Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

BUSHNELL, HORACE (1802-1876)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 873 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

BUSHNELL, See also:HORACE (1802-1876) , See also:American theologian, was See also:born in the See also:village of See also:Bantam, township of See also:Litchfield, See also:Connecticut, on the 14th of See also:April 1802. He graduated at Yale in 1827, was See also:associate editor of the New See also:York See also:Journal of See also:Commerce in 1828-1829, and in 1829 became a See also:tutor at Yale. Here he at first took up the study of See also:law, but in 1831 he entered the theological See also:department of Yale See also:College, and in 1833 was ordained pastor of the See also:North Congregational See also:church in See also:Hartford, See also:Conn., where he remained until 1859, when on See also:account of See also:long-continued See also:ill-See also:health he resigned his pastorate. Thereafter he. had no settled See also:charge, but, until his See also:death at Hartford on the 17th of See also:February 1876, he occasionally preached and was diligently employed as an author. While in See also:California in 1856, for the restoration of his health, he took an active See also:interest in the organization, at See also:Oakland, of the college of California (chartered in 1855 and merged in the university of California in 1869), the See also:presidency of which he declined. As a preacher, Dr Bushnell was a See also:man of remarkable See also:power. Not a dramatic orator, he was in high degree See also:original, thoughtful and impressive in the See also:pulpit. His theological position may be said to have been one of qualified revolt against the Calvinistic orthodoxy of his See also:day. He criticized prevailing conceptions of the Trinity, the See also:atonement, See also:conversion, and the relations of the natural and the supernatural. Above all, he See also:broke with the prevalent view which regarded See also:theology as essentially intellectual in its See also:appeal and demonstrable by processes of exact logical See also:deduction. To his thinking its proper basis is to be found in the feelings and intuitions of man's spiritual nature. He had a vast See also:influence upon theology in See also:America, an influence not so much, possibly, in the direction of the modification of specific doctrines as in " the impulse and tendency and See also:general spirit which he imparted to theological thought." Dr Munger's estimate may be accepted, with reservations, as the true one: " He was a theologian as See also:Copernicus was an astronomer; he changed the point of view, and thus not only changed everything, but pointed the way toward unity in theological thought.

He was not exact, but he put See also:

God and man and the See also:world into a relation that thought can accept while it goes on to See also:state it more fully with ever growing knowledge. Other thinkers were moving in the same direction; he led the See also:movement in New See also:England, and wrought out a See also:great deliverance. It was a See also:work of superb courage. Hardly a theologian in his See also:denomination stood by him, and nearly all pronounced against him." Four of his books were of particular importance: See also:Christian Nurture (1847), in which he virtually opposed revival-ism and " effectively turned the current of Christian thoughtnatural into the supernatural " by emphasizing the super-naturalness of man; The Vicarious See also:Sacrifice (1866), in which he contended for what has come to be known as the " moral view " of the atonement in distinction from the " governmental " and the " penal " or " See also:satisfaction " theories; and God in See also:Christ (1849) (with an See also:introductory " Dissertation on See also:Language as related to Thought "), in which he expressed, it was charged, heretical views as to the Trinity, holding, among other things, that the Godhead is " instrumentally three—three simply as related to our finite See also:apprehension, and the communication of God's incommunicable nature." Attempts, indeed, were made to bring him to trial, but they were unsuccessful, and in 1852 his church unanimously withdrew from the See also:local " consociation," thus removing any possibility of further See also:action against him. To his critics Bushnell formally replied by See also:writing Christ in Theology (1851), in which he employs the important See also:argument that spiritual facts can be expressed only in approximate and poetical language, and concludes that an adequate dogmatic theology cannot exist. That he did not deny the divinity of Christ he proved in The See also:Character of Jesus, forbidding his possible See also:Classification with Men (1861). He also published Sermons for the New See also:Life (1858); Christ and his Salvation (1864); Work and See also:Play (1864); Moral Uses of Dark Things (1868); See also:Women's See also:Suffrage, the Reform against Nature (1869); Sermons on Living Subjects (1872); and Forgiveness and Law (1874). Dr Bushnell was greatly interested in the civic interests of Hartford, and was the See also:chief See also:agent in procuring the See also:establishment of the public See also:park named in his See also:honour by, that See also:city. toward the See also:young "; Nature and the Supernatural (1858), in which he discussed miracles and endeavoured to " lift the An edition of his See also:works, in eleven volumes, appeared in 1876-1881; and a further See also:volume, gathered from his unpublished papers, as The Spirit in Man: Sermons and Selections, in 1903. New See also:editions of his Nature and the Supernatural, Sermons for th'e New Life, and Work and Play, were published the same See also:year. A full bibliography, by See also:Henry See also:Barrett Learned, is appended to his Spirit in Man. Consult Mrs M.

B. Cheney's Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell (New York, 188o; new edition, 1903), and Dr See also:

Theodore T. Munger's Horace Bushnell, Preacher and Theologian (See also:Boston, 1899) ; also a See also:series of papers in the Minutes of the General Association of Connecticut (Bushnell See also:Centenary) (Hartford, 1902). (W.

End of Article: BUSHNELL, HORACE (1802-1876)

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
BUSHMEN, or BOSJESMANS 		[next]
BUSIRIS

Site © 2006 - Net Industries