Quiz: Who Penned These Lines?

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Theology quiz for the day: Who wrote these lines? Extra credit if you can name the text as well:

That task [of constructing theology according to Luther's principle] I essay in the full consciousness that my action is justified and rendered imperative by the standard writings of the Reformation. But if we can rightly know God only if we know Him through Christ, then we can know Him only if we belong to the community of believers. Not only, however, are God and all the operations of His grace to be construed through the revelation in Christ, but even sin can be appreciated only in virtue of the forgiveness of sins which is Christ's special gift.

Need another hint? The same author penned these lines a few paragraphs later:

[I]f anyone builds Christian theology on a substructure of pretended Natural Theology, the rationalistic arguments of Augustine about original sin, and those of Anselm about the nature of redemption, he thereby takes his stand outside the sphere of regeneration, which is coterminous with the community of believers.

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Comments

Unknown said…
Is it Ritschl? It certainly sounds like him.
March 17, 2014 11:45 AM
Unknown said…
My guess for work would be Justification and Reconciliation. That's the only Ritschl that I have read, so that has to be where I know it from.
March 17, 2014 11:48 AM
J. Scott Jackson said…
Yes, indeed: Albrecht Ritschl, German theologian (1822- 1889). Apparently, there's also an economist at the London School of Economics named Albrecht Ritschl, but you've covered yourself by naming the correct text as well.

Next time, apparently, we'll have to pick something more difficult.
March 17, 2014 12:02 PM
jason goroncy said…
Yes, it's from Ritschl's 'The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation'.

A more challenging quiz would be to work out who wrote the 'Please prove you're not a robot' thingy that you need to fill in to leave this comment, and who taught them how to spell ;-)
March 17, 2014 1:33 PM
J. Scott Jackson said…
Mr. Kelly wins Carl Kasell's voice on his answering machine. Mr. Goroncy, sadly, wins nothing, but is hereby drafted to propose a quotation for the next quiz ;)
March 18, 2014 8:46 PM
Jason Goroncy said…
I may work on something yet ...
March 30, 2014 4:03 PM
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