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A ‘Glaring Misunderstanding'? Schleiermacher, Barth and the Nature of Speculative Theology
Abstract
Both Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth attempted to keep Christian dogmatic theology free from abstract philosophical speculation. However, Barth thinks that Schleiermacher is guilty of the very speculative theology to which Schleiermacher is so averse. This article will defend the claim that Barth misreads Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre, such that Schleiermacher's theological method and formulations are just as anti-speculative as Barth's. To defend this claim, this article examines what Barth considers to be speculative theology as well as his accusation that Schleiermacher is guilty of such speculative proposals. After considering Barth's challenges, this article defends Schleiermacher's methodology and theology as anti-speculative. Finally, several additional accusations against Schleiermacher (those of Bruce McCormack and Thomas Curran) are overcome.
... For proponents of this view, for example, James Gordon, the first two sets of attributes are empty conceptual frames, awaiting the positive content provided in the final treatment of divine wisdom and love. 26 Gordon goes so far as to suggest "that Schleiermacher's general treatment of the divine attributes in Part I is superseded by his Christian treatment of God's nature at the conclusion of Part II." 27 While still others-even sympathetic readers of Schleiermacher like Van A. Harvey and Bruce McCormack-allege that while Schleiermacher excludes love and wisdom from these wider methodological strictures, he does so inconsistently with his theological methodology. 28 In what follows, I offer my own interpretation of how Schleiermacher relates his various treatments of the divine attributes and what this reveals about his supposed dogmatic nominalism. ...
Schleiermacher is an increasingly important resource for contemporary systematic theology, particularly as Barth’s criticisms of Schleiermacher, which were thought to have undermined his dogmatic relevance, are subject to severe criticism. With reference to the doctrine of God, Barth argues that Schleiermacher’s theology generates a “God behind God” and is problematized by Feuerbach. I offer a detailed reading of Schleiermacher’s mature account of the divine being and attributes and suggest in view of this interpretation that a slightly nuanced version of Barth’s critique rightly applies to Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God. I make this argument in dialogue with the many contemporary voices arguing in Schleiermacher’s defense and raise some critical questions for those seeking to retrieve Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God.
... The God-head 'is never revealed to us as it is itself' (Schleiermacher [1835] As Sabellianism has been associated with modalism, it becomes understandable that Schleiermacher has also been accused of this Trinitarian heresy. By leaving a 3.This is crucial in his theology, and one should call attention to studies in this regard, see, for example, Gordon (2014), who discusses the express anti-speculative thrust of Schleiermacher's work. ...
Schleiermacher’s approach to the doctrine of God has attracted interest in contemporary theological scholarship. The article tries to map the major features of his God-construal and a number of perspectives are highlighted. Attention is given to the general sentiments of his project, the history of interpretation, the question of a primary referent for ‘God’ and the centrality of causation, the role of structure in his Glaubenslehre and finally the attribute tradition and the doctrine of the Trinity. The second part of the article engages Schleiermacher’s interpretation from the developments in especially the Trinitarian Renaissance since the last part of the 20th century. A number of critical divergences are identified, for example, the preference given to plurality, greater appreciation for the immanent Trinity, a Trinitarian approach to the attributes and an expansive notion of the ‘practical’ implications of the Trinity. Critical questions about ‘Schleiermacher’s God’ are raised in the conclusion.
Schleiermacher's theological champions like Kevin Hector contend that his Christology is ‘high’ and is Chalcedonian in spirit. I offer a number of objections to this view, suggesting that Schleiermacher offers a distinctive, early modern account of Christ as a uniquely deified redeemer but not of Christ as the uncreated God. This raises some surprising questions for the dogmatic relation of Christology, soteriology and anthropology.
It is a misconception to identify modernity with secularization. When modernity simply creates the potential platform for secularization. On the one hand, modernity lessens the influence of piety to a minimum, and on the other hand, it restores piety and even modernizes piety without secularization. This essay focuses on telling the story of modernity in attempting to build a knowledge of God through the lens of piety. It centers on the work of two modern theologians: John Wesley and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The juxtaposition of Wesley and Schleiermacher is not without reason. Both of them are strongly influenced by the Moravian Brethren, which heavily emphasized a pietistic element in their community. This essay, however, will not explain the teaching of Moravian Brethren other than presenting their pietistic emphasis that was retained in Wesley and Schleiermacher's works. This essay argues that Schleiermacher's notion of a feeling of absolute dependence’ fills the rational gap of Wesleyan pietistic concept. It also discusses how the ‘Evangelical Revival/First Great Awakening’ and ‘Romanticism’ shaped Wesley and Schleiermacher, respectively, as they formulated their concept of piety. This essay is structured as follows. First, it presents the Evangelical Revival/First Great Awakening as the historical backdrop of Wesley's thought and continues with exhibiting Wesley’s concept of piety. Then, the essay describes the Romantic era and Schleiermacher's idea of piety.
Adalah sebuah miskonsepsi untuk mengidentifikasi modernitas dengan sekularisasi, ketika modernitas hanya sekedar menciptakan panggung yang potensial untuk sekularisasi. Di satu sisi, modernitas mengurangi pengaruh kesalehan hingga taraf minimal, namun di sisi lain, modernitas memulihkan kesalehan. Makalah ini berfokus dalam menceritakan ulang kisah modernitas dalam upaya membangun pengetahuan akan Allah melalui lensa kesalehan. Makalah ini memusatkan diri pada karya dua teologi modern: John Wesley dan Friedrich Schleiermacher. Penjajaran Wesley dan Schleiermacher bukan tanpa alasan. Keduanya sangat dipengaruhi oleh Persaudaran Moravianyang sangat menekankan pada elemen kesalehan dalam komunitas mereka. Makalah ini, bagaimanapun, tidak menjelaskan pengajaran Persaudaraan Moravian selain menyajikan penekanan kesalehan yang dipertahankan dalam karya Wesley dan Schleiermacher. Makalah ini berupaya untuk menunjukkan bahwa gagasan Schleiermacher tentang perasaan akan ketergantungan absolut mengisi celah rasional dari konsep kesalehan John Wesley. Makalah ini juga membahas bagaimana Evangelical Revival/First Great Awakening dan Romantisisme membentuk Wesley dan Schleiermacher kala mereka merumuskan konsep kesalehan mereka masing-masing. Untuk mendukung argumen ini, makalah ini disusun sebagai berikut. Pertama, makalah ini menyajikan Evangelical Revival/First Great Awakening sebagai latar sejarah dari pemikiran Wesley dan dilanjutkan dengan menyajikan konsep kesalehan Wesley. Kemudian, makalah ini menjelaskan era Romantis dan konsep kesalehan Schleiermacher.
Recently, Schleiermacher's On Religion has been attacked by contemporary scholars of religion as showing a form of subjectivism that has characteristics from those of Hegel and Barth. These scholars think that religion according to Schleiermacher is a purely private affair, that it is restricted to the interior of the religious individual, and is insulated altogether from the public, observable realm of society, culture, and history. The paper criticizes this view In author's opinion, religious feeling must be connected to the worldview that reality is a universal network of interdependence as laid out in On Religion. As religious feeling as there described is not only the perception of the relationships, but also leads to the creation of new relationships through communication of feeling, it necessarily leads to a religious society. On the other hand, the depiction of a religious society cannot be separated from that of religious feeling, because it must actually be based on the communication of religious feeling, and becomes the natural product of that religious feeling Furthermore, the main characteristic of a religious society is determined by that of the communication of religious feeling.
Contemporary theologians have enriched our understanding of the Holy Spirit's identity and broadened our grasp of the pneumatological tradition, but a crucial question has not been sufficiently addressed: while we have renewed understandings of who the Spirit is and what the Spirit does, very little has been said about how the Spirit works. On the basis of some clues from Schleiermacher, this essay elaborates and defends an answer to this question. According to this proposal, Christ's normative Spirit is mediated through a process of mutual recognition which carries on the Spirit of Christ's beliefs and actions.
Defining Schleiermacher's Christology simply as ‘low’ is inadequate, and based on a neglect of the crucial role that actualism plays in his theology. However, accounts that see his Christology as so high as to be docetic are equally unhappy. This article shows that there is a different way to read Schleiermacher's theology, one that avoids both views. By looking at how Schleiermacher's Christology proceeds in both ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ directions, it shows that through correctly understanding Schleiermacher's actualism we are able to see that, for Schleiermacher, Christ is the one who reproduces God's pure act of love through his own God-consciousness. Christ, then, exists as pure activity and so, for Schleiermacher, is God incarnate. The article then addresses two common objections to Schleiermacher's Christology: that Schleiermacher's Christ is not fully human; and that, if Christ is pure act, what of the passion? The piece closes with an account of the relationship of Christology and Trinity.