Schleiermacher: Christian Faith, 32-61


The Christian Faith, Sections 32-61


            In these sections, Schleiermacher explores the feeling of our absolute dependence further. The religious self-consciousness is an intuition that our limits of space and time, our finitude, depend upon a larger unity of the universe. When we become conscious of this dependence, we are on a journey toward the discovery of the meaning of our lives. We have an openness to that which transcends us. Schleiermacher would call such transcendence the Infinite, the Universe, or the All. We will not discover such meaning through insisting upon our isolated individuality. Individuals are not islands. The implication is that we do not discover meaning by focusing simply upon self. Rather, we discover meaning in our engagement with or openness to the world. Meaning comes from beyond us as isolated individuals. 
            Such a religious self-consciousness of absolute dependence upon God leads him to discuss God as the one who creates and sustains the world. He is connecting dogmatic statements about the self to dogmatic statements about God. Let us be clear. While this notion has some value, it does replace the need for theologians to show that God created the world science describes.[1] He places the preserving act of God ahead of the creative act of God. In doing so, he lessens the theological concern for the freedom of the divine act of creation.[2] He sets aside the notion in the Bible of angels and demons, for they have nothing to do with how we live our lives.[3] 
The proofs for the existence of God that we find in Aquinas are unnecessary in Schleiermacher, given his anthropological apologetics. The significance of his notion of our absolute dependence becomes clear as he explores certain divine attributes related to God as creator. Divine attributes like eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient are different ways of expressing our intuition of the dependence we have upon the whole.  It also suggests the goodness of the world in that the world provides the materials for the fullness of a human life. Barth would appear to be right to say that Schleiermacher comes across as nominalist here. The divine attributes are projections of the religious self-consciousness upon the simplicity of God.[4] It at least appears that what he sees in the religious consciousness he also finds in God. The attributes of God at least appear to be an objectification of what he finds in the religious consciousness.[5] The notion of God as subject over the works of God seems lost. His concern is with omnipotence as such, and even then, only as it denotes the causal basis of nature. The totality of finite being presents to us divine causality. Our sense of dependence relates to the totality of the system of nature and becomes the basis for the affirmation of divine omnipotence.[6] The difficult issue of distinctions within the divine qualities is the issue Schleiermacher is exploring. I am not sure I understand the issue, but I will try. God is present fully in each attribute. Each attribute is present fully in divine being. He will say that divine being exists only where there is power, and power shows itself in activity. Preservation, for example, implies placing all activities of any finite being under absolute dependence on God. Yet, we still need to ask if whether we might not have some point to distinguish such abstract aspects. Thus, the reality of undivided existence might need some distinguishing aspects abstractly for purposes of knowledge. The universal and particular, so much discussed in the Middle Ages, are one in actual reality, but it might make sense to distinguish the two aspects for purposes of knowledge. We might also suggest that such a distinction in the abstract is useful when discussing the preservation of God and the divine cooperation relative to the creatures God has made. Divine cooperation with the actions of creatures shows that God does not leave creatures to themselves in their activities. Every part of creation matters to God because God is there. Yet, we are also not to see in the working of God such causality that it would mean the exclusion of the autonomy of creatures and their deviation from the purposes of God.[7] Further, Schleiermacher distributes the attributes of God along the lines of the different relations of the divine causality to the creation, reconciliation, and consummation of humanity and the world. This division became possible for him because he did not relate the attributes to the being of God, but rather, only to the divine causality in creation, reconciliation, and consummation.[8] Schleiermacher related eternity as an attribute to God as the first cause. He characterized it as timeless, freeing God from time itself.[9] In defining divine eternity as timeless or non-spatial divine causality, Schleiermacher will say that eternity conditions time or space itself. In doing so, he follows the theological tradition. The danger of this view is that it sets the Infinite over against the finite and temporal, thus creating a limit for the Infinite.[10] All of this raises the question of the unity of God. Schleiermacher rightly argued that unity is not an attribute of God. Unity might be a quality of the world ruled by one God, but not of God to be only one. Rather than an attribute, unity and plurality come under the category of quantity. God is not “one” in distinction from others. It would conflict with the notion of the Infinity of God, placing a limit on that which by definition has no limits.[11] 
            In this section, for my purposes, Schleiermacher shows that his strength opens the door to his weakness. His willingness to explore our basic dependence upon and openness to the All, the Universe, or the Infinite for the health and well-being we naturally seek for our lives is an important one. He teases out of the pious consciousness some attributes of God. His willingness to let the present act of faith of individuals and the community form his view of God is admirable at many levels. Yet, his trust in philosophical anthropology limits his consideration of the dialogue that needs to happen between science and religion. As much as any genuinely pious person might want to retreat from the challenge of that discussion, the theologian must not succumb. The theologian has much to learn from science about the way the universe works. Many scientists have found that science does not have the tools to determine how it all fits together in a meaningful way.




[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Vol. 2, 52.
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Vol. 2, 42.
[3] Barth, CD III.3, 413-4.
[4] Barth, CD, II.1, 327.
[5] Barth, CD, II.1, 338-9.
[6] Barth, CD, II.1, 529-30.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 48.
[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 392-3.
[9] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 404-5.
[10] Barth, CD, II.1, 466.
[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume I, 443.

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