SECTION I

general survey

The Gospel history is, in its very nature, a criticism of the world—a test of the world by the absolutely correct standard of its eternal destiny, which is manifested in Christ. It is a sentence passed upon all other lives, upon the assumption of the truth of the divine-human life. And in communicating itself to, and implanting itself in humanity, it diffuses a life which is essentially critical; it originates a critical examination, not only of the world’s worth, but also of its own merits. Thus it is in the nature of the critical agency of the Gospel history, that it should evoke an antagonistic criticism on the part of all those whose points of view it subordinates or opposes. The philosophy, however, of Christian consciousness, with respect to its conviction of the certainty of Gospel history, must be ever more and more developed by the dialectics of this antagonistic criticism, and thus an evangelical criticism of the Gospel history arises. This criticism, on its formal side, institutes tests by which the Gospel history is to be tried, while, on its material side, it undertakes a scientific examination of the nature of the Gospels, and of the Gospel history.