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Schleiermacher as an Anselmian Theologian: Aesthetics, Dogmatics, Apologetics and Proof1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Eugene F. Rogers Jr
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, Cocke Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903, USA

Extract

About ten years ago, just before his death, Hans Frei added a new section, ‘Convergence’, to essay bearing the main title ‘Barth and Schleiermacher’, which has appeared in print more recently. In the proposal that gave its name to Types of Christian Thought, Frei stated the convergence in another way. Barth and Schleiermacher represented theologies of adjoining rather than opposing types in Frei's array.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1998

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References

2 ‘Barth and Schleiermacher: Divergence and Convergence’, in Frei, Hans W., Theology and Narrative: Selected Essays, ed. Hunsinger, George and Placher, William C. (New York: Oxford, 1993), pp. 177199, esp. from p. 186Google Scholar.

3 Frei, Hans W., Types of Christian Theology, ed. Hunsinger, George and Placher, William C. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 34, 34–46Google Scholar.

4 Jeffrey Stout has redescribed the types in a way that Frei once told me orally he found clearer than his own. See Jeffrey Stout, ‘Hans Frei and Anselmian Theology’, a paper delivered November 1987 to the Narrative Theology Group of the American Academy of Religion, pp. 5–6 of typescript.

5 Best described by Stout's paper.

6 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Christian Faith, ed. Mackintosh, H.R. and Stewart, J.S. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, n.d. [post 1927; 2d German ed., 1830)Google Scholar.

7 The mottoes do appear facing the title page in the old Harper Torchbook edition (New York, 1963).

8 Redeker's critical edition preserves them, not, to be sure, on its own title page, but on the facsimile (‘Zweite umgearbeitete Ausgabe’, Berlin, 1830) after the last of the roman numerals. Redeker, Martin, ed., Der Christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt von Friedrich Schleiermacher (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1960), p. 1Google Scholar. Schleiermacher cites de fide trin. 2 and Proslogion 1.

9 Cf. the Vulgate's version of Is. 79, which Anselm cites just after the credo ut intelligam: ‘If I shall not have believed, I will [as a result] not understand’ (nisi credidero, non intelligam). Note that in no version of the relation between belief and understanding does belief give a guarantee of understanding.

10 The possible objection that in Schleiermacher's own words, ‘the Glaubenslehre should not be constructed as though its chief task were to receive and hand on in a continuous tradition as much of the previous material as possible’ presupposes, of course, that that is a secondary task, and belongs in any case within the context, far removed from this one, of defending Schleiermacher against charges of intellectual dishonesty and ‘Romanism’. For quotation and context see the second letter to DrLücke, in Duke, James and Fiorenza, Francis, ed. and trans., On the Glaubenslehre: Two Letters to Dr. Lücke by Friedrich Schleiermacher, American Academy of Religion Texts and Translations no. 3 (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1981). p 67Google Scholar.

11 Note that my use of the word ‘aesthetic’ is quite distinct from (1) Schleiermacher's use of the word to describe a religion opposed to the ‘ideological’, (2) the romantic usage of an aesthetic principle from which he distances himself in the first letter to Dr. Lücke, On the Glaubenslehre, pp. 48, 114 n. 79, and (3) the aesthetic surmounting of logos and eros that Barth mentions in questioning Schleiermacher, , ‘Concluding Unscientific Postscript on Schleiermacher’, in Barth, Karl, The Theology of Schleiermacher (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 275Google Scholar.

12 I owe this stressing of the point to personal correspondence with Michael Root.

13 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst, Kritische Gesammtausgabe, ed. Birkner, Hans-Joachim et al. (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1980ff.)Google Scholar, Abteilung 1, Band 7, Teilbände 1–2.

14 On this topic see Ohst, Martin, Schleiermacher und die Bekenntnissschriften: Eine Untersuchung zu seiner Reformations- und Protestantismusdeutung (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1989)Google Scholar.

15 Second Letter to DrLücke, , On the Glaubenslehre, pp. 7576Google Scholar.

16 I paraphrase this qualification from one offered in personal correspondence with Michael Root.

17 The contrast is not sharp. Deductions can be elegant, and ‘deduction’ can be used biblically in non-syllogistic contexts. In the Vugate of the Psalms as quoted by Aquinas, for example, we get ‘Deduc mihi, Domine’, for ‘lead me, O Lord’.

18 Preller, Victor rehearses and endorses this objection to the proofs as it understands them in his Divine Science and the Science of God (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 108109Google Scholar —and then goes on to argue that ‘Aquinas intended to do the very opposite— he intended to posit in existence an unknown entity whose very relationship to the world is equally unknown’.

19 Barth, Karl, ‘The Problem of Ethics Today’, in The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Horton, Douglas, reprint ed. (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1978), p. 177Google Scholar; translation slightly modified.

20 Brunner, Emil, Die Mystik und das Wort (1st ed.), 8. Kapital § 1, ‘Der Psychologismus’ (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1924), p. 170Google Scholar. The first ellipsis is his, the second mine. I have been unable to check his citations.

22 ‘Es ist natürlich richtig, daß Schleiermacher diesen Agnostizismus resp. Anthropologismus persönlich ablehnte. Das ist für den Schleiermacherbiographen …... sehr wichtig zu wissen, nicht aber für den Beurteiler des Schleiermacherschen Systems…’ (pp. 170–71, n. 4).

23 In fact, Thomas uses the words demonstrare and demonstmlio in a variety of analogously ordered ways centered on the demonstratio Patris by the Son. See Rogers, Eugene F. Jr., Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the Natural Knowledge of God (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

24 Barth, Karl, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Anselm's Proof for the Existence of God in the Context of his Theological Scheme, trans. Robertson, Ian W. (London: SCM Press, 1960; reprint Pickwick, 1976; German 2d ed. Zürich: EVZ, 1958), p. 17Google Scholar, reading ‘people’ for Menschen.

25 Protestant Thought: From Rousseau to Ritschl, trans. Cozens, Brian, revHartwell, H. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), pp. 320331Google Scholar (pt. III of the Schleiermacher chapter).

26 Fides Quaerens Intelleclum, p. 18.

27 Duke, James and Fiorenza, Francis, Introduction to On the Glaubenslehre, pp. 2829Google Scholar.

28 That is a thesis of Rogers, Thomas and Barth, cited above.

29 For a careful statement of how Thomas defines sacred doctrine so that the more Aristotelian it is, the more scriptural it is, see Rogers, chapter 2.

30 This has become a commonplace of Thomas-interpretation after de Lubac. For an unusually clear passage, see In Romanos 2:14, #215, where he writes, “naturally‘ is to be understood as ’by nature reformed by grace”.

31 Thomas' Romans commentary indicates that the insipiens or fool is specifically one who does not believe that God will punish him or her for unjust actions, and in that sense says ‘there is no God’, making clear that it is not the Enlightenment atheist Thomas has in mind. But that is a more sophisticated account than we need for Schleiermacher's use of Thomas.

32 Thomas' Romans Commentary confirms this reading, but there is no reason to suppose that Schleiermacher knew it.

33 See the last quarter of Corbin, Michel, Le Chemin de la théologie chez Thomas d'Aquin, Bibliothéque des archives de philosophie, nouvelle serie 16 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974)Google Scholar; and, using those authors, Rogers, Thomas and Barth.

34 I make this qualification in response to personal correspondence with Michael Root; it may or may not be what he had in mind.—he introductory material in the Glaubenslehre (which precedes the section under discussion), consisting of propositions borrowed from ethics, philosophy of religion, and apologetics, is no exception to but part and parcel of this procedure. Schleiermacher proceeds as he does because he recognizes, with Barth and Anselm, that ‘the ratio of faith which they [the unbelievers] lack and for which they ask is one and the ratio, as the one which he himself is seeking. It is not the revelation itself that offends them–if that happened they would be insipientes and beyond help…. [T] hey do take offense at some consituent part of the revelation because the context, the totality of the revelation is unknown to them and therefore this or that constituent part (not being illuminated by the whole) is beyond their comprehension. In the face of the unbeliever's rock of offence thus understood, the Christian theologian does not find himself powerless. Thus understood, it is in fact identical with the rock of offence by which he himself was driven and continues to be driven from credere to intelligere. Therefore all he has to do is lead his opponent along his own path and thus be able to give him the answers to the questions that even he himself is asking’. Barth, , Anselm, p. 66Google Scholar.

35 STI.12.13. In the book (pp. 179–80), Preller expands as follows on the characteristic phrase: ‘The conclusion of natural theology is then the paradox that the human intellect is ordered to a reality that it cannot know and is seeking an intelligibility that it cannot understand…. All the language of natural theology conveys no knowledge [scientia as opposed to cognition] of God— even of an imperfect sort—and it terminates in the judgment that there is that of which we have no knowledge’.—Hans Urs von Balthasar, to whom we shall recur, confirms Preller's judgment. “Das Äußerste des menschlichen Wissens von Gott ist, daß man weiß, man wisse Gott nicht, da das Wesen Gottes alles ūbersteigt (excedens), was wir von ihm verstehen'. Nun wieß Thomas natürlich, daßes keine bloße Kenntnisder Existenzeines Wesensgeben kann, ohne daß wenigstens etwas von seinem Wesen bekannt ist… ‘ Theologik, vol. II, Wahrheit Gottes (Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Johannes Verlag, 1985), p. 93Google Scholar, citing DePot. 7, 5 ad 14.

36 Victor Preller, lecture on Thomas Aquinas, Princeton University, 22 February 1984. For a trinitarian interpretation of similar ways that Thomas inherits from the Glossa ordinaria, see Thomas and Barth, pp. 146–51.

37 ET: Melanchthon, Philip, On Christian Doctrine: Loci Communes 1555, trans, and ed. by Manschreck, Clyde L., A Library of Protestant Thought (New York: Oxford, 1965), p. 3Google Scholar. The rest of this section follows pp. 3–6 (locus de Deo).

38 Esse Deum et praecipere obedientiam juxta discrimen honestonim et turpium impressum [est] humanis mentibus'. Redeker's ed. cites CR XXI, 607. ET pp. 5–6.

39 ‘Fucus ergo est et falsa religio quicquid a Theologis ex philosophia, quid sit Deus, allatum est’, Christian Faith, §33, p. 134, citing Zwingli, de ver. et fals. rel.; Redeker's ed. supplies the reference CR XC, 643.

40 ET: Zwingli, Ulrich, Commentary on True and False Religion, ed. Jackson, Samuel Macauley and Heiler, Clarence Nevin (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1981), p. 62Google Scholar.

41 The rest of this paragraph follows Zwingli, pp. 59–61 (§ 3).

42 Clement, The Stromata or Miscellanies, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. II, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, rev. A. Cleveland Coxe, Am. repr. of the Edinburgh ed., bk. VIII, ch. III, ‘Demonstration Defined’ (p. 558).

43 Bk. VIII, ch. III–IV (pp. 60–61).

44 Bk. VIII, ch. III (p. 559).

45 Bk. VII, ch. X (pp. 538, 539).

46 Redeker cites MSG 9, 9ff.

47 Redeker, p. 175, note c.

48 Bk. VIII, ch. III (p. 56O).

49 Bk. VII, ch. X (p. 539).

50 Except of course in one celebrated instance. Bk. VIII, ch. III (p. 559): my emphasis.

51 It has become popular in some circles to call the logic of belief the grammar of faith, where ‘grammar’ conjures up strains of Wittgenstein or Lindbeck. Yet much of so-called linguistic turn finds substantive and terminological antecedents at least early as Luther, in his polemics against scholastic ontology and his use of the doctrine of justification to rule other doctrines. Von Balthasar, a virtual thesaurus of theological quotations, gives back a place where Luther (if he did not himself take it from someone earlier) anticipated the use of the word currently in vogue: ‘Spiritus Sanctus habet suam grammaticam’, Theologik II, 306, citing WA 39II, 303–04.

52 von Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 1: Seeing the Form, trans. Leiva-Merikakis, Erasmo, ed. Fessio, Joseph and Riches, John (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, San Francisco: Ignatius, and New York: Crossroads, 1984), p. 173Google Scholar, reading 'the human being' for der Mensch.

53 Cf. Barth, , Anselm, p. 59Google Scholar.

54 Theological Aesthetics II, 211, 239.

55 Theological Aesthetics II, 258.

56 The concept of irony may do more justice to the more difficult questions of Anselm's effect and intent than Barth's alternative, rather tortuously avoided in pp. 69–72, of deception; and it captures the positive in what Barth with his talk of ‘as if’ also wants to say.

57 Von Balthasar offers his own description of the bracketing (his word) at Theobgical Aesthetics II, 219, citing a place where it becomes explicit: Remoto Christo, quasi nihil sciatur de Christo (n. 37, citing CDH, praef.) Note the subjunctive: ‘Christ having been removed, as if nothing were known of Christ’.

58 Barth, , Anselm, pp. 5455Google Scholar.

59 Cf. Barth, , Anselm, p. 63Google Scholar.

60 Barth, , Anselm, p. 66Google Scholar, citing CDH I, 3.

61 Barth, , Anselm, p. 67Google Scholar.

62 On the Glaubenslehre, pp. 55, 58.

63 On the Glaubenslehre, p. 56.

64 On the Glaubenslehre, p. 59.

65 Second letter to DrLücke, , On the Glaubenslehre, p. 59Google Scholar.

66 Second letter to DrLücke, , On the Glaubenslehre, p. 60Google Scholar.

67 I owe the suggestion to Michael Root a long time ago. The argument, good or bad, is mine. Schleiermacher's treatise, ‘Ueber die Lehre von der Erwählung; besonders in Beziehung auf Herrn Dr. Bretschneiders Aphorismen’, now reprinted in the Kritische Gesammtausgabe, Abteilung 1, Band 10, is less relevant than it appears. First published in 1819, it makes no reference to the feeling of absolute dependence. To assess its significance for the rearrangeability of the Glaubenslehre would therefore take us far afield and is better left to another study. Although Ueber die Erwählung is otherwise rarely discussed, see more in Root's ‘Schleiermacher as Innovator and Inheritor: God, Dependence, and Election’, Scottish Journal of Theology 43:87–110.

68 Barth, , ‘Concluding Unscientific Postscript on Schleiermacher’, p. 275Google Scholar.

69 Second letter to DrLücke, , On the Glaubenslehre, p. 56Google Scholar.

70 Second letter to DrLücke, , On the Glaubenslehre, pp. 5556Google Scholar.

71 First letter to DrLücke, , On the Glaubenslehre, p. 46Google Scholar.