The Philosopher
Reinhold Niebuhr
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- American
- Schools:
- Christian Realism, Neo-orthodoxy
- Period:
- 20th century
The synopsis
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including *Moral Man and Immoral Society* and *The Nature and Destiny of Man*. Starting as a minister with working-class sympathies in the 1920s and sharing with many other ministers a commitment to pacifism and socialism, his thinking evolved during the 1930s to neo-orthodox realist theology as he developed the philosophical perspective known as Christian realism. He attacked utopianism as ineffectual for dealing with reality. Niebuhr's realism deepened after 1945 and led him to support American efforts to confront Soviet communism around the world. A powerful speaker, he was one of the most influential thinkers of the 1940s and 1950s in public affairs. Niebuhr battled with religious liberals over what he called their naïve views of the contradictions of human nature and the optimism of the Social Gospel, and battled with religious conservatives over what he viewed as their naïve view of scripture and their narrow definition of 'true religion'. During this time he was viewed by many as the intellectual rival of John Dewey. Niebuhr's contributions to political philosophy include using the resources of theology to argue for political realism. His work has also significantly influenced international relations theory, leading many scholars to move away from idealism and embrace realism. A large number of scholars, including political scientists, political historians, and theologians, have noted his influence on their thinking. Aside from academics, activists such as Myles Horton and Martin Luther King Jr., and numerous politicians have also cited his influence on their thought, including Hillary Clinton, Hubert Humphrey, and Dean Acheson, as well as presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. Niebuhr has also influenced the Christian right in the United States. The Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative think tank founded in 1981, has adopted Niebuhr's concept of Christian realism on their social and political approaches. Aside from his political commentary, Niebuhr is also known for having composed the Serenity Prayer, a widely recited prayer which was popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous. Niebuhr was also one of the founders of both Americans for Democratic Action and the International Rescue Committee and also spent time at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, while serving as a visiting professor at both Harvard and Princeton. He was also the brother of another prominent theologian, H. Richard Niebuhr.
The works
Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic
Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
Faith and History
The Irony of American History
Christian Realism and Political Problems
The Self and the Dramas of History
Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr
Pious and Secular America
Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics: His Political Philosophy and Its Application to Our Age as Expressed in His Writings
A Nation So Conceived: Reflections on the History of America From Its Early Visions to Its Present Power
The Structure of Nations and Empires
The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses
Remembering Reinhold Niebuhr. Letters of Reinhold & Ursula M. Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic, Moral Man and Immoral Society, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, The Irony of American History, Other Writings [Writings on Current Event
The quotes
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.
Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.
Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.
Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity.
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.
Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Forgiveness is the final form of love.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God.
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.