Ernst Troeltsch

Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) was a German theologian, philosopher, and sociologist, renowned for his pioneering contributions to the sociology of religion. He expanded on Max Weber's work and introduced the influential tripartite church-sect-mysticism typology to categorize forms of religious expression.

Notes

Troeltsch's tripartite typology, which for currently unknown reasons was never adopted in sociology, distinguished between:

• Church: Institutionalized, hierarchical, and bureaucratic religious organizations that seek to integrate with society.
• Sect: Smaller, less formal groups that often arise in opposition to the church, emphasizing personal faith and commitment.
• Mysticism: Individualized, subjective spiritual experiences that transcend institutional boundaries and dogma.

In Troeltsch's view, mysticism referred to the experiential encounter between the self and non-empirical reality (i.e. God) in which the fundamental values defining the meaning of the world and its concomitant normative structure are accepted by the self as legitimate and obligatory for him. Rather than being antithetical to reason and knowledge, then, mysticism is, in a technical sense, prior to them; mysticism provides the source of legitimate ideas and values which rationalism may subsequently structure into a coherent system of meaning and norms.

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