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Schleiermacher on Justification: A Departure From the Reformation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2013

Paul T. Nimmo
Paul T. Nimmo*
Affiliation:
New College, Mound Place, Edinburgh, EH1 2LX, Scotland, U.K.paul.nimmo@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

In his 1923–4 lectures on the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth offered a strikingly negative verdict on Schleiermacher's doctrine of justification, lamenting that it was radically discontinuous with the theology of the Reformation. The core purpose of this article is to assess this verdict in detail. The introduction presents in outline Barth's criticism of Schleiermacher's doctrine of justification from these lectures. The first section of the article provides a summary of the doctrine of justification as it is found in Schleiermacher's mature work, The Christian Faith, together with a brief consideration of the related doctrines of conversion and sanctification, and an exposition of the dogmatic location and inter-relation of the three loci. In the second section, the article proceeds to investigate closely whether three of the central criticisms of Barth pertaining to Schleiermacher's doctrine of justification reflect an accurate reading and adjudication of the underlying material. The criticisms explored are: that for Schleiermacher there is no justification as a free act of God but only a justification which takes place according to the law of nature; that in the event of justification Schleiermacher considers both God and the human being to be active; and that the doctrine of Schleiermacher repeats the heresy of essential righteousness after the fashion of Andreas Osiander. The common theme underlying each charge is that Schleiermacher has departed significantly (and lamentably) from the tradition of the Reformation. The third section of the article proceeds to explore these charges carefully in light of a close reading of Schleiermacher's dogmatic work on justification and related doctrines. In the case of each of the criticisms directed at his doctrine of justification, it is argued that there are strong grounds for asserting that Barth's concerns may be rather misplaced and that – true to his word – Schleiermacher indeed remains in broad dogmatic continuity with the Reformation tradition. In the conclusion, two further theological possibilities are noted. First, it is suggested that, far from leaving the Reformation tradition behind, Schleiermacher's work on justification resonates strongly with one particular reading of Calvin's work which has much currency in contemporary theology. And second, it is suggested that, far from Schleiermacher being the one to depart from the Reformation tradition on justification, it might actually – ironically – be Barth who is more guilty of that charge in view of his own doctrine of justification in the Church Dogmatics.

Keywords

BarthconversionjustificationReformationsanctificationSchleiermacher
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 50 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2013

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References

1 These are published as vol. 11 of the Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe: Barth, Karl, Die Theologie Schleiermachers, ed. Ritschl, Dietrich (Zürich: TVZ, 1978).Google Scholar The published English translation is The Theology of Schleiermacher, trans. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley.

2 Just over half of the lecture material delivered is focused on a selection of three groups of Schleiermacher's sermons: regular sermons from 1831–4, Christmas and Easter sermons on Jesus Christ and the ‘household sermons’ of 1818. The remainder is devoted (albeit unevenly) to three of Schleiermacher's major publications – The Brief Outline of the Study of Theology, The Christian Faith and The Speeches on Religion – and to Schleiermacher's work on hermeneutics.

3 Barth, in a letter written to Emil Brunner on 26 Jan. 1924 – in the midst of the Schleiermacher lectures – describes one of the seven possible approaches to dogmatics thus: ‘7. Clear nonsense (Der helle Unfug): Schleiermacher and whatever creeps and flies after him’. In vol. 33 of the Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe: Karl Barth-Emil Brunner Briefwechsel 1916–1966, ed. Eberhard Busch et al. (Zürich: TVZ, 2000), p. 95.

4 Barth, Die Theologie Schleiermachers, pp. 5–6 (ET, pp. xv–xvi).

5 Ibid., pp. 54–5 (ET, p. 26).

6 Ibid., p. 187 (ET, p. 102).

7 Ibid., p. 188 (ET, p. 102).

8 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt: 2. Auflage (1830/31) – Erster und zweiter Band, ed. Schäfer, Rolf (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008)Google Scholar; hereafter GL (Glaubenslehre) followed by section, volume and page number. All trans. of this text are the author's own. The published Eng. trans. is The Christian Faith, ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart, trans. by various (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), and for reference, page numbers in this trans. are also indicated.

9 Work on Schleiermacher's doctrine of justification in recent literature appears to be rather circumscribed. Gockel, Matthias, in Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A Systematic-Theological Comparison (Oxford: OUP, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar does mention the doctrine (pp. 75, 87, 91, n. 151), but only in passing, while DeVries, Dawn and Gerrish, B. A. offer a very concise overview of the doctrine in ‘Providence and grace: Schleiermacher on justification and election’, in The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher, ed. Mariña, Jacqueline (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), pp. 189–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The exception to the rule is Lamm, Julia who, in The Living God: Schleiermacher's Theological Appropriation of Spinoza (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), offers a sustained and helpful consideration of the matter (pp. 201–12)Google Scholar.

10 This text is the heading of GL, §§91–112 – the First Section of the Second Aspect of the Second Part of Schleiermacher's system of doctrine – II:35 (ET, p. 371).

11 This text is part of the heading to GL, §§106–12 – the Second Division of the First Section of the Second Aspect of the Second Part of Schleiermacher's system of doctrine – II:164 (ET, p. 476).

12 GL, §106, Lehrsatz, II:164 (ET, p. 476).

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 GL, §107.1, II:168 (ET, p. 478).

17 Ibid. Lamm is concerned at this point that, with the term ‘changed form of life’, Schleiermacher is already trespassing on the grounds of sanctification, and concludes that on this basis ‘Schleiermacher seems to make a significant shift away from the Reformers’, Living God, p. 209. However, there seems to be no compulsion to read this phrase in this way and every reason to consider the religious self-consciousness in view here to refer merely to the Grund des Willens of GL, §107.1, II:168 (ET, p. 478), and thus to the ground of spontaneous activity, rather than to any activity itself. Indeed, Schleiermacher later explicitly repudiates the suggestion that justification is a part (or product) of sanctification, GL, §109.3, II:196 (ET, p. 500).

18 GL, §107.1, II:169 (ET, p. 479). Schleiermacher confesses that there is a certain arbitrariness to the way in which these concepts are named, and that more important is ‘the exact explanation of what is meant by the expressions rather than the choice of the words themselves’, GL, §107.2, II:170 (ET, p. 480). He further describes the ordering of the presentation which follows as a matter of complete indifference in view of the mutuality of the relationships, GL, §107.2, II:171 (ET, p. 480).

19 GL, §106.1, II:165 (ET, p. 476).

20 Ibid. (ET, pp. 476–7).

21 Ibid. (ET, p. 477).

22 See GL, §106.2, II:166–7 (ET, pp. 477–8), and GL, §107.2, II:169–71 (ET, pp. 479–80). Lamm fears that there may be a possible inconsistency in Schleiermacher's treatment of the relationship between conversion and justification at his point, Living God, p. 208. Far from the doctrines being interdependent or mutually implicated, she notes that Schleiermacher explicitly states that his presentation ‘derives justification completely from conversion’, GL, §109.3, II:195 (ET, p. 499). This would suggest a dependence inconsistent with the mutuality between conversion and justification already posited, GL, §107.1, II:169 (ET, p. 479). However, it would also be plausible to take Schleiermacher at his word and the ‘derivation’ mentioned as referring, not to a logical or ontological succession but to the manner of presentation itself, which might easily be reversed.

23 GL, §107.1, II:168 (ET, p. 478).

24 GL, §108, Lehrsatz, II:171 (ET, pp. 480–1). Schleiermacher claims that his statement contains exactly the same (material) as the totality of the (Protestant) confessional documents on the matter, GL, §108.1, II:173 (ET, pp. 481–2). By contrast, he claims, the Roman (Catholic) Church differs by including within conversion not faith, but confession and satisfaction, GL, §108.1, II:175 (ET, p. 483).

25 GL, §108.2, II:177 (ET, p. 484).

26 Ibid. For further reflection on the centrality of this encounter with Christ in Schleiermacher's understanding of justification, and its relation to his construal of the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, see Nimmo, Paul T., ‘The Denominational Antithesis in Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 5:2 (2003), pp. 187–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 GL, §108.2, II:177 (ET, p. 485).

28 GL, §108.5, II:185 and 186 (ET, pp. 490 and 491).

29 GL, §109, Lehrsatz, II:191 (ET, p. 496). Schleiermacher again begins with the relationship between his own understanding of ‘justification’ and that found in the (Protestant) confessional documents, noting that properly understood, and despite the lack of uniformity of language in the latter, there is agreement between them, GL, §109.1, II:192–3 (ET, pp. 496–7). He claims, in the same way as he did with conversion, that the Roman (Catholic) Church understanding of ‘justification’ is ‘utterly divergent (ganz abweichend) from the Protestant’, presenting justification as dependent upon sanctification, GL, §109.1, II:193 (ET, p. 497).

30 GL, §109.2, II:193 (ET, p. 497).

31 Ibid. (ET, p. 498). Schleiermacher expressly posits that this does not mean that the forgiveness of sins can precede faith, a position echoing the explicit provision of the overarching Lehrsatz; rather the forgiveness of sins expresses the end of the old existence (as does repentance), while being a child of God expresses the character of the new existence (as does faith), GL, §109.2, II:193–4 (ET, p. 498). A certain simultaneity can therefore be seen to be in view.

32 GL, §109.2, II:194 (ET, p. 498).

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 GL, §109.2, II:195 (ET, p. 499).

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 GL, §109.3, II:195 (ET, p. 499). In this tracing of all the aspects of regeneration back to Christ, Schleiermacher considers his presentation to conform to the confessional standards, GL, §109.3, II:195–6 (ET, p. 499), although he acknowledges that his presentation deviates from the ‘prevailing manner which in justification goes back to a divine activity, and ascribes both forgiveness of sins and adoption (Adoption) in a particular way to God’, GL, §109.3, II:195–6 (ET, pp. 499–500). At stake here is the differing way in which Schleiermacher perceives God to interact with creation relative to the confessional standards and the ‘prevailing manner’; this issue is explored further below.

41 GL, §110.1, II:204 (ET, p. 506). Lamm contends that Schleiermacher only retains the doctrine of sanctification on account of its biblical and confessional importance (Living God, p. 204). However, it seems to be rather more important for Schleiermacher than that, because it refers to and accounts for the state of the new life, whereas regeneration refers only to the act from which that new life arises – GL, §106.1, II:165–6 (ET, p. 477).

42 GL, §110.1, II:204 (ET, p. 506).

43 GL, §110.2, II:206 (ET, p. 507).

44 GL, §110.1, II:206 (ET, p. 507).

45 GL, §110.2, II:207–8 (ET, p. 508).

46 GL, §110.3, II:208 (ET, p. 508).

47 GL, §110.3, II:207 (ET, p. 508).

48 GL, §110.3, II:208 (ET, p. 509).

49 GL, §110.3, II:209 (ET, p. 509). Correspondingly, he observes, within sanctification ‘every moment can be seen as a renewal of regeneration’, ibid.

50 Barth, Schleiermacher, pp. 54–5 (ET, p. 26).

51 Both sermons are from 1832 – the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany and Sexagesima Sunday respectively. The full citations (and details) are in Barth, Schleiermacher, p. 54 (ET, p. 26).

52 GL, §109.3, II:196 (ET, p. 500).

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 GL, §109.3, II:197 (ET, p. 501).

56 Ibid. Schleiermacher observes that ‘we can only imagine the justifying divine activity in its connection to the individual in so far as every dogmatic treatment proceeds from the self-consciousness of the individual, and therefore also from the consciousness of a change in relationship to God’, ibid.

57 Ibid. It is thus not the case that ‘the justification of every individual rests on a separate divine decree, even if one were to present [that decree] as framed in eternity and only coming into effect at the determined point in time’, ibid.

58 GL, §109.3, II:197–8 (ET, p. 501). In this connection, Lamm fears that Schleiermacher may again be inconsistent in his treatment of conversion and justification by here separating the activity of God in the former from the activity of Christ in the latter, and thereby undermining the mutuality between them which Schleiermacher elsewhere emphasises. However, Schleiermacher's statement that there is no ‘dependence (Abhängigkeit)’ of the divine activity upon the activity of Christ, GL, §109.3, II:197 (ET, p. 500), is not to be read as indicating such a separation; rather, his purpose is simply to reject those conceptualisations of justification in ‘devotional (asketischen) prose and poetry’ which depict Christ as ‘point[ing] out to God the one in whom he has effected faith and recommending her [to God] for the granting of forgiveness of sin and adoption’, GL, §109.3, II:196–7 (ET, p. 500).

59 GL, §109.3, II:198 (ET, p. 501). Schleiermacher insists elsewhere that the decree to create (and thus to redeem/justify) is free, GL, §41, Zusatz, I:240 (ET, p. 156).

60 GL, §109.3, II:198 (ET, p. 501).

61 Ibid. (ET, p. 502).

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid. (ET, p. 501).

64 GL, §108.5, II:187 (ET, p. 492).

65 GL, §88.4, II:26 (ET, p. 365).

66 See e.g. GL, §110.3, II:208 (ET, p. 508): ‘from the beginning of the incarnation, Christ developed in every way according to nature’. See also GL, §89.2, II:29–30 (ET, p. 367).

67 See e.g. GL, §88.4, II:26 (ET, p. 365): ‘the new communal life in relation to the Redeemer is in itself no miracle, but just the supernatural becoming . . . natural’.

68 The sermons are ‘Early Sermon 16’ and the sermon from Sexagesima Sunday 1832 respectively. The full citations (and details) are in Barth, Schleiermacher, p. 54 (ET, p. 26).

69 GL, §109.3, II:195 (ET, p. 499).

70 Ibid.

71 GL, §109.3, II:196 (ET, p. 500).

72 Ibid.

73 GL, §108.5, II:187 (ET, p. 492).

74 GL, §108.6, II:187 (ET, p. 493).

75 Ibid.

76 A second question arising at this point – the relationship between the passivity of the person in conversion and her ensuing activity, see GL, §108.6, II:188 (ET, p. 493) – will not be explored here.

77 GL, §108.6, II:188 (ET, p. 493).

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid. (ET, p. 494).

81 GL, §108.6, II:189 (ET, p. 494).

82 GL, §91.1, II:36 (ET, p. 371).

83 GL, §108.6, II:189 (ET, p. 494).

84 Ibid. The alternative position – that the cooperation of the senses and consciousness affirmed above and the resistance or apathy of the will denied above might somehow exist together – is ‘evidently (offenbar)’ not possible, Ibid..

85 GL, §100.2, II:106 (ET, p. 426).

86 GL, §108.6, II:189 (ET, p. 494). Schleiermacher insists that this solution by way of a middle third is ‘vitiated . . . if the receptivity is split further into an active and a passive, and in our case [of conversion] only the passive is allowed to hold’; this would simply lead back to square one, ibid.

87 GL, §108.6, II:190 (ET, p. 495), cf. GL, §60, I:371–5 (ET, pp. 244–7).

88 GL, §91.1, II:36 (ET, p. 371).

89 GL, §108.6, II:190 (ET, p. 495).

90 GL, §108.6, II:191 (ET, p. 495).

91 GL, §108.6, II:190 (ET, p. 495).

92 See e.g. GL,§10, Zusatz, I:88 (ET, p. 49); GL, §13, Zusatz, I:113 (ET, p. 66); GL, §29.2, I:192 (ET, p. 124); GL, §50.1, I:302 (ET, p. 195); GL, §59, Zusatz, I:366–7 (ET, p. 241); GL, §83.3, I:517 (ET, p. 345); GL, §103.2, II:127 (ET, p. 445).

93 GL, §109.4, II:201 (ET, p. 504). This is true even of faith, which ‘arises solely from the efficacy of Christ’, ibid.

94 Barth, Schleiermacher, p. 166 (ET, p. 90). For John Calvin's fullest refutation of the doctrine of Osiander, see Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols, LCC 20–1 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), III.xi.5–12; for the history and theology of this refutation, see Garcia, Mark A., Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin's Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), pp. 226–43.Google Scholar

95 GL, §104.3, II:137 (ET, p. 454).

96 Ibid.

97 GL, §104.4, II:146 (ET, p. 461).

98 GL, §104.3, II:137 (ET, p. 454).

99 See e.g. the Synopse der Leitsätze found in GL, II:533–87, where this concept is visible in the Lehrsätze of §§106, 107, 108 and 110 (GL, II:566 and 568), all cited heavily above.

100 GL, §104.3, II:137 (ET, p. 455).

101 GL, §104.3, II:138 (ET, p. 455).

102 GL, §104.3, II:137 (ET, p. 455).

103 Calvin, Institutes, III.xi.8; emphasis added.

104 Ibid., III.xi.5.

105 GL, §101.3, II:117 (ET, p. 435).

106 Ibid.

107 GL, §101.3, II:116 (ET, p. 435).

108 GL, §108.6, II:189 (ET, p. 494).

109 GL, §104.3, II:137–8 (ET, p. 455).

110 GL, §109.3, II:198 (ET, p. 502).

111 Here, Schleiermacher clearly opts for a corporate understanding of the doctrine of justification, where the corpus in question is the whole of humanity. See Lamm, Living God, pp. 210–12.

112 GL, §109.3, II:198 (ET, p. 502).

113 GL, §109.3, II:199 (ET, p. 502).

114 GL, §109.3, II:199 (ET, p. 503).

115 Ibid.

116 GL, §104.3, II:138 (ET, p. 455).

117 GL, §109.3, II:199 (ET, p. 503). Prior to this, in Schleiermacher's words, she is ‘only a part of the mass out of which persons come to be by the continuation of the creative act from which the Redeemer came’, GL, §109.4, II:201 (ET, pp. 503–4).

118 GL, §109.4, II:200 (ET, p. 503). Lamm is concerned that Schleiermacher's view that justification ‘follows only in so far as [one] has true faith’ might again compromise the mutuality of conversion and justification: Living God, p. 208, quoting GL, §109, Lehrsatz, ET, p. 496. However, the crucial word erfolgt (GL, II:191, ‘follows’ in the ET) can also be translated ‘takes place’ or ‘occurs’ – which would preserve the simultaneity of justification and conversion. This reading would also call into question the necessity of Lamm's view that ‘Justification is dependent on, and derived from, conversion, in that forgiveness and acceptance cannot, for Schleiermacher, precede faith’, Living God, p. 209. The quotations which follow in the text above further question this view.

119 GL, §109.3, II:199 (ET, p. 503).

120 GL, §109.4, II:200 (ET, p. 503). Indeed, Schleiermacher notes, this reference to the necessity of faith is all the more necessary ‘if one imagines justification as a merely declaratory act’ in order to avoid the impression of caprice, GL, §109.4, II:200 (ET, p. 503).

121 Clearly, to explore the relationship between Schleiermacher and the Reformation on the issue which is one of the preconditions of the doctrine of justification – that of the ‘genuinely lost person’ in a state of ‘genuine and effective lostness’, to reprise the terms of Barth's lectures – would require a further and differently orientated article.

122 On the former, see GL, §108.1, II:171–5 (ET, pp. 480–3); GL, §108.4, II:183–4 (ET, pp. 489–90); GL, §108.5, II:185–6 (ET, p. 491); GL, §109.1, II:191–3 (ET, pp. 496–7); GL, §109.3, II:195–200 (ET, pp. 499–502); GL, §109.4, II:200–2 (ET, pp. 503–5); GL, §111.1, II:210 (ET, p. 510); GL, §111.2, II:213–16 (ET, pp. 513–15); GL, §112.1, II:218–22 (ET, pp. 517–19); GL, §112.3, II:224 (ET, p. 521). On the latter, see GL, §108.1, II:175 (ET, p. 483); GL, §109.1, II:193 (ET, p. 487); GL, §109.3, II:198–200 (ET, pp. 502–3); GL, §111.2, II:215–16 (ET, pp. 514–15).

123 GL, §106, Lehrsatz, II:164 (ET, p. 476).

124 Niesel, Wilhelm, Reformed Symbolics (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1962), p. 191Google Scholar; Billings, Todd, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: OUP, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Canlis, Julie, Calvin's Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010).Google Scholar

125 For all its current popularity, this reading of Calvin's theology is not universally accepted. For a recent dissenting view, see McCormack, Bruce, ‘Union with Christ in Calvin's Theology: Grounds for a Divinization Theory?’, in Hall, David W. (ed.), Tributes to John Calvin: A Celebration of his Quincentenary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), pp. 504–29.Google Scholar

126 Barth, Karl, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik (KD), 4 vols in 13 parts (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1932, and Zürich: EVZ, 1938–65)Google Scholar. All trans. are the author's own. For reference, the published English trans. is Church Dogmatics, 4 vols in 13 parts, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75).

127 Barth, KD IV/2, p. 565 (ET, p. 499).

128 Barth, KD IV/1, p. 576 (ET, p. 516).

129 Ibid., p. 612 (ET, p. 548). For a more detailed exploration of Barth's mature doctrine of justification, see Paul T. Nimmo, ‘Reforming simul iustus et peccator: Karl Barth and the Actualisation of the Doctrine of Justification’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie, suppl. ser. 6 (forthcoming 2013/2014).

130 This material was originally delivered as a paper at the sixth meeting of the Princeton-Kampen Barth Consultation in Driebergen in Sept. 2012. I am deeply grateful to all the participants in the Consultation for their comments on the original version of the text, and in particular to Kate Sonderegger, Rinse Reeling Brouwer, George Hunsinger and Bruce McCormack.