Against False Apologetics: Wilhelm Herrmann and Ernst Troeltsch in Conflict

Brent W. Sockness takes as his point of departure the judgment frequently encountered in twentieth-century theological literature that the last great German liberal Protestant systematic theologians prior to the rise of dialectical theology, Wilhelm Herrmann (1846-1922) and Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), represent antithetical and paradigmatic alternatives in modern Christian theology. Going beyond the usual 'explanations' which invoke abstract allegiances (Kant vs. Schleiermacher, Marburg vs. Heidelberg neo-Kantianism, Ritschlianism vs. the History-of-Religions School), the author undertakes an exhaustive analysis of the nearly thirty years of mutual commentary, critique, and polemic which transpired between Herrmann and Troeltsch in both published and unpublished sources. Sockness charts the contours of their relations from their first encounters among the 'Friends of the Christian World,' through their increasingly hostile exchanges in the first decade of the century, to their personal reconciliation after the War.