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Piety in Thoughts of John Wesley
And Friedrich Schleiermacher
Bobby Kurnia Putrawan1)*, Ludwig Beethoven Jones Noya2)
1)
Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Moriah, Tangerang, Indonesia
2) Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, United States
Correspondent author: bkputrawan@gmail.com
Received: 23 December 2019/Revised: 18 February 2020/Accepted: 17 March 2020
Abstract
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.
Keywords: piety, John Wesley, Friedrich Schleiermacher, concept
Abstrak
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
JURNAL JAFFRAY Available Online at
Vol. 18, No. 1 (April 2020): 59-72 http://ojs.sttjaffray.ac.id/index.php/JJV71/index
pISSN: 1829-9474; eISSN: 2407-4047 DOI: 10.25278/jj.v18i1.426
60 JURNAL JAFFRAY 18, no. 1 (April 2020): 59-72
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.
Kata-kata Kunci: kesalehan, John Wesley, Friedrich Schleiermacher, konsep
Introduction
The devotional is an essential aspect of the life of Christians, and
surely this is evident from the biblical texts which wr that every Lord‘s
people are required to live in godliness (Job 4: 6; Proverbs 11: 5; John 9:31;
1 Peter 1: 14- 19; 2 Peter 1: 6-7). In churches, preachers teach how God‘s
people are to carry out piety of life as an embodiment of God's children
and obedience to God.
In this context, John Welsey said that all people who have received
the Holy Spirit are capable of responding to God. Wesley rejected the
renewal concept of the election. He combines the teachings of the
Reformers about total human sinfulness with the primacy of grace from
Arminianism, which defends human free will and moral obligation. In
other words, Wesley said that human salvation is obtained through
God‘s grace along with human piety.
While on the other hand, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
said that feeling of absolute dependency emerges as an answer to the
influence of rationality that questions the meaning of Christianity in
modern human life.
Method
The author would like to introduce comparison to the thoughts of
John Wesley and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher about Piety. On
this discussion about John Wesley and Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher on
piety, the author has from five book sources, namely Rachel Muers:
Modern Theology, Rady Roldan Figueroa: The Rise of German Absolutism, the
Path of German Pietism and the Anglo-American Methodology, David Hempton:
John Wesley, Friedrich Schleiermacher: Christian Faith, Anders Jarlert: Piety
and Modernity, and adding some journal sources. Thus, the authors in the
conclusions provide a synthesis of the results of the analysis of the
discussion of this topic.
Discussion
The First Great Awakening/Evangelical Revival and John Wesley’s
Christian Perfection
From the 1730s onwards, there was a significant religious
phenomenon happening both in Britain and America. In Britain, it is
called the ‘Evangelical Revival,’ while in America, it is known as the
‘First Great Awakening.’
1
This phenomenon is led by several factors,
including “arid nationalism, liturgical formalism, and lax pastoral
practice.”
2
Essentially, this revival or awakening is based on some
evangelical assumptions.
3
First, the conviction that the hope for eternal
salvation for sinners laid on repentance and conversion. Second, massive
emphasis on preaching, particularly extemporaneous preaching. Third, a
pietistic concept of the religion of the heart.
The revival movements turned out to be successful. There are at
least two reasons for this success: theologically and socially.
4
Theologically, the movements emerged when the issues of “what faith
was, who had faith, and how faith was acquired” seemed extremely
1
Dojcin Zivadinovic, “Wesley and Charisma: An Analysis of John Wesley’s View
of Spiritual Gifts,” Andrews University Seminary Student Journal 1, No. 2 (2015): 57; Rachel
Muers, Modern Theology: A Critical Introduction (London, New York: Routledge, 2012), 28-
29.
2
Rady Roldan Figueroa, “Rise of German Absolutism, Trajectories of German
Pietism and Anglo-American Methodism” in Christianity Engaging Modernity (Spring 2018)
(Boston University School of Theology, Boston, MA, February 13, 2018).
3
Glen O’Brien. “John Wesley and Athanasius on Salvation in the Context of the
Debate over Wesley’s Debt to Eastern Orthodoxy,” Journal of Phronema 28, no. 2
(November 4, 2013): 50; see Edith L. Blumhofer, “Revivalism,” in The Oxford Companion to
United States History (Oxford University Press, 2001), http://www.oxfordreference.
com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195082098.001. 0001/acref-9780195082098-e-1314.
4
Dojcin Zivadinovic, “Wesley and Charisma: An Analysis of John Wesley’s View
of Spiritual Gifts,” 57; Muers, Modern Theology, 30. In this case, Joel Scandrett uses the
word “opinion” for a reason. See Joel Scandrett, “A Catholic Spirit: John Wesley and TF
Torrance in Ecumenical Perspective,” Journal of Participatio Supplemental 4: “Torrance and
the Wesleyan Tradition” (2018): 112-114, https://tftorrance.org/2018-js-1.
Piety in Thoughts of John Wesley (Bobby K. Putrawan, Ludwig B. J. Noya) 61
60 JURNAL JAFFRAY 18, no. 1 (April 2020): 59-72
demanding.
5
Socially, it arose when Britain and American faced social
unrest due to a generational shift. The second and third generations of
Puritans in America did not share the same conviction of their
predecessors. In Britain, industrialization resulted in emerging working-
class populations that were not satisfied with the existing Church.
6
Against this historical backdrop, Wesley
7
contributes his idea of the
‘prevenient grace,’ ‘assurance of salvation’ and ‘Christian perfection.’
In a diary on May 24, 1738, Wesley's compilation was placed on
Aldersgate Street, a compendium of people reading Paul's Introduction to
the Church of Rome, Luther's writing, Christ for Wesley, interpreting what
is meant by his sin and being saved from the law of crime and
punishment. According to tradition, this was the time of Wesley's
conversion to become a Christian wholeheartedly. Which is not new
here is undoubted will be safe, but most members of the Church of
England (Anglican) too proud to be approved to have such certainty.
However, for Wesley, "Basic Christian religion" and the principal
Methodist doctrines
8
Wesleyan piety is the concept of ‘Christian perfection,’ and it is
better to understand it before discussing what Wesley argues as its
basis. Wesley realizes that Christians are not perfect in a fourfold sense.
Namely, we suffer from ignorance, mistakes, infirmities, and
temptations.
9
But based on “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20), Wesley
5
Dojcin Zivadinovic, “Wesley and Charisma: An Analysis of John Wesley’s View
of Spiritual Gifts,” 57
6
Glen O’Brien, “John Wesley’s Rebuke to the Rebels of British America:
Revisiting the Calm Address,” Journal of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies 4 (2012): 34-35,
https://methodistreview.org/index.php/mr/article/view/62; Muers, 30.
7
John Wesley was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, on June 17, 1703. John
Wesley’s family background comes from an educated family. His father Samuel Wesley
was a priest from the Anglican church. His father and grandfather and, like John
Wesley, later graduated from Oxford, a university that had a reputation as one of the
best universities in the world even today. Her mother, Susanna Wesley, is also from an
educated family her father Dr. Samuel Annesley is a famous Non-conformist church
pastor, he is also an Oxford graduate. In those days, education for women was lacking
in attention. However, Susanna Wesley was an intellectual woman who was not afraid
to discuss theology, and she was also an admirer of the philosopher John Locke. He
called a great theologian in the eighteenth century. See F. L. Cross, and E. A.
Livingstone, eds. “Moravian Brethren” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.
Oxford University Press, 2009; see Zivadinovic, Wesley, and Charisma: An Analysis of
John Wesley’s View of Spiritual Gifts, 53-71; David N. Field, John Wesley as a Public
Theologian: The Case of Thoughts upon Slavery, Journal of Scriptura 114 No.1 (2015): 1-13,
https://doi.org/10.7833/114-0-1136.
8
O’Brien, 37.
9
Amos Yong, “A Heart Strangely Warmed on the Middle Way? The Wesleyan
Witness in a Pluralistic World,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 48, no. 1 (2013): 18-19,
62
asserts that Christ, who lives within the believers, has purified them.
10
This purification, then, resulted in perfection. The Wesleyan God is a
‘deity’ that purifies the believers so that they can possess (in the active
and passive sense) end. Christian perfection, for Wesley, is a “life so
surrendered to God in perfect love that willful sinning was effectively
eliminated.”
11
It is a state but also a process. It has been mentioned earlier
that Moravian Brethren influence Wesley's pietistic tendency. However,
Wesley differs from the Moravians when he argues that practical
holiness includes active spirituality, such as works of benevolence and
holy charity.
12
He explains further that Christian perfection is a gift of
God but, at the same time, should be strived for by Christians.
13
To begin with the theological method, Wesley strongly supports
the Protestant emphasis on the importance of the scriptures. Indeed,
they place scripture study at the heart of Christian life. John encouraged
the Methodists to read the Old and New Testaments daily, providing
them with Explanatory Notes. At the same time, Charles adopted the
routine of writing reflective songs on scripture passages (a type of Lectio
Divina literature). But Wesley rejects any suggestion that theology can
be based on the Bible alone. In a good Anglican way, they value the
insight of tradition in interpreting the scriptures, and often offer reasons
and experiences in defending theological stand.
14
Though Wesley emphasizes human’s active responsibility, he
differs from Pelagianism, because he stresses heavily ‘human dependence
on grace in all its manifestations.’
15
The Wesleyan God offers
(prevenient) grace before the holy life of the believers, before their
conversion, not vice versa. Wesley himself experiences this conversion in
https://place.asburyseminary.edu/limiteddigitalresources/333/pdf; C. Douglas Weaver,
Rady Roldán-Figueroa, and Brandon Frick, Exploring Christian Heritage: A Reader in History
and Theology (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2012), 133.
10
Weaver, Roldan-Figueroa, and Frick, 134. O’Brien: 149.
11
David Hempton, “John Wesley (1703-1791),” in The Pietist Theologians: An
Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Carter Lindberg, The
Great Theologians (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 258.
12
Zivadinovic: 53-55; Hempton 258.
13
Zivadinovic: 55; Hempton, 258.
14
Kelly Diehl Yates, The Wesleyan Trilateral: Prevenient Grace, Catholic Spirit,
and Religious Tolerance, Wesleyan Theological Journal 48, no. 1 (2013): 61,
https://place.asburyseminary.edu/limiteddigitalresources/333/pdf; Randy L. Maddox,
Theology of John and Charles Wesley, in T&T Clark Companion to Methodism, ed. Charles
Yrigoyen, Jr. (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 27; Daniel J. Pratt Morris-Chapman, “Is the
‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’ an accurate portrayal of Wesley’s theological method?” Journal
of Theology and Ministry 5 (2018): 12-14.
15
Morris-Chapman: 2.14: 2.17; Hempton, 259.
Piety in Thoughts of John Wesley (Bobby K. Putrawan, Ludwig B. J. Noya) 63
60 JURNAL JAFFRAY 18, no. 1 (April 2020): 59-72
what is known as the Aldersgate Experience.
16
In this incident, Wesley
experiences a feeling of “trust in Christ … for salvation, … an assurance …
that [Christ] had taken away [his] sins, … and saved [him] from the law
of sin and death.”
17
This is what he called the ‘assurance of salvation’ that
leads a believer (him) to conversion – a change of ‘heart.
18
The notion of
feeling is central in Wesley’s conversion, and he did not describe it “in
terms of new rational understanding.”
19
Wesley expressed it as an
emotional experience instead.
Wesley stands with the Anglican Religious Article in affirming the
two natures of Christ and the role of Christ’s death in satisfying God's
justice. But some scholars have noted how Wesley’s hymns specifically
offered a multitude of images to appreciate that Christ’s death not only
made amends, but freed us from slavery to sin, assured us of God's
amazing love, and renewed us in the divine image. Soteriological concern
those who are broader also make Wesley emphasize his relationship
with Christ “in all his offices” —not only as priests who make amends.
But also as prophets who teach how we must live, and as kings who
oversee the restoration of wholeness in our lives.
20
In the case of pneumatology, Wesley focused more on the work of
the Holy Spirit than was common in Anglican settings. It begins with an
emphasis on the guarantee of God’s forgiving love, or “witness of the
Spirit,” which awakens and empowers believers’ tender love for God and
others. They then emphasize how this “new birth” enables a journey of
sanctification, or growth in “the fruit of the Spirit.” This addition is
specifically to reclaim (in the Western tradition) “gifts of the Spirit,”
such as the gift of preaching, for ordinary men and women. This
combination of emphasis has led to contemporary opponents who
characterize Wesley's movement as “Reviving Montanus.” More
recently, scholars have tended to see this restoration of emphasis on the
work of the Spirit as a significant contribution to the renewal of
Trinitarian theology in Anglicanism.
21
16
Morris-Chapman, 13-14; Waever, Roldan-Figueroa, and Frick, 130-131; O’Brien,
50.
17
David Werner, John Wesley’s Question: “How Is Your Doing?” The Asbury
Journal 65, no. 2 (2010): 74, https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/view
content.cgi?article=1006&context=asburyjournal; Weaver, Roldán-Figueroa, and Frick,
131.
18
Werner, 73-80; Muers, 29; O’Brien, 48-49, 52.
19
Werner:80; Muers, 29; O’Brien: 49, 52.
20
Joe Gorman, “Grace Abounds: The Missiological Implications of John
Wesley’s Inclusive Theology of Other Religions,” Wesley Theological Journal 48, no. 1
(2013): 39, 44, 53, https://place.asburyseminary.edu/limiteddigitalresources/333/pdf;
Maddox, 29; Zivadinovic, 70.
21
Zivadinovic, 54, 58, 69, 70; Werner: 75; Maddox, 29; O’Brien, 53.
64
Wesley still insists that we can “seriously desire” gifts such as
evangelism to “voice unbelieving hearts” or gifts of knowledge to
understand God’s care and grace, or gifts of faith, “which on certain
occasions ... go far beyond the power of natural causes.”
22
Wesley’s main desire is to restore the piety and love of the early
Christians through the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within. The
experience of spiritual certainty, the fruits of the Spirit, gifts, and even
supernatural manifestations of the Spirit are for Wesley, the natural
consequence of God’s power among true Christians, who work to
uphold the saints and spread the gospel.
23
Romanticism and Friedrich Schleiermacher
Many write about romanticism, criticizing, and evaluating biblical
relations with Christianity. This touches on the efforts at historical
developments that have gathered to create this system of thought. Any
comprehensive understanding of how the world thinks today requires an
understanding of the origin of the Hellenic ideas that underlie the
comprehensive conceptual framework of romanticism. Observing that
understanding the present requires one to understand the past is the
main reason for studying history.
24
Whether politically tension, trends in
art, or ideas in the fields of theology and philosophy, become fluent with
what has preceded the present requires people to understand the world
in which they live; Besides, Do heed the phrase quoted from G.
Santayana, “Those who have not learned from history, are destined to
repeat it.”
25
or how can they avoid the mistakes of their predecessors? Or
Paul’s advice that “these things that have happened to humans are
examples,” it remains undeniable that events in the past have influenced
the present.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Romanticism
widely emerged as an intellectual and cultural movement.
26
While it can
be considered as a continuation of the reason-concentrated
22
Dojcin Zivadinovic, “Wesley, and Charisma: An Analysis of John Wesley's
View of Spiritual Gifts,” 58.
23
David Werner, “John Wesley’s Question: Who is Your Doing,” 78; Dojcin
Zivadinovic, “Wesley and Charisma: An Analysis of John Wesley’s View of Spiritual
Gifts,” 69.
24
S. Corlew, Schleiermacher, and Romanticism: Ignored Antecedent of
Postmodernism? Social Science Research Network (February 3, 2013): 1-2, http://dx.doi.org/
10.2139/ssrn.2321867.
25
George Santayana, The Life of Reason (New York: Scribners, 1905), 284.
26
Tenzan Eaghll, “From Pietism to Romanticism: The Early Life and Work of
Friedrich Schleiermacher,” in The Pietist Impulse in Christianity (Princeton Theological
Monograph Series). Edited by Christopher Collins Winn. (Eugene, OR: Pickwick
Publications, 2011), 109; Corlew, 2; Muers, 62.
Piety in Thoughts of John Wesley (Bobby K. Putrawan, Ludwig B. J. Noya) 65
60 JURNAL JAFFRAY 18, no. 1 (April 2020): 59-72
Enlightenment period, it also a protest against the reason-only
oriented.
27
Romantics were concerned about the particular individual as
a whole – mind and body, reason and emotions, passions, and
imagination.
28
They valued a contemplation and love of freedom.
Romantics think it is “inhuman and lifeless” to discuss religion only
through rationality.
29
This intellectual and cultural movement heavily
shaped Schleiermacher’s thought.
It is widely recognized that Schleiermacher's theology, marked a
decisive moment for post-Reformation theology. Schleiermacher
30
is seen
as the father of liberal Protestantism, the founder of modern theology, or
who is an innovative but loyal descendant of Calvin, “reformers in
Protestants” who “broke the impasse of rationalism and orthodoxy, and
freed the Protestant church’s mind at the time.”
31
Karl Barth, one of
Schleiermacher’s biggest critics, also urging his listeners to make no
mistake about studying and understand Schleiermacher's status as
follows:
Theologically the “genius” of the major part of the church is that of
Schleiermacher. All the so-to-speak official impulses and movements of the
centuries since the reformation find a center of unity in him: orthodoxy,
pietism, Enlightenment. All the official tendencies of the Christian present
emanate from him like rays: church life, experiential piety, historicism,
psychologism, and ethicism ... [we] are indeed forced to see in him the
27
Tenzan, 109; Muers, 62.
28
Jae-Eun Park, “Schleiermacher’s Perspective on Redemption A Fulfillment of
the Coincidentia Oppositorum between the Finite and the Infinite in Participation
with Christ,” Journal of Reformed Theology 9 (2015): 270-294, DOI: 10.1163/15697312-
00903001; Tenzan, 114-115; Muers, 62.
29
See Andrew Dole, “The Case of the Disappearing Discourse: Schleiermacher’s
fourth Speech and the field of Religious Studies,” The Journal of Religion, 88 (January
2008):1-28, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/522276?seq=1; Muers, 63.
30
Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher, born in Breslau, Silesia, Prussia,
Germany, on November 21, 1768, from a very devout family in Protestantism. He is a
German philosopher and theologian. In 1783 he attended secondary education at the
Moravian school in Niesky. The reason for entering the Moravian school, in addition to
following the family tradition, is mainly because of a powerful motivation to seek
profound faith experiences in the Christian life. Schleiermacher died on Wednesday,
February 12, 1834, at the age of 65 years due to pneumonia. See F. L. Cross, and E. A.
Livingstone, eds. “Moravian Brethren” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
(Oxford University Press, 2009),
http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019280 2903.001.0001/acref-
9780192802903-e-4649.
31
Richard R. Niebuhr, Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion: A New Introduction (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), 6; Tenzan, “From Pietism to Romanticism: The
Early Life and Work of Friedrich Schleiermacher,” 110.
66
most brilliant representative not only of a theological past but also of the
theological present.
32
As it has been mentioned earlier, Schleiermacher did not respond
directly to Wesley. He, as can be expected from a Romanticist, reacts to
Immanuel Kant, who discussed religion only based on reason.
33
Interestingly, Schleiermacher’s starting point is principally Kantian,
when he assumes that we have no access to talk about God in Godself.
34
Instead, we can only discuss how human being knows or experience
God.
35
This discussion by Schleiermacher indirectly fills the rational gap
left by Wesley's concept of feeling concerning piety. Something that
Wesley did not feel a need to explain.
Piety, for Schleiermacher, is “a modification of (f)eeling, or of
immediate self-consciousness.”
36
It is a modification because he insists
that ‘feeling,’ which was widely connected with the religious setting,
should be defined more for the sake of science.
37
As for ‘self-
consciousness,’ it should be understood as ‘immediate,’ lest it will be
understood separately from feeling at all.
38
The 'modification' that he
means is when the feeling is being related to 'knowing' and 'doing.' The
state of a combination of feeling, knowing, and doing is the piety in the
thought of Schleiermacher.
39
The feeling is the "mediating link in the
transition between moments in which (k)nowing predominates, and
those in which (d)oing predominates…”
40
Though he claims that ‘feeling
is where the piety belongs,’ it is not excluded from a relationship with
32
James Gordon, “A ‘Glaring Misunderstanding’? Schleiermacher, Barth and the
Nature of Speculative Theology,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 16, no. 3 (July
2014): 318-322. See Karl Barth, The Theology of Schleiermacher: Lectures at Göttingen, Winter
Semester of 1923/24, ed. Dietrich Ritschl, transl. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1982), xv. See book of Nathan Carson, A Preemptive Bagging of the Cat? Against
the A Priori Reading of the “Introduction” to Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre (Waco, Texas: Baylor
University, 2008), 1.
33
Tenzan, 111-112, 117; Muers, 64.
34
Corlew, 9; Muers, 64.
35
Daniël P. Veldsman, “To Feel with and for Friedrich Schleiermacher: On
Religious Experience,” Journal of HTS Theological Studies 75, no. 4 (2019): 1-3,
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-
94222019000400035&lng=en &nrm=iso&tlng=en; Corlew, 28; Muers, 64.
36
Veldman, 2; see Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H. R.
Mackintosh, and James S. Stewart, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 5.
37
Veldsman, 2; Schleiermacher, 1:6.
38
Reynold, “Reconsidering Schleiermacher and the Problem of Religious
Diversity: Toward Dialectical Pluralism,” 159-160; Veldsman, 2; Schleiermacher, 1:6;
Driel, Schleiermacher’s Supralapsarian Christology, 158, 160.
39
Veldsman, 2; Schleiermacher, 1:11.
40
Veldsman, 2-3; Schleiermacher, 1:8-9.
Piety in Thoughts of John Wesley (Bobby K. Putrawan, Ludwig B. J. Noya) 67
60 JURNAL JAFFRAY 18, no. 1 (April 2020): 59-72
knowing and doing.
41
As for knowing and doing, they belong to piety as
long as “the stirred up (f)eeling sometimes comes to rest in thinking
which fixes it, sometimes discharges itself in an action which expresses
it."
42
Thus, piety is when feeling or immediate self-consciousness works
together with knowing and doing.
Then, Schleiermacher explicates this (immediate) self-
consciousness further. There are two elements of self-consciousness: (1)
the expression of “the existence of the subject for itself,” [the feeling of
freedom]; (2) the expression of “the co-existence with another,” [the
feeling of dependence].
43
For him, there is no absolute feeling of freedom;
that is, a state without any feeling of dependence. Similarly, there is no
absolute feeling of dependence; that is, a state without any feeling of
freedom because these two are combined as a “consciousness of our
existence in the world or of our co-existence with the world.”
44
Further,
Schleiermacher claims that there is also “no such thing as absolute
freedom” because of our freedom, which expressed by a forthgoing
activity, requires an object which has been given to us.
45
And because of
the self-consciousness “negatives, absolute freedom, (then it) is itself
precisely a consciousness of absolute dependence…”
46
Yet, the absolute
dependence still requires freedom, though not an absolute one.
47
Schleiermacher, then, proposes that “the consciousness of being
absolutely dependent … is the same thing (as) being in relation with
God.”
48
He also used the term ‘God-consciousness’ to define it.
49
The
41
Edwin Chr. van Driel, “Schleiermacher's supralapsarian Christology,” Scottish
Journal of Theology 60, Iss. 03 (August 2007): 253-254; Veldsman, 2-3; Schleiermacher, 1:8-
9.
42
Driel, 253-253, 257-259; Veldsman, 3; Schleiermacher, 1:10-11; see Thomas
Reynold, “Reconsidering Schleiermacher and the Problem of Religious Diversity:
Toward Dialectical Pluralism,: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73, no. 1 (March
2005): 156, 158, 160-163, 171-172.
43
Kevin Vander Schel, “Election in Christ in Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith
and Christian Ethics,” Journal of Open Theology 1, no. 1 (September 2015): 334–341,
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opth.2014.1.issue-1/opth-2015-0017/opth-2015-
0017.xml, DOI: 1 0.1515/opth-2015-0017; Schleiermacher, 1:13-14.
44
Schel: 337-338; Schleiermacher, 1:15.
45
Matthias Gockel, “New Perspectives on an Old Debate: Friedrich
Schleiermacher’s Essay on Election,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6, no. 3
(July 2004):307-308, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-
2400.2004.00136.x; Schleiermacher, 1:15.
46
Gockel: 312; Schleiermacher, 1:16.
47
Gockel: 313; Ibid.
48
Kevin M. Vander Schel, “Christ and the Perfection of Creation in
Schleiermacher‘s Dogmatic Theology,” Annals of Theology / Roczniki Teologiczne 64, no. 2
(2017): 57, Gockel: 307; Schleiermacher, 1:12.
68
word ‘God’ is a designation for the “whence of our receptive and active
existence.”
50
This ‘whence’ should not be the world, in terms of temporal
existence, because we are complementary parts of the world and also
continually influencing it.
51
He insists that “the term ‘God’ … is nothing
more than the expression of the feeling of absolute dependence.”
52
Schleiermacher opposes the view that such a feeling of dependence is
conditioned by an earlier knowledge of God because that means the
earlier knowledge of God is “the sure possession of a concept of God,”
which is not far from being a feeling of absolute freedom.
53
Schleiermacher contends that the idea of God as an object “is always a
corruption” unless it is always be discerned as arbitrary symbolic.
54
Conclusion
As in sum about Wesley, piety is a way of response to Wesleyan
God, a ‘deity’ that gives the ‘prevenient grace’ that includes an ‘assurance
of salvation.' On the other, Wesleyan piety is empowered by the same
grace, which enables the inseparable connection with Christ. Critique
on piety Wesley where there the gap in Wesley’s thought is he did not
explicate the feeling of assurance in a rational language. This gap will be
filled in, though indirectly, by Schleiermacher.
As Schleiermacher believes that one has no access to know, even
discuss, ‘God in Godself,’ his most significant point is rationally
explaining how one experiences God in piety. His concept of
‘modification of feeling,’ ‘feeling of absolute dependence,’ and ‘God-
consciousness’ successfully filling, though indirectly, the rational gap
that Wesley left in Wesley’s concept of feeling. When one reads
Wesley’s Aldersgate experience together with Schleiermacher’s concept
of feeling of absolute dependence, it can be rationally explained the
feeling that Wesley experienced. As Wesley stated that Christian
perfection is “a life so surrendered to…,” that very point reflects
49
Joel D. Daniels, “Friedrich Schleiermacher: Pentecostal Friend or Foe,” Journal
of Ecclesiology 14 (2018): 69-90, https://brill.com/view/journals/ ecso/14/3/article-
p379_379.xml, Doi: 10.1163/17455316-01403018; Gockel: 318; Corlew, 11; Muers, 67.
50
Thomas Reynold, “Reconsidering Schleiermacher and the Problem of
Religious Diversity: Toward Dialectical Pluralism,” 156; Schleiermacher, The Christian
Faith, 1:16; Daniels, 80.
51
Reynold, 159, 173; Schleiermacher, 1:16-17; Schel, 337.
52
Schel, “Christ, and the Perfection of Creation in Schleiermacher's Dogmatic
Theology,” 57; Schleiermacher, 1:17; Reynold, 160, 171-172.
53
Schel, “Christ, and the Perfection of Creation in Schleiermacher's Dogmatic
Theology,” 57; Schleiermacher, 1:17; Daniel, 84-85.
54
Schleiermacher, 1:18; Reynold, 117; Gordon, 323; Gockel,311-312, 314; Veldman,
4.
Piety in Thoughts of John Wesley (Bobby K. Putrawan, Ludwig B. J. Noya) 69
60 JURNAL JAFFRAY 18, no. 1 (April 2020): 59-72
Schleiermacher’s feeling of absolute dependence. Thus, Schleiermacher
complements Wesley’s thought. Though, still, ‘God in Godself’ is still
unknown for Schleiermacher.
As we attempt to trace the thought of Wesley and Schleiermacher,
the story of modernity tells itself. Modernity as a story of tension
between reason and feeling, rationality, and emotions in understanding
the world and what is a human being in relation to the world and other
inhabitants. It is the story of discussing God or not discussing it at all.
For Wesley and Schleiermacher, piety is essential in dealing with such
tension. Both of them show that piety fits in the modernity era and not
necessarily contradicted with secularization.
Thus, the theological contributions of John Wesley and Friederich
Schleiermacher played a significant formative role in the early
development of the doctrines and practices of Christian living.
Implicitly, their thinking also continues to hold some kind of normative
status in most theologians and preachers, especially among Methodists.
It is also interesting that the development of their thinking also
developed among the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement in the practice
of ecclesiastical life and daily life in emphasizing the piety of life, as like
tightness in hours of prayer-worship, compassion, partaking of the
sacrament and the Word, fasting, also giving and loving. And this is our
effort to seek godly life, which is “perfecting our holiness” from holiness
to holiness (Matthew 5:48) with “the power of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:
8), and testing all the gifts and experiences of life through the lens of
God’s Word in earnest (1 Cor. 11:28, 31; 2 Cor. 13:5; Eph. 5:10, 21; 1 John
4:1).
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