Book Description

History of Christian Dogma is a translation of Ferdinand Christian Baur's Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, second edition, 1858. The Lehrbuch, which Baur himself prepared, summarizes in 400 pages his lectures on the history of Christian dogma, published post-humously in four volumes. Baur, professor of theology at the University of Tubingen from 1826 to 1860, brilliantly applied Hegelian categories to his historical studies in New Testament, church history, and history of Christian dogma. According to Baur, "Dogma" is the rational articulation of the Christian "idea" or principle-the idea that God and humanity are united through Christ and reconciled in the faith of the spiritual community. Following an introduction on the concept and history of the history of dogma, the Lehrbuch treats three main periods: the dogma of the ancient church or the substantiality of dogma; the dogma of the Middle Ages or the dogma of inwardly reflected consciousness; and dogma in the modern era or dogma and free self-consciousness. The entire history is a progression in the self-articulation of dogma through conflict and resolution, moving gradually from objective to subjective forms and to the mediation of subject and object by the philosophers and theologians of the early nineteenth century. The detailed analyses provide a wealth of information on individual thinkers and doctrines that is still relevant today.