HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED. - Critic, philosopher and theologian, b. 25 Aug. 1744 at Mohrungen (East Prussia), d. 18 Dec. 1803 at Weimar. He studied Protestant theology at Königsberg, was a teacher and preacher at Riga in the period 1764-69, and between 1771-76 held the office of pastor and member of the Consistory of Bückeburg. In 1775, on Goethe's proposal, he was called to Weimar as general superintendent.
H. was a figure of primary importance for the intellectual and literary life of his time. Defining true poetry as «the voice of nature» and the lyrical expression of irrational and lived feeling, he established the program and the poetic canon of the «Sturm und Drang» and of Romantic poetry. With his fine understanding of the individuality of peoples and cultures he went beyond the historical vision of the Enlightenment and prepared the historicism of the 19th century. Even as a theologian H. fought Enlightenment ideas; he did not, however, arrive at a theology based on Christian dogmas and became, with his interpretation of the Old Testament as poetic creation
(from Herders Werke, Leipzig n.d., against the frontispiece)
HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED - Portrait with autograph signature.
of the popular genius of Israel and with his conception of Christianity as the religion of pure and perfect humanity, one of the inspirers of the liberal and adogmatic theology of the 19th century.
Herder's rich thought draws its profound inspiration from a sentiment of union with the Divine, present in the life of the world and of humanity. Although he invoked the name of Spinoza, his metaphysical ideas in reality lie in the line of a vitalistic Neoplatonism (see especially Gott. Einige Gespräche, 1787). Finite beings are conceived as manifestations of the divine life: God is immanent in the universe as the animating force of its teleology. Herder is therefore, on this side, close to the philosophers of the Italian Renaissance; the principal innovation in comparison with them consists in a broadening of the sphere in which the divine animating spirit can be felt and grasped. Herder considers humanity and its history, together with nature, as a single cosmos of divine manifestations; he seeks to understand the rise of the different cultures and the ascent to higher concepts of humanity in connection with the life of the universe (Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit, 1774; Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784-91). The proper subjects of the historical process are peoples and their "deep souls"; the supreme criterion of evaluation is an ideal of humanity that is a sublimation of the image of ancient man of the classical age. Herder's historical conception proved fruitful especially for the understanding of the ethnic cultures of antiquity. In his Die älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts (1774-76) and in Geist der hebräischen Poesie (1782-83) he gave convincing proof of his faculty for interpreting historical documents as expressions of inner orientations and forces. With his new appreciation of historical individuality, which no longer takes into consideration common human nature, he became a precursor of historicism, whose relativism, however, is counterbalanced in him by the thought of an evolution evolution according to a divine plan or at least according to a natural immanent finality.
H. also interpreted religion and Christianity on the basis of his conception of divine immanence and of his ideal of humanity (especially Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend, 1780; Christliche Schriften, 1794-98). Religion is the highest realization of the divine image in us. Its concept, however, cannot be found by abstract thought. The heights of the human are revelations of God, brought about in historical persons and events and transmitted by means of religious traditions. Only by placing oneself in history and in its living traditions can man recognize and feel the voice of Revelation (cf. Briefe d. St. d. Theol. b., ed. B. Suphan, X, pp. 457 ff., 290 ff.). With these ideas H. goes beyond the theology of the Enlightenment to a certain extent, without however reaching the true Christian concept of Revelation and of faith. Recognizing Revelation only insofar as it confirms and brings out the numinous perceived in nature and in history, H. rejects the concept of the supernatural. The most Divine, according to him, must prove to be the most natural; Christ is the highest model and the greatest teacher of a pure humanity. Every attempt to express the mystery of his person with dogmatic formulas distances one from the living feeling of the divine presence in him (Ideen z. Ph. d. G., ed. cit., XIV, pp. 290 ff., 500 ff.).
The growing approach to Enlightenment ideas in H.'s later works demonstrates that his conceptions had rather the significance of a modification of Enlightenment theology than of a surpassing of it.
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