Modern Theology 24:1 January 2008

ISSN 0266-7177 (Print)

ISSN 1468-0025 (Online)

THE MEDIATION OF CHRISTS

NORMATIVE SPIRIT: A
CONSTRUCTIVE READING OF
SCHLEIERMACHERS
PNEUMATOLOGY
KEVIN W. HECTOR
I
It has become fashionable for Christian theologians to complain that the Holy
Spirit has been wrongly neglected, at least in the West. The complaint is
usually twofold: that, on the one hand, traditional Western doctrines of the
Trinity tend toward binitarianism, with the Spirit being seen as simply
another name for the love that the Father and Son share for one another.1 And
on the other hand, the complaint is that this same binitarianism characterizes
traditional interpretations of the economy of salvation, according to which
Christ accomplishes everything that counts, such that the Spirits only job
is to let people know that this is the case.2 A variety of reasons are offered as
to why the Spirit has slipped into the shadows: some see a spirit-matter
dualism as the culprit, others the lioque doctrine, still others the political
interests of those who seek to reinforce binary oppositions. However that
may be, the trend in recent pneumatology is to develop understandings
according to which the Spirit is an equal, fully personal member of the Trinity,
and according to which the Spirits work in the economy of salvation is just
as important as Christs work.
While these proposals have enriched our view of the Holy Spirit and
broadened our grasp of the pneumatological tradition, it seems to me that a
crucial question has not been sufciently addressed: while we have renewed
understandings of who the Spirit is and what the Spirit does, very little has
Kevin W. Hector
The University of Chicago Divinity School, 1025 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
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Kevin W. Hector

been said about how the Spirit works.3 My aim here is to elaborate and defend
an answer to this question. To do so, I will (a) briey discuss the work
traditionally attributed to the Spirit, (b) develop an account, based upon a
novel reading of Friedrich Schleiermachers pneumatology, of how the Spirit
does that which is attributed to it, (c) defend this reading against some major
objections, and (d) point out some of the merits of understanding the Spirits
work in this way.
Before proceeding, I need to mention that throughout this essay I will talk
in terms of our redemption, the Spirits work in us, and so forth. I realize
that many reading this essay do not identify themselves as one of us, but I
have decided to retain this usage because it ts with Schleiermachers own
usage, and because I see my argument as primarily an act of Christian
self-interpretation. Onward, then, to my proposal.
II
First, we need to sketch, briey, the work attributed to the Spirit. According
to Christian Scripture and tradition, the Holy Spirit is the one who, among
other things, indwells us, writes Gods law on our hearts, regenerates us,
bears witness to Christ, convicts us of sin, and leads us into all truth.4
Scripture and tradition ascribe more to the Spirit than just these works, of
course, but these appear to be centraland I would argue that if we can get
some explanatory grip on these activities, we can use it to make judgments
about the more extraordinary activities ascribed to the Spirit.5 In what
follows, therefore, when I talk of the Spirits work, I have in mind the
Spirits work of indwelling us, writing Gods law on our hearts, bearing
witness to Christ, and so on.
I think we nd some helpful clues in Schleiermacher about how to understand these activities; to spell this out, I will rst look at Schleiermachers way
of understanding what the Spirit does, and then at his understanding of how
the Spirit does it.6 Simply stated, Schleiermacher sees the Spirit as mediating
Christs new humanity to us, thereby extending Christs redemptive work to
us.7 Christ, according to Schleiermacher, is God incarnate: God is the pure
activity of love, and in every instant of his life, Christ perfectly reproduces
this activity as his own. In this way, Jesus incarnates Gods eternal being in
history.8 This is what Schleiermacher means when he asserts, for instance,
that insofar as all human activity of the Redeemer depends, as a connected
whole, upon this existence of God in him and represents it, the expression
(that in the Redeemer God became man) is justied as true exclusively of him;
and similarly every moment of his existence, so far as it can be isolated,
presents just such a new incarnation and incarnatedness of God, because
always and everywhere all that is human in him springs from the divine
(96.3, p. 397).9 Gods being is Gods activity, and since Christ is perfectly
receptive to Gods activity and spontaneously reproduces it as his own,
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The Mediation of Christs Normative Spirit 3

Christ is God incarnate. Schleiermacher accounts for redemption in similar
terms: someone is redeemed by Christs activity being imparted to him or
her, such that he or she receives this activity and spontaneously reproduces
it as his or her own activity. On this picture, accordingly, Christ stands to the
totality of believers in exactly the same relation as the divine nature in him
does to the human, animating and taking it up into the fellowship of the
original life . . . (105.1, p. 468). Just as Christ is perfectly receptive to Gods
activity and spontaneously reproduces it as his own, redemption consists in
our being receptive to Christs activity and spontaneously reproducing it as
our own.
We must reproduce Christs activity as our own, according to Schleiermacher, but we cannot do so on our own. Our reproduction of Christs activity
is itself wholly dependent upon Christ. Redemption, on Schleiermachers
view, cannot be based upon our initiative, for it is the beginning of a higher
form of life which only Christ can communicate, because only in him is it
originally present. It seems obvious, then, that here no causal agency can be
attributed to the person who is being taken up into fellowship, for the higher
form cannot be in any way derived from lower stages of life as present either
in the individual or in a group of people yet to be converted (108.6, pp.
492493). Nor can we attribute subsequent sanctication to ourselves, for if
we could ourselves make the new life grow, we could make it begin (112.2,
p. 520). Hence, our redemption must depend wholly upon Christ, both for its
beginning and its continuation.
This raises a problem, however: our redemption depends upon Christ
alone, but only the original disciples have a direct connection with himthe
rest of us are connected with Christs followers, not with Christ himself. Our
redemption, like that of Christs immediate followers, must in the same way
be still his work, but instead of Christs presence, we have only that of his
fellowship (88.2, p. 363). On the one hand, redemption depends upon
Christ; on the other, we only have contact with the church. We can only solve
this problem, according to Schleiermacher, if we can afrm that the inuence of the fellowship in producing a life of faith is none other than the
inuence of the personal perfection of Jesus himself (88.2, p. 363). Well,
okay, but how can this be? The faith of everyone in the church equally
depends upon Christso how can their inuence be equated with Christs
inuence?
Schleiermachers answer is that the communitys activity must in some
respect be Christs own activity. In the community, Schleiermacher claims,
the self-revelation of Christ is now mediated by those who preach him in
such a way that the activity really proceeds from him and is essentially his
own (108.5, pp. 490491). But what entitles Schleiermacher to assert this?
His answer proceeds in two steps. In the rst step, Schleiermacher employs
Nazianzene logic to argue that the one who mediates Christs presence to
us must be God.10 We are conscious, according to Schleiermacher, of the fact
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that our redemption depends wholly upon Gods activity, and we are conscious that redemption is mediated to us through the community; from this,
it follows that such mediation must itself be Gods activity. Schleiermacher
thus asserts that, in the Christian Church, as individual inuences no longer
proceed directly from Christ, something divine must exist. This something we
call the Being of God in it, and it is this which continues within the Church
the communication of the perfection and blessedness of Christ (116.3, p.
535; my emphasis). The mediation of redemption through the church must be
Gods own activityand this Being of God in the church is the Holy Spirit.
This sets the stage for Schleiermachers second step: if (a) Christs activity
is the incarnation of Gods eternal activity, if (b) this same God is active in the
church, and if (c) Gods activity is immutable, then we are entitled to claim
(d) that Gods activity in the church is the same as Christs activity. As
Schleiermacher remarks, since the Divine Essence is one and everywhere
self-identical, then, even if its mode of being in the individual, Christ, and in
the common life is not the same, it follows that the impulses proceeding from
it must be the same in both cases (125.1, p. 579). The very same activity is
incarnate in Christ and present in the church, which means that Christs
activity is indeed present to us in the church. We thus see one of the things
that Schleiermachers pneumatology will attempt to explain, namely, the way
that God mediates Christs activity to us through the Spirits presence in the
church. In a moment, we will turn to Schleiermachers account of how this
works.
Prior to doing so, however, we need to mention something else that
Schleiermacher wants to account for: he wants to make sense of the fact that
the Spirit mediates Christs activity to us through the community, but he also
wants to explain how this activity becomes ours. The mark of the redeemed
person, according to Schleiermacher, is that Christs activity has become his
or her own spontaneous activity. Someone who is not yet redeemed might
imitate many of the things done by those who have been, but in such cases,
the impulse to the alteration of action comes from without and remains
effective only for so long as the momentary emotion endures; it is not in a
position to reproduce itself from within, as witness the common feeling of
having under external compulsion done something quite foreign to ones
nature. Such actions are not the doers own; they belong to an external life
that is showing its power within him (110.2, p. 506).11 When we talk about
redemption, on the other hand, we are talking about the evocation of this
spontaneous activity in union with Christ in which lively susceptibility
[Empfnglichkeit] passes into quickened spontaneous activity [Selbstttigkeit]
(108.6, p. 495). An adequate pneumatology, therefore, must account for the
Spirits work in making Christs activity our own. As Schleiermacher puts it,
the Holy Spirit is not something that, although divine, is not united with the
human nature, but only somehow inuences it from without; hence, the
man on whom the Spirit works is not thereby made a participator in the Spirit.
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The Mediation of Christs Normative Spirit 5

Only one in whom and through whom he works has received the Spirit
(123.2, p. 571). To be redeemed, according to Schleiermacher, is for Christs
activity to become ones own activity. For Christs activity to count as ones
own, however, it is necessary that this activity proceed from ones own
spontaneous determination.12 Schleiermacher is thus obligated to explain not
only how the Spirit mediates Christs activity to us, but how it becomes our
own spontaneous activity.
Schleiermacher argues that we are redeemed as Christs activity becomes
our own spontaneous activity, and he argues that the Spirit mediates Christs
activity through the church. This, according to Schleiermacher, is what the
Spirit does. We now return to our main question: how does the Spirit do this?
III
Schleiermacher claims that we can begin to understand the Spirits work by
taking Christs disciples as a model, because we see in the disciples precisely
the transformation we are trying to make sense of: the disciples were initially
merely receptive to Christ, but they were eventually transformed so that
Christs activity became their own. Schleiermacher thus maintains that there
is a relevant parallel between the disciples and ourselves, since even today,
the new life of the individual arises out of the common life within the outer
circle of which it lies. And this holds good also of the new life of the rst
disciples, when as yet the power of the inner circle was entirely conned to
Christ (114.1, p. 529). During most of Christs ministry, the new life was
conned to him, and the disciples remained outside this new life. At some
point, however, the disciples transitioned from the old life to the new, and it
is just this transition, and the Spirits role in it, that we are trying to understand. Hence, since the origin of the Christian Church is . . . the same thing
as happens daily before our eyes (114.1, p. 529), then if we can make sense
of the Spirits role in the disciples transformation, we can make sense of our
own transformation as well.
As we have seen, Schleiermacher understands redemption as Christs
activity becoming a persons own, and he understands the Spirits work as
mediating this activity to them. So how does this happen? Schleiermacher
claims that, prior to regeneration, someone must become susceptible to
Christs activity, just as the disciples were susceptible to Christ. In company
with Christ, Schleiermacher observes, the susceptibility of the disciples
developed, and in their steady apprehension of what he offered to them there
was laid the foundation of their future effectiveness as workers for the
Kingdom of God (122.1, p. 566). During their time with Christ, the disciples
watched what Jesus said and did, and from this they began to learn what it
meant to follow him. Even though they were becoming more and more
susceptible to Christs activity, however, it had not yet become their own.
They had at that time no really spontaneous activity of their own, according
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6 Kevin W. Hector
to Schleiermacher. Hence, what Christ suggested to them in that line was
practice, not performance proper, and just for that reason it was not free
activity, but one that needed on each occasion a new special impetus (122.1,
p. 566). During that time, Jesus trained the disciples beliefs and actions. He
would ask them a question and either approve or disapprove of their answer;
he would give them instructions about what it meant to follow him; he
would correct them when their claims or actions werent correct. Through
such practice, the disciples became better and better equipped to follow
Jesus, as Jesus taught them what it meant to go on in the same way he did.
Through such training, the disciples grew in their susceptibility to Christs
inuence, yet their beliefs and actions could not yet be considered spontaneous, because they had not yet internalized Christs inuence. The impulse to
such believing and acting came from Jesus rather than themselves, and they
only knew whether they were believing and acting correctly if Jesus told
them they werethe disciples were not yet competent nor authorized to
make such judgments. A crucial step in the disciples transition to spontaneity, therefore, occurred when Jesus recognized them as competent judges of
others beliefs and actions; as Schleiermacher remarks, the right binding and
loosing of sin is in the main just an expression of a fully formed susceptibility
for what relates to the Kingdom of God (122.1, p. 566). The fact that Jesus
recognized the disciples as competent to assess others beliefs and actions
meant that they had internalized Jesus instruction. Up to this point, Jesus
was the only one competent to judge what it meant to follow Jesus, which
entails that only Jesus could know when (if ever) someone else had achieved
such competence. Yet Jesus recognition of the disciples authority to bind
and loose sin meant that they had nally learned what it meant to follow him,
which meant, in turn, that Jesus inuence on them was no longer external.
Jesus norms had become their own.13 At this point, then, there is more in the
[disciple] than susceptibility, and [the disciples] really spontaneous energetic
activity is more than the activity of Christ merely passing through him
(122.3, p. 568).14
Jesus recognition was crucial in the transition from receptivity to spontaneity for a second reason: it meant that the disciples activity would now have
normative authority over others activities. If someone wants to follow Jesus,
he or she will be receptive to Jesus judgments; given Jesus judgment that the
disciples are competent judges of others beliefs and actions, following Jesus
means being receptive to the disciples judgments. Given Schleiermachers
understanding of freedom, this recognition is crucial in the disciples
transition to spontaneity. Truly free, spontaneous activity, according to
Schleiermacher, must have an effect on that which is other-than-me: we act
spontaneously only when an Other is determined by us, and without our
spontaneous activity could not be so determined (4.2, p. 14). If our activity
doesnt affect anything apart from ourselves, Schleiermacher asserts, it
doesnt deserve to be called free.15 Hence, in order for Christs activity to
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The Mediation of Christs Normative Spirit 7

count as the disciples own spontaneous activity, their activity must inuence
othersand in order for their activity to count as reproducing Christs activity, it must have his inuence on them. Since Jesus recognition of the disciples judgments about what counts as following Christ is inconceivable
except as having a reaction on those whose sins are bound or loosed (122.1,
p. 566), it follows that this recognition marks a transition to spontaneous
activity: the disciples not only reproduce Jesus normative judgments, their
judgments are accepted by others as normative, thereby reproducing Jesus
inuence on them. Just as the disciples were susceptible to Jesus assessments, so others would now be susceptible to the disciples assessments.16 In
this way, Jesus activity becomes the disciples activity: they internalize Jesus
norms through submission to his judgments, and when they have sufciently
internalized them, Jesus recognizes their normative authority over others.
When these others have learned what it means to follow Jesus, they, too, will
be recognized as competent judges of such matters, such that others can learn
from them, and so on. Being recognized in this way, accordingly, marks ones
transition from receptivity to spontaneity.
We might wonder at this point, however, whether Schleiermacher has
engaged in a bit of sleight-of-hand: he started off talking about Jesus activity
becoming the disciples own, but now he is talking about one seemingly
small part of Jesus activityhis normative assessmentsas if it were all that
mattered. By what right can normative assessment be passed off as the
disciples prolongation of Christs own activity (122.3, p. 568)? To address
this question, we need to consider what it could possibly mean to talk about
such prolongation. One answer would be that the disciples activity is
continuous with Jesus activity just in case they do and say the exact same
things Jesus did and said. Taken by itself, this is obviously incorrect: a disciple
who went around ipping tables all the time, for instance, would in one sense
be doing exactly what Jesus did, but that cant be the sort of continuity we
are looking for.17 Just because someone does the same things Jesus did does
not mean that his or her activity is continuous with Jesus activity. In order to
go on in the same way, what seems to matter is that a performance display
a certain set of regularities. Certain features of an action must be the same,
while others need not. To see what this means, consider a familiar case like
the Eucharist. In what respect are Christians around the world doing the
same thing when they celebrate the Eucharist? Even if we restrict our focus
to, say, Roman Catholics, there are innumerable differences from one Eucharistic celebration to another. Are two churches doing the same thing if each
celebrates the Eucharist in a different language? Are they doing the same thing
if they use different kinds of wine? Most of us would say that, in spite of these
differences, they are in fact doing the same thing. On the other hand, if a
churchs celebration did not include anything to eat or drink, or if it were
celebrated in the name of antichrist, we would probably not consider them to
be doing the same thing as other churches. Hence, to be doing the same
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thing, certain features of an act must be the same, while others need not. In
order to know what counts as going on in the same way, therefore, we need
to know which regularities count in making that action what it is, regularities
with respect to the reasons for which the action is performed, in what
circumstances, in what way, and so on.18 So how do we determine which
regularities count? Schleiermachers answer appears to be that the regularities which count are those which a competent judge would recognize as the
ones which count. I will spell this out in a moment, but for now we need to
understand that, for Schleiermacher, a belief or action goes on in the same
way as Jesus just in case it goes on in the same way as other beliefs and actions
which have been recognized as going on in that wayand knowing how to
recognize this continuity is itself a matter of going on in the same way as
others who have been recognized as knowing how.19 On Schleiermachers
account, then, in order to know how to go on in the same way as Christ, one
must know how to judge what counts as doing so.
This way of accounting for what it means to continue Christs activity helps
us understand how we can do the same thing (i.e., follow Christ) in all kinds of
novel circumstances. Both of these are necessary to an adequate account of
Christs activity becoming ours: for Christs activity to be ours, it is necessary
that we are able to do the same thing he didbut for Christs activity to be ours,
it must be possible to do what he did in situations he never faced. Hence, as
Schleiermacher observes, if the fellowship of believers, as an historical body
within the human race, is to exist and persist in continuous activity, it must
unite in itself two thingsa self-identical element, whereby it remains the
same amid change, and a mutable element, in which the identity nds
expression (126.1, p. 582). The self-identical element is Christs activity,
construed not as his particular actions in particular circumstances, but as a
normative affair, as what a competent judge would recognize as following
Christ in novel (i.e., mutable) circumstances. Because he has focused on the
normative dimension of Christs activity, therefore, Schleiermacher is able to
account for our doing the same thing as Christ in ever-changing circumstances.20 Schleiermacher thus explains the way in which Christs activity is
mediated to the original disciples, and this explanation provides him with the
resources to extend this account beyond them. As we have already noted, our
redemption depends upon Christs activity becoming our own, but in particular aims and purposes this [activity] is no longer present. If therefore we
ask how our particular aims arise out of that pure will, the answer is that it
happens only in the common life (122.3, p. 568). The churchs common life
mediates Christs activity to others through roughly the following process.
Through their susceptibility to Christs instruction, the disciples internalize
Christs inuence and are recognized by Christ as competent to judge whether
others are going on in the same way. Once the disciples have made the
transition to spontaneity, others (who have no direct contact with Christ) can
be susceptible to the disciples judgments about whether a belief or action
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The Mediation of Christs Normative Spirit 9

counts as following Jesus; these others may eventually be recognized as themselves competent to judge such matters, so that still others can be susceptible
to their judgments, and so on. We thus have a picture of how Christs activity
is mediated to us in the present: we accept the judgments of those who know
how to go on in the same way as Jesus in order to learn what it means to
follow him; once we are recognized as competent in making such judgments,
our judgments provide the basis for others to learn the practice, and so on.21
This explanation also provides us with some resources for dealing with one
of pneumatologys perennial problems, namely, the sense in which the
Spirits work can be taken to add something to Christs work. Two dangers
must be avoided: on the one hand, if theologians say that the Spirit adds
something to Christs work, this conicts with the traditional belief that our
redemption is complete in Christ; on the other hand, if they say that the Spirit
adds nothing to our redemption, they appear to be (at least functionally)
binitarian. Schleiermachers approach avoids both dangers. On the one hand,
the new humanity is complete in Christ, and all further redemptive activity
is simply the outworking of his completed work, because the normative
Spirit that Christ passed on to his disciples contains within itself the way to
go on in all kinds of circumstances. On the other hand, it is not the case that
Christ, in his lifetime, actually faced every possible circumstance, which
means that in mediating Christs normative Spirit to those facing such circumstances, the Spirit is doing something genuinely new.22 Hence, though
nothing can (or need) be added to Christs normative Spirit, the Spirits
mediation is far from redundant.23 I will say more about this in a moment.
At this point, astute readers may be wondering whether I have engaged in a
bit of sleight of hand: I claimed that I would be talking about the Spirits work,
but I have been talking instead about recognition, transitions to spontaneity, socially mediated norms, and so forth. Where did the Spirit go?
Remember that Schleiermacher is trying to account for the Spirits work of
transforming us, indwelling us, leading us into all truth, etc.; his claims about
socially mediated norms are precisely his attempt to make sense of this work.
This common spontaneous activity, he claims, which indwells all and in
each is kept right by the inuence of all, and prolongs the personal action of
Christin its unity and identity we have full right to call the common spirit of
the Christian Church; and he claims that this corresponds to all that Christ
promised by the Holy Spirit and to everything that is represented as the
Spirits working (122.3, p. 569). On Schleiermachers view, the Holy Spirit
mediates the new humanity to us through the churchs socially mediated
norms. All of Schleiermachers claims about social mediation and recognition are, accordingly, simply his way of explaining how the Spirit works.24
In sum, Schleiermacher makes sense of the Spirits work by talking about
Christs normative judgments becoming our own as we learn them from
those whose judgments have been recognized as going on in the same way as
his, and as we in turn are recognized as going on in the same way. Going on
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10 Kevin W. Hector
in the same way as Christ is a matter of knowing how to judge whether a
certain belief or action counts as following him, and the Holy Spirit is the
normative Spirit according to which such judgments are learned and
assessed. This, according to Schleiermacher, is the way that the Spirit mediates Christs activity to others, and how it becomes our own activity.25
IV
Thus far, Schleiermacher. Before taking up some objections, I want to clarify
a couple of points. As we worked through Schleiermachers pneumatology, it
may have appeared that I was illicitly conating two different things, namely,
the recognition of individuals as knowing how to go on in the same way as
Christ, and the recognition of particular beliefs or actions as going on in that
way. There is good reason, I believe, for telling the same story about both
sorts of recognition, but this needs to be spelled out.
Consider, rst, the recognition of particular beliefs and actions as correct.
On the account I am proposing, a particular belief or action should be recognized as correct just in case it goes on in the same way as precedent beliefs
and actions which have been recognized as correct. And if a candidate belief
or action is recognized as going on in the same way, it becomes one of the
beliefs and actions according to which still other beliefs and actions might be
judged. Following Robert Brandom, we might think of this process along the
lines of common-law jurisprudence. In the common-law tradition, a judge
decides a novel case by looking to prior decisions which he or she recognizes
as correct; the judge thus intends his or her decision to go on in the same way
as those decisions. In this way, decisions which have been recognized as
correct exert authority over present decisions. If the judges decision in a
novel case is recognized as going on in the same way, his or her decision will
exert normative authority over still other decisions. On this sort of account,
then, the norm according to which a novel performance is assessed is provided by prior performances which have been recognized as correctand if
the novel performance is recognized as going on in the same way, it supplies
the norm according to which still other performances might be assessed.
Accordingly, norms are both determinate and dynamic: to apply a norm
correctly is to go on in the same way as precedent applications which supply
the norms determinateness; but if a novel application is recognized as going
on in the same way, it further determines the norm. In sum, a belief or action
is correct just in case it goes on in the same way as other beliefs or actions
which have been recognized as correctwhich is to say, for our purposes,
that a belief or action counts as going on in the same way as Christ just in case
it goes on in the same way as other beliefs and actions which have been
recognized as going on in that way.
Now consider the way in which individuals are recognized. On the account
I have been defending, a person is correctly recognized as knowing how to go
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The Mediation of Christs Normative Spirit 11

on in the same way as Christ just in case his or her judgments go on in the
same way as others who know how to do so. The process goes something like
this: a person recognizes certain people as knowing how to engage in a
particular practice, and he or she learns the practice by submitting his or her
performances (including his or her judgments about these performances) to
their judgment. When those who are competent in the practice recognize this
person as going on in the same way they would, they (should) recognize him
or her as one of themthat is, as someone who knows how to engage in
the practice. Once he or she has attained this status, his or her know-how
becomes the basis for still others to learn the practice. Moreover, his or her
know-how contributes to the normative conception of knowing how to
engage in this practice, such that his or her judgments are now authoritative
not only for newcomers, but for those from whom he or she learned the
practice, too. On the account offered here, then, someone counts as knowing
how to carry on a practice just in case those who are competent in the practice
would correctly recognize him or her as suchwhich means, for the present
argument, that someone knows how to follow Christ if he or she goes on in
the same way as those who know how to do so. This obviously parallels the
account I have offered of particular beliefs and actions being recognized as
correct, which explains why the preceding exposition could move back and
forth between the recognition of individuals and of particular beliefs and
actions.26
So far, I think, so good. Three further elements of this account still need
spelling-out. First, it is important to note that this account does not suggest that
all of an individuals performances must be correct in order for him or her to
be recognized as bearing Christs Spirit. Knowing how to engage in a practice
is compatible with a signicant amount of error: someone can know how to
play checkers, for instance, even if he or she makes lots of mistakes. Correct
performance is not beside the point, of course; given a certain number of
incorrect performances, it will be an open question whether one knows how to
play the game. Similarly, one can count as knowing how to follow Christ even
if one makes lots of mistakes, though at a certain point it may no longer make
sense to take someone as knowing how to do so. I am inclined to think that one
can still count as knowing how to follow Christ even if a vast number of ones
performances do not follow him, especially if one recognizes that this is the
case. The converse does not hold, however: if a vast number of ones judgments about what would count as following Christ are wrong, especially with
respect to matters which are central to doing so, then one probably does not
know how to follow Christeven if a signicant number of ones performances do follow him. The point, at any rate, is that one can count as knowing
how to follow Christ even if ones beliefs and actions sometimes do not
indeed, even if a signicant number do not. Needless to say, judgments about
whether this is the case are themselves subject to the sort of normative
assessment which we have been describing.
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12 Kevin W. Hector
Second, it is important to note that the sort of recognition I have been
talking about can be both explicit and implicitand indeed, there are good
reasons for thinking that implicit recognitionthat is, treating an individual
or performance as correctis logically prior to explicit recognition, since if
correctness had to be explained in terms of explicit recognition, we would
end up with a regress problem. That is, if a performance is correct if and only
if it is explicitly recognized as correct, and if such recognition is itself a
performance, then its correctness, too, depends upon being explicitly recognized as correct, while this recognitions correctness would depend upon
being recognized as such . . . and so on. On the other hand, if we can recognize a performance as correct simply by treating it as correct, no regress
threatens, since the need for further (explicit) recognition will arise only
insofar as this treating-as becomes questionable.27
Finally, though, it is important that we can make our implicit recognitions
explicit, since there are times when those recognitions should be questioned,
and by making them explicit, we can make judgments about the extent to
which what we take to be correct is correct. It is crucial that we be able to make
such judgments, since this process might otherwise simply underwrite the
norms of the status quo. As Hegel points out, this process often involves a
struggle for recognition, particularly when those in power refuse to recognize
performances and persons which might undermine their interests. It is critical,
then, that the account I am proposing can make sense of recognition-gonewrong, and that it can afrm the propriety of struggles against the status quo.
The account I am proposing addresses this concern in at least two ways. First,
we can make sense of a particular going-wrong on the basis of a background
of taken-for-granted going-right. If a candidate performance is treated as
incorrect, for instance, we can call this treatment into question by demonstrating that the performance goes on in the same way as precedent performances
which have been recognized as correct. We can follow a similar procedure of
internal critique with respect to the recognition of individuals. In this way,
we can question the propriety of any one of these judgmentsthough not all
at once.28 Second, this account provides some resources for a more radical
questioning of unequal power relations. On the view proposed here, the
authority of a judgment depends in some respect upon its recognition as
authoritative by those who would be constrained by it, which entails that the
ones who are constrained by these judgments are themselves in a position of
authority. Hence, those who would bear Christs authority must recognize the
authority of those whose recognition they seek, a fact which provides the
powerless with some leverage over those in power.29
V
We also need to spell out, at least briey, the way this proposal relates to
ancient Israel and to those outside the church. On my account, Christs
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normative Spirit is mediated through a process of mutual recognition, and
through this process these norms are written on our hearts. Suppose,
however, that the Torah was mediated through a similar process of recognition. How would this differ from that which I have been describing as the
new-covenant work of the Holy Spirit? The difference, I believe, is one of
degree, not of kind. I would argue, in fact, that this same normative Spirit was
at work in Israel, and in roughly the same way. The difference here between
ancient Israel and the church is simply that, according to Christian belief,
Jesus Christ perfectly embodied covenant obedience to God, such that he
perfectly followed Torah. Given that this is the case, those who internalize
Christs norms count as having internalized Gods own law to an unprecedented degree.
Second, I have talked about Christs Spirit being mediated through a
process of mutual recognition. What about those outside the churchis there
any sense in which they are constrained by these norms? Is the Spirit at work
outside the church, too? The right thing to say, I think, is yes, but that there is
an important difference between the Spirits intra- and extra-ecclesial work.
On the one hand, those who know how to follow Christ will recognize many
of the performances of those outside the church as correct. This is important,
since it helps explain the fact that those outside the church can, for instance,
make some sense of Scripture, can recognize those within the church as
knowing how to follow Christ, and so forth. On the other hand, those who
know how to follow Christ will not recognize those outside the church as
themselves followers of Christfor if they did, these people would no longer
count as being outside the church.
VI
I have been proposing that we understand the Spirits workor at least one
signicant aspect of that workin terms of the way Christs norms are
mediated through a process of mutual recognition. Critics might raise several
objections against this proposal; I address three in this section. The rst
objection is that this account collapses objectivity into subjectivity, theology
into anthropology, and so on. The second objection is that it compromises the
freedom of the Spirits work, and the third is that it de-personalizes the
Spirit.30
The rst objectionthat this account collapses (Gods) objectivity into
(our) subjectivitywas in fact raised against Schleiermachers pneumatology
by Karl Barth.31 According to this objection, if we understand the Spirits
work as in some respect immanent in human subjectivity, there will be
nothing objective about that workthe Spirits work, in other words, will
become identical with whatever we take it to be, from which it apparently
follows that Christ will become identical with whatever we take him to be,
Gods Word will become identical with whatever we take it to be, and so
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14 Kevin W. Hector
forth. This is obviously a serious objection. Fortunately, there is good reason
for thinking that it does not hold against the account proposed here. It seems
clear to me that (a) these norms are socially mediated does not entail (b)
these norms mean whatever we take them to mean. It does not follow
because, in order to count as correct, our beliefs, actions, judgments, and so
forth must go on in the same way as other judgments which have been
recognized as correct, which means that my performance is constrained by
those prior performances. Not just anything will count as a correct use of the
word chair, for instance, since to use the word correctly depends upon
going on in the same way as precedent uses. If I deviate too far from other
usesif my mistakes are too largethen I wont be recognized as knowing
how to use the word. In the same way, since the correctness of my beliefs and
actions depends upon their going on in the same way as Christ, not just
anything can count as doing so.
An objector could accept this response, of course, while pressing the point
a step further: he or she might grant that particular performances are sufciently constrained by precedent performances that their correctness is irreducible to whatever we take it to be. But how, he or she might ask, can we
judge the correctness of the entire trajectory by which particular judgments
are judged? We can, I think, allow for the possibility that a particular trajectory of judgments which we have taken to be correct is, in fact, wrong,
although we can only make sense of this possibility against a background of
other trajectories which we continue to take as correct. We can, in other
words, contest any particular judgment or trajectory, just not all at once.
Whats more, we have good theological reason for thinking that our judgments are not massively in errorbut this is part of my response to a second
objection.
The second objection wonders whether this proposal can maintain the
freedom of the Spirit. Could the Spirit not be mediated in this way? And if not,
what sense does it make to say that the Spirit is doing anything? Three
responses are relevant. First, on the account I am proposing, the Spirit certainly blows where it will, since it is continually authorizing novel performancesindeed, according to this account, the mediation of Christs norms
depends precisely upon such novelty. Second, from a theological perspective,
it is not clear that the church could be massively wrong about these norms,
since this would mean that the Spirit had forsaken it, and this is something
that God has promised not to do. There may be something important about
the Spirits freedom to forsake individuals within the new community,
however. If so, I imagine we could account for this in terms of the practice of
excommunication, wherein the Spirit acts to remove someone from the inuence of those whose judgments mediate the Spirit. Finally, with respect to the
Spirits agency, it is signicant that the Spirits activity is traditionally spoken
of in both active and passive termsin terms, that is, of the Spirit as giver and
the gift given, as the one sent and the one who sends out, as the one who
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unites and unity itself, and so on.32 This activity-and-passivity is reproduced
in my proposal: each of us is initially passive in receiving the Spirit, yet once
we have received it, we actively mediate this Spirit to others. The Spirit gives,
in other words, and the Spirit is given. So while my account attributes a
certain passivity to the Spirit, this is evidently not a departure from traditional understandings of the Spirits work.
One nal objection: doesnt the account proposed here abandon any sense in
which the Holy Spirit is personal?33 This objection is important because, on the
one hand, Schleiermacher himself appears ambivalent (at best) about recognizing the Spirit as an eternally distinct person of the Godhead, and on the
other, because it might be hard to see why the social mediation of Christs
normative Spirit would count as the work of a person. We might put the
question this way: given that Schleiermacher rejects the orthodox doctrine of
the Trinity, can he (or a pneumatology which follows him) afrm that the
Spirit is really a divine person? That Schleiermacher has misgivings about
the doctrine of the Trinity is well known. Less well known, perhaps, are the
reasons for his misgivings. Schleiermacher sees the doctrine of the Trinity as a
way of insisting that in Christ there was present nothing less than the Divine
Essence, which also indwells the Christian Church as its common Spirit, and
that we take these expressions in no reduced or sheerly articial sense, and
know nothing of any special higher essences, subordinate deities (as it were)
present in Christ and the Holy Spirit (170.1, pp. 738739). In fact, insofar as
the doctrine of the Trinity asserts that God is present as Godself in Christ and the
Spirit, Schleiermacher calls it the coping-stone of Christian doctrine (170.1,
p. 739). Contrary to common opinion, therefore, it must be emphasized that
Schleiermachers worries about the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity have
nothing to do with any equivocation about the full divinity of Christ and the
Spirit. Quite the contrary: Schleiermacher has misgivings about the traditional
doctrine because he sees it as unable to uphold their full divinity in any kind
of straightforward way; as he writes, the doctrine of the Trinity is not even yet
free from vacillations . . . between equality and subordination on the one hand,
and on the other between Tritheism and such a Unitarianism as must obscure
all over again what was felt to be of the very rst importance, namely, the
eternal distinctness of the persons . . . (172.2, pp. 748749). Schleiermacher
thus worries that the traditional doctrine is ill-suited to maintain that the
Divine Essence in both forms of union is the same, and also is equal to the being
of God per se (170.2, p. 740), and it is for this reason that he insists that the
main pivots of the ecclesiastical doctrinethe being of God in Christ and in
the Christian Churchare independent of the doctrine of the Trinity (170.3,
p. 741). We can see Schleiermachers attraction to Sabellianism, accordingly, as
based upon his concern to uphold the full divinity of Christ and the Spirit. I
share this concern, though I do not share Schleiermachers estimation of
the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. In any event, to answer the objection
under consideration, it should sufce to demonstrate that Schleiermachers
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16 Kevin W. Hector
understanding of the economy of the Spirit is compatible with an orthodox
doctrine of the Spirits eternal personhood.34 To see how this might work,
consider the following (very brief) doctrine of the Trinity: the Father eternally
begets the Son out of love, the Son eternally mirrors the Fathers being and
returns this love, and the Spirit unites Father and Son and is their eternal
unity.35 The economy of grace repeats this eternal being in history: Jesus
being-begotten-of-Mary, for instance, repeats the Sons eternally-beingbegotten, his sinless life repeats his eternal act of mirroring the Fathers love,
and so on. Likewise, the Spirit mediates redemption to us by uniting us with
Christ, thus repeating in history the Spirits eternal act of uniting-with-theSon. On this view, God is with us in history as Godself precisely by beingtriune. Schleiermacher does not talk this way about Gods eternal being, of
course, but given his claims about Christ and the Spirit, he couldand in my
opinion, he would be better off doing so. In any event, the fact that his
pneumatology is quite at home in the trinitarianism sketched here indicates
that the present objection holds, at best, against Schleiermachers Sabellianism,
not his account of the Spirits economy. While Schleiermachers pneumatology
may not require orthodox Trinitarianism, it is certainly not incompatible with it,
which means that those who are committed to some such Trinitarianism can
borrow from him in order to spell out their own views. That is what I have tried
to do here.
In responding to this objection it is also important to consider what we
mean when we ask whether the Spirits personhood is being afrmed. The
tradition understands the being of God as pure activity, from which it follows
that each of the triune hypostases is pure activity, too. The tradition further
understands the Holy Spirits activity as the activity of loving Godself, or the
activity of perfecting the love between Father and Son. In either case, for the
Spirit to act as itselfthat is, personallyin the economy of grace is for the
Spirit to continue this activity. Hence, when I propose that the Spirit works by
mediating Christs normativity to us, we can understand this as the Spirit
repeating ad extra the activity which is proper to the Spirits triune personhood. Given that this activity is the Spirits personhood, it would therefore
appear that my proposal is not liable to the present objection.
One nal point: some may worry about the fact that my proposal identies
the Spirits work so closely with human activity, but it seems to me that this
is one of the proposals strengths. One of the marks of an adequate Christology, as I see it, is that it posits no gaps between the eternal Son of God and
Jesus Christ. If I am right about this, then the eternal Sons personhood is in
no wise diminished if his activity and passivity are strictly identied with the
human Jesus activity and passivity. By parity of reasoning, one of the marks
of an adequate pneumatology should be that it posits no gaps between the
Spirits activity and human activity. And just as the Sons personhood is not
diminished by living a human life, so too the Spirits personhood is not
diminished by being intersubjectively mediated. Moreover, the fact that the
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Spirit is intersubjectively mediated means that we can do without certain
dualisms. We can dissolve the dualism of internal and external, for instance,
and of public and private, since the Spirit which we internalize is the Spirit
which is mediated to us through our interactions with others. Likewise, we
can dissolve the dualism between individual and community, since on the
one hand the Spirit is mediated to each of us by those who know how to
follow Christ, while on the other hand we mediate the Spirit to others once
we know how to do so. And since our recognition of the Spirit plays a critical
role in the normative grip it gets on our lives, we can also dissolve the
dualism between heteronomy and autonomy.36 Hence, if we adopt the pneumatology proposed here, we can dissolve a host of correlate problems.37
VII
In conclusion: on the basis of some clues from Schleiermacher, I have elaborated a way of understanding the Holy Spirits work in terms of the way
norms are mediated through a process of mutual recognition. According to
the somewhat idealized story I have been telling, Jesus disciples learned how
to follow him by internalizing the norms according to which he judged their
performances, and once Jesus recognized them as having internalized these
norms, he recognized the authority of their judgments about what counted as
going on in the same way, such that others could learn to follow Jesus by
internalizing the norms according to which they judged performances. In the
same way, we learn to follow Jesus by learning how to go on in the same way
as those who know how to do so, and once we are recognized as knowing
how, others learn the practice by going on in the same way we do. As a result
of this process, the Spirit of Christs normative judgments is written upon our
hearts, this Spirit dwells within us, we are convicted of sin, and we are led
into all truth. We can, accordingly, understand how the Spirit does a great
deal of that which is ascribed to it without having to appeal to shadowy
substances, Gods inexplicable power to do whatever God chooses, or any
other pseudo-explanations. If we are trying to make sense of the Spirits
work, this seems like a good start.38

NOTES
See, for instance, Robert W. Jenson, The Holy Spirit, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. 2, edited by
Robert W. Jenson and Carl E. Braaten (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984) and Colin
Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991) and Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit: Toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2003).
2 See, for instance, Nicholas M. Healy, The Logic of Karl Barths Ecclesiology: Analysis,
Assessment and Proposed Modications, Modern Theology 10/3 (July, 1994), pp. 253270;
Robert W. Jenson, You Wonder Where the Spirit Went, Pro Ecclesia 2 (1993), pp. 296304;
Joseph L. Mangina, Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in
Barth and Hauerwas, Scottish Journal of Theology 52/3 (1999), pp. 269305; Eugene F. Rogers,
After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West (Grand

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18 Kevin W. Hector

Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005); Rowan D. Williams, Word and
Spirit, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000).
Many of the recent answers to this last question fall into two categories. There are, rst,
those who do not offer any account of the way in which the Spirit works. Some who t this
category appear not to have given much thought to the question, while others raise a
principled objection against trying to understand the Spirits work, on the grounds that
doing so will inevitably end up collapsing that work into something that we do. For this sort
of approach, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2 The Doctrine of the Word of God, edited by
G.W. Bromiley, T.F. Torrance, translated by G.T. Thomson (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956),
p. 233 and Church Dogmatics IV/1, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, translated by G.W. Bromiley,
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956), pp. 649ff. Hereinafter referenced as CD. The second
category is populated by those who try to explain the Spirits work in terms of the practices
of the church. Partisans of this approach tend to talk a lot about where the Spirit worksin,
for instance, the practices of breaking bread, baptizing, anointing, and so forth. For this sort
of approach, see for instance Reinhard Htter, Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church
Practice, trans. Doug Stott (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
2000), Eugene Rogers, After the Spirit, and the introduction to Knowing the Triune God: The
Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church, edited by James J. Buckley and David S. Yeago,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), pp. 120. Its not clear to
me, however, that this sort of approach tells us much, taken by itself, about how the Spirit
does what is attributed to it. To say that the Spirit alights upon the Eucharistic elements, for
instance, might admirably combat one of Christianitys dualistic tendencies, but this sort of
claim will only explain the way the Spirit accomplishes its work insofar as it can explain not
only what it means for the Spirit to alight upon these elements, but how it is that our
partaking in these elements accomplishes the work which is attributed to the Spirit. I have
yet to read a helpful account of how this is supposed to take place. To be clear, I am not
disagreeing with the claim that the Spirit works through physical elements such as the bread
and wine; I am just not sure what this explains about how the Spirit works.
See Jeremiah 31:33, John 16:714, and Romans 5:5 and 8:9, 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19, and
Galatians 4:6. For an excellent overview of the tradition, see Hans Urs von Balthasar,
Theo-Logic, Vol. III, The Spirit of Truth, translated by Graham Harrison (San Francisco, CA:
Ignatius Press, 2005).
That is, if we can understand the way the Spirit leads us into all truth, for instance, we can also
understand how to discern whether extraordinary activities that are attributed to the Spirit
are, in fact, the Spirits work. With respect to such extraordinary activities, my proposal can be
taken as a way of explaining how to do that which is enjoined in 1 John 4:1a: Beloved, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God (NRSV). For further
argument along these lines, see Kathryn Tanner, Workings of the Spirit: Simplicity or
Complexity?, in Michael Welker (ed), The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), pp. 87105.
Adele Weirich has criticized Schleiermacher for failing to account for all of Scriptures
references to the Spirit. I would respond to this criticism along the following lines: First,
even if Schleiermacher were guilty of reducing the Spirits work to these aspects, such a fault
is easily remediedthe disclaimer in the preceding paragraph would sufce. Second, the
claim (a) Schleiermachers pneumatology does not account for all Scriptural references
to the Spirit only entails (b) Schleiermachers pneumatology is inadequate if it can be
demonstrated that (c) An attempt to account for the Spirits work must account for every
Scriptural reference. I cannot see why (c) would be the case, so I reject (b). Finally, as long
as the Spirit is not reduced to a certain work, the claim that one of the Spirits works can be
understood in such-and-such terms does not commit us to understanding all of the Spirits
work in precisely the same terms. In other words, even if we accept Schleiermachers
account of the Spirits indwelling, why would we assume that the same account must
explain, say, the Spirits intercession on our behalf? Hence, the fact that Schleiermacher only
accounts for some of Scriptures references to the Spirit, and not all of them, is, at best, a
minor objection. For Weirichs criticism, see her Die Kirche in der Glaubenslehre Friedrich
Schleiermacher (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1990).
In what follows, I focus on Schleiermachers account of Christs redemptive activity to the
relative exclusion of Christs reconciliatory activity. (Schleiermacher distinguishes redemp-

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8
9
10

11

12
13

14

15

tion, as being transformed into Christs likeness, from reconciliation, as no longer feeling
that we deserve punishment; on this distinction, see Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian
Faith, edited by H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928/1976),
101.2, pp. 432434). I nd Schleiermacher less helpful with respect to reconciliation, though
his problems in this area have to do with his understanding of Christs work, rather than his
conception of the Spirits mediation of that work.
I defend this interpretation in Kevin W. Hector, Actualism and Incarnation: The High
Christology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, International Journal of Systematic Theology 8/3
(July, 2006), pp. 307322.
References in the text are to Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, edited by H.R.
Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928).
Nazianzene logic, for lack of a better phrase, refers to the sort of conditionals used by
Gregory of Nazianzus, conditionals such as if the Spirit deies, the Spirit must be God.
For examples of such logic in Gregory, see Oration 31, sections 4 and 28. Schleiermacher
himself also provides us with a nice statement of this logic: An essential element of our
exposition . . . has been the doctrine of the union of the Divine Essence with human nature,
both in the personality of Christ and in the common Spirit of the Church; therewith the
whole view of Christianity set forth in our Church teaching stands or falls. For unless the
being of God in Christ is assumed, the idea of redemption could not be thus concentrated
in his Person. And unless there were such a union also in the common Spirit of the Church,
the Church could not thus be the Bearer and Perpetuator of the redemption through Christ
(170.1, 738).
This echoes the views of Robert Pippin; see his Hegels Idealism: The Satisfactions of
Self-Consciousness (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Modernism as a
Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture, second edition
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1991/1999), pp. 4577, Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations (New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997), and The Persistence of Subjectivity: On the
Kantian Aftermath (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 153.
Schleiermacher notes that this making-internal is the meaning of all those passages in
Scripture which speak of Christ being and living in us, of being dead to sin, of putting off
the old and putting on the new man (100.1, p. 426).
A complication arises here, of course, in light of the fact that the disciples clearly didnt yet
understand how to follow Christ, since Jesus recognition of their authority to bind and
loose is followed by his rebuking Peter, his continued instruction about what it means to
follow him, and so on. The complication arises not only for Schleiermacher, however, but for
Jesus, too, since Jesus is himself the one who recognizes their authority and then rebukes
them. The likeliest explanation of this problem, it seems to me, is that Jesus confers this
authority with a view to the disciples becoming competent judges, not in view of their
already being so. In support of this explanation, see John 20:2123.
The idiom I use to exposit Schleiermachers pneumatology will sound strikingly Hegelian
to some readersat least like the Hegel of Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, Robert Brandom,
and Tal Lewis. I nd this idiom helpful for working through the pneumatological issues
discussed here, and I am convinced that it does justice to Schleiermachers own intentions.
One could, of course, accept the pneumatology here defended without accepting it as
Schleiermachers, just as one could accept it as Schleiermachers without accepting it as an
adequate pneumatology. (One could also accept the Hegelian idiom without accepting it
as Hegels.) For the Hegel whose idiom I am borrowing, see for instance the works by
Pippin cited above (note 11); Terry Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason
(New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Robert Brandom, Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegels Idealism in Tales of the Mighty Dead: Essays in the Metaphysics of
Intentionality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Thus Schleiermacher: when we become such-and-such from within ourselves, for ourselves, without any Other being involved, that is the simple situation of the temporal
development of a being which remains self-identical, and it is only very improperly that this
can be referred to the concept Freedom (4.2, p. 14). While Schleiermacher elsewhere
writes a good deal about freedomone of his most important early essays is On Freedomwe should not assume that his understanding of freedom remains consistent
throughout his writings, because, as is well known, Schleiermacher had an evolving,

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16

17
18

19

20

21
22
23

24

complex relationship with pantheism, determinism, Spinozism, and so on, and as is also
well known, Schleiermachers positions on these issues changed even in his most mature
writings. Critical analysis of this development would itself require book-length treatment.
(For a good start, see Gnter Meckenstock, Determinische Ethik und kritische Theologie: Die
Auseinandersetzung des frhren Schleiermacher mit Kant und Spinoza 17891794 [Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter, 1988].) Lacking this, we can content ourselves with the fact that Schleiermacher
provides us with a fairly robust account of freedom within the second edition of the
Glaubenslehre. Fairly robust, that is, when we combine the largely formal denition of
freedom in 4 with its material elaboration in Schleiermachers account of redemption.
Schleiermacher sees this as helping to explain the connection between Jesus departure and
the disciples full transition to spontaneity: even after Jesus had recognized the authority of
the disciples judgments, those judgments were still secondary to Jesus own judgments.
Once Jesus had departed, however, the nality of the disciples judgments was fully recognized by others.
Or, as David Lewis reportedly said, the imitation of Christ does not mean trying to walk on
water! (Attributed to Lewis in Bas C. van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance [New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2002], p. 125.)
As Robert Brandom observes, the problem here is that any particular set of performances
exhibits many regularities. . . . A performance can be denominated irregular only with
respect to a specied regularity, not tout court. Any further performance will count as
regular with respect to some of the patterns exhibited by the original set and as irregular
with respect to others. For anything one might go on to do, there is some regularity with
respect to which it counts as going on in the same way, continuing the same pattern.
. . . There simply is no such thing as the pattern or regularity exhibited by a stretch of past
behavior, which can be appealed to in judging some candidate bit of future behavior as
regular or irregular, and hence, on this line, as correct or incorrect (Robert B. Brandom,
Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment [Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1994], p. 28). Brandoms solution to this problem is roughly
similar to the one advanced here, namely, the solution of appealing to our social-practical
know-how. For further elaboration on this problem, see Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations: the German text, with a revised English translation, third edition, translated by
G.E.M. Anscombe, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1953/2001), especially 143 and 185
202; and Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1982).
This approach, incidentally, provides us with a rather simple answer to objections such as,
if our redemption means that Jesus activity becomes ours, should we die on a cross for the
forgiveness of sins, too? In light of Schleiermachers account, we can reply that a competent
judge of that action will recognize that it is unrepeatable.
This alone should sufce to refute Jrgen Moltmanns contention that Schleiermachers
concept of the Spirit leads to a unitarian concept of fellowship, and to a one-sided stress on
the love that binds, over against the freedom that differentiates See Jrgen Moltmann, The
Spirit of Life: A Universal Afrmation, trans. Margaret Kohl, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress
Press, 1992), p. 224.
Note the parallel between this understanding of the Spirits work and Schleiermachers
description of the corporate life of sin, particularly the way in which original sin is socially
mediated; on this, see 6974.
This would be the place to talk about the Spirits work enriching God.
Wittgenstein provides a nice illustration of thisto different effectin 185ff. of the
Philosophical Investigations, where he talks about the sense in which 1866, 1868 . . . is, and
is not, already included in the series 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 . . . If one knows how to carry on this
series, one will know how to go on in new circumstances (circumstances such as 1860, 1862,
1864 . . .). On the other hand, the fact that one knows how to go on in new circumstances
does not mean that every possible going-on was already foreseen when one learned how to
go on.
Schleiermacher thus summarizes his view: Taking everything together, he writes, we are
thus able to say how it was that after Christs departure the disciples common apprehension
of Christ changed into a spontaneous prolongation of his fellowship-forming activity,
and how it was only through this activity so related to the xed apprehension of Christ

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The Mediation of Christs Normative Spirit 21

25

26
27
28

29

30
31

32

becoming the imperishable common spirit, that the Christian Church arose. So, too, everyone within the circle of preparatory grace, who through the inuence of Christian life upon
him in the activity of others owing through him, possesses this Christian common spirit
merely in the form of susceptibility, must, when through faith the rule of the Kingdom of
God has been established in his life, refashion his attitude to the apprehension of Christ
accepted within the common life into a spontaneous activity of this kind; and this is the
communication of the divine Spirit (122.3, pp. 568569, emphasis added).
This interpretation of Schleiermachers pneumatology runs counter to the textbook interpretation, of course, according to which Schleiermacher sees the Spirit as nothing but the
feeling of kinship that Christians have for one another. By my lights, that interpretation
cannot be correct, since it attributes to Schleiermacher what he would see as an empirical
view of the Spirits worka view, that is, which reduces divine activity to that which arises
in the natural course of creaturely affairs. Over against such empirical viewsand over
against magical views according to which divine activity oats above creaturely reality
Schleiermacher everywhere advocates a view according to which the supernatural
becomes natural. I have interpreted Schleiermachers pneumatology along precisely these
lines. For Schleiermachers discussion of magical and empirical views, see The Christian
Faith, 100.3, pp. 428431.
Brandom thus refers to this as a sort of idealism; see his Pragmatist Themes in Hegels
Idealism and Making It Explicit, Chapter 9.
Brandom offers a helpful elaboration of this problem in Making It Explicit, chapter 1. In order
to avoid a regress, we also need to understand that the propriety of questioning a judgment
is itself subject to judgment, which means that one must be entitled to do so.
Wilfrid Sellars writes that empirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science,
is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise
which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once. See Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism
and the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 79. Bas van
Fraassen similarly claims that We can suspend part of what we take for granted, as long
as we are willing to rely on a sufciently large part of our language and prior opinion to
describe the suspended part and its possible connections with the world. See Bas C. van
Fraassen, The Empirical Stance, pp. 138139. For those who think we should be able to
doubt all of our beliefs at the same time, consider Donald Davidsons response: Suppose
most of my beliefs about what I call snakes were false; then my belief that I am seeing what
I call a snake would not be correctly described as being about a snake. Thus my belief, if
it is to be about a snake, depends on a background of true beliefs, true beliefs about the
nature of snakes, of animals, of physical objects, of the world. But though many beliefs
must therefore be true, most beliefs can be false. This last remark is dangerously ambiguous. It means: with respect to most of our beliefs, any particular one may be false. It does
not mean: with respect to the totality of our beliefs, most may be false, for the possibility
of a false belief depends on an environment of truths. See Donald Davidson, The
Problem of Objectivity in Problems of Rationality (New York, NY: Oxford University Press,
2004), p. 16.
This should be lled out with a story about the aporias into which non-reciprocal recognition fall; for an example of such a story, see Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, particularly as
read by Pippin and Pinkard. See especially Robert Pippin, What is the Question for which
Hegels Theory of Recognition is the Answer? European Journal of Philosophy 8/2 (August,
2000), pp. 155172, and Robert Pippin, Brandoms Hegel, European Journal of Philosophy
13/3 (December, 2005), pp. 381408. For an understanding of the way the Spirits work
undermines the status quoan understanding which is friendly to minesee again
Kathryn Tanner, Workings of the Spirit: Simplicity or Complexity?
Another objection might be that this is simply a moral inuence view of Christs work.
See Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History, new
edition, trans. Brian Cozens and John Bowden, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2001), p. 458. Barths estimation of Schleiermachers pneumatology
apparently contributes to his belief that Christian theologians should not try to make sense
of the way the Spirit works. See, for instance, Karl Barth, CD I/2, p. 233 and IV/1, pp. 649ff.
This sort of discourse, according to which the Spirit is giver and gift, uniter and unity, is
common in pneumatological reection. Schleiermacher comments on this in 124.2, p. 577.

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22 Kevin W. Hector
33

For helpful recent treatments of this issue, see Ralph Del Colle, The Holy Spirit: Presence,
Power, Person, Theological Studies 62/2 (June, 2001), pp. 322340, and Bernd Oberdorfer,
The Holy SpiritA Person? Reection on the Spirits Trinitarian Identity, The Work of the
Spirit (2006), pp. 2746.
34 I read Augustine and Thomas, for instance, as afrming something like the version I
describe here, though such a reading is not uncontroversial.
35 This uniting-unity construction parallels the giver-gift, mediator-mediated constructions
discussed in note 32.
36 On this point, see the works referenced in note 11.
37 I intend a book-length spelling-out of what light this proposal might shed on related
theological loci, including ethics, apostolicity, the inspiration and illumination of Scripture,
regeneration, etc. I have already provided an account of baptism as the rite by which
someone is explicitly recognized as bearing the Spirit; see Kevin W. Hector, Baptism: The
Recognition of the Spirit (forthcoming). Likewise, I use the present proposal as part of my
account of theological concept-use in Kevin W. Hector, Theology without Gaps: The Meaning,
Truth, and Reference of God-Talk (forthcoming).
38 Keith L. Johnson, Kathryn Tanner, and two anonymous readers provided helpful feedback
on an earlier draft of this essay; I am grateful to each.

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