ABSTRACT
Paul Ramsey began his work as a theologian with the idealism that characterized the Christian Church in America during the first part of the twentieth century. During his undergraduate days, Ramsey’s theology was typical for his times. Ramsey’s theology was deeply committed to the philosophy of idealism. His dissertation was a defense of Absolute idealism. Ramsey’s defense of philosophical idealism, particularly in his dissertation, is an anomaly within the intellectual climate of the 1930’s and 40’s. Absolute philosophical idealism is blamed for the breakdown of morality because it supposedly dissolved the individual into a social structure and thus denied freedom, and it established a telos which denied individual freedom and responsibility. Ramsey acknowledges that the neo-Protestants blame idealism for totalitarianism “by dissolving concrete individuals into abstract universals.” Ramsey’s “metaphysics of democracy” directly addresses the charge that idealism leads to totalitarianism.
