Schleiermacher: The Christian Faith 157-172
The fifth and final discussion of Schleiermacher that focuses on his theology.
The
final two sections of the exposition by Schleiermacher offer to me the
impression that he either lacks interest or is tired. I do not mind. If we look
upon his work to this point, he has made some of the most creative
breakthroughs that continue to inspire theologians today, even if they find
themselves in disagreement. He shifted philosophical theology from it
discussion of natural theology to the philosophy of religion. He also shifted
philosophical theology from the various proofs for the existence of God to a
consideration of philosophical anthropology. The significance of these efforts
is that he has attempted to persuade us that humanity is intrinsically
religious, which means that we depend upon openness to the experience of the
Eternal for authentic living. He tries to show that Christianity is a
particular mode of this experience of the Eternal. Theology has integrity as it
accurately portrays this experience of the Eternal.[1]
He showed the weakness of the two natures theory in Christology, paving the way
for re-thinking that doctrine. He placed the doctrine of election and
predestination in its proper context of the historical working of God in the
church and world. For these reasons, I think we can have some graciousness toward
him if he did not have the interest in paving the way for re-considering
eschatology and the Trinity. He has done enough. We can properly stand upon his
shoulders and learn from him.
The
consummation of the church is in the return of Christ, resurrection, and last
judgment. My impression is that he has little interest in these matters. Schleiermacher
is an example of the opening of modern theology and before the re-discovery of
apocalyptic. He is a worthy example of what it was like before the work on
apocalyptic by Johannes Weiss in the 1890s. He says that we do not need any notion
of the “return of Christ.” Apart from literal exegesis, we have no biblical
warrant for the position that the reunion of believers is conditional on such a
personal return (160). His point is that other biblical statements emphasize
that after death, Christ already unites believers in fellowship with Christ.
Therefore, we have no need of another “return” that unites believers to Christ
in some other way. Nor can he imagine some supposed intermediate state where
Christians await the resurrection of the body, for such a state would consist
in some type of fellowship with Christ. If it were not, it would amount to a
lapse of grace and be an experience of punishment (161). His position has much
to commend it. Exactly what does the return of Christ add to our continuing
fellowship with Christ immediately after death? He also thinks the notion of
the last judgment is primarily to remove from the church the forces that hold
it back from enjoying fellowship with each other and with Christ (162). He
thinks that any notion of blessedness or the vision of God that does not
include communion with others would be insufficient. We are simply too communal
as God made us to not have community to be an important element of our
understanding of the end (163). In an appendix to this section, he thinks that
theology must omit any notion of eternal damnation, for it would create a sense
of emptiness and loss for those who receive the blessing of eternal life. He
has made any discussion of the consummation of human activity focus upon the
individual and the church, separating it from apocalyptic hopes of divine
intervention in natural and world history.
He
is wrestling with the difficult notion of the end of nature and world history,
as we know it. The Newtonian universe he knew has given way to the universe of
Einstein. Neither of them will find the notion of an intervention from God
compatible. The place of apocalyptic in the preaching of Jesus or the early
church was hardly a burning issue for his time. For Schleiermacher,[2] it
will be impossible for the theologian to develop a doctrine of last things, for
our consciousness of God does not include a future that is beyond our ability
to know. His focus on developing a notion of the “consummation of the church”
that arises out of our personal consciousness of God meant anything that he has
to say will be at the periphery of his theology, a fact he readily admits. If
it were important, he says, it would have arisen sooner in his theology. He
accepts that a few statements of Jesus suggest personal survival, and that this
should be enough for us to have the same hope (158). In fact, his concern is
that saying anything about last things and eschatology will take us “away from
the domain of the inner life with which alone we are concerned (159).”
Such
thinking is in sharp contrast to certain strands of theology today. In this Romans commentary, Barth wanted to
recover eschatology for theological thinking. Bultmann will do so as well. The
theologians of hope, Pannenberg and Moltmann, restructured theology so that at
every theme, eschatology must receive serious consideration. The shift is
dramatic. Jürgen Moltmann thinks of theologians who robbed eschatology of its
“directive, uplifting, and critical significance for all the days” that we
spend here, thereby turning eschatology into “a peculiarly barren existence”
that relegated it to “a loosely attached appendix.”[3] He was thinking of Schleiermacher.
Thus, it would seem that much of theology today would disagree with
Schleiermacher that theologians could dismiss the future dimension of Christian
thought quite as easily as he did. In the end (164-169), divine love and divine
wisdom are the goal, as Schleiermacher sees it, of all the works of God,
whether in world, church, or individual. It may well be that we can say little more than
this. It may well be the best hope for humanity and the universe that this
would be true.
Schleiermacher
concludes with a brief discussion of the Trinity (170-172). A popular saying
among ministers and theologians is that as soon as one speaks about the Trinity
or tries to describe or explain it, one enters the realm of heresy.
Schleiermacher is going to say as little as he can. He is tipping his hat to
the tradition, pointing out problems in the classical position, and not
attempting resolution. He has already told us that he cannot complete the
Doctrine of God until the end of his consideration. In a sense, then, even if
brief, his considerations represent his attempt to conclude his theological system.
He has discussed the union of the divine essence with human nature in the
personality of Christ and in the common Spirit of the church. He has pointed us
to the essential elements of the Doctrine of the Trinity. In that sense, the
Trinity is the summit of his reflection on God. Yet, since he begins with the Christian
consciousness, he cannot make the Trinity a constitutive aspect of his
theology. Just as the matter of last things were important to him he would have
brought it up earlier, we might assume the same with the Trinity. If it were
important to him, he would have dealt with it sooner. Clearly, if the Trinity
is to be formative at a deep level in a theological enterprise, then a
theologian accepts the revelatory basis of the teaching. The important point
here is that if one accepts revelation as constitutive for the formation a
theological system, then one can hardly accept the view that one must begin with
Christian consciousness.[4]
Yet, we might pursue a different course as well. We might conclude that we
cannot properly discuss the Trinity until we have discussed Christology, the
relation of Christ and Spirit, and the experience of the Spirit in the community.
Christology is not complete without pneumatology, of course. To take the
approach of Barth and put discussion of the Trinity in the Prolegomena is to
make it seem as if it drops from heaven rather than arises out of an event in
history.[5]
In this sense, then, Schleiermacher may well have a quite legitimate and
reasonable approach to placing discussion of the Trinity at the end of his
considering of The Christian Faith.
He clearly finds it difficult to think of distinctions within the divine
essence. He refers to the divine essence as the Supreme Being. His own insight
of the feeling of absolute dependence creates a problem for formulating the
Trinity. He has said that this feeling connects us with the divine causality of
creation and preservation. We depend upon the prior activity of God for our
existence and the conditions for the fullness of human life. Yet, how would
this feeling relate to the Trinity? Beyond that, other problems confront us in
the formulation of a doctrine of the Trinity. For example, if we are to think
of Father and Son, Son is dependent upon Father. Father begets Son, but Son
does not beget anything. In fact, if the Christian consciousness includes the
divinity of the Son and the divinity of the Spirit, it could lapse into
tri-theism. He thinks that much of the church is secretly on the side of
Origen, who said that the Father is God absolutely, while the Son and Spirit
are divine only by participation in the divine essence. Is Schleiermacher a
modalist?[6]
Such language suggests he might have been. To say the divine essence is present
in Jesus and the Spirit is to suggest this to be the case. The type of
criticism he offers of the classical doctrine of the Trinity trends in the
direction of modalism. He does think the tendency of Trinitarian discussion is
toward showing that the consciousness of Son and Spirit that resides in the
Christian consciousness is not hyperbole.
He does not think we have the terms to adequately deal with this matter.
Equality and subordination, Tri-theism and Unitarianism, seem to keep
presenting themselves. His concern is that many people turn away from such
speculations, but their piety remains faithfully Christian. He thinks the
traditional doctrine needs thorough criticism. Even his positioning of the
doctrine as a harmless appendix (Barth) may help serve the purpose of
re-thinking the Doctrine. Of course, if that happens, the positioning provided
by Schleiermacher is not so harmless. For him, considering the doctrine at the
beginning (Barth) would give the impression that one must accept this teaching
before one can faith in redemption and in the founding of the rule of God
through the divine essence present in Christ and the Spirit. He does not want
to see the shipwreck of individual faith on the difficult shore of the Trinity.
He sees two difficulties. One is the tension between the unity of the divine
essence and its relation to the distinction of the persons. Two is the tension
between the first person as Father and the supposed equality with that which is
terminologically subordinate, Son and Spirit. If one combined the two
difficulties, one might “easily” arrive at a new construction. He suggests
seeking “new solutions.”
Well, he makes it
clear he is willing to go no further. I concur in that I think he has done
enough for the history of theology. He has also hinted at future issues
theology would need to resolve. He has offered his gift. Theologians today
would do well to receive the gift and move forward.
It looks like
Barth took Schleiermacher seriously enough to use him as a foil and do the
opposite.
It looks like
Pannenberg adopted much of the basic insights of Schleiermacher, but updated
them. His theology is so different from that of Schleiermacher because he takes
the event of Jesus Christ seriously. This means he will take revelation as
providing the content of Christian theology rather than the pious consciousness
of the church today. He also takes eschatology and the Trinity and includes
them throughout his theology. Moltmann will do the same. Rahner and Tillich
have some interesting key places where they intersect with Schleiermacher. If
time permits, I would like to see if John Wesley, influenced as he was by the
pietist movement, has some places where he would both push back to
Schleiermacher and would seem to intersect with him.
John Calvin opens
his Institutes of the Christian Religion
with the observation that wisdom in life consists in knowing God and knowing
ourselves. Yet, he finds the knowledge of God and self so closely connected
that he finds it difficult to know which knowledge precedes the other. He
thinks no one can survey oneself without turning thoughts towards God. He
points to the gifts or blessings in life that true knowledge of self will lead
us to consider the source. He points to true knowledge of self as needing to
face the misery and ruin we have made of self and world. This ought to lead us
to aspire to and seek God, the source of wisdom, virtue, and goodness. Calvin
will begin his work in the Institutes
focusing upon the knowledge of God we have in revelation. However, I wonder if we do not see in Schleiermacher what happens
when we begin with knowledge of self, which he finds so intertwined with God
that we cannot know one without the other. As Calvin puts it, our being subsists
in God. As Schleiermacher might put it, our finitude will find fulfillment and
meaning in the Infinite. The fragment that is our life will need to find its
place in the picture God is painting. The little storyline of our lives will
need to find its place in the larger story God is telling. He hopes that such a
procedure will help the secular person reconsider the role God and the
religious community might play in their lives.
Yes, I think this is a worthy objective.
George, it is fascinating to me, and speaks to the enduring greatness of Schleiermacher, that he becomes as influential (in an indirect way) for the doctrines that he neglects as he does for the doctrines he celebrates. This realization is maybe the highlight of your reflections on Schleiermacher and really does illustrate his importance. where would we be if he had not dismissed eschatology and the Trinity (or at least relegated them to a diminutive status). I do not mean that insincerely. It speaks to his greatness, insofar as even the voids he leaves, become influential. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. I do hope that when you can make some time you will read his Speeches. It gives anyone interested a good way to experience his approach to secularity. His The Christian Faith requires much more pondering and plodding through. In any case, after reading him this time, I wondered if his approach to eschatology might not be right. After all, Barth went from Romans, where it looked like eschatology would be central, to CD, where he seems to replace eschatology with Christology. He also famously turned away from Pannenberg and Moltmann because of it. As important as the Trinity is to me, could it be that its placement in the prolegomena is a bit much? In any case, yes, his historical significance is set. Today, although some of his solutions to theological issues continue to have their influence, his significance is more in approach than in content.
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