In this paper, I trace the development of modern theology, arguing that its quest for certainty stems from a deeper desire for emotional safety and security. The thesis is that behind the dominant epistemological strategies of modern theology lies an often-unacknowledged affective impulse: the desire to feel safe in an unstable world. By highlighting this emotional undercurrent, I hope to offer a fresh perspective on the development of theological method and a constructive challenge to the evangelical tradition’s emphasis on certainty.
My argument unfolds in three movements. First, I trace the cultural and theological upheavals from the Reformation through the Enlightenment. Thinkers like Descartes and Kant sought foundations for knowledge in response to widespread societal and metaphysical instability. Their philosophical efforts to secure certainty were mirrored in the theological shift toward individual assurance, seen most clearly in the Reformation’s emphasis on justification and personal faith.
Second, I explore how liberal theology—particularly in the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl—recast theology as reflection on experience. Schleiermacher’s move to ground religion in the “feeling of absolute dependence” represents a turn inward, one that preserved the quest for safety but relocated it to the domain of human emotion. This trend, inherited and modified by thinkers like Bultmann, increasingly subordinated Scripture and tradition to cultural context and subjective experience.
Third, I examine Karl Barth’s theology as a pivotal response. While he rejected the liberal tendency to conform theology to culture, he remained shaped by the same modern concerns. Barth’s return to revelation sought to re-center theology on God’s initiative, yet his work still reflects the desire for stable ground amid the ruins of modernity.
In recovering the emotional dimensions of theological development, I hope to contribute to evangelical theological discourse by naming a neglected factor in how ideas take shape: the role of anxiety, fear, and longing. This recognition invites evangelicals to pursue theological clarity not only with intellectual rigor but with pastoral awareness, mindful that even our theological systems are often constructed in search of refuge.