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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Every parent is also a child. This truism of kinship is not as obvious as it might seem. A very young nephew of mine once insisted I could not be his grandmother's son because I was not a son but an uncle. He had not grasped the possibility that I could be both.
1 See, for example, the many references to Schleiermacher's relation to Augustine and Calvin in Niebuhr, Richard R., Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion: A New Introduction (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964)Google Scholar. See among the works on Schleiermacher by Gerish, Brian especially his ‘Theology Within the Limits of Piety Alone: Schleiermacher and Calvin's Notion of God’, in his The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 196–207.Google Scholar
2 By ‘mature writings’ I mean texts written after 1810.
3 Hereafter, CF. References will be included in the text; first, to the paragraph and section number, then in brackets to the volume and page number in Der Christliche Glaube nach den Grundsātzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhānge dargestellt, 7th ed., ed. Redeker, M. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1960)Google Scholar, and finally in pointed brackets to the page number in the English translation cited: The Christian Faith, ed. and trans. Mackintosh, H. R. and Stewart, J. S. (Edinburgh, 1928Google Scholar; rpt New York: Harper and Row, 1963).
4 ‘[A]ll the divine attributes to be dealt with in Christian Dogmatics must somehow go back to the divine causality, since they are only meant to explain the feeling of absolute dependence’ (CF, 50.3 [I, 260 {198}]). The object of reflection in CF of course is not simply the feeling of absolute dependence, but that feeling as it is modified by Jesus as Redeemer. The nature of this modification is noted below. Whether absolute is the best translation of schlechthinnige is not decisive for my argument. As will be seen, Schleiermacher distinguishes dependence on God from partial dependence in ways that make the former absolute in respects relevant to my argument.
5 The possibility noted in §30.2f (I, 164f {126}] of including in dogmatics only ‘the fundamental dogmatic form (die dogmatische Grundform)’, i.e., ‘the description of human states of mind (menschlicher Zustände, does not then imply that for Schleiermacher theology can be simply anthropology to the exclusion of any discussion of the reality of God. Human existence is such that God is immediately co-present with the self to the self. The fundamental form of dogmatics thus would have to address the reality of God, although Schleiermacher believes it would not utilize the traditional attributes of God in doing so.
6 ‘ … an absolute feeling of dependence, i.e., without any feeling of freedom in relation to the co-determinant’ (CF, 4.2 [I, 26 {15}]). Bruce L. Boyer helpfully describes how for Schleiermacher divine causality relates to all finite entities as pure causality to pure passivity. See his ‘Schleiermacher on the Divine Causality’, Religious Studies, 22 (1986), 116.Google Scholar
7 ‘Dogmatics must therefore presuppose intuitive certainty (unmittelbare Gewiβheit) or faith; and thus, as far as the God-consciousness in general is concerned, what it has to do is not to effect its recognition but to explicate its content’ (CF, 33.3 [I, 178 {136}]). Note how confidently Schleiermacher earlier asserts the presence of receptivity even within activity: ‘… no one will deny them (his propositions about activity and receptivity) who is capable of a little introspection …’ (CF, 4.1 {I, 25 {13}]).
8 While Friedrich Beisser exaggerates in his critical remarks, he is essentially correct in his analysis of the uniformity of the God-world relation in CF. See his Schleiermachers Lehre von Goti dargestellt nach seinen Reden und seiner Glaubenslehre, Forschungen zur systematischen und ōkumenischen Theologie, 22 (Gōttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), especially pp. 155ffGoogle Scholar on God's relation to the universal nature-system. See similarly Gerrish, Brian, A Prince of the Church: Schleiermacher and the Beginnings of Modern Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), pp. 59–67.Google Scholar
9 Note Schleiermacher's repeated insistence in CF that God not be brought within the system of limitation or antithesis, e.g., 47.1 [1,236 {179}], 49.2 [1,252 {192}], 109.3 [II, 178 {501f}].
10 See Gerrish, , Prince of the Church, p. 67.Google Scholar
11 Later Schleiermacher speaks of ‘our primary and basal presupposition (unsere erste Grundvoraussetzung) that there can be no relation of interaction (Verhältnis der Wechsetwirkung) between creature and Creator’ (CF, 147.2 (II, 381 {673}). Note also the insistence that the object of the feeling of absolute dependence cannot be ‘an object exposed to our counter-influence, however slight this may be’ (CF, 4.4 [I, 30 {18}]).
12 See Niebuhr, Richard R., Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion: A New Introduction, p. 214Google Scholar, on the derivation of the single decree uniting creation and redemption in the Second Adam from the unity of the will of God in relation to the world.
13 Thus, as said above in n. 4, the full doctrine of God is seen only when both parts of CF are read. To look only at Part 1 of CF (or, even worse, only at the Introduction) is only to look at an abstraction of the feeling of absolute dependence from its concrete modification through Jesus and thus to ignore the method Schleiermacher both states and follows. While I do not agree with all of his analysis, this basic point is well made by Grau, Gerhard, ‘God in Experience: An Interpretation of Schleiermacher's Doctrine of God Concluding with a Reappraisal of his Understanding of the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1976.Google Scholar
14 Spiegler, Gerhard, The Eternal Covenant: Schleiermacher's Experiment in Cultural Theology, Makers of Modern Theology (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 168.Google Scholar
15 Harvey, Van A., ‘A Word in Defense of Schleiermacher's Theological Method’, Journal of Religion, 42 (1962), 161fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. See similarly the comments by Harvey, and Ogden, Schubert in Schleiermacher as Contemporary, ed. Funk, Robert W., Journal for Theology and the Church, 7 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), 164, 174, 212.Google Scholar
16 Spiegler (p. 166) appears to argue that the intrusion has already occurred in this initial description. As I implied at the beginning of this section, however, the typification of religious feeling as a feeling of absolute dependence is at least also rooted in the sense that we receive all that we have and are. The question whether this sense is somehow genuinely religious or itself the product of a speculative tradition presupposes definitions of terms that I do not think can be justified.
17 Eugene TeSelle also finds the idea of Jesus as Second Adam and even more its context within the concept of a single divine decree a ‘speculation’ in which Schleiermacher goes ‘beyond the immediate religious consciousness of Jesus as Redeemer’ (Christ in Context: Divine Purpose and Human Possibility (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), p. 83)Google Scholar. These notions certainly are not immediate deliverances of the religious consciousness. Nevertheless, I try to show how they derive from the conjunction of the feeling of absolute dependence and the sense that Jesus is the clue to the nature of God. If they are eliminated, something very much like them will have to take their place unless the character of the feeling of absolute dependence is rethought. As Emanuel Hirsch has stated, a crucial test of Schleiermacher's soteriology is whether it can be unified with the all-conditioning divine will (see his Geschichte der neuern evangelischen Theologie, im Zusammenhang mit den allgemeinen Bewegungen des europāischen Denkens [1964; rpt. Mūnster: Antiquariat Th. Stenderhoff, 1984], V, p. 310). Schleiermacher meets this test through his doctrine of election.
18 Williams, Robert R., Schleiermacher the Theologian: The Construction of the Doctrine of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 177.Google Scholar
19 Williams, , Schleiermacher the Theologian, p. 184.Google Scholar
20 In his dissertation, Williams himself had said ‘The characteristic features of the pious feeling of utter dependence … are, its utter exclusion of reciprocity, and the overcoming of all finite contrasts, i.e., contrasts in which the subject stands relatively opposed to the other finite co-determining parts of the whole’ (Williams, Robert Roy, ‘Consciousness and Redemption in the Theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher’, Ph.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1971, pp. 168fGoogle Scholar).
21 Disputes over ‘transcendence’ in Schleiermacher's theology are pointless without a specification of what sort of transcendence one is discussing. One can ‘transcend’ things in many ways. In some senses, at least, Schleiermacher's God is exceedingly transcendent The theological question must be whether God's transcendence is rightly depicted.
22 My discussion of narrative in Schleiermacher's theology is obviously suggested by the discussion of Schleiermacher in Frei, Hans, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar. While the limitation I am discussing can be understood in intradogmatic terms, it parallels the implications for narrative of Schleiermacher's hermeneutic. See Frei, pp. 310–318. We may again need to speak of an overdetermination of what Schleiermacher says.
23 In CF, 54.4 [I, 287 {218}] Schleiermacher refers to ‘the one all-embracing divine will’ as ‘timeless’ (zeitlos). Boyer (p. 120) notes how for Schleiermacher God relates to history taken as a whole, which is itself a non-temporal reality. Each event of history occurs within a network of temporal relations, but history as a whole does not.
24 See also CF, 55.2 (1, 297 {225}], Beisser, pp. 156ff, and Williams, , Schleiermacher the Theologian, p. 95.Google Scholar
25 This entire section is of decisive importance, as can be seen in the reference back to this section in §88.4 and in the similar statements in Schleiermacher's 1818 letter to Jacobi. The text of the latter is reprinted in Cordes, Martin, ‘Der Brief Schleiermachers an Jacobi: Ein Beitrag zu seiner Entstehung und Überlieferung’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 68 (1971), 195–212Google Scholar. An English translation can be found in The Life of Schleiermacher as Unfolded in his Autobiography and Letters, trans. Rowan, Frederica (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1860), Vol. 2, pp. 280–284.Google Scholar
24 Hinze, Bradford elaborates this presence in his ‘Schleiermacher and Narrative Theology’, Schleiermacher Seminar Newsletter, 2, no. 1 (1987), pp. 1–12Google Scholar. Nevertheless, he does not address the limitations here discussed.
27 On the role of plot in Christian theology, see my ‘The Narrative Structure of Soteriology’, Modern Theology, 2 (1986), 145–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The extensive literature generated within the philosophy of history on the relation between narrative and law is surveyed in Ricoeur, Paul, Time and Narrative, trans. McLaughlin, Kathleen and Pellauer, David (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, Vol. 1, pp. 91–230.Google Scholar
28 Schleiermacher's soteriology partially fits Aristotle's definition of a simple plot: one ‘in which the change of fortune takes place without a reversal or recognition’ (Poetics, X [1452a]). Schleiermacher can allow a recognition, but not a true reversal.
29 Eugene TeSelle's use of the term ‘fete’ in the context of Schleiermacher's understanding of sin seems apt. See his Christ in Context, p. 74.
30 Robert R. Williams grants that Schleiermacher does not finally provide a theodicy but rather a ‘postethical vision of the world’. See his ‘Theodicy, Tragedy, and Soteriology: The Legacy of Schleiermacher’, Harvard Theological Review, 77 (1984), 411.Google Scholar
31 That God is not a moral agent is the implication of CF, 54.3–4 (I, 282–287 {214–218}).
32 Emanuel Hirsch notes how also in his ethics Schleiermacher excludes the possibility of the existence of absolute oppositions. See his Geschichte, IV, 558. Barth's analysis of Schleiermacher on this point is accurate (see his The Theology of Schleiermacher: Lectures at Göttingen, Winter Semester of 1923/24, ed. Ritschl, Dietrich, trans. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 11ff, 196, 253)Google Scholar, although he wrongly sees Schleiermacher's alternative as synthesis rather than polar balance.
33 For example, Herzog, Frederick, ‘Schleiermacher and the Problem of Power’, in his Justice Church: The New Function of the Church in North American Christianity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1980), pp. 55–71Google Scholar. See in response Crouter, Richard, ‘Schleiermacher and the Theology of Bourgeois Society’, Journal of Religion, 66 (1986), 302–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34 As Richard Niebuhr summarizes Schleiermacher: ‘Creation-faith [is] … an attitude of resignation, assent and confidence in the particular order that converges on one's own being, specifies one's identity before God, and gives one a sense of being a part of the original plan of creation’ (Niebuhr, , Schleiermacher, p. 245Google Scholar; emphasis in original). He also notes how Schleiermacher's rejection of any distinction between means and end in the divine activity tends to replace political categories with aesthetic ones, since art is the example of where all is means and end simultaneously. See his ‘Schleiermacher and the Names of God: A Consideration of Schleiermacher in Relation to our Theisms’, in Schleiermacher as Contemporary, p. 194. On the role of resignation in Schleiermacher's early thought, see Blackwell, Albert L., Schleiermacher's Early Philosophy of Life: Determinism, Freedom, and Phantasy, Harvard Theological Studies, 33 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), esp. Part III, Ch. 5.Google Scholar
35 The general sense of redemption (for Schleiermacher) is liberation, that is, a liberation of something from ‘some constraint by the agency and aid of another’ (Williams, R., Schleiermacher the Theologian, p. 103).Google Scholar
36 On the importance of this distinction, see Kelsey, David H., ‘Struggling Collegially to Think about Evil: An Interpretive Essay’, Occasional Papers, Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, Collegeville, Minnesota, 16 (1981)Google Scholar; and my ‘Dying He Lives: Biblical Image, Biblical Narrative and the Redemptive Jesus’, Semeia, 30 (1984), Christology and Exegesis: New Approaches, ed. Robert Jewett, 155–169.
37 Sin does involve a disobedience to God's commanding will. Nevertheless, this disobedience must be finally rooted in God's efficient will, and these two divine wills cannot be opposed to each other. See CF, §81.1.
38 See my ‘Necessity and Unfittingness in Anselm's Cur Dots Homo’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 40 (1987), 211–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39 In Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Hardy, Edward Rochie, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, (1954), pp. 296–301.Google Scholar
40 In addition to the considerations raised here, Schleiermacher's Sabellian understanding of the Trinity places limits on any concept of a divine self-relatedness in salvation. See Wenz, Gunther, Geschichte der Versōhnungslehre in der evangelischen Theologie der Neuzeit, Bd. 1, Mūnchener Monographien zur historischen und systematischen Theologie, Bd. 9 (Mūnchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1984), p. 386.Google Scholar
41 Über die Lehre von der Erwāhlung, besonders in Beziehung auf Herrn. Dr. Bretschneiders Aphorismen, in his Sāmmtliche Werke, Ab. 1, Bd. 2 (G. Reimer, Berlin, 1836), pp. 393–484Google Scholar. References to this essay will be parenthetically included within the text. All translations are my own. To my knowledge this essay has not been reprinted or translated since this edition.
42 The teleological orientation of the decree toward Christ is not developed in Über die Erwāhlung in the same detail as in CF. He does say, however, that the content of the single decree is ‘the order in which the mass capable of spiritual individual development is gradually enlivened’ (p. 461). As in CF, the orientation of the decree here is thus soteriological.
43 As in CF, Schleiermacher here asserts that because divine and human causality operate on different levels of existence, they cannot come into conflict. Thus divine omnipotence does not compromise intra-worldly human freedom. See p. 483.
44 Thiemann, Ronald F., ‘A Conflict of Perspectives: The Debate Between Karl Barth and Werner Elert’ (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1976)Google Scholar. References to this dissertation are included in the text. My summary is more pointed than Thiemann's extended presentation, but reproduces his argument.
45 Note the consistent subordination of the external basis of covenant in creation to the internal basis of creation in covenant in Church Dogmatics, ed. Bromiley, G. W. & Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936–1975), III/1, e.g., pp. 44Google Scholar, 60, 76, 97, 231. Hereafter, cited as CD, III/1.
46 Of course, there are also significant differences between Schleiermacher and Barth on these issues. The trinitarian character of Barth's theology opens the way to a use of the language of interaction within a structure of absolute dependence. In addition, the way in which Jesus is the teleological focus of election differs between Barth and Schleiermacher. Barth far less than Schleiermacher sees this teleological focus as immanent within world history. The greater importance Barth ascribes to death and resurrection also makes the relation between Jesus and creation as his external basis different for Barth than for Schleiermacher.
47 See the analysis by Griffin, David Ray, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), pp. 164–166.Google Scholar
48 On Barth's priorities, see the critical account in Griffin, pp. 161f, and the admiring account in Hunsinger, George, ‘A Response to William Werpehowski’, Theology Today, 43 (1986), 354–360CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My entire discussion of Barth has profited from conversation with Hunsinger, who may not, however, agree with all that I say.
49 Conversely, that the religious feeling is absolute dependence is crucial to the picture of God as immanent everywhere but miraculously intervening nowhere. The rather Augustinian content posited for religious feeling thus aids, for example, the covenant between theology and science Schleiermacher so valued.
50 Barth, Karl, Dogmatics in Outline, trans. Thomson, G. T. (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), p. 5.Google Scholar
51 I learned this way of stating this point from a work in progress by George Hunsinger.
