Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith and Christian Ethics

Abstract

Schleiermacher’s treatment of election criticizes the narrow focus on individual salvation and emphasizes the primacy of divine grace. Yet more than merely offering a revision of this controversial doctrine, Schleiermacher’s position illuminates the larger correlation of grace, history, and soteriology in his theology. This essay examines Schleiermacher’s novel understanding of grace and history by attending to the subtle theme of the “supernatural-becoming-natural” in his thought. In contrast to rationalist and supernaturalist theologies in his day, his Christian Faith and Christian Ethics offer a historically-minded treatment that focuses on the original instance of grace in history: the appearance of the redeemer. Schleiermacher depicts the relatively supernatural influence of Christ as transforming the natural and historical world from within, drawing creation to its divinelyordained completion. This dynamic highlights Schleiermacher’s work as an innovative contribution to ongoing discussions of grace and redemption in modern and contemporary systematic theology.

Full text

Open Theology 2015; 1: 334–341
Kevin Vander Schel
Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s
Christian Faith and Christian Ethics
DOI 10.1515/opth-2015-0017
Received July 22, 2015; accepted September 17, 2015
Abstract: Schleiermacher’s treatment of election criticizes the narrow focus on individual salvation and
emphasizes the primacy of divine grace. Yet more than merely offering a revision of this controversial doctrine,
Schleiermacher’s position illuminates the larger correlation of grace, history, and soteriology in his theology. This
essay examines Schleiermacher’s novel understanding of grace and history by attending to the subtle theme of
the “supernatural-becoming-natural” in his thought. In contrast to rationalist and supernaturalist theologies in
his day, his Christian Faith and Christian Ethics offer a historically-minded treatment that focuses on the original
instance of grace in history: the appearance of the redeemer. Schleiermacher depicts the relatively supernatural
influence of Christ as transforming the natural and historical world from within, drawing creation to its divinely-
ordained completion. This dynamic highlights Schleiermacher’s work as an innovative contribution to ongoing
discussions of grace and redemption in modern and contemporary systematic theology.
Keywords: Systematic Theology, Christology, Grace and History, Redemption, Nature and the Supernatural
Recent engagements with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s 1819 essay on election have uncovered the subtle yet
central role that the doctrine of election plays within his overall theological work.¹ This text, occasioned
by Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider’s Aphorisms concerning the union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches,
marks one of the first publications of Schleiermacher’s mature academic theology and outlines a consistent
position of his later Christian Faith and Christian Ethics. This early work presents an innovative study,
engaging Augustine, Luther, and Calvin to defend the primacy of divine grace, while also departing from
the narrow focus on individual salvation and attending to the historical character of God’s working in the
world.² Yet more than offering a creative revision of this challenging Reformed teaching, Schleiermacher’s
treatment of election signals the novel correlation of grace, history, and soteriology that lies at the heart of
his dogmatic work.³ He grounds his theology on the advent of grace in the historical appearance of Christ,
whose redemptive and salvific influence does not oppose the created world but fulfills it in accordance with
the divine plan.
This brief essay explores Schleiermacher’s distinctive understanding of grace and history by attending
to the subtle theme of the “supernatural-becoming-natural” in his thought. In contrast to the prevailing
theological approaches of his time, his Christian Faith and lectures on Christian Ethics (Christliche
Sittenlehre) present Christ as originating a new and unsurpassable form of human historical living: a higher,
relatively supernatural influence irreducible to natural explanation yet mediated in and through natural
and historical processes. Schleiermacher thus depicts Christ’s redemptive influence as bringing about a
1See especially Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election; Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher; and Gockel, “New Perspectives.”
2See Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 25-40.
3On Schleiermacher’s reframing of Calvin’s view of election, and its inseparability from the doctrines of creation and
redemption in his thought, see B.A. Gerrish, “Grace and the Limits of History: Alexander Schweizer on Predestination,” 99-150,
esp. 110-19; see also Gerrish, “Nature and the Theater of Redemption” 196-218; and Gerrish, Christian Faith, 195-212.
© 2015 Kevin Vander Schel, licensee De Gruyter Open.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
*Corresponding author: Kevin Vander Schel: Villanova University, e-mail: kvschel@gmail.com
Research Article Open Access

Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith and Christian Ethics 335
gradual transformation of human history from within, inaugurating the reign of God that does not abolish
the created world but draws it to its divinely-ordained completion.
This essay proceeds in three moves. The first considers Schleiermacher’s treatment of grace in Christ
as an alternative to the theological controversies of his day. The second and third sections then turn
respectively to his Christian Faith and Christian Ethics, in order to highlight his teaching of grace and history
as an unfolding of the one eternal and unconditional divine decree.
An Alternative to Rationalism and Supernaturalism
Schleiermacher’s dispute with Bretschneider in the essay on election indicates the significant tensions
and transitions occupying Protestant thought in his day. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, dogmatic
theology faced a growing impasse between the rapid advances in critical and scientific scholarship
(Wissenschaft) and the traditional claims of established Christian belief. The natural sciences seemed to
progress towards an ever more comprehensive knowledge of the physical world, throwing into question
many theological claims concerning creation, the supernatural inspiration of the Bible, and the credibility
of miracles. A similar difficulty arose from developments in historical scholarship. The rise of historical and
critical approaches, soon to become a defining feature of the modern study of religion, occasioned thorough
re-evaluations of cherished Christian beliefs and seemed to undermine both the authority of Scripture and
the permanence of Christian doctrine.
In the wake of these challenges, theologians of the period became divided into two opposed – and
distinctly post-Kantian – schools of thought: rationalism and supernaturalism. The rationalist school
found its basis in human reason alone and considered all religious truth as grounded in, and limited by,
the functioning of natural human rationality. The contrasting supernaturalist school sought to safeguard
the transcendent otherness and immediacy of divine revelation, insisting that Christian dogma contained
an inescapably supernatural, “super-rational” quality and thus exceeded the grasp of unaided human
reason. The conflict between these two approaches dominated German theological scholarship through
the mid-nineteenth century and formed an impasse that occupied all the leading minds of the age.
Indeed, Bretschneider’s own theology, among the most influential systems prior to the first edition of
Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre, sought to navigate a middle path between these two camps through a
position of “rational supernaturalism.”
Schleiermacher likewise recognized the force of this dilemma, describing the opposition between
rationalism and supranaturalism as the “great division in our church.” In an 1829 letter to Friedrich Lücke,
he offered a candid appraisal of the difficulties facing the theology of his day, lamenting the growing
alienation of religious belief from scientific (wissenschaftlich) scholarship as well as the regrettable siege
mentality into which Christianity had entrenched itself.
Yet Schleiermacher aligned himself with neither side of this conflict. He viewed the particular dispute
between rationalism and supernaturalism, as well as the wider conflict of faith and scholarship (Glauben
4In his Aphorisms, Bretschneider presented the Reformed doctrine of election as an obstacle to the emerging union of the
Lutheran and Reformed churches, and viewed it as weakening Christianity’s core ethical teaching regarding human persons’
free responsibility to choose moral ends. For a brief overview of Bretschneider’s position on election, see Schleiermacher, On
the Doctrine of Election, 11-12. See also Bretschneider, Aphorismen, 444-68.
5On the conflicting theological schools of rationalism and supernaturalism and the theological approaches adopted
throughout this controversy, see Hirsch, Geschichte der neuern evangelischen Theologie, 1-144; and Schwarz, Zur Geschichte der
neuesten Theologie. Schwarz identifies David Friedrich Strauss’ 1835 Leben Jesu (“Life of Jesus”) as marking a significant shift
in the terms of this debate.
6For a clear overview of Bretschneider’s position relative to this controversy, see Barrett, “Tangled Legacy,” 40-48.
7Schleiermacher, Two Letters to Dr. Lücke, 88.
8See ibid., 95-96, 102. Gottfried Christian Friedich Lücke (1791-1855), together with Schleiermacher’s student Karl Immanuel
Nitzsch (1787-1868), was a leading figure of the movement of “mediating theology” (Vermittlungstheologie). On Schleiermacher’s
complicated relationship to nineteenth-century mediating theology, see Aubert, The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century
American Theology, 36-96.

336 K. Vander Schel
und Wissenschaft), as rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of human historical development. In
his view, both approaches departed from theology’s genuine task, the charge it had inherited from the
Reformation to enter into critical dialogue with new historical and scientific developments in order to meet
the church’s needs.¹ To properly respond to the divide between faith and scholarship, he argued, theology
must move beyond abstract conceptual oppositions of ‘reason vs. revelation’ and ‘nature vs. supernature’
and attend to a more basic concern: securing an adequate understanding of Christ’s continuing redemptive
influence in human history.
Consequently, Schleiermacher focuses his own treatment on the singular redemptive activity of Christ
in human historical living. Christ’s appearance in history, he writes to Lücke, can only be explained as “a
new creation, as the beginning of a higher development of spiritual life.”¹¹ Yet as this higher form of life
can only be mediated in and through the historical realities of the natural world, he also maintained it
should be considered neither purely natural nor absolutely supernatural.¹² His own theological writings
thus exhibit a unique strategy of treating the supernatural in history, one that recognizes the redemptive
activity of Christ as something initially God-given – and in this sense “supernatural” – while treating the
further growth of this influence as unfolding entirely through natural and historical means.¹³ He describes
this strategy as follows:
Whenever I speak of the supernatural, I do so with reference to what comes first, but afterwards it becomes, secondly,
something natural. Thus creation is supernatural, according to its origin, but it afterwards becomes the natural order
(Naturzusammenhang). Likewise Christ is supernatural, in his origin, but he afterwards becomes natural as a genuine
human being. And it is the same with the Holy Spirit and the Christian church.¹
This unique approach illuminates an important feature of Schleiermacher’s theological system and
highlights a subtle theme he employs throughout his mature works. Through the redeemer a new form of
personal and communal life has appeared, yet it does not operate magically in the world – as if breaking in
from beyond – but rather elevates and transforms historical human living from within. Thus, the influence
of Christ reveals a decisive new beginning in human history;¹ it signals the gradual emergence and
becoming of the reign of God, and this is nothing other than – in the formulation of his Christian Faith – the
“supernatural-becoming-natural in an ethical manner” (das sittliche Naturwerden des Übernatürlichen).¹
9Schleiermacher’s remarks make clear both his dissatisfaction and impatience with the reigning categories in this debate: “I
am convinced that misunderstandings are unavoidable because the entire issue is a misunderstanding … Even the names of
the contending parties are unfortunate… Therefore, I would prefer that one devise for me a position where what is supernatural
can at the same time be natural… And so I want to say that I consider myself to be a real supernaturalist, and I think this label
is as good as any other. But I fail to see what is to be gained from all this. And … I do not see what could prevent someone from
making into a rationalist or a supernaturalist, as they please, one who simply does not stand at the utter extremes…” (Two
Letters to Dr. Lücke, 88-89).
10See Schleiermacher, Two Letters to Dr. Lücke, 63-64.
11Ibid., 64. On this “new spiritual creation” through Christ and the Spirit see also Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election,
6 7.
12Schleiermacher’s dissatisfaction with these categories becomes clear in the introductory sections of his Glaubenslehre:
“The appearance of the redeemer in history is, as divine revelation, neither something absolutely supernatural nor something
absolutely suprarational…” See Der christliche Glaube (1830/31) §13, KGA I.13.1: 106. All translations from this text are by the
author. See also Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 62.
13See Schleiermacher, Two Letters to Dr. Lücke (1981), 64-5; and Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §10, p.s.; §13.
14Translation by the author. See Schleiermacher, Schleiermachers Sendschreiben über seine Glaubenslehre an Lücke, 68; cf.
Schleiermacher, Two Letters to Dr. Lücke, 89.
15See Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §13.1.
16Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §88.4, KGA I.13.1: 26; see also §13.1. The word sittliche is missing from
the MacIntosh and Stewart translation: “So, too, in relation to the redeemer Himself, the new corporate life is no miracle,
but simply the supernatural becoming natural, since…” (Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 365). Schleiermacher returns
to this point throughout his Christian Faith. He describes it as “the maxim everywhere underlying our presentation” (überall
zum Grunde liegende Maxime) “that the beginning of the reign of God is something supernatural, which however becomes
something natural as soon as it comes to appear…” (Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §100.3, KGA I.13.2: 95; cf. Schleiermacher,
The Christian Faith, 430).

Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith and Christian Ethics 337
For Schleiermacher, then, the supernatural beginning of Christ and the emergence of the reign of God
mark the departure and endpoints of a single divine redemptive activity, which Schleiermacher considers
the one true miracle – the “total spiritual miracle” – in the created world.¹ Yet it presents a miracle in
a peculiar sense. While the appearance of Christ marks the central turning point in human history, it
signals no second, supervening divine activity that interrupts the world but rather the continuation and
perfection of the original created order. As emphasized so clearly in the 1819 essay on election, creation and
redemption represent no split in divine will but proceed from the “one and indivisible, eternal and perfect
will and decree of God.”¹
Christ as the Perfection of Creation
This emphasis on the centrality of grace in Christ anchors the presentation of Schleiermacher’s Christian
Faith. While interpretations of this text often focus on the introduction with its language of “feeling” or
“God-consciousness,” the work has its center in the treatments that make up its longer, second part, in
the opposition of sin and grace in Christian self-consciousness and the historical emergence of the reign
of God in human living, as it first appears in Christ, continues in the Spirit and the church, and reaches its
consummation in the triune governance of the world.
Yet Schleiermacher also insists throughout that the entire course of redemption closely corresponds to
the ordering of creation, and remains rooted in the same divine good pleasure that underlies and sustains
the natural world. At its heart, for Schleiermacher, the doctrine of creation consists not in speculation upon
the world’s beginnings but in the recognition that everything in the interconnected system of nature depends
upon the eternal divine causality.¹ He describes the original “completeness” (Vollkommenheit) of the world
as its fundamental and intrinsic orientation to God, insofar as the entire natural order, including human
beings, is wholly suited to be taken up and incorporated into the divine plan.² Within this framework, the
relationships of the natural and historical world do not stand opposed to divine activity. Instead, creation
in its entire range “lends itself” (behandeln lasse) as an “instrument” (Organ) for God, to allow the reign of
God to emerge and become dominant in human living.²¹
When considering the redeemer, Schleiermacher thus describes Christ’s historical influence in twofold
fashion. On one hand, the connection to Christ yields a new and genuine transformation in human living.
In Christ God has become active in a new way in human self-consciousness, thought, and action. Christ’s
redemptive influence awakens and animates the consciousness of God that lay dormant under sin, liber ating
it to emerge as a new principle of human thought and action.²² In this regard, the working of grace does
not simply indicate a further step in an individual’s personal or historical development but brings a pivotal
change to one’s entire life and identity. It entails the rise of a “new human being” (neuer Mensch) and a
“new creature” (neues Geschöpf) – a new form of life grafted onto the old.²³ Moreover, this new life does not
fade or weaken after Christ’s departure but continues undiminished in the Christian community through
the divine Spirit.
At the same time, however, Schleiermacher underscores the unbroken continuity of this redeemed life
with the order of creation. The realms of nature and of grace do not designate separate or independent
orders; instead, the entire interconnected system of nature and the unfolding of redemption form two
aspects of the single divinely ordained reality. It is intrinsic to Christian belief, Schleiermacher explains,
17Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §103.4, KGA I.13.2: 131; Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 449; see also
§99. Notably, Karl Barth also refers to the incarnation as the “miracle of all miracles.” See Resch, Barth’s Interpretation of the
Virgin Birth: A Sign of Mystery, 78. On this point, see also Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election, 124-33.
18Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 57.
19See Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §36-37.
20Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §57.1, KGA I.13.1: 357; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 233.
21Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §59, KGA I.13.1: 363; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 238.
22See Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §106.
23Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31),§106.1, KGA I.13.2: 165; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 476.

338 K. Vander Schel
that “everything has been created for the sake of the redemption (daß alles zu dem Erlösung geschaffen
ist).”² The created world provides the stage or “theater of redemption” (Schauplatz der Erlösung) and is
perfected by it.² Indeed, this connection between creation and redemption is so pronounced in Christian
consciousness, Schleiermacher argues, that without redemption the entire development of the natural
world would be altered: “That is to say, everything in our world, first human nature and then all other
things in proportion to how closely they are connected with [human nature], would have been arranged
otherwise, and so too for the entire course of human contingencies and natural events, if the union of the
divine essence with human nature in the person of Christ, and as a result of this also with the community of
persons of faith through the Holy Spirit, had not been the eternal divine decree (der göttliche Ratschluß).”²
In this regard, for Schleiermacher, the appearance of Christ reveals a distinct “supernaturality”
(Übernatürlichkeit), albeit still in a relative sense.² Christ’s emergence is “a miraculous appearance” (eine
wunderbare Erscheinung), which cannot be explained by the preceding historical and communal life.²
Yet his quickening influence only operates in and through the means and structures of the natural and
historical order. Here again, Schleiermacher notes, the manner in which this new life takes root and spreads
throughout human living is always that of “a becoming-natural of the supernatural” (ein Naturwerden des
Uebernatürlichen), so that the divine redemptive activity in the appearance of Christ becomes a natural fact
exercising a distinctive causality in the historical world.²
Thus Schleiermacher clearly affirms that this miraculous work marks no discrete or additional divine
act, over and against God’s eternal activity in sustaining the natural world. It is itself a further effect of
“that eternal decree” (jener ewige Ratschluß) that is identical with God’s action in creation itself.³ Christ’s
entrance into humanity and founding of this new communal life in the church marks the “completed
creation (vollendete Schöpfung) of the human nature.”³¹ Here, then, Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith echoes
his 1819 essay on election. The dawning reign of God and the election of the church from the world indicate
no special or supplemental divine intention. Rather, the divine act of guiding and preserving nature and
the divine ordinance of redemption are united in the eternal ordering of creation in God. In this fashion,
Schleiermacher argues, the true character of election is not hidden in the mysterious divine will but made
manifest in the redeemer: “God regards all human beings only in Christ (Gott alle Menschen nur in Christo
sieht).”³²
24Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §164.1, KGA I.13.2: 494-95; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 723.
25Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §169, KGA I.13.2: 510; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 735. Likewise,
in his 1819 essay on election, Schleiermacher describes “the historical as the arena for the eternal act of God” (Schleiermacher,
On the Doctrine of Election, 14).
26Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §164.2, KGA I.13.2: 496; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 724.
27Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §97.2, KGA I.13.2: 75; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 401.
28Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §93.3, KGA I.13.2: 46; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 381.
29Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §120.1, KGA I.13.2: 267 and §120.2, KGA I.13.2: 269; cf. Schleiermacher, The
Christian Faith, 552, 553.
30Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §97.2, KGA I.13.2: 75; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 401.
31Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §89, KGA I.13.2: 28; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 366; see also
Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §89.2, KGA I.13.2: 30: “If now this second Adam, although not of the former
connection (nicht aus dem früheren Zusammenhang her) but rather in relation to it one who came into being supernaturally
(sondern in Bezug auf ihn as ein übernatürlich gewordener), is nevertheless placed into the historical connection (geschichtlichen
Zusammenhang), and indeed only as an individual human being, then he, along with his entire activity, stands under the law
of historical development, and this [development] completes itself through the gradual expansion out from the point of his
appearance over the whole (Verbreitung von seinem Erscheinungspunkt aus über das Ganze).”
32Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §120, p.s., KGA I.13.2: 277; cf. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 560. On
the relationship of Schleiermacher’s position to the ‘christological revolution’ of Barth’s later thought on election, see Gockel,
Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election, 198-205.

Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith and Christian Ethics 339
The Life of Grace
Schleiermacher extends this account of Christ’s singular redemptive influence in his lectures on Christian
Ethics, which comprise the second and practical side of his theological system and concern the formation
of distinctively Christian action.³³ Although this discipline offers no separate treatment of the doctrine
of election itself, Schleiermacher again emphasizes the foundational connection to Christ and the Spirit
throughout, describing Christian action as a new and higher form of historical living originating in Christ
and persisting in the Christian community through the Spirit.
Schleiermacher locates the first step of his descriptive analysis of Christian ethics in the need to properly
grasp the connection to Christ. Distinctively Christian action, he maintains, find its genuine foundation
in that which sets it apart. At its basis is the relation to the irreducible “basic fact” (Grundfactum) of
Christianity: the original and ongoing influence of the redeemer.³
Accordingly, against the pervasively rationalistic accounts of theological ethics current among his
contemporaries, Schleiermacher presents the relation to the redeemer in a foundational and originative
sense. Most fundamentally, Christ’s influence in the field of human ethical action proceeds neither from his
specific teachings nor his moral example but is grounded in an impression of the unsurpassable redemptive
activity of God in him: the “impression of the divinity of the redeemer” (Eindruck der Göttlichkeit des
Erlösers).³ In this way, the true significance of Christ’s redemptive activity lies neither in the anticipation
of as-yet unrecognized ethical insights nor in the provision of regulative guideposts to further direct moral
reflection. Rather, it is the introduction of a new and efficacious principle into human historical living,
through which God’s activity is united to and finds enduring presence in human action.³ No less than his
Christian Faith, Schleiermacher’s Christian Ethics has its basis in the conviction of the “uniqueness” and the
“distinctive dignity of Christ” (eigenthümliche Dignität Christi).³
This founding influence of Christ and the Spirit also lends the various expressions of Christian living
their characteristic shape. Schleiermacher’s Christian Ethics describe this Christian action in threefold
fashion. The lectures first identify the form of presentational or “representational” (darstellendes) action,
the inward dimension of Christian action that reflects the foundational blessedness of the connection to the
redeemer.³ Further, the lectures distinguish two forms of Christian action in its outward, efficacious aspect:
in “purifying” (reinigendes) action directed against the force of sin in human living; and in broadening or
“propagative” (verbreitendes) action that aims to expand the influence of Christ and the Spirit over the
cultural and historical world.³ Distinctively Christian action, for Schleiermacher, thus does not arise from
the lofty prescriptions of a consecrated moral law but from the vital communication of grace through Christ
and the Spirit. He portrays Christian action not as an otherworldly form of life set apart from the natural and
historical world but as a productive force operative within it, cultivating the Christian disposition and talents
and working to modify and transform existing institutions, social customs, and historical structures.
33For an English translation of central portions of Schleiermacher’s lectures on Christian Ethics, as well as a helpful
introduction to Schleiermacher’s philosophical and theological ethics overall, see James M. Brandt, Selections from Friedrich
Schleiermacher’s Christian Ethics; see also Brandt’s fuller analysis of Schleiermacher’s theological ethics in All Things New,
90-108, 118-134. For a detailed discussion of the interrelated tasks and development of Schleiermacher’s Christian Ethics, in its
structure and organization as well as its relation to his Christian Faith, see Vander Schel, Embedded Grace, 149-80.
34See Schleiermacher, Christliche Sittenlehre (Vorlesung im Wintersemester 1826/27), 28. All translations from this text are by
the author.
35Schleiermacher, Christliche Sittenlehre (Vorlesung im Wintersemester 1826/27), 23.
36Ibid., 29-30.
37Ibid., 350;
38On this foundational representational action, see Schleiermacher’s 1809 note in Christliche Sittenlehre (Vorlesung im
Wintersemester 1826/27), 58, n.3: “44. That which is distinctive in the life of the Christian, one’s basic state (Grundzustand),
is community with God through Christ (Gemeinschaft mit Gott durch Christum). / 45. The consciousness of this basic state as
feeling (Gefühl) is blessedness (Seligkeit) … The Christian is blessed in the Lord.”
39Schleiermacher’s mature conception of Christliche Sittenlehre is organized around these three forms of distinctively Christian
action. See Vander Schel, Embedded Grace, 168-76.
40On this point, see Schleiermacher, Christliche Sittenlehre (Vorlesung im Wintersemester 1826/27), 189-215.

340 K. Vander Schel
In this fashion, Schleiermacher’s Christian Ethics unfolds in accord with the same subtle theme that
characterizes his Christian Faith: the supernatural-becoming-natural. The redemptive work of Christ and the
Spirit does not emerge in the world as something absolutely other, which would hem in or inhibit natural
processes. Rather, it marks a “permeation” (Durchdringung) and a “raising-up” (Erhebung) of natural and
historical development.¹ Christ’s redemptive activity aims to “encompass the entire human life” (das
ganze menschliche Leben), not by annulling the forces and phenomena of the natural world but by spurring
historical human living to its completion in the reign of God.²
Furthermore, here again, as in his Christian Faith, this descriptive strategy serves to highlight the
progressive unfolding of election, signaling the original interconnection of creation and redemption in the
“divine decree” (göttlichen Rathschluß).³ Once more, the “supernatural influence” of Christ and the growing
“lordship” (Herrschaft) of the Spirit over human action designate no further, separate divine activity but the
developing fulfillment of the created world in accord with the divine plan. In the words of the lectures:
Because the first origin is what is supernatural. – But the entire further development is nothing more than the always beco-
ming-more-natural of what is originally supernatural (das immer mehr Naturwerden des ursprünglich Übernatürlichen).
Now, the more the supernatural impulses coincide with natural ones, the more what is supernatural becomes natural, and
this is the course marked out by providence.
Conclusion
This dynamic of the supernatural-becoming-natural provides an important lens for appreciating the
particular strength of Schleiermacher’s theological vision, one which complicates the lingering one-sided
portrayals of his thought and provides a more adequate basis for situating his work within the ongoing
conversations of grace and of the relation between election and redemption in modern and contemporary
systematic theology. Shifting away from the prevalent rationalist and supernaturalist views of his time, his
work attends to the specific challenge of grasping the character of Christ’s ongoing redemptive influence in
human history. The enlivening communication of grace in Christ and the Spirit does not signal an extrinsic
supernatural overlay fitted atop the existing natural order but distinguishes a subtle yet decisive form of
historical influence that transforms the created world from within. And at each stage in his theological
writings, in his Christian Faith and Christian Ethics as in his 1819 essay on election, Schleiermacher makes
clear that this redemptive work marks no second or special divine will, but remains anchored in the one,
original and unconditional divine decree.
In this manner, Schleiermacher’s revisionist account of the doctrine of election clearly upholds the
Reformed emphasis on the primacy and indispensability of grace. Yet he also centers his treatment on
the historically conditioned unfolding of redemption in human living: the historical outworking of grace.
This innovative and challenging understanding of grace and history reveals Schleiermacher not only as
a pioneering figure of modern theology but as an agile and innovative thinker who remains a creative
interpreter of the Protestant tradition.
41See ibid., 86, 145, 327.
42Ibid., 17, 43-44.
43Ibid., 31, n. 1.
44Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1830/31), §97.2, KGA I.13.2: 77, Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 403. On the lordship
of the divine Spirit, see also Schleiermacher, Christliche Sittenlehre (Vorlesung im Wintersemester 1826/27), 263-71, 447-48.
45Schleiermacher, Christliche Sittenlehre (Vorlesung im Wintersemester 1826/27), 375.
46In George Lindbeck’s influential characterization, Schleiermacher’s writings outline an “experiential-expressive” approach
to theology, which reduces theological claims to “nondiscursive symbols of inner feelings, attitudes, or existential orientations.”
See Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 16. On the prevailing criticisms of Schleiermacher in twentieth-century theology, as well
as the relation of theological language to religious experience, see Christine Helmer’s excellent study Theology and the End of
Doctrine, 11-20, 55-58; and compare 88-107. For more recent treatments of the close interconnection of election and redemption,
see Bruce McCormack, “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology,” 183-200;
and Oliver D. Crisp, Deviant Calvinism, 6-10, 41-60.

Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith and Christian Ethics 341
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