Hegel (1770-1831) was also partly an attempt to provide an alternative understanding of God to that of orthodox Christianity. His solution lay in basing theology on religious experience. In theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) looked for a new approach that accepted Kant’s criticisms of the proofs for the existence of God and his strictures on the limitations of human thought. The attempt to ‘outflank’ Kant was a major pre-occupation of nineteenth-century thinkers. Without the words of the Bible, there could be no revelation. Our knowledge of him is always mediated by events, experiences and words. We do not see God directly as he is in himself. We do not have direct access to God, not even through the Bible. Jesus himself used picture language to convey truths that could not be put in any other way but by symbols. It is inevitable that our language uses a great deal of symbolism. To say that our minds work in terms of time and space is not the same as saying that we can have no insight into what lies behind our existence in that time and space. It still leaves unanswered the question of whether God can be known in some other way. But to reject the traditional proofs for God’s existence is simply to see the flaws in the logic of particular arguments. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Immanuel Kant had put his finger on many of the weaknesses in the traditional arguments for the existence of God and the old approach of philosophy to religion. It is often the case with philosophers that what they hand out as a solution is only the old problem in another form. If the truth of the Bible could be shown to be doubtful, then there would be nothing left on which Christian faith could stand, according to some of these critics.Ī Continent Come of Age – God and the European Philosophers: From science, in the shape of the theory of evolution, from philosophy in the form of alternative world-views intended to make belief in God obsolete, and from history in the guise of biblical criticism. It found itself challenged from all three directions at the same time. The whole fabric of Christianity was called into question as science, philosophy and history were all called upon to show that the Christian faith no longer had one leg to stand on, let alone two. The seeds of doubt that had been sown by the rationalists of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were nurtured by sceptics and deists and came to fruition in the early nineteenth century. The Victorian age was one of authority and conformity for many, but it was also one of dissent, doubt and seething discontent. While the solemn Mr Gladstone (pictured above right) was observed to hang on the words of the rawest curate in the pulpit, and volumes of sermons found ready purchasers among the faithful, there were others who were less reverent.
But there is another side to the picture. The very word ‘Victorian’ has passed into the English language as the epitome of grim, humourless authoritarianism, heavy-handed religion and ugliness. Victorian Britain – An Age of Conformity?įor many people in the early twenty-first century, the title ‘mid-Victorian Britain’ conjures up an image of church-going, sabbath seriousness, packed pews and the head of the household, invariably the father, questioning his progeny on the points of the morning sermon. British Prime Ministers of the mid-Victorian Age: Benjamin Disraeli (left) and William Gladstone (right).ĭisraeli converted from Judaism and Gladstone was a keen Churchman.
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