and a complement to historical reconstructions of the development of doctrine such as Harnacks multi-volume work which at the time was considered the standard account.4 The History of Dogma for Troeltsch was emblematic of the onesidedness of most theology which was content to consider ideas without paying heed to the fact that Christianity could never have survived, thrived or had any significant influence on the wider culture had it not been, in addition to a set of ideas, a form of life institutionalized in the Church with rules for individual and social conduct. These rules, however, were not detached from those doctrinal ideas; but what exactly their connection was, why doctrinal changes often, though not always, brought about changes in the social constitution of the church, this was by no means a trivial question and deserved as thorough an investigation as the progressive evolution of trinitarian or Christological theories. It is crucial to observe that in describing the social teachings, and in characterising the social formations, produced by the Christian churches over the centuries, Troeltschs historicism consistently clashes with his rival tendency to use ideal types. The latter were, as a methodological tool for sociology, championed by his close friend Max Weber,5 and the most famous contribution Troeltschs book has made to social theory the one for which it is cited even in contemporary textbooks of the Sociology of Religion is his typology of church and sect.6 Yet his attempt to construct ideal types for the description of social formations within Christianity and quite possibly within other religions as well7 does not sit well with his other attempt to show how these formations have emerged over the course of Christian history and as a result of its progressive development. Characteristically, Troeltsch only discusses the typological duality of church and sect at the point at which, in his overall historical narrative, he introduces the sectarian tendencies of late medieval Christianity. While drawing on Webers typological distinction, Troeltsch utilizes it
3 4

Troeltsch, Social Teaching, vol. 1, p. 24. A. Harnack, The History of Dogma, trans. Neil Buchanan et al. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1894 99). 5 According to Weber, the ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized into a unified analytical construct (Gedankenbild). In its conceptual purity this mental construct (Gedankenbild) cannot be found in empirically anywhere in reality: Objectivity in Social Science, in idem, On the Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. E. A. Shils and H. A. Finch,(Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1949), pp. 50112, at 90. 6 For example: I. Furseth and P. Repstad, An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate 1988), pp. 1334. 7 Troeltsch, Social Teaching, vol. 1, p. 340 (Soziallehren, pp. 375).

Johannes Zachhuber 27/1/13 17:24 Deleted: 364,

primarily in support of the argument that both, church and sect, represent legitimate and in a way necessary developments of the original impulse of the gospel: The teaching of Jesus, which cherishes the expectation of the End of the Age and the Coming of the Kingdom of God, which gathers into one body all who are resolute in their determination to confess Christ before men and to leave the world to its fate, tend to develop the sect-type. The apostolic faith which looks back to a miracle of redemption and to the Person of Jesus, and which lives in the power of its heavenly Lord: this faith which leans upon something achieved and objective, in which it unites the faithful and allows them to rest, tends to develop the Churchtype. Thus the New Testament tends to develop both the Church and the sect.8 Weber himself had been aware of the distinction between ideal type and historical realisation; in fact he went out of his way to emphasize its categorical character: the ideal type is a mental construct (Gedankenbild) and, as such, in Webers own phrase, a utopia.9 For the historian it is therefore always necessary to determine, in each individual case, the extent to which this ideal-construct approximates to or diverges from reality.10 This careful methodological consideration, however, was lost on Troeltsch, who sought to combine the typological and the historical logic in a single narrative. Yet the two rest on different and ultimately incompatible principles: the ideal type assumes that certain forms of social organisation exist diachronically and can therefore be conceptualized, analysed, and compared on the basis of examples taken from a variety of historical and cultural contexts, whereas the historicist model strictly excludes this possibility in favour of an attempt to understand individual realisations on the basis of their historical emergence, influenced by a unique combination of concrete factors. Both cannot be forged into a simple synthesis; one has to give way. As we shall see, in Troeltsch it is the historicist logic that prevails. This tension, which was apparent in Troeltschs introduction of the churchsect typology, recurs even more strongly in his treatment of mysticism. If the sociological typology of church and sect has become, and to a considerable extent remained, currency until this date, the mystic-type has not enjoyed the same popularity even though it is clear that for Troeltsch himself the working out of the mystic-type was of particular importance.11 This may well be because Troeltsch struggles to say how mysticism actually is a social type; in some ways, as we shall see, it is almost the negation of a social type, and its dominance in early twentiethcentury German Christianity is part of the diagnosis Troeltsch offers for the churches inability meaningfully to contribute to social policy debates in his own time. The picture is further complicated by the fact that in his conceptualisation of mysticism as a social type of Christianity, Troeltsch offers two interpretations, which are sometimes called a wider and a narrower one.12 Let us look at them in turn. Troeltschs first, generic definition of mysticism describes it, not so surprisingly
8 9

Troeltsch, Social Teaching, vol. 1, p. 342 (= Soziallehren, p. 377). Weber, Objectivity, p. 90. 10 Ibid. 11 Cf. W. H. Swatos Jr., Church-Sect Theory, in idem (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Society (London: AltaMira Press, 1998), pp. 903, at 90. 12 Cf. Joel Rasmussens helpful discussion in Mysticism as a Category of Inquiry in the Philosophies of Ernst Troeltsch and William James pp. ?? in the present volume.

perhaps, as an interior form of religious experience: In the widest possible sense of the word, mysticism is simply the insistence upon a direct inward and present religious experience.13 He then, however, supplements this first definition with an addition which I take to be far from trivial: mysticism always takes for granted the objectified forms of religious life in worship, ritual, myth, and dogma.14 It can either be a reaction against those forms or an attempt to complement them by means of personal, religious or spiritual experience. This qualification is easy to overlook, but it is absolutely central for an understanding of Troeltschs specifically sociological attitude to mysticism. Mysticism, for him, is never the original religious impulse; it is a latecomer in the history of a religion, it is always something secondary, something which has been deliberately thought out,15 even though, as we shall see in a moment, mystics (or what Troeltsch takes to be mystics) often claim the opposite. In this very broad sense, mysticism can exist and has existed in many different religious and historical contexts: in all religious systems in these varied forms, mysticism is a universal phenomenon.16 The narrower sense, on the other hand, which is more interesting for the scholar of Christianitys social formations, is characterized by a particular move within this larger scheme. Some tension always exists between mysticism and established institutional religion, as the mystical emphasis on interior modes of religiosity will inevitably raise the suspicion that the collective rituals, executed and controlled by clerical hierarchies are not taken as seriously as they ought to. This tension, Troeltsch contends, becomes deeply problematic once mystics start seeing their particular forms of religious practice in conflict with, or even in contradiction to, the external rituals prescribed by institutionalised religion. Only at this point, mysticism could conceivably become anything like a sociological type of religion, but at the same time we can already glimpse here how very nearly paradoxical such language inevitably is when applied to mysticism. This social type really is an antitype at least as far as intention is concerned. The contrarian mystics question and undermine the very legitimacy of institutionalized religion itself, which seems the exact opposite of the formation of an alternative organisational pattern. This would seem to be the case regardless of whether this rejection takes on its most radical form or is content with the practice of religious individualism and indifferentism within existing institutions. The entire inward certainty17 of its own religious faith makes the stricter form of mysticism indifferent towards religious communities whether or not these mystics then continue with an outward conformity to traditional religious custom within their respective community, or whether they proceed to its complete rejection. Ultimately, the broader question of mysticism as a form of piety or religiosity in all religions was, I suspect, of limited interest to Troeltsch. His distinction between the two forms mainly served to reconcile two seemingly conflicting observations: On the one hand, it was undeniable that Christian mystics historically had often been fully integrated into the dominant ecclesial structures of their time. This had been the case, most obviously, with many medieval representatives of mysticism such as Bernard of Clairveaux or Hugh of St Victor. On the other hand, however, a mystical orientation could also lead to separatist or sectarian tendencies, as in early modern Protestant spiritualism. The transition from
13 14 15

Troeltsch, Social Teaching, vol. 2, p. 730 (= Soziallehren, p. 850). Ibid. Ibid., p. 731 (= Soziallehren, p. 850). 16 Ibid., p. 732 (= Soziallehren, p. 851). 17 Ibid., p. 734 (= Soziallehren, p. 854).

the former to the latter, according to Troeltsch, occurred when the mystics proceeded beyond certain practices and their narration, for example in visionary accounts, and developed a theory of such practices. At this point, Troeltsch suggested, it was almost inevitable that the mystics ceased to consider their own, specific form of religious experience as merely one spiritual variant within a broader ecclesial tradition in which it therefore remained firmly embedded, and instead perceived in it the very heart of religion itself. Such a theory, however, which gave unqualified priority to interior and immediate religious experience, had to lead to conflict with the Church as from its vantage point all institutionalized forms of religious life could at best appear as something secondary, an external garment around the true kernel of religion but quite possibly also an impediment to its full realization. The Church with its hierarchically administered sacraments would thus be reduced to a provision for those who either had not yet penetrated to the real centre of the Christian faith or were incapable of ever achieving true spiritual insight. Ecclesial Christianity with its rituals, its doctrines and its ethical code did not have to be dangerous or bad though it could well be but its statutory rules would inevitably lose their inherent religious value, whose unconditional acceptance, however, was absolutely essential for the functioning and preservation of traditional religion within the Church-type. At this point of his argument, Troeltsch the historicist comes to the fore. While his original definition of mysticism, including his distinction between a broader and a narrower meaning, followed the logic of ideal types, there can be but little doubt that the real reason why he introduced mysticism as a third element in his typology was his interest in the religious transformations in early modern Europe. It was really only in the developments following after the Reformation that mysticism took on a direction that led to a new social form of religion; in other words, the logic of his argument is now that of historical determination, not diachronic typology. In their ecclesiology, the magisterial reformers had retained an affirmation of the Church-type in principle, but in practice the ecclesiastical adjustments necessitated by the Reformation inevitably paved the way for a much more individualized and interiorized form of Christianity. This is what Troeltsch calls Protestant mysticism, a religious movement in which internal experience is no longer conceived as a mere compensation for the external character of ecclesial ritual, but as the independent principle of religious knowledge, inward experience, and morality.18 Its principles become a defining feature of what is often called the radical reformation with its emphasis of the spirit over the letter, and its rejection of the sacraments, much of traditional doctrine, and even ethics. Only from this vantage point, according to Troeltsch, does it makes sense to see mysticism as a social type because only (note the historicist emphasis on uniqueness) in the specific constellation of the sixteenth century as a crucible of religious transformation and innovation could mystical ideas and impulses develop into separate forms of social organisation. Whereas in Lutheran historiography and polemic it had been customary to lump all the radicals together as sectarian and spiritualists, at the same time, Troeltsch insists that they should not be confused: Mysticism is a radical individualism very distinct from that of the sect. While the sect separates individuals from the world by its conscious hostility to worldliness and by its ethical severity, [] mysticism lays no stress at all upon the relation between individuals, but only upon the
18

Ibid., p. 740 (= Soziallehren, p. 861).

relations between the soul and God. It regards the historical, authoritative and ritual elements in religion merely as methods of quickening the religious sense with which, in case of need, it can dispense altogether. Spiritual religion in particular, with its intense emphasis on first hand experience, actually tends to sweep away the historical element altogether, and in so doing it eliminates the only centre around which a Christian cult can be formed. Thus this kind of religion becomes nonhistorical, formless, and purely individualistic [].19 Let me emphasise again that even though Troeltsch here speaks of mysticism without qualification, what he has in mind is the narrower form which, ultimately, came into existence only after the Reformation and is thus a feature of modern European religion more than anything else. It is this historically specific form of Protestant Christianity that he seeks to capture with his notion of mysticism as a social type. Troeltschs theory might then appear to be somewhat parochial. Why would the existence of mystical groups constituting a highly spiritualized version of religious community in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries warrant extensive treatment in the broader history of the social doctrines of the Christian churches? Troeltschs answer to this question would once again be that of a historicist: the history of Christianity did not end in the seventeenth century; rather, the social principles that determined the lives of small bands of religious radicals at that time were to become, in the coming centuries, the paradigm for large parts of modern Protestantism. The emergence of radical spiritual religion in the post-Reformation period is merely the harbinger for the even more individualistic form of religion that is modern Protestantism. The set of beliefs and principles described in the extended quotation given above is, in essence, what Troeltsch saw as the religion of many average Protestants in early twentieth-century Germany, the secret religion of the educated classes.20 This is the reason why mysticism as a kind of interiorized, individualized, anti-institutional form of religion, deserves to form a separate chapter in Troeltschs attempt to chart the history of Christian social teaching; it is the form of religion that he sees as dominant at his own time and in his own environment. II. Yet why call this modern, individualist version of Protestantism mysticism? Is this anything more than choosing a convenient label for a phenomenon that needs a name? And to the extent that Troeltsch claims a historical or indeed typological relationship between the semi-secular forms of religion that thrived in early twentieth-century Germany and the mystical tradition, are those claims not wide off the mark? Some observations on the context of Troeltschs argument will, I hope, address those concerns at least to a certain extent.21 First of all, it seems plausible that for Troeltschs use of the term mysticism his particularly Lutheran background played a considerable role. This context is, in fact, explicitly reflected on in the main text as well as the notes to the last chapter of The Social Teaching. The Lutheran attitude to mysticism has two aspects. On the one hand, Lutheranism has had a tradition of massive and often unqualified polemical opposition to mysticism. When Emil Brunner wrote what may have been the most
19 20

Ibid., p. 743 (= Soziallehren, p. 864). Ibid., p. 794 (= Soziallehren, p. 931). 21 Cf. Molendijk, Bewusste Mystik, pp. 427.

abrasive critique of Schleiermachers theology ever, he notoriously entitled it Mysticism and the Word (the and here is antithetical!).22 The word, of course, is the Word of God, and mysticism stands, in brief, for whatever in Christianity is opposed to this most fundamental tenet of revealed religion. Yet mysticism was not only a heresy for the neo-orthodox theologians of the 1920s. The Ritschl School within which Troeltsch himself had received his theological upbringing had been equally dismissive of mysticism. Ritschl saw it as the Catholic outgrowth of a Platonic idea of God, incompatible with the teaching of the Bible. While the mystics differed from the scholastics in their belief that it was possible for the individual [] even in the present earthly state to pass beyond all intervening objects until the individual consciousness be lost in the undifferentiated Being of God,23 their religious longing rested on a conception of God diametrically opposed to that taught by the Reformers. Later attempts to integrate mysticism into Protestantism, both Lutheran and Calvinist, were therefore a lethal threat to the inheritance of the Reformation, and Ritschl wrote, towards the end of his life, a three-volume History of Pietism largely to denounce seventeenth and eighteenth-century revivalist movements as doomed attempts to introduce mystical principles into Protestantism.24 Among his most influential pupils, Adolf Harnack ended his discussion of medieval mysticism in his History of Dogma with a section defining mysticism as Catholic piety in general.25 There was no way it could ever be integrated into Protestantism: a mystic that does not become a Catholic is a dilettante.26 Wilhelm Herrmann, who as the academic teacher of Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann would of all the Ritschlians have the strongest impact on twentieth-century Systematic Theology, discussed the relationship between mysticism and the Christian religion right at the beginning of his major work, The Communion of the Christian with God. In his assessment of mysticism, he perfectly concurred with Harnacks judgment: If Protestant theologians today think that they cannot part company with mysticism, then they really admit that they cannot free themselves from Roman Catholicism. For in Roman Catholicism mysticism is the essential life of religion.27 This criticism could not have been so pervasive at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century had its origins not lain in an earlier and much more defining period of Lutheran identity formation. Troeltsch himself, in fact, was perfectly aware that all later Lutheran aversion against mysticism originated from the role mystics had played in the breakup of the original Lutheran Reformation. Lutheranism, as nearly all versions of Christianity have sought to do, defined itself as
22

E. Brunner, Die Mystik und das Wort: Der Gegensatz zwischen moderner Religionsauffassung und christlichem Glauben dargestellt an der Theologie Schleiermachers (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1924). 23 A. Ritschl, A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, trans. John S. Black (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1872), p. 109. 24 A. Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, 3 vols. (Bonn: Marcus, 188086). 25 Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. 6, p. 97-8. 26 Ibid., 99. 27 W. Herrmann, The Communion of the Christian with God: Described on the Basis of Luthers Statements, trans. J. Sandys Stanyon (London: Williams & Norgate, 2nd ed., 1906), p. 27.

the middle between two extremes, Roman Catholicism and religious enthusiasm (Schwrmerei). This conventional rhetorical figure, however, is never as powerful as when complemented by the proof that the two extremes are ultimately identical or at least close related. This is the ultimate root of the Lutheran dislike of anything mystical: mysticism, it seems, is what enthusiasts and Catholics have in common and therefore constitutes supreme evidence that the former, despite their claim to move beyond the Lutheran halfway house and fulfil the original promise made by the Reformation, had in fact returned to the religious principles of pre-Reformation Catholicism. Yet there is another side to the story of Lutheranism and mysticism, and part of Troeltschs intention is subversively to play this other side up in his own reconstruction of more recent religious history. It is well known that Luther himself had been close to mystical tendencies during his early years. After all, it was he who, in 1516, first edited the famous, anonymous treatise known as Theologia Germanica. In his preface to the text he confessed his own intellectual and spiritual debt to the book in no uncertain terms: For this noble book, though it be poor and rude in words, is so much the richer and more precious in knowledge and divine wisdom. And I will say, though it be boasting of myself and I speak as a fool, that next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book hath ever come into my hands, whence I have learnt, or would wish to learn more of what God, and Christ, and man and all things are.28 This startling admission, which can be supported by more extensive comparisons between Luthers theology and the thought of Tauler, Suso, Staupitz and others, has not failed to make an impression on later theologians, and part of Ritschls emphasis on the diastasis between mysticism and Luthers thought is evidently due to his interest in rebuking those who, contrariwise, drew a direct line between the earlier mystical tradition and the theology of the Reformer.29 Such an attempt would appear all the more plausible given how strongly the Lutheran Church in subsequent centuries was influenced by devotional authors who took some or most of their inspiration from the pre-modern, mystical tradition. Most notable among them was Johann Arndt whose True Christianity, while being criticized during the authors lifetime for his apparent dependence on Tauler and others, became one of the most successful Lutheran publications ever.30 At the end of the seventeenth century, Philipp Spener, the head of the Pietist movement within the Lutheran Church pronounced that [] I am assured that in the dark ages of the papacy there was present in mysticism, however, more power and light than in the thorny polemic scholastic theology which spoke little to the heart. I doubt that Luther
28

Anon., Theologia Germanica: Which setteth forth many fair Lineaments of Divine Truth, and says very lofty and lovely things touching a perfect Life, ed. F. Pfeiffer, trans. S. Winkworth (Andover: W. F. Draper, 1857), p. xix. 29 Ritschl, A Critical History, p. 105 with reference to the classical study by C. Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation: Vornehmlich in Deutschland und den Niederlanden (2 vols, Hamburg: Perthes, 1841-2). 30 J. Arndt, True Christianity, trans. Peter Erb (New York: Paulist Press, 1979); H. Schneider, Der fremde Arndt: Studien zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung Johann Arndts (15551621) (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006).

owed as much to any scholastic as he did to Tauler and similar writers.31 No doubt, the theological polemic against mysticism within Lutheranism is to some extent overcompensating for an awareness that mysticism, in fact, was in an often unacknowledged way part of their own tradition. But why was it so difficult to acknowledge it? Along the lines of Troeltschs argument, the answer would appear fairly straightforward: the dissolution of the ecclesiastical Church-type was, in principle, prepared for by the Reformation itself, but the mainstream of Lutheranism existed in a state of denial because they had decided to retain the social type of the medieval church. This tension meant that even the most moderately mystical tendency was perceived as a threat to the existence of the Church as such, not to mention its political establishment which, in Germany, continued until 1918. Troeltsch himself, to be sure, claimed much more than merely the unacknowledged presence of mystical elements in the Lutheran tradition. At least since Schleiermacher, he argued, mysticism had become its dominant theology. We have to recall at this point that the crucial step from an ecclesiastically contained to a sectarian form of mysticism happened, according to Troeltsch, when mystical practice was reflected in a theory that made this kind of religious experience the very centre of all religion. This precisely was what more or less all the leading theorists at his time, from Schleiermacher to William James to Rudolf Otto argued: that a kind of immediate and internal form of experience was the most fundamental element in religion. For Troeltsch, however, the merely intellectual dimension of this development, once again, was only part of the story. What the label mysticism when attached to these theories achieved, rather, was something more serious. Given that mysticism is a social type a set of ideas underwriting a form of Christian life, this kind of theory is by no means contained in and restricted to the realm of ideas. In fact, as we have already seen, it has as its built-in premise an understanding of religion that undermines the authority of any institutionalized church. This does not mean that it has to be actively opposed to ecclesiastical structures. Time and again, Troeltsch observes that mystics often choose a more conservative option which is happy to leave the external structures of the Church intact precisely because they see them as ultimately indifferent. Yet be this as it may, the claim that religion fundamentally is a matter of internal experience makes the foundation of stable and durable ecclesiastical structures impossible. All mystics who claim that their own version of spirituality is foundational for religion per se, then, have to choose one of two options: either to exist parasitically within a community which their kind of religion, in spite of their claims, could never have created, or actively to undermine them: [This religion of subjective experience] creates no community, since it possesses neither the sense of solidarity nor the faith in authority which this requires nor the no less necessary fanaticism and desire for uniformity. It lives in and on communities which have been brought into existence by other, ruder energies.32 Troeltsch does not tell his readers what these ruder energies (rcksichtslosere Krfte) were that built the religious communities of the Church-type but it may not be
31

P. J. Spener, On Hindrances to Theological Studies (1680), in P. C. Erb (ed.) The Pietists: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), p. 68. 32 Troeltsch, Social Teaching, vol. 2, p. 796 (= Soziallehren, p. 934).

far-fetched to think here of the ecclesial mind-set that facilitated identity formation by means of the exclusion of heretics and other dissenters effectively making use of the scapegoat mechanism that has recently been studied in detail by Ren Girard.33 If so, the present passage neatly illustrates the aporetic character of Troeltschs own liberal scepticism. He clearly could not have advocated the renewed adoption of such practices (whereas Karl Barth later on was perfectly willing to do so34) but evidently lacked the imagination for a form of church that did not depend on such mechanisms. His own position, regardless of his much-discussed occasional mystical confessions,35 is certainly no less problematic than that of the mystical or quasi-mystical authors he referred to. While one will not, then, turn to Troeltsch for an answer to the predicament of a Church that seems to rely for its institutional survival on means and mechanisms opposed to the very spirit on which it was once founded,36 his sharp and insightful analysis nevertheless helpfully illustrates some of the most fundamental tensions in modern Christianity. For this, his more immediate historical, political and social environment, is the second context that is needed for a full understanding of Troeltschs theory. I mentioned at the outset of this essay that the writing of The Social Teaching was partly prompted by Troeltschs concern about a lack of theological competence in the churches contributions to social ethics. It is noteworthy that the sketch of this contemporary predicament he offered in the introduction to his book is directly related to his description of the religious effects of mysticism in its final part. He was explicit, in the introduction, that liberalism due to its relative tendency to split up into individual peculiarities, practical compromises, and middle class learning has ceased to be a veritable social force: For the present, at least, its individualistic idea has become exhausted.37 This is the political and social reality Troeltsch observed, and only a superficial reader could believe that his recognition of a stronger power of influencing other people in the more conservative as well as more radical parties on the left38 was for him cause for hope. It is interesting, then, that in this situation all the traditional mystical authors were published in popular editions and enjoyed great popularity among the middle classes. In fact, mysticism became a buzzword for such a broad range of religious phenomena that some observers began to complain that it had lost any specific meaning it used to have.39 Whatever the legitimacy of the latter observation, the spread and the popularity of the term at the turn of the twentieth century surely signalled a public expectation that religion should be a matter of our interior life, nondogmatic and detached from institutional commitment. This expectation, in its turn, dictated the hermeneutics of the readers of pre-modern mystical texts: their intellectual background had been formed by more or less elaborate theories of religion based on individual religious experience while their attachment to the Church had been correspondingly reduced even though the vast majority were, at least notionally, still members of one of the Christian churches.
33 34

Johannes Zachhuber 27/1/13 17:27 Deleted: scapegoats, a

Cf. R. Girard, The Scapegoat, trans. Y. Freccero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). K. Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2: The Doctrine of the Word of God, trans. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight (London: Continuum, 2004), 20 esp. at p. 62535. 35 Cf. for some of those Molendijk, Bewusste Mystik, p. 39. 36 Cf. for this problem my paper The Rhetoric of Evil and the Definition of Christian Identity, in P. Fiddes and J. Schmidt (eds), Vom Bsen Reden/Rhetoric of Evil (Wrzburg: Ergon, 2013). 37 Troeltsch, Social Teaching, vol. 1, 245 (= Soziallehren, p. 23). 38 Ibid. 39 Molendijk, Bewusste Mystik, p. 42.

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At the same time, forces were lined up in outright competition with, and opposition to, Christianity. New world views vied for predominance in the ideological field of ultimate truths and values; social movements were attempting to take control of the principles of politics, education, law, and economics (traditionally governed by Christianity); science, history, and philosophy kept producing new insights that, even where they were not intended to conflict with Christian explanations, posed radical challenges to traditional religion and theology. Much of Troeltschs extensive oeuvre was devoted to an exploration of these challenges and of ways Church and theology of his time could confront them. Clearly, then, mysticism had to be counted as a potentially friendly force. Those who were attracted by it evidently agreed with Troeltsch in their desire to find a practicable alternative to modernitys anti-religious promises, however vague and under-defined their idea of such an alternative was. The theological response to mysticism in the Ritschl School, by contrast, had to appear inept and beside the point from Troeltschs perspective, quite characteristic of their generally haughty attitude to the religious realities on the ground.40 Contemporary mysticism, Troeltsch suggests, cannot be written off as Catholic or even Pagan perversions of the biblical faith of the Reformers. Rather, it is the natural end product of the development of modern Protestantism; in particular, its theoretical foundations have been laid by the architects of Germanys proud theological heritage: Kant, Hegel, and Schleiermacher. Is this foundation, however, strong enough to carry the weight of the new edifice that will be needed to provide a future to religion? To this question, as we have seen, Troeltschs answer is unequivocally negative. The history of Christianity suggested to Troeltsch that for a religion to be successful for a long period of time it needed a stable institutional framework. Such a framework, however, could only be created and maintained by individuals willing to imbue it with primary religious significance. They had to believe that the rules that were necessary to maintain the institution were equally necessary to guarantee their salvation. Without such a belief nobody would be prepared to invest as heavily into institutional preservation and perpetuity as was needed for its long-time stability. No mystic in the modern sense of the word, however, could sincerely and earnestly adopt such a belief; while they might be willing to appreciate and to use the institutional structures of the Church, they would always inevitably consider them inferior in significance to the faith that existed just like the Kingdom of God according to some translations of Luke 17:21 it was within them. This made their position paradoxical if not tragic: for their very existence they depend on structures that can only be perpetuated on the basis of a very different set of beliefs, for whose rejection the mystics have any number of good reasons. III. At this point, my conclusion can be brief. There may be many reasons why one would wish to dismiss Troeltschs account of mysticism when talking about contemporary approaches to this phenomenon: he wrote on the basis of a world of ideas that is no longer ours; even in his own time he was not a scholar of mystical literature and, what is more, from the evidence in The Social Teaching at least, one might even conclude that his interest in mystical authors was fairly superficial and narrow.
40

Cf. B. Sockness, Against False Apologetics: Wilhelm Herrmann and Ernst Troeltsch in Conflict (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).

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Yet at the same time, Troeltsch defies expectations. Today, scholars frequently argue against contemporary misconceptions of pre-modern mysticism which overlook their integration into the ecclesiastical systems of their time.41 As we have seen, if Troeltsch is unequivocal about one thing, it is that mysticism can only ever come into existence on the basis of an existing institutionalized religion. And while his attempt to draw a line from medieval and early modern mystics to the increasingly individualized forms of religiosity of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries may be open to critical questioning, he draws attention to the fact that modern interest in the mystical tradition has usually coincided with periods in which large groups of people search for religious identity but are wary to commit themselves to the rigid discipline of a traditional Church. Finally, his partly aporetic reasoning about the paradoxical nature of a conception of religion that seeks to relativize its institutional elements while at the same time depending on them for its existence seems strangely topical in todays situation. Troeltschs concept of mysticism, then, is arguably of limited value for the historian or the scholar of religious phenomena. The mystic-type, in spite of its Weberian cast, is not a theoretical claim about the social realisation of religion in general. It is, for Troeltsch, a particular explanation for the genesis of modern Protestantism with its emphasis on interiority and the immediacy of religious experience combined with areluctance to commit to institutional religion. This modern religion finds its self-justification in theories explaining interior experience as the heart and the origin of all religion. Leaving ecclesial institutions or taking a detached attitude to them becomes from this perspective an act of conversion to a truer form of religion, the disposal of a traditional but highly problematic garment protecting but also concealing the very kernel of Christianity. Rightly or wrongly, these modern spiritualists like to see earlier mystics as their precursors who are called upon as witnesses to the existence of the same spiritual truth throughout the ages. This is Troeltschs diagnosis on the basis of early twentieth century German Protestantism, but it would be hard to deny that at the beginning of the twenty first century many of the same observations apply to a much broader range of churches across the Western hemisphere. Troeltschs merciless analysis therefore makes for painful, at times almost harrowing reading. The absence in his own writing of a convincing answer to the complex set of problems he unearthed must be noted, but should not trigger a sense of benign or not so benign condescension given the collective inability of ecclesial and theological leaders over the past century to do better: Christian mysticism within or outside of ecclesial institutions (certainly not only Protestant ones!) is very much the religion of the educated classes today. Now as then, it likes to forget its actual dependence on the Church-type and to think of itself as a purified form of religion, supported in this assumption by some of the most influential theorists. At the same time, the waning cultural, ethical, and intellectual prominence and indeed competence of the major churches increasingly takes away many of the motivations that traditionally facilitated their affirmation by a majority of the population, and exposes the absence of a convincing theological justification of the Church-type in the face of its evident ecclesiological shortcomings. BIBLIOGRAPHY

41

Cf. D. Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: CUP, 1998).

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Anon., Theologia Germanica: Which setteth forth many fair Lineaments of Divine Truth, and says very lofty and lovely things touching a perfect Life, ed. F. Pfeiffer, trans. S. Winkworth (Andover: W. F. Draper, 1857). Arndt, J., True Christianity, trans. Peter Erb (New York: Paulist Press, 1979). Barth, K., Church Dogmatics I/2: The Doctrine of the Word of God, trans. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight (London: Continuum, 2004). Brunner, E., Die Mystik und das Wort: Der Gegensatz zwischen moderner Religionsauffassung und christlichem Glauben dargestellt an der Theologie Schleiermachers (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1924). Furseth, I. and Repstad, P., An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate 1988), pp. 1334. Girard, R., The Scapegoat, trans. Y. Freccero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Harnack, A., The History of Dogma, trans. Neil Buchanan et al. (London: Williams & Norgate, 189499). Molendijk, A. L., Bewusste Mystik: Zur grundlegenden Bedeutung des Mystikbegriffs im Werk von Ernst Troeltsch, Neue Zeitschrift fr Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 41 (1999), 3961. Rasmussen, J. Mysticism as a Category of Inquiry in the Philosophies of Ernst Troeltsch and William James chapter 3 in this present volume. Ritschl, A., A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, trans. John S. Black (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1872). _________, Geschichte des Pietismus, 3 vols. (Bonn: Marcus, 188086). Schneider, H., Der fremde Arndt: Studien zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung Johann Arndts (15551621) (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006). Sockness, B., Against False Apologetics: Wilhelm Herrmann and Ernst Troeltsch in Conflict (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998). Spener, P. J., On Hindrances to Theological Studies (1680), in P. C. Erb (ed.) The Pietists: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1983). Swatos Jr., W. H., Church-Sect Theory, in idem (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Society (London: AltaMira Press, 1998), pp. 903. Troeltsch, E., Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1912; 2nd ed. 1922).

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__________, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, trans. Olive Wyon (2 vols, London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1931). Turner, D., The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: CUP, 1998). Ullmann, C., Reformatoren vor der Reformation: Vornehmlich in Deutschland und den Niederlanden (2 vols, Hamburg: Perthes, 1841-2). Weber, M., Objectivity in Social Science, in idem, On the Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. E. A. Shils and H. A. Finch (Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1949), pp. 50112. Zachhuber, J., The Rhetoric of Evil and the Definition of Christian Identity, in P. Fiddes and J. Schmidt (eds), Vom Bsen Reden/Rhetoric of Evil (Wrzburg: Ergon, 2013).

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