Karl Löwith’s Meaning in History and Reinhold Niebuhr’s Faith and History were both published in the same year, 1949. Both works by Löwith and Niebuhr represent a critical examination of the philosophy of modern history conceived as the outcome of the secularization of Judeo-Christian eschatology.
This essay investigates the theses of Löwith and Niebuhr from the perspective of
the theologian Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas has dedicated a study to the works
of Reinhold Niebuhr and Löwith, titled History as Fate: How Justification by Faith Became Anthropology (and History) in America. At the heart of the analysis is Löwith’s critique of Niebuhr’s work. Hauerwas observes that Löwith accurately grasps the nature of Christian faith, marked by an intense eschatological sensitivity. He shares Löwith’s judgment that Christian theology has never maintained that history was the decisive stage for determining questions of human destiny and existence. The German philosopher, in Hauerwas’s view, however, failed to appreciate the dialectical character of Niebuhr’s thought.