What we may call "other-worldliness" (_Jenseitigkeit_) was obliterated
little by little by "this-worldliness" (_Diesseitigkeit_); and this in
spite of Kant, who wished to save it, but by destroying it. To its
earthly vocation and passive trust in God is due the religious
coarseness of Lutheranism, which was almost at the point of expiring in
the age of the Enlightenment, of the _Aufklaerung_, and which pietism,
infusing into it something of the religious sap of Catholicism, barely
succeeded in galvanizing a little. Hence the exactness of the remarks of
Oliveira Martins in his magnificent _History of Iberian Civilization_,
in which he says (book iv., chap, iii.) that "Catholicism produced
heroes and Protestantism produced societies that are sensible, happy,
wealthy, free, as far as their outer institutions go, but incapable of
any great action, because their religion has begun by destroying in the
heart of man all that made him capable of daring and noble
self-sacrifice."
Take any of the dogmatic systems that have resulted from the latest
Protestant dissolvent analysis--that of Kaftan, the follower of Ritschl,
for example--and note the extent to which eschatology is reduced. And
his master, Albrecht Ritschl, himself says: "The question regarding the
necessity of justification or forgiveness can only be solved by
conceiving eternal life as the direct end and aim of that divine
operation.
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