In Germany the term rationalism is more definite in its reference than in England, but is not always used in quite the same sense. The two defective and mutually opposed schools of thought that Kant sought to supersede by his critical philosophy were, on the one hand, a shal low empiricism, and on the other, a baseless and overweening metaphysical dogmatism or rationalism. Bacon also contrasted empirical philosophers with rationalists who spin their systems as spiders do cobwebs, out of their own bowels. Wolff presents the most con spicuous example of the philosophical rationalism which held that all that is in heaven above and earth beneath could be "proved" by pseudo-mathematical methods; and as God, responsibility, and immortality were among the things that could be proved at endless length and in various ways, this philosophical ration alism led directly up to a rationalist the ology, which consisted mainly in a series of dogmas to be demonstrated from the philosophical axioms, including some at least of the doctrines of revealed reli gion. What in revelation could not be demonstrated according to this scheme was disallowed or explained away. Practical religion became, in the Auf klarung, a system of mere utilitarian morals.
Kant prepared the way for a deeper view of man, history, and the universe; but his own explicit statements on posi tive religion were pronouncedly ration alistic; and the negative side of his phil osophy was well calculated to lay the foundations of another school of theo logical rationalists (often called vulgar rationalism), of whom Tieftrunk (died 1837), Bretschneider (1776-1848), and Wegscheider (1771-1849) may be taken as representatives. De Wette (1780 1849) shows the transition to Schleier macher, who (though in the English sense of the word he was an outspoken rationalist) combined what was best in the opposing schools of rationalists and supernaturalists, founded a higher and truer religious philosophy, and heralded even the "pectoral theology" of the medi ation school.
But it was not in the sphere of specu lation and dogma, but in that of Biblical criticism, that German rationalism ac complished its main work, and left its deepest mark on subsequent theological development. In the early 18th century the "Germans in Greek were sadly to seek," as English scholars thought; Ger mans themselves admitted that in study ing the Scriptures they failed to escape from dogmatic presuppositions, and that it was the English divines who approach ed the New Testament in a historical spirit, which in the Germany of that day caused misgivings. It is noteworthy that
Semler (1725-1791), "the father of ra tionalism," obtained the doctorate for a thesis written against Whiston, Bentley, and other English scholars in defense of the "three heavenly witnesses" of I John, v: 7. Semler in the schools, supported by Lessing and Herder in literature, was soon teaching that the books of the Bible must be studied as human produc tions: Eichhorn (1752-1827) thoroughly accepted and applied that principle. Ra tionalist criticism was carried to an ab surd length by Paulus (1761-1851), who taught that the Gospels contained natu ral and not supernatural events, and whose most ingenious but inept "explana tions" of the miracles of the New Testa ment, "retaining everywhere the husk but surrendering the religious kernel," were made a laughingstock by Strauss. Strauss' "mythical theory" (excessively rationalist in the English sense of the term) was in its turn superseded by Baur, and the new Tubingen school, whose epoch-making work marks the opening of the most recent period in Scriptural criticism. The "notes" of the newer criticism, whether more or less rationalist from the older English point of view, are the conviction that all truth is one, whether derived from the natural sciences, historical research, the dictates of conscience, or the records of divine revelation, and the willingness to accept what is apparently established by the consensus of scholars even where this involves giving up the belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Many of the contentions of self-confident and aggres sive rationalism have long since mutu ally destroyed one another. Nothing can be more contrary to the true historic and scientific spirit than the assump tions of a reckless sciolism: there is a false and a true rationalism; and it should be remembered that much that is now most surely believed by all has at one time or another been branded as rationalistic.