Friedrich Schleiermacher: The Dawn of Liberal Theology

Amongst the 19th century theologians who labored to carve out a space for Christian theology in response to the Enlightenment, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher played a pivotal role by initiating the era of liberal theology. Since no theological innovation developed within a historical vacuum, it would be helpful to locate the profound challenge posed by Enlightenment philosophy on the place for religion in the public square. Religious tradition was by then viewed with suspicion while boundless confidence was placed in the progress of autonomous reason and empirical science. If only what can be proven by experiments and deductive reasoning is knowable, how could we know about unverifiable religious doctrines with any certainty?

Even among those caught up in Romanticism, a reactionary movement against its cold rationalism, religious dogma and moralistic authority were still perceived as a hindrance to authentic, individual freedom. One could be cultured, optimistic, moral and full of

ideals. But religion seemed irrelevant to the progress of the human spirit. In the autumn of 1797, Schleiermacher began to be connected with a circle of young Romantic friends devoted to aesthetic, literary and philosophical interests. It was to such Berlin bohemians who were influenced by idealistic spirit of the age, rather than skeptical rationalistic materialists, that he wrote his first book On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. Not only was religion despised due to popular misunderstanding, his main concern was directed to clarify its essence and clear away confusions of substituting religious piety for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs courtesy of the Age of Reason.

If Kant sought to secure a foothold for religion in practical reason or morality, Schleiermachers response attempted to reconstruct theology as something relevant and essential to religious feeling itself. The source of theological discourse is expressing a universal sense of total dependence on God. The essence of religion is a sense and taste for the Infinite.1 Drawing from his pietistic heritage, he tried to show that true religion is an immediate relation to the living God, as distinct from submission to doctrinal or creedal propositions about God.2 By retreating from the domains of science and ethics, theology was secured a safe refuge as an expression of Gods immanence in religious piety. This methodology of doing theology from below and resolving conflicts with Enlightenment thought set the agenda for liberal theology. The Bible is unique in that it records the religious experience of the earliest Christians but its teachings need to be filtered through the believers inward experience.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, edited by H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart, (Fortress: Philadelphia, 1928), page 12 2 Stanley Grenz & Roger Olson, 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 1992), page 41

From this controlling presupposition, Schleiermacher reinterpreted traditional Christian doctrines of God as a manner of speaking about our feeling of absolute dependence on Him rather than an actual description regarding God Himself.3 Sin is described as our sensuous nature seeking to be free and it affected our sense of dependence. Without humility, the optimistic idealism of the age results in a Promethean pride. Likewise, Christ is reinvented as a mere human being in possession of absolutely potent Godconsciousness, whose redemptive activity consists in bringing other humans into similar experiential awareness. In effect, the essence of piety he defended is no longer centered on the traditional understanding of sin as transgression of divine moral laws which require the atoning work of a divine Redeemer. Nevertheless, his contribution to theology lies more in his methodology rather than any specific reformulations of Christian beliefs. The pietistic experience in the human subject is the ultimate criterion to reinterpret theology rather than Scripture alone as the authoritative touchstone.

The legacy of his methodology could be traced in the works of later theologians like Paul Tillich and J. A. Robinson, who described God as the object of ultimate concern or the ground of being that we should be dependent upon. In both cases, an analysis of religious experiential dependence is used as a common denominator to reinterpret biblical terms and concepts.4 But it could easily end up as a Procrustean bed onto which the Christian concept of God must be forced. Whatever will not conform must be lopped off however crucial it is to the scriptural witness and the history of Christian thought.5 In response, the atheistic philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach leveled the charge that such theology is
3 4

Colin Brown, Philosophy & The Christian Faith, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 1968), page 111 Ibid., page 116 5 Stanley Grenz & Roger Olson, 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age, page 50

anthropology in disguise. The notion of God is merely mental projections of the theologians themselves, making idols in the image of man. Talk about God is in the final analysis veiled discourse about psychology of man. Rather than satisfying imaginary and unattainable desires with religion, would it not be better to focus on attainable needs in the temporal world?

Christian philosopher Colin Brown would argue that theological method cannot be decided a priori without looking at where the evidence leads. While Schleiermacher rejected abstract metaphysics in favor of experience, he was not empirical enough to analyze its workings in human experience as William James did. He also did not examine how the New Testament would shed light on early Christian religious experiences. Therefore, while liberal theologians may appear to be modern for their readiness to abandon traditional doctrines in favor of new ideas, it may be the more conservative scholars who follow modern scientific methods more closely by examining where the historical evidence in the Bible actually lead.

The seed that Schleiermacher planted would blossom into the liberalism that dominated Protestant thought in the early 20th century. In reaction, Karl Barth would criticize it as an anthropocentric theology without a transcendent prophetic message. His neo-orthodox program would take seriously Feuerbachs taunt to correct the perceived weakness of liberalism by focusing on the revelation of God from above. We cannot speak about God by trying to speak about man in a loud voice. If theology is done without engaged dialogue with the spirit of the age, it could end up as irrelevant pronouncements on

questions that no one is asking. In this regard, we have much to gain from observing how Schleiermacher provided an original and daring apologetic for piety in the context of his time. But if theology is controlled too rigidly by culture, it could simply be a mirror image of the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological or political convictions of the day. Christian faith is more than just doctrine or ethics, but it cannot be less than that. The biblical gospel must also be given the freedom to provide correctives on the aspirations and ideals of the dominant culture. The call to be faithful and relevant would be a constant tight rope on which theologians need to walk.

Bibliography

1. 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age, Stanley Grenz & Roger
Olson, InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 1992

2. On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Harper &

Row: New York, 1958

3. Philosophy & The Christian Faith, Colin Brown, InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove,
1968

4. The Christian Faith, Friedrich Schleiermacher, edited by H. R. Mackintosh and J. S.

Stewart, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1928

5. The Lion Book of Christian Thought, Tony Lane, Lion Publishing: Oxford,1984 6. Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion, Richard R. Niebuhr, Scribner: New York