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A Chapter in The History of The Ecumenical Quest: Schelling and Schleiermacher

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Klaus Penzel
Klaus Penzel
Affiliation:
Perkins School of Theology
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Extract

It must appear somewhat strange that the ecumenical ideas which were developed by German Protestantism in the first half of the nineteenth century have never, to the best of my knowledge, been treated systematically and exhaustively, especially in view of the fact that these decades were unusually fruitful in producing various serious contributions to the discussion of the question of the unity and disunity of the Church.1 The brief remarks, for instance, in RouseNeill (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948, are quite inadequate.2 I have set myself the task in this paper merely to call attention to two of these nineteenth century German contributions to the ecumenical discussion, namely Schelling's and Schleiermacher's.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , September 1964 , pp. 322 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1964

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References

1. A selective list of important titles would have to include at least the following: Novalis (von Hardenberg, F.), Die Christenheit oder Europa, 1799Google Scholar; the literary discussion between Moehler, J. A., Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatisehen Gegensaetze der Katholiken und Protestanten nach ihren oeffentlichen Bekenntnisschriften, 1832,Google Scholar Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensaetze zwischen Katholiken und Protestanten, 1834 and Baur, F. C., Der Gegensatz der Katholiken und Protestanten, nach den Prinzipien und Hauptdogmen der beiden Lehrbegriffe, 1834, 1836 (2nd ed.);Google Scholar Loehe, W., Drei Buecher von der Kirche, 1845Google Scholar; Schaff, P., Das Prinzip des Protestantismus, 1845Google Scholar; Thiersch, H. W. J., Vorlesungen ueber Katholizismus und Protestantismus, 1846;Google Scholar cf. also the Roman Catholic von Baader, F., Der morgenlaendische und abendlaendische Katholizismus mehr in seinen inneren wesentlichen als in seinen aeusserlichen Verhaeltnissen dargestellt, 1841.Google Scholar

2. Rouse, R. and Neill, S. (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), pp. 268ff.Google Scholar

3. Baur, F. C., Die Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtsschreibung (Tuebingen: L. F. Fues, 1852), p. 260.Google Scholar — Translations of German sources are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

4. Ibid., p. 259.

5. Ibid., p. 257.

6. Cf. above, footnote 1.

7. An English translation of major portions of these lectures is now available in The Perkins School of Theology Journal, XVII (1964), 2, 3, pp. 10–18.Google Scholar

8. Schelling, F. W. J., Philosophic der Mythologie und Offenbarung, section II, Vols. 1, 4 of Saemmtliche Werke (ed. von Schelling, K. F. A., Stuttgart and Augsburg: J. G. Cotta, 14 vols., 1856-1861)Google Scholar. The thirty-sixth and thirty- seventh lectures are in section II, vol. 4, pp. 294–334.

9. Cf. E. Troeltsch's critical resumé of the content of Schelling's Berlin lectures and their success: The old Schelling “makes Christianity, whose traditional dogmatics are interpreted in gnostic-evolutionary fashion, the goal of history and the foundation for science, the state, morals, and art, a theory which has found adherents only in small circles, in ecclesiastical and pietistic circles in particular, but which has had scarcely any effect on the public.” (“Idealismus, deutscher,” Real-Encyklopaedie fuer protestantische Theologie und Kirche (3rd ed.), vol. VIII, p. 632.Google Scholar

10. Schelling, , Saemmtliche Werke, section II, vol. 4, pp. 72f.Google Scholar — For a corresponding distinction between the kingdoms of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in Hegel's philosophy of religion Hegel, cf. G. W. F., Saemmtliche Werke (ed. Glockner, H., Stuttgart: Fr. Frommann), vol. 16 (1959), pp. 223–356.Google Scholar

11. Schelling, op. cit., p. 297.

12. Neander, A., Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Religion und Kirche (3rd ed., Gotha: F. Perthes, 1856), vol. II, section II, pp. 451–457.Google Scholar

13. Lessing, G. E., Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (1780), §§ 86–90.Google Scholar (English in Chadwick, H. (ed. and trans.), Lessing's Theological Writings, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1957, pp. 82–98).Google Scholar

14. Hegel, , The Philosophy of History (trans. Sibree, J., New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956), p. 345.Google Scholar

15. It should at least be noted that Henrich Steffens, a follower and friend of Schelling, published a similar view already in 1839 (Christliche Religionsphilosophie (Breslau: J. Max and Komp, 1839), vol. 1, pp. 490 f.).Google Scholar

16. Schelling, op. cit., p. 302.

17. Ibid., p. 303.

18. Ibid., p. 305.

19. Ibid., p. 310.

20. Ibid., p. 310.

21. Ibid., p. 321.

22. Ibid., p. 332.

23. Schaff, P., History of the Christian Church, vol. I (3rd ed., New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890), p. 517 foot-note.Google Scholar

24. Schleiermacher, F., Die christliche Sitte nach den Grundsaetzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhang dargestellt, (ed. Jonas, L., in Saemmtliche Werke, section I, vol. 12, 2nd ed., Berlin: G. Reimer, 1884).Google Scholar

25. More recently a number of German dissertations have appeared on Schleiermacher's theology, all of which consider briefly some of Schleiermacher's ecumenical ideas: Flueckiger, F., Philosophie und Theologie bei Schleiermacher (Zollikon-Zuerich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1947);Google Scholar Samson, H., Die Kirche als Grundbegriff der theologischen Ethik Schleiermachers (Zollikon: Evangeliseher Verlag, 1958);Google Scholar Jorgensen, P. H., Die Ethik Schleiermachers (Muenchen: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1959);Google Scholar Beckmann, K. M., Der Begriff der Haeresie bei Schleiermacher (Muenchen: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1959).Google Scholar

26. At least in passing it should be pointed out that one must carefully “distinguish between the concept of development of the organological school and that of the dialectical school,” although in reality they frequently fused (Troeltsch, E., “Ueber den historischen Entwicklungsbegriff und die Universalgeschichte,” Gesammelte Schriften, Tuebingen: J. C. Mohr (Siebeck, P.), vol. 3, 1922, p. 283).Google Scholar Hegel himself discussed the contrast of the romantic and dialectical concepts of development in his “Die Vernunft in der Geschichte,” Saemmtliche Warke, (ed. J. Hoffmeister, vol. XVIII A, Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1955), pp. 151 f.Google Scholar

27. Scheiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, p. 587.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., p. 417.—Schleiermacher's vacillation is most clearly reflected in the difference between the lectures of 1822/23 and 1824/25. Cf. editor's note in Christliche Sitte, p. 589.

29. Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, (English translation of the 2nd German edition by Mackintosh, H. R. and Stewart, J. S., Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), §§ 148ff.Google Scholar

30. Sehleiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, p. 137.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. 215.

32. Ibid., p. 197.

33. Ibid., p. 139.

34. Ibid., p. 64.

35. Ibid., p. 410.

36. Ibid., p. 412.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., p. 572.

39. Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, § 24.Google Scholar

40. Schleiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, p. 72.Google Scholar For a similar statement cf. The Christian Faith, § 103, 2.

41. Schleiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, p. 139.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., p. 579.

43. Ibid., p. 573.

44. Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, § 24Google Scholar, supplement. — In the first edition of Der christliche Glaube Schleiermacher had boasted of being the first to have written a systematic theology from the point of view of the Prussian Union (Der christliche Glaube, Berlin: G. Reimer, 1821fGoogle Scholar, Introduction). In the second edition he corrected himself, since this honor was dne the Heidelberg theologian Schwarz, F. H. C. (Grundriss der kirchlichen protestantantischen Dogmatik, 1816).Google Scholar

45. Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 218.

46. Schleiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, pp. 65 f.Google Scholar

47. Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith. § 150Google Scholar, thesis.—In The Christian Faith the theses of §§ 151–155 develop this idea in the following manner: “The complete suspension of fellowship between the different parts of the visible church is unchristian” (§151). “All separations in the church are merely temporary” (§152). “As in every branch of the visible church error is possible, and therefore also in some respect actual, so also there is never lacking in any the corrective power of truth” (§153). “No presentation of the Christian religion issuing from the visible church contains pure and perfect truth” (§154). “All errors that are generated in the visible church come to be removed by the truth which never ceases to work in it” (§155).

48. Schleiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, p. 409.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., supplement A, § 223. In The Christian Faith, § 152, he distinguished between indifferentism and proselytizing.

50. Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, § 151, 1.Google Scholar

51. A. Neander, op. cit., vol. I section I, p. 185.

52. Ibid.

53. Schleiermacher, , Christliche Sitte, pp. 135 ff.Google Scholar

54. Schleiermacher, , “Zweites Sendschreiben an Dr. Luecke” Theologische Studien und Kritikin, II (1829), p. 494.Google Scholar

55. Schelling, op. cit., pp. 327f.

56. For the new points of view with which Schleiermacher attempted to redefine the meaning of “church” and “sect,” “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” cf. The Christian Faith, § 22. But cf. also his discussion throughout the Christliche Sitte.

57. Schleiermacher, , On Religion. Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (Trans. Oman, J., New York: Harper's Torch books, 1958), pp. 196 f.Google Scholar — Contrast this, for instance, with Hegel's remarks on the general state of Protestantism in North America: There “the most unbounded license of imagination in religious matters prevails, and that religious unity is wanting which has been maintained in European states, where deviations are limited to a few confessions” (Hegel, , The Philosophy of History, p. 85).Google Scholar

58. Cf. Schaff, P., Saint Augustin, Melanchthon, Neander (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1885), p. 147.Google Scholar