Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:41:08.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Science of Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

P. D. L. Avis
Affiliation:
2 North Road South Molton Devon EX36 3AZ

Extract

The problem of establishing theology as a rigorously objective intellectual discipline or science whilst at the same time recognising that we cannot speak of God, theology's transcendent and infinite object, directly or univocally has given rise to various attempts to guarantee theological integrity. As the first to acknowledge and attempt to grapple with the problem of theological procedure in the modern world of thought, Friedrich Schleiermacher has a more than merely historical importance: together with some half a dozen other titanic figures of Christain history he continues to overshadow our theological endeavours today.1

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 19 note 1 I would like to record my thanks to Professor Stephen Sykes for suggestions and criticism over several years, concerning the subject of this paper. He should not, however, be implicated in the views I put forward. I am also grateful to the Editorial Board of S. J. T. for a number of suggested improvements which I have been happy to accept.

page 20 note 1 Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith (Edinburgh, 1928), pp. 88, 76.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 Cited Brandt, R. B., The Philosophy of Schleiermacher (New York, 1941 and 1968), p. 261.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 I discuss theseand related issses in my book, Mind, Method and God.

page 23 note 1 Schleiermacher, op. cit., pp. 738, 748; cf. Welch, C., The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (London, 1953), p. 6.Google Scholar

page 23 note 2 Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy (Harmondsworth, 1959), p. 24 (ray stress).Google Scholar

page 23 note 3 cf. Schleiermacher, op. cit., p. 17: ‘to feel oneself absolutely dependent and to be conscious of being in relation with God are one and the same thing … the two cannot be separated from each other’.

page 23 note 4 See Otto, op. cit., pp. 34f.

page 24 note 1 Redeker, M., Schleiermacher: Life and Thought (Philadelphia, 1973), p. 154.Google Scholar

page 24 note 2 Schleiermacher, op. cit., pp. 195f; cf. Welch, op. cit., p. 7.

page 25 note 1 Oman, J., The Natural and the Supernatural (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 27, 36Google Scholar; cf. Brandt, op. cit., pp. 117ff, 186ff; Tillich, P., Systematic Theology (Welwyn, 1968), I, 47.Google Scholar

page 25 note 2 Brandt, op. cit., pp. 293f.

page 25 note 3 See especially, Lewis, H. D., Our Experience of God (London 1959)Google Scholar; Smith, J. E., Experience and God (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Owen, H. P., The Christian Knowledge of God (London, 1969).Google Scholar

page 26 note 1 Barth, K., The Word of God and the Word of Man (London, 1928), p. 196Google Scholar. I have borrowed Barth's suggestive phrase from its original context.

page 26 note 2 See Hepburn, R. W., Christianity and Paradox (London, 1958), 44f.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 Schleiermacher, op. cit., pp. 353f.

page 28 note 1 Coleridge, S. T., Aids to Reflection (London, 1943), I, 125Google Scholar; Newman, J. H., Essays Critical and Historical (London, 1895), I, 26g,.Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 See, for example, Lewis, H. D., The Self and Immortality (London, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 29 note 1 Torrance, T. F., Theology in Reconciliation (London, 1975), passim.Google Scholar

page 29 note 2 Whitehead, A. N., Process and Reality (New York, 1929), p. 6.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 Whitehead, , Science and the Modern World (Harmondsworth, 1938), p. 219.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 Coleridge, , Anima Poetae (London, 1895), p. 42.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 Otto, , introduction to Schleiermacher, Speeches on Religion, tr. Oman, John (New York, 1958), xi.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Barth drew the moral that ‘as long as he is an apologist, the theologian must renounce his theological function’. Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1972), 439ff.Google Scholar

page 32 note 3 Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, p. 115Google Scholar; cf. pp. 62, 608ff.

page 33 note 1 Schleiermacher, op. cit., 39ff.

page 33 note 2 Schleiermacher, , Soliloquies, tr. Friess, H. L. (Chicago, 1926), p. xxviGoogle Scholar. cf. Brandt, op. cit., pp. 23ff.

page 33 note 3 Cited Brandt, op. cit., p. 26.

page 33 note 4 Schleiermacher, , Soliloquies, pp. 25, 29.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 Brandt, op. cit., pp. I36f.

page 34 note 2 Schleiermacher, , Soliloquies, pp. 27, 31.Google Scholar

page 34 note 3 Johnson, W. A., On religion: A Study of Theological Method in Schleiermacher and Nygren (Leiden, 1964), p. 14.Google Scholar

page 34 note 4 Schleiermacher, , Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre, cited Johnson, op. cit., p. 42 n. 1.Google Scholar

page 34 note 5 Johnson, op. cit., p. 45. But the Kingdom of God was defined as ‘die Idee einer vollkommener Kultur’.

page 35 note 1 See Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, pp. 5ff.Google Scholar

page 35 note 2 Otto, , The Idea of the Holy, p. 125Google Scholar; see also ‘How Schleiermacher rediscovered the sensus numinis’, Religious Essays (London, 1931).Google Scholar

page 35 note 3 Otto, , The Idea of the Holy, p. 50.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, p. 271Google Scholar; cf. pp. 23ff.

page 36 note 2 Mackintosh, H. R., Types of Modern Theology (London, 1964), p. 97.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 Schleiermacher, , The Christian Faith, pp. 317ffGoogle Scholar. For a lucid exposition, see Hick, J., Evil and the God of Love (London, 1966), ch. 10.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 Cited from the Opus Maximum by Boulger, J. D., Coleridge as Religious Thinker (Yale, 1961), p. 122Google Scholar; cf. Aids to Reflection, p. 90: ‘conscience is the ground and ante cedent of human (or self-) consciousness, and not any modification of the latter’. See also Muirhead, J. H., Coleridge as Philosopher (London, 1930), p. 107.Google Scholar

page 37 note 3 Coleridge, , Anima Poetae, p. 259.Google Scholar

page 37 note 4 Hort, , ‘Coleridge’, Cambridge Essays (Cambridge, 1856) p. 338.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 Otto, , The Idea of the Holy, p. 24.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 Cited Lowrie, W., Kierkegaard (London, 1938) p. 264.Google Scholar

page 39 note 1 Newman, , On University Education (London, 1915) (Everyman edn.), pp. 185f.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 See Dupré, L., Kierkegaard as Theologian (London, 1964), pp. 75f.Google Scholar

page 39 note 3 Maurice, F. D., Theological Essays (London, 1957), p. 94.Google Scholar

page 39 note 4 Oman, op. cit., p. 62.

page 39 note 5 See Brandt, op. cit., p. 143.

page 39 note 6 Ed., Boekraad, A. J. and Tristram, H., The Argument from Conscience to the Existence of God according to J. H. Newman (Louvain, 1961), p. 118.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 Brown, J., Subject and Object in Modern Theology (London, 1955), p. 34.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 See, for example, Lowrie, W., introduction to Kierkegaard, , Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Princeton, 1941), p. xviiiGoogle Scholar; Collins, The Mind of Kierkegaard (London, 1954), p. 46.

page 41 note 1 Kierkegaard, , Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 120.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 ibid., pp. 119, 135ff.

page 41 note 3 Kierkegaard, , Fear and Trembling (London, 1939), p. 97.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 Swenson, D., introduction to Kierkegaard, , Philosophical Fragments, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1962), p. xviGoogle Scholar. See also Schmueli, Adi, Kierkegaard and Consciousness (Princeton, 1971).Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 Lewis, H. D., Our Experience of God (London, 1970) Fontana edn, p. 326.Google Scholar