Vol. 1 - History of the Catholic Church from Renaissance to French Revolution

designs of the Encyclopaedists, and threw all kinds of obstacles in the
way of those who sought to uphold the teaching of the Church, but soon
they had reason to regret their approval of a campaign that led
directly to revolution.

(b) The Aufklarung Movement in Germany.

See bibliography (viii. a). Tholuck, /Abriss einer geschichte der
Umwalzung seit 1750 auf dem Gebiete der Theologie in Deutschland/,
1839. Staudlin, /Geschichte des Rationalismus und
Supranaturalismus/, 1826. Bruck, /Die rationalistischen
Bestrebungen im Kath. Deutschland/, 1867. Weiner, /Geschichte der
Kath. Theologie in Deutschland/, 1889. Wolfram, /Die Illuminantem
in Bayern und ihre Verfolgung/, 1898-1900.

In Germany the religious formularies, composed with the object of
securing even an appearance of unity or at least of preventing
religious chaos, were not powerful enough to resist the anti-Christian
Enlightenment that swept over Europe in the eighteenth century. At
best these formularies were only the works of men who rejected the
authority of the Church, and as works of men they could not be
regarded as irreformable. With the progress of knowledge and the
development of human society it was thought that they required
revision to bring them more into harmony with the results of science
and with the necessities of the age. The influence of the writings
imported from England and France, backed as it was by the approval and
example of Frederick II. of Prussia, could not fail to weaken dogmatic
Christianity among the Lutherans of Germany. The philosophic teaching
of Leibniz (1646-1710), who was himself a strong upholder of dogmatic
Christianity and zealous for a reunion of Christendom, had a great
effect on the whole religious thought of Germany during the eighteenth
century. In his great work, /Theodicee/, written against Bayle to
prove that there was no conflict between the kingdoms of nature and
grace, greater stress was laid upon the natural than on the
supernatural elements in Christianity. His disciples, advancing beyond
the limits laid down by the master, prepared the way for the rise of
theological rationalism.

One of the greatest of the disciples of Leibniz was Christian Wolf
(1679-1754), who was not himself an opponent of supernatural religion.
The whole trend of his arguments, however, went to show that human
reason was the sole judge of the truths of revelation, and that
whatever was not in harmony with the verdict of reason must be
eliminated. Many of his disciples like Remiarus, Mendelssohn, and
Garve developed the principles laid down by Wolf until the very
mention of dogma was scouted openly, and Theism itself was put forward
as only the most likely among many possible hypotheses. In the
revulsion against dogmatic beliefs the party of the Pietists founded
by Spener towards the end of the seventeenth century found much
support, while the Conscientiarians, who maintained that man's own
conscience was the sole rule of faith, and that so long as man acts in
accordance with the dictates of conscience he is leading the life of
the just, gained ground rapidly. Some of its principal leaders were
Matthew Knutzen and Christian Edlemann who rejected the authority of
the Bible. The spread of Rationalism was strengthened very much by the
appearance of the /Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek/, founded in 1764 by
Nicolai in Berlin, through the agency of which books hostile to
Christianity were scattered broadcast amongst a large circle of
readers.

These rationalistic principles, when applied to the Bible and the
interpretation of the Bible, helped to put an end to the very rigid
views regarding the inspiration of the sacred writings entertained by
the early Lutherans. Everything that was supernatural or miraculous
must be explained away. To do so without denying inspiration the
"Accommodation" theory, namely that Christ and His apostles
accommodated themselves to the mistaken views of their contemporaries,
was formulated by Semler (1725-1791). But more extreme men, as for
example, Lessing (1729-1781), who published the /Wolfenbuttler
Fragments/ written by Reimarus in which a violent onslaught was made
upon the Biblical miracles more especially on the Resurrection of
Christ, attacked directly the miracles of Christianity, and wrote
strongly in favour of religious indifference.

The rationalistic dogmatism of Wolf when brought face to face with the
objections of Hume did not satisfy Immanuel Kant (1720-1804), who in
his /Critique of Pure Reason/ (1781) denied that it was possible for
science or philosophy to reach a knowledge of the substance or essence
of things as distinguished from the phenomena, and that consequently
the arguments used generally to prove the existence of God were
worthless. In his own /Critique of Practical Reason/ (1788), however,
he endeavoured to build up what he had pulled down, by showing that
the moral law implanted in the heart of every human being necessarily
implied the existence of a supreme law-giver. For Kant religion was to