Aizawl Theological College

Paper Presentation
Subject: Jesus Christ
Topic: Jesus of History and Christ of faith debate: Original quest for the historical
Jesus: Contribution of English Deism and German Enlightenment
Course Facilitator: Dr. Lalnghakthuami
Paper Presenter: Zothanpuia
Paper Respondent: Rev. Jerome Lalchhuanga
Date of Presentation: 20th January 2020
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Introduction

There are different understandings of the quest for the historical Jesus, and still not exist the
finest which is universal. And this paper will try to deal with the contribution and debates of
the Deists and Enlightenment theology towards the development of the quest for the
historical Jesus to have a deeper understanding of quest of Jesus.

1. Jesus of History

Samuel George had mentioned that the name “Jesus” refers to the figure, who was born, lived
and died within human history 2000 years ago. At times, this figure will also referred to as
the historical Jesus or Jesus of Nazareth by which we mean the life of Jesus, Jesus’ words and
actions, activities and the praxis, the attitudes and spirit, the fate on the cross and the
resurrection. Jesus of history and historical Jesus are used interchangeably. 1

2. Christ of faith

The Christ of faith is what taught about Jesus after his crucifixion and resurrection – the post-
Easter Jesus. The emphasis is more on the divinity and Lordship of Jesus. As the early
Church grew, so did their beliefs about Jesus. The beliefs replaced the historical facts. It was
in 1892, that Martin Kahler tried to distinguish between the historical Jesus or the Jesus of
history and the Christ whom the Church proclaimed in its Gospels, or the Christ of
Geschichte (meta history/ salvation history), as mentioned by Samuel George.2

3. Quest for the Historical Jesus

The search for the outline and character of the historical life of Jesus has, since the Age of
Enlightenment, occupied and fascinated many of the academic minds of the Western world

1
Samuel George, Christology (Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2013), 2.
2
Samuel George, Christology, 2.

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have few other historical problems. At time, this so called “quest of the historical Jesus” has
moved outside the confines of academic circles and engaged attention of the average man. 3
The quest of the historical Jesus has dynamic all of its own.4

4. Original quest for the Historical Jesus

Both the English Deism and German Enlightenment developed the thesis that there was a
serious discrepancy between the real Jesus of history and the New Testament interpretation of
Jesus’ significance.5 The original quest for the historical Jesus was based upon the
presupposition that there was a radical gulf between the historical figure of Jesus and the
interpretation which the Christian Church had placed Jesus. The historical Jesus lies behind
the New Testament was a simple religious teacher; the Christ of faith was a misrepresentation
of this simple figure by early Church writers. By going back to the historical Jesus, a more
credible version of Christianity would result, stripped of all unnecessary and inappropriate
dogmatic additions (such as the idea of resurrection or the divinity of Christ).6

Such ideas, although frequently expressed by English Deists during the seventeenth century,
received their classic statements in Germany in the late eighteenth century, especially through
the posthumously published writings of Hermann Samuel Reimarus (Apology for Rational
Worshipper of God, which remain unpublished and being manuscript until his death). The
resulting “quest for the historical Jesus” arose as a direct result of the growing rationalist
suspicion that the New Testament portrayal of Christ was a dogmatic invention. It was
possible to reconstruct the real historical figure of Jesus, and disentangle Jesus from the
dogmatic ideas in which the apostles had clothed Jesus. 7

4.1.Contribution of English Deism

Deism arose in the mid –sixteenth century out of the sense of dissatisfaction with traditional
Christianity - with its basis on the authority and Scripture, and particularly its foundation on
divine revelation.

a) Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury (1538-1648)

3
John H. Haves, Son of God to Super Star, Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Jesus (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1976), 13.
4
Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus, A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM Press, 1998), 1.
5
Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology, A Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. Second Edition
(UK: Blackwell Publisher, 2013), 221.
6
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, An Introduction, Sixth Edition (UK: Blackwell Publisher, 2011), 237.
7
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 237.

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Lord E. Herbert, the main forerunner of Deism rejected the notion of special revelation and
attempted to show that all religion have five points in common: the existence of God, the
obligation of worship of the Divine, the moral character of this worship, the need to repent
for sin, and an afterlife of reward and punishment.8 He criticized traditional Christianity’s
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appeal to special revelation, its division over doctrine. He also argued that in as much as
Christianity agrees with natural religion, it is reasonable and true, but when it attempts to add
any elements which are kind of special or positive revelation, it lapses into superstition. 10

b) John Locke (1632- 1704)

Though John Locke was not a Deist, his made numerous contributions to the Deists. Locke
sought to show that many Christian beliefs based on divine revelation were consonant with
reason, though he remained vague on the trinity and deity of Christ. In his treatment of
Christianity as matter of intellectual belief he inverted the traditional view that reason served
faith, whatever God has revealed is true and must be the object of our faith, but actually
counts as having been revealed by God that must be judge by reason. 11

c) Mathew Tindal (1655- 1733)

Tindal’s book Christianity as Old as Creation became to be known as the Bible of Deism, in
which he contended that the purpose of the Gospel is not about to bring objective redemption,
but, to demonstrate the universal natural law that is the foundation and content of all true
religion, thereby freeing humanity from superstitious religion. He took the work of Locke
that true Christianity is a rational ethical system against a theistic background.12

For Tindal, all beliefs and practice must be judged not only by natural reason but by the
abilities to promote human happiness. God’s purpose in creation was not for His own glory
but for the happiness of His creation. Tindal also takes the position that the basic teachings of
Jesus are validated by human reason but church leaders have added many doctrines and
practices that are either contradictory to the teachings of Jesus and are sometimes not
essential in Christianity. 13

8
Justo L. Gonzalez, A History of Christian Thought, Vol- III, From the Protestant Reformation to the Twenteith
Century (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987), 335.
9
Trevor A. Hart, ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology (UK: Paternoter Press, 2000), 152.
10
Justo L. Gonzalez, A History of Christian Thought, 335.
11
Trevor A. Hart, ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 153.
12
Trevor A. Hart, ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 154.
13
James C. Livingstone, Modern Christian Thought, Vol- I (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 23.

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 d) John Toland (1670-1722)

The Irishman John Toland published his Christianity not Mysterious, which portrayed Jesus
as a preacher of simple, moralistic and social religion. He regarded Locke as his teacher.14
For Toland, Christianity can be understood by human mind and revelation is not necessary,
and that all elements of mystery to be found in the traditional Christianity are either borrowed
from paganism or inventions of the clergy. 15

The above Deists have common understanding that, God created everything, and after the
creation, God left the creation to govern itself, and God is not active anymore. Christ is a
Deist, the reformer, who was a human and not capable of the redeeming his fellow humans.
The traditional Christians belief in Satan and hell but it was not so as believe by the Deists.

4.2.Contribution of German Enlightenment

The European intellectual and social history known as the Enlightenment covers roughly a
period from the English Revolution of 1688 to the French Revolution in 1789 and could also
be claimed up to the late 19th century.

a) Herman Samuel Reimarus (1694- 1768)

Reimarus argued that the supernatural elements could not be taken seriously. It was therefore
necessary to interpret Scripture along the rational lines and for him, the apostolic church
concealed Jesus of history from us and Jesus was a Jewish reformer who became increasingly
fanatical and politicised but failed. 16 With these ideologies, Reimarus argued that here was a
radical difference between the beliefs and intentions of Jesus himself and those of the
apostolic church. Jesus’ language and images of God were, according to Reimaus, those of
Jewish apocalyptic visionary, with a radically limited chronological and political reference
and relevance. Jesus accepted the late Jewish expectation of a messiah who would deliver his
people from the Romans, and believed that God would assist him in this task. Jesus’ cry of
dereliction on the cross represented his final realisation that he had been deluded and
mistaken. 17

14
Trevor A. Hart, ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 153.
15
Justo L. Gonzalez, A History of Christian Thought, 336.
16
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 119.
17
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 237.

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For Reimarus, it is possible to go beyond the New Testament accounts of Jesus and uncover a
simpler, more human Jesus who would be acceptable to the new spirit of the age. He also
argued that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead cannot be sustained because it involved
contradiction in both the evidence and the logic of the argument. The perceived failure of the
argument from miracle compelled theology to base the doctrine of the divinity of Christ on
grounds other than miracles. Jesus is no longer the Saviour of fallen humanity, instead a
simple Galilean teacher showing us how to lead a morally virtuous life. 18

b) F.D.E. Schleiemacher (1768-1834)

Schleiermacher has two positions that are crucial for his resolution of the Christological
enigma. First, the essential character of perfect human nature is just to express the divine.
There is no real duality between perfect human nature and the divine. Second, human nature
only achieves its perfection in Jesus Christ; in fact the creation of human beings is ordered to
perfection in and through Jesus Christ.

Schleiermacher’s understanding of the work of Christ in such a way that Jesus awakens the
God-consciousness and establishes the dominance of spirit over the flesh, at the same time,
Jesus establish the kingdom of God. Both movements are interdependent and co-related. The
Passion of Christ, for Schleiermacher is not some primitive element in redemption and
reconciliation. For him, Jesus’ suffering is a result of entering to the fullness of humanity.
Only in this sense can it be said that Jesus’ suffering is for the whole human race. Jesus is
perfectly receptive to this divine love in virtue of his absolute dependence on God the Father,
Jesus expresses this love in being born as a human being. 19

c) David Freidrich Strauss (1808-1874)

It was D. F. Strauss who first used the concept of myth as an important tool to study the
Bible. 20 Strauss’s focus in The Life of Jesus Critically Examined was theological or dogmatic
rather than historical. Strauss combined the negative assumption that the causal order
excluded the passivity of supernatural intervention in history and by implication, the
miraculous phenomena attested in the Gospel story, with the positive criterion that the

18
Trevor A. Hart, ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 181, 458.
19
Samuel George, Christology, 48.
20
Samuel George, Christology, 53.

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representation of such phenomena bore the marks of myth. Myth could be recognized by
form (e.g., poetry) and content (e.g., Jewish legend).21

By this means he sought to distinguish fact from fiction in the Gospel records concerning
Jesus and to give a genetic account of the origin of the writing of the non-historical stories.
Strauss made a distinctive contribution to the debate of his time, i.e., myth, that unlike
Reimarus, for Strauss, resurrection has to be viewed as a myth – not deliberate fabrication,
but an interpretation of events. He argues that mythical language is the natural mode of
expression of the primitive group culture which had yet to rise to the level to abstract
conceptualization.22

d) Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

In 1901 at the age of 26, Albert Schweitzer wrote an important work on the life of Jesus:
“Das Messianitats- und Leidensgeheimis: Ein Skizze des Leben Jesu”23 and in 1906 he
published von Reimarus zu Wrede: Eine Geschichte der Leben Jesu Forschung.24 He seemed
to found himself captivated by the problems of the life of Jesus and set about trying to
understand them by investigating their history.

Schweitzer emphasized the eschatological message of Jesus. For him, the liberal portrait of
Jesus was a false modernisation. But he believed that it might help in reaching the historical
Jesus. Schweitzer was sure that a life of Jesus cannot be constructed from the sources that
were available about Jesus. Schweitzer’s presentation of the historical Jesus was formed in
continual debate with the prevailing pictures of Jesus provided by liberalism of the time.25

Schweitzer is generally silent about empty tomb stories and resurrection of Jesus. Probably
for him, these do not belong to the domain of historians, and Easter tradition had no special
significance for Schweitzer. He remarked that the Christian faith stands by the question of
Jesus’ messianic consciousness. He opines that if faith in Jesus as Messiah only comes from

21
Trevor A. Hart, ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 531.
22
Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology, 300.
23
Albert Schweitzer, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus’ Messiahship and passion, trans.,
Walter Lowrie (New York: Mead, 1914).
24
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede
(London: A. & C. Black Ltd., 1931).
25
Walter P. Weaver, The Historical Jesus in the Twenteith Century (Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International,
1999), 27-28.

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the earthly Church, then Christian faith lost its ground, for “the judgement of the earth
Church is not binding upon us”.26 Only what Jesus said is important.27

e) Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884-1976)

For Bultmann, the conclusion is that what the Gospels tell about Jesus and his life relates
more to the Sitz im Leben, life and situation, of the early church than to the historical life of
Jesus. Again for Bultmann, Christ is both an eschatological prophet and rabbi because of his
persistent eschatological message and characteristic of teaching methods. Like Strauss,
Bultmann gave importance to myth, as myth is not simply a miracle or a story about miracle,
but rather the way in which reality as a whole in conceived. 28

Bultmann sees that the New Testament portrayal of Jesus is heavily coloured by myth and
legends, Labels like vicarious atonement, pre-existent Son of God, virgin birth, empty tomb,
resurrection, and ascension are incomprehensible to the modern mind. He feels that it the
New Testament is to retain its legitimacy then it must be radically demythologized. For him,
the only true historical event is the Easter Faith of the first believers. 29

5. Some issues in the Quest

According to John H. Haves, the issues involving in the quest may be said that four primary
aspects of the life of Jesus have been the focus of concern throughout the modern phase of
the quest. In the first place, there has been a concern to understand Jesus within the context of
his place in history that is within the context of the Jewish community as part of the Roman
Empire of the first century. Geographical, religious, cultural and economic issues of first-
century Judaism have been explored as avenues towards a comprehension of historical
Jesus.30

The second are of concern in the quest centres on the teachings of Jesus, out of this area of
concern has come the conclusion that any adequate understanding of the Jesus of history must
present the content of Jesus’ vision of life whether this vision was ethically, socially,
religiously and/ or politically oriented. The third area concerns the area of research centres on
the death of Jesus. And out of this concern, has come the conclusion that any portrait of the

26
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus:, 5-6.
27
Samuel George, Christology, 52.
28
Samuel George, Christology, 52.
29
Samuel George, Christology, 53.
30
John H. Haves, Son of God to Super Star, 14.

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historical Jesus must take seriously the death of Jesus and seek to understand what actions or
teachings in his life led to his crucifixion. 31

The final concern in research on Jesus centres on the origins of the Church / the Christian
community. Out of this concern, the conviction has come that any historical depiction of the
life and teachings of Jesus must explain what there was in his career which would account for
the birth of the Christian community. 32

According to Ben Witherington III, the first quest, the original quest for the historical Jesus
was began by various scholars and lay people by writing new summaries of the life of Jesus.
One of the first was David Freidrich Strauss’s large work Das Leben Jesu (1834-35). This
work was a clarion call for unbiased historical research to be done on the life of Jesus.
Strauss’s work was followed by many others. Schweitzer had shown that the nineteenth
century had neglected and wrongly minimized the eschatological and apocalyptic dimensions
of Jesus’ life, teachings and actions. Martin Kahler argued that it was quite impossible to
separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of Faith. This argument influenced Paul Tillich
and Rudolf Bultmann, who largely separated the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith. The
problem with this separation is that despite numerous attempts in this century to turn
Christianity into a philosophy of life, it is and has always been historical religion, one that
depends on certain foundational events, particularly the death and resurrection of Jesus. 33

One of the characteristics of the Second or the New Quest was its focus on the present
relevance of Jesus’ teachings. The contribution of the two quests of the historical Jesus is that
it is important to distinguish between what Jesus actually did, said 2000 years ago and what
the historical critical method can discover and conclude about it is very essential. According
to Ben Witherington III, the modified version of teh former will always be the best version. 34

6. Critique of the quest

There are three main criticisms of the quest for the historical Jesus and we shall consider
them individually.

6.1.The apocalyptic critique

31
John H. Haves, Son of God to Super Star, 15.
32
John H. Haves, Son of God to Super Star, 15 &16.
33
Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest, The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (USA: Inter Varsity Press,
1995), 9, 10, 11.
34
Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest, 11 & 12.

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This criticism, primarily associated with Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, maintained
that the strongly eschatological bias of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God called the
essentially Kantian liberal interpretation of the concept into question. Weiss argued that the
idea of the kingdom of God was understood by the liberal Protestants to mean the exercise of
the moral life in society, or supreme ethical ideal. Weiss regarded a substantial part of the
teaching of Jesus as being conditioned by his radical eschatological expectations. Schweitzer
argued that every aspect of the teaching and attitudes of Jesus was determined by his
eschatological outlook. The entire content of Jesus’ message was consistently and thoroughly
conditioned by apocalyptic ideas- ideas which were quite alien to the settled outlook of late
nineteenth century Western Europe.35

Weiss and Schweitzer rediscovered the apocalyptic character of the preaching of Jesus and
argue forcefully that the kingdom of God was an eschatological notion. Jesus was to be seen
not as moral educator of humanity but as the proclaimer of the imminent coming of the
eschatological kingdom of God. This new emphasis proved to be of decisive importance in
bringing about the recovery of eschatology in the later century. 36

6.2.The sceptical critique

This approach, associated particularly with William Wrede, called into question the historical
status of our knowledge of Jesus in the first place. History and theology were closely
intermingled in the Synoptic narratives and could not be disentangled. According to Wrede,
as Alister McGrath stated, Mark was painting the theological picture in the guise of history,
imposing his theology upon the material which he had at his disposal. The second Gospel was
not objectively historical but was actually a creative theological reinterpretation of history. It
was thus impossible to go behind Mark’s narrative and reconstruct the history of Jesus, for
the reason that – if Wrede is right – this narrative is itself a theological construction, beyond
which one cannot go. The quest for the historical Jesus thus comes to an end since it proves
impossible to establish an historical foundation for the real Jesus of history. 37

6.3.The dogmatic critique

This line of criticism, expressed by the dogmatic theologian Martin Kahler, challenged the
theological significance of the reconstruction of the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus was

35
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 238.
36
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 432.
37
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 239.

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an irrelevance to faith which was based upon the Christ of faith. Kahler rightly saw that the
dispassionate and passionate and provisional Jesus of the academic historian cannot become
the object of faith. For Kahler, Christ must be regarded as “suprahistorical” rather than a
historical figure so that the critical-historical method cannot be applied in his case. The
critical historical method could not deal with the suprahistorical (suprahuman) characteristics
of Jesus and hence was obliged to ignore or deny them. The critical-historical method could
only lead to an Arian or Ebionate Christology, on account of its latent dogmatic
presupposition. 38

Historically, it was believed that it was impossible to disentangle the Jesus of the Gospels
from the historical Jesus. Theologically, many felt the quest was theologically illegitimate
because Christianity is based upon faith in Christ rather than the historical person of Jesus.
This inevitably reduces the perceived importance of the historical Jesus. 39

7. Conclusion

The English Deism and German Enlightenment argued the portrayal of Jesus in the New
Testament of being a redeemer of humanity, the divinity of Christ. They also deny the
miracles which Jesus performed with various statements, according to them, if revelation or
miracles are understand scientifically, nothing is miracle. And since the English deism was at
the age of reason, the revelation of God to human is difficult to comprehend as well as the
traditional believe of reason serving faith.

As the historical endeavour, the quest has not been limited to members or exponents of
Christian faith. Many in the Christian Church have, in fact, denounced the quest as either
irrelevant to the Christian faith or as destructive of genuine belief. Others have proclaimed
the effort to be an indispensible requirement and an aid to understand the pristine character of
the Christian religion or as the means to recover a faith beyond the structures of Christian
orthodoxy which would be relevant to and believable by modern man.

38
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 239.
39
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology, 239.

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Bibliography

George, Samuel, Christology . Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2013.

Gonzalez, Justo L., A History of Christian Thought, Vol- III, From the Protestant
Reformation to the Twenteith Century. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987.

Hart, Trevor A., ed., The Dictionary of Historical Theology. UK: Paternoter Press, 2000.

Haves, John H., Son of God to Super Star, Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Jesus.
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976.

Livingstone, James C., Modern Christian Thought, Vol- 1. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.

McGrath, Alister E., Christian Theology, An Introduction, Sixth Edition.UK: Blackwell

Publisher, 2011.

McGrath, Alister E., Historical Theology, A Introduction to the History of Christian Thought.
Second Edition. UK: Blackwell Publisher, 2013.

Schweitzer, Albert, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus’ Messiahship
and passion, trans., Walter Lowrie. New York: Mead, 1914.

Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from
Reimarus to Wrede. London: A. & C. Black Ltd., 1931.

Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus, A Comprehensive Guide. London:
SCM Press, 1998.

Weaver, Walter P., The Historical Jesus in the Twenteith Century. Pennsylvania: Trinity
Press International, 1999.

Witherington III, Ben, The Jesus Quest, The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth. USA:
Inter Varsity Press, 1995.

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