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HANS ERICH BÖDEKER on.”! This involved more than the mere transfer of contemporary philosophical concerns to theology and the Church or the expression of general eighteenthcentury transfer. After all, there was a tradition within Protestant theology which regarded religious individualism as legitimized both by the New Testament notion of faith and the idea of freedom put forward by the Reformation. The emphasis which Protestant Enlightened theology placed on the right to freedom of religious individual belief brought it into conflict with old Protestant orthodoxy, which was attempting to prevent the imminent disintegration of a unified religious culture. Furthermore, Pietism, in standing up for freedom of conviction, a relaxation of the obligation to confess to a religious creed, and the ending of religious polemics, had prepared the ground for theological Enlightenment, even if, for reasons of dogma, it was often critical of it.” The theologian Johann Joachim Spalding (1714-1804) turned the development of natural theology into a dependent science of men based on the philosophy of religion. At the same time, building upon the premises of contemporary philosophy, he advocated religious subjectivity. Thus he retrospectively wrote in his autobiography: “I learned to come to terms with myself more and more, and conscience became increasingly important to me.””? Above all, however, it was Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791), the leading representative of historical-critical Enlightenment theology in Germany,** who reflected upon and developed new approaches to religious individualism in the theological discourse. Semler deserves the credit for having applied the crucial distinction between religion and theology to the modernization of theology.*° 21 Cf. SPARN, “Verniinftiges Christentum” (note 3). 22 Cf. especially BRECHT, Martin (ed.), Pietismus im 18. Jahrhundert. Geschichte des Pietismus, Vol. 2, Göttingern, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995. See also WALLMANN, Johannes, Der Pietismus, 2nd ed., Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005, as well as useful suveys SCHMIDT, Martin, Pietismus, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1972, and SCHARFE, Martin, Die Religion des Volkes. Kleine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte des Pietismus, Gütersloh, Mohn, 1980. SPALDING, Johann Joachim, Lebensbeschreibung von ihm selbst aufgesetzt und herausgegeben mit einem Zusatz von dessen Sohn Karl Ludewig Spalding, Halle, Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1804, 15.; for Spalding see now BEUTEL, Albrecht, Johann Joachim Spalding. Meistertheologe im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2014. > Cf. HornIg, Gottfried, Die Anfänge der historisch - kritischen Theologie. Johann Salomo Semlers Schriftverständnis und seine Stellung zu Luther. Forschungen zur Systematischen Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, Vol. 8, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961, and SCHRÖTER, Marianne, Aufklärung durch Historisierung. Johann Salomo Semlers Hermeneutik des Christentums, Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, 2012. °5 Cf. Hess, Hans-Eberhard, Theologie und Religion bei Johann Salomo Semler. Ein Beitrag zur Theologiegeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, PhD thesis, Free University of Berlin, 1974, and AHLERs, Botho, Die Unterscheidung von Theologie und Religion. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der Praktischen Theologie im 18. Jahrhundert, Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1980, 101ff. + 94 +
