Reinhold Niebuhr Theologian
- Gender: Male
- Citizenship: United States
- Born: Jun 21, 1892
- Died: Jun 1971
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian, ethicist, public intellectual, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. The brother of another prominent theological ethicist, H. Richard Niebuhr, he is also known for authoring the Serenity Prayer, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Among his most influential books are Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. Starting as a minister with working-class and labor class sympathies in the 1920s oriented to theological pacifism, he shifted to neo-orthodox realist theology in the 1930s and developed the theo-philosophical perspective known as Christian realism. He attacked utopianism as ineffectual for dealing with reality, writing in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness:
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."
Niebuhr's realism deepened after 1945 and led him to support American efforts to confront Soviet communism around the world.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.
faith & history
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.
nature
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
religion
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
wisdom
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
politics & sadness
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
faith
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.
family
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
courage
Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
aging
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
being alone
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime therefore we must be saved by hope.
hope
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
power
The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.
God
If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God.
nature