Die Katholische Tübinger Schule: Zur Geschichte ihrer Wahrnehmung by Stefan Warthmann (review)

This scholarly work is a dissertation done at Tübingen University and, not surprisingly, exhibits an astounding control of the primary and secondary sources. In sometimes repetitive detail, Stefan Warthmann explores what is meant by “school.” Is the school to be defined by the faculty belonging to it? Is it to be the institutional group supporting the Theologische Quartalschrift? Is the school to be defined by the direction that it set for theological reflection right into the modern era? Warthmann extensively analyzes the issues raised by these questions, but selects “direction” as the concept to describe the school.

The school itself originated as a vigorous reaction to the Enlightenment and was nurtured by the romanticism, idealism, and historicism popular in early-nineteenth-century Germany along with the pastoral theological impetus provided by Johann Michael Sailer. The founders of the school itself were Johann Sebastian von Drey, who set the romantic, organic, and historical tone of the theological methodology, which was then reinforced by Johann Adam Möhler. Other early scholars in this tradition who carried forward the methodology of “doing theology” were Franz Anton Staudenmaier and Johann Evangelist von Kuhn; they went beyond the subjectivism of Friedrich Schleiermacher and were influenced by a Hegelian idealism that could support doctrinal development. For these theologians, doctrine was tied to the ongoing expressions of the historical Christian communities as they reflected within their historical contexts. Truth did not change, but rather matured or unfolded in an organic fashion.

Clearly, such an approach could be viewed by some as potentially endangering the transcendental truth offered by the institutional Church. Warthmann provides his most significant contribution by stressing how the scholars in this school’s tradition responded to accusations of infidelity and influenced other theologians and church historians in France, England, Italy, Spain, and the United States as they all wrestled with the role of historical development in the theological enterprise. Such scholars as Cardinal John Henry Newman; Cardinal Yves Congar, O.P.; Karl Adam; and Josef Rupert Geiselmann have contributed in a major fashion to the influence of this school. Warthmann also explicates the contributions of other scholars such as Karl Werner, Fritz Vigener, and Georges Rouzet. Clearly the school goes beyond its original institutionalization in Tübingen. The school helped formulate a “direction” that theologians who wanted to embrace modernity could take. As he explores the school’s influence, Warthmann carefully investigates the general relation of philosophy to theology and so can comment on the role of neo-Scholasticism as a rival direction. Specific concepts such as “living tradition,” historically maturing, and the “kingdom of God” model have permeated the entire Tübingen tradition and have been given new life through the efforts of Karl Rahner, Cardinal Walter Kasper, and the Second Vatican Council.

Warthmann has thoroughly studied the birth and continuing life of this school and has analyzed how it has created generations of conversation partners with those theologians following other directions. He concludes by stressing how important it is to recognize that unity can be delineated by embracing the notion of multiplicity. Warthmann’s work is certainly not the last word in the scholarship stimulated by the worldview formulated by this school, but his study of this theological direction can help isolate the directions to be pursued by other contemporary scholars.