It contends that the tests of the soundness of a moral system are the completeness of its view of the laws and ends of human life as a whole and the harmonious arrangement of its subject-matter under one fundamental principle. In On Religion he tried to ground religion on rational, natural, and empirical grounds from which he could exercise enumeratio, namely, expounding on religion beyond its categorical a priori. In this work, Schleiermacher defends religion against the skepticism of a modern audience. Learn how your comment data is processed. His earliereducation took place in institutions of the Moravian Brethren(Herrnhuter), a strict pietist sect. In 1804, Schleiermacher moved as university preacher and professor of theology to the University of Halle, where he remained until 1807, quickly obtaining a reputation as professor and preacher; he exercised a powerful influence in spite of contradictory charges which accused him of atheism, Spinozism and pietism. Friedrich Schleiermacher generally rejects the notion that religion has some purpose or task beyond itself; religion is an end. Knowledge and activity flow from the experience of piety, but they are not themselves piety. From 1802 to 1804, Schleiermacher served as a pastor in the Pomeranian town of Stolp. At the same time he studied the writings of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and began to apply ideas from the Greek philosophers to a reconstruction of Kant's system. Dogmas and opinions are “a knowledge about feeling,” not knowledge about “the Universe, that gave rise to the feeling (61).”. Meanwhile he studied Spinoza and Plato, both of whom were important influences. Does Schleiermacher's work belong within the ebbing enlightenment movement, seeking, as it did, to bolster the critical imperatives voiced by Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Kant within a post-revolutionary Europe? "Friedrich Schleiermacher." While at boarding school Schleiermacher began to question his faith to which the Moravians did not care to give an answer. Religion is an experience that men and women have; the whole subject takes part in an experiencing that is not enclosed within the circle of subjectivity but is referred to another term (as it were, outside the subject himself or herself), n… At the same time Schleiermacher prepared his chief theological work Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche (1821–1822; 2nd ed., greatly altered, 1830–1831; 6th ed., 1884). Schleiermacher developed a deep-rooted skepticism as a student, and soon he rejected orthodox Christianity. then pray to God to grant it to me, for to me it is now lost. . ^^. All rights reserved. We are not associated with any religion or organization. At age nine his father came into contact with Pietismandentered into a devotional lifestyle. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) Schleiermacher, the Study of Religion, and the Future of Theology: A Transatlantic Dialogue by Wilhelm Grab, Brent W. Sockness, and Wilhelm Grab (Theologische Bibliothek Topelmann: De Gruyter) The past three decades have witnessed a significant transatlantic and trans-disciplinary resurgence of interest in the early nineteenth-century Protestant … Sounds like you obtained a genuine inward experience that Schleiermacher spoke about yet seemed evasive in his life and teachings. Then comes the bombshell. The Neo-Orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, typically (though not without challenge) seen to be spearheaded by Karl Barth, was in many ways an attempt to challenge his influence. However, while there he alsopursued broader humanistic interests. On the other hand as one born without any religious beliefs as religion never occurred as a valid topic of conversation at home, a crisis of meaninglessness arose as the visible tip of the iceberg in the midpoint of my teenage period of aimless existence, despite the fact that it had only taken me 7 years to get to college. Schleiermacher Studies And Translations positivism. When I came to John 5:24 where Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth o him that sent me hath (present tense)everlasting life…” This turning point put my life on solid ground to pursue a good education in Biblical theology which led to so many accomplishments in church planting by leading non-churchgoers — even a good number of the worst kinds of heathen — to Christ; in business; and in a writing career. As time went on Schleiermacher left to study at the Universit… I particularly enjoyed his conception of religion and reflected on how it can inform our study of religion in the modern age. Largely as a result of skepticismabout certain Christian doctrines taught there, he moved to the moreliberal University of Halle in 1787. Doctrine is the human attempt to describe inward piety with words. According to Schleiermacher, Christian doctrine is a fallible attempt to describe the feeling of piety, and as such it is subject to radical revision. The fundamental principle is that religious feeling, the sense of absolute dependence on God as communicated by Jesus through the church, and not the creeds or the letter of Scripture or the rationalistic understanding, is the source and basis of dogmatic theology. Rather, while he affirms that all outward forms of religion spring from the inward experience—and thus “are the same in kind (102)”—he also affirms that the pious feelings producing such different outward forms are themselves different (50). At the completion of his course at Halle, Schleiermacher became the private tutor to the family of Friedrich Alexander Burggraf und Graf zu Dohna-Schlobitten (1741–1810), developing in a cultivated and aristocratic household his deep love of family and social life. In the first article I explored Schleiermacher’s rejection of various views of religion held by the despisers. While he preached every Sunday, Schleiermacher also gradually took up in his lectures in the university almost every branch of theology and philosophy — New Testament exegesis, introduction to and interpretation of the New Testament, ethics (both philosophic and Christian), dogmatic and practical theology, church history, history of philosophy, psychology, dialectics (logic and metaphysics), politics, pedagogy, translation and aesthetics. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) was born inBreslau as the son of a clergyman of the reformed church. . Moreover, Schleiermacher maintains that it is difficult to speak of God as separate and distinct from the world since we know God only through his operation upon us through the world. As a theology student Schleiermacher pursued an independent course of reading and neglected the study of the Old Testament and of Oriental languages. Schleiermacher challenges the widespread belief that religion was a combination of doctrines and actions, or knowing and doing. Friedrich Schleiermacher. Almost everyone who has written on Schleiermacher has indicated his profound influence through the reformulation and rethinking of theological propositions, which has earned him the title “the father of modern theology.” Schleiermacher was born into a religious family within the … Download it Schleiermacher Studies And Translations books also available in PDF, EPUB, and Mobi Format for read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. The literary product of this period of rapid development was his influential book, Reden über die Religion (On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers) (1799, ed. He was strongly influenced by German Romanticism, as represented by his friend Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel. In this article I will explain his understanding of religion and its relationship to Christianity as conveyed in the first two speeches of his work, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. Similarly, his interpretation of scripture, too, was, by no means, only an academic interest. He also became influential in the evolution of Higher Criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. The Enlightenment had invigorated scientific and historical research, overshadowing theology in the university. However, it is crucial to note that Schleiermacher does not simply posit that people in different cultural and historical situations interpret the very same religious feeling differently. Born in Breslaw, Germany in 1768, Schleiermacher was the son of a Prussain army chaplain. Born in Breslaw, Germany in 1768, Schleiermacher was the son of a Prussain armychaplain. For example, while he acknowledges that conceiving of God as personal is “an almost absolute necessity for the highest stage of piety,” he is quick to point out the weaknesses of such a conception (116). Product details. Similarly, notions of divine resolve, pity, and veracity seem difficult to ascribe literally to God (106). In 1804, Schleiermacher moved as university preacher and professor of theology to the University of Halle, where he remained until 1807, quickly obtaining a reputation as professor and preacher; he exercised a powerful influence in spite of contradictory charges which accused him of atheism, Spinozism and pietism. In the first book Schleiermacher gave religion an unchanging place among the divine mysteries of human nature, distinguished it from what he regarded as current caricatures of religion, and described the perennial forms of its manifestation. His exceedingly high view of the unconscious moment of piety—described as “above all error and misunderstanding (42)” —is out of step with the traditional doctrine of sin. Friedrich Schleiermacher is sometimes described as the “father of modern theology“. The most influential German theologian of the 19th c., F. D. E. Schleiermacher is generally regarded as the father of modern Protestant thought. Schleiermacher also recasts traditional Christian anthropology in his modern theology. Required fields are marked *. Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst (1768-1834): German Theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher is considered the most important theologian of the Romantic movement as well as the founder of modern Protestant theology. In a moving letter of 21 January 1787, Schleiermacher admits that the doubts alluded to are his own. In the former case, the work Influence. Alas! There are two ways, he considered, of making a good translation: either the author must be left alone as far as possible and the reader be made to approach, or the reader be left and the author be manipulated. While at boarding school Schleiermacher began toquestion his faith to which the Moravians did not care to give an answer. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher has been described as the Father of Modern Theology. Göttingen, 1906; Eng. Early career. In On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, Schleiermacher pursues an anthropological theory of religion, aiming at recognizing the transcendental constitution of religious experience. For example, the idea of an infinite personality makes little sense to Schleiermacher (116). Friedrich Schleiermacher was a German theologian and philosopher; he wrote this book in 1893 to address the Western European intellectuals’ criticism towards religion. Schleiermacher confessed: "Faith is the regalia of the Godhead, you say. 1828). dearest father, if you believe that without this faith no one can attain to salvation in the next world, nor to tranquility in this — and such, I know, is your belief — oh! All page references are to that work (pictured to the right). Born in Breslau in the Prussian Silesia as the grandson of Daniel Schleiermacher, a pastor at one time associated with the Zionites, and the son of Gottlieb Schleiermacher, a Reformed Church chaplain in the Prussian army, Schleiermacher started his formal education in a Moravian school at Niesky in Upper Lusatia, and at Barby near Magdeburg. Rather, in the second article I explained his view that religion or piety is the preconscious inward experience of God acting upon a human being through that person’s encounter with the world. Schleiermacher was the son of Gottlieb and Katharina-Maria ( née Stubenrauch) Schleiermacher. He sympathised with some of Jacobi's positions, and took some ideas from Fichte and Schelling. in thought, must be found in Schleiermacher's own opinion. Moreover, while broad commonalities allow us to categorize particular piety as Christian or Muslim, religion “fashions itself with endless variety, down even to the single personality (51).” Thus, for Schleiermacher, Christianity is but one valid grouping of piety, which in itself is very diverse (51). They have moved to a different kind of particular . While Christians may validly attempt to define heresy, heretics must not be persecuted for they often represent the productive energy of modern theology (109-110). In the second article I explained his identification of true religion with feeling. Schleiermacher was convinced that Christianity is rooted in the inner life of the people and from that base is productive of new ways of speaking (knowing) and a new mode of life (doing). The religious feelings among Turks and Indians are different—and not accidentally so—from those among Christians (50). Rather, Christianity is a subset of religion, one form of religion. Most, if not all of them, were raised in Christian homes, but because — like Schleiermacher himself — they never had had the regeneration through the Spirit of God, their lives were always in a state of flux and their efforts to “serve God” only ended up in total failure. As pointed out above, Schleiermacher’s approach to theology was deep, personal, and complex. He notes that the outward doctrines and practices of true religion may vary widely. Known as the 'Father of modern theology' Friedrich Schleiermacher is without a doubt one of the most important theologians in the history of Christianity. Schleiermacher Studies And Translations Schleiermacher Studies And Translations by Friedrich Schleiermacher. However, he did attend the lectures of Semler, where he became acquainted with the techniques of historical criticism of the New Testament, and of Johann Augustus Eberhard, from whom he acquired a love of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. © 2004-2020 ReligionFacts. [CDATA[ // ]]> All my friends and contemporaries who had chosen to go to liberal schools ended up having to live with a set of beliefs that only proved totally unworkable. by despising religion and … At age nine his father came into contact with Pietism and entered into a devotional lifestyle. Schleiermacher wrote On Religion while teaching and preaching in Berlin. Though his ultimate principles remained unchanged, Romanticism led Schleiermacher to place more emphasis on human emotion and the imagination. The title of Richard Crouter's Friedrich Schleiermacher: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism places his study right in the centre of the current debate about this 19th century philosopher. 6, Repub. At the foundation of the University of Berlin (1810), in which he took a prominent part, Schleiermacher obtained a theological chair, and soon became secretary to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. While piety can be had without doctrine, if piety is reflected upon, doctrine is unavoidable and properly belongs within the sphere of religion (87). Schleiermacher saw Christianity as this truth and the most perfect form of religion. However, pietistic Moravian theology failed to satisfy his increasing doubts, and his father reluctantly gave him permission to enter the University of Halle, which had already aband… Friedrich was sent at age 15 to a boarding school run by the Moravian Brethren, a pious evangelical group that traced its roots back to Jan Huss. Ironically, even in his liberalism, Schleiermacher approached Christian belief in proper Moravian spirit—focusing on inner change and integrity. Although it is almost exclusively critical and negative, the book announces Schleiermacher's later view of moral science, attaching prime importance to a Güterlehre, or doctrine of the ends to be obtained by moral action. Over Religion), Schleiermacher is addressing the educated elite of Berlin. Applying his flexible view of doctrine, Schleiermacher creatively reshapes modern Christian theology to more closely reflect his personal experience of piety. Your email address will not be published. Liberal theology includes a wide variety of theological, philosophical, and biblical perspectives that have their roots in the European Enlightenment (c. 1660–1798). Brian Gerrish, a scholar of the works of Schleiermacher, writes: In a letter to his father, Schleiermacher drops the mild hint that his teachers fail to deal with those widespread doubts that trouble so many young people of the present day. In this period he wrote his dialogue the Weihnachtsfeier (Christmas Eve: Dialogue on the Incarnation) (1806), which represents a midway point between his Speeches and his great dogmatic work, Der christliche Glaube (The Christian Faith); the speakers represent phases of his growing appreciation of Christianity as well as the conflicting elements of the theology of the period. In politics Schleiermacher supported liberty and progress, and in the period of reaction which followed the overthrow of Napoleon he was charged by the Prussian government with "demagogic agitation" in conjunction with the patriot Ernst Moritz Arndt. Schleiermacher argued that religion was rooted in human feelings, describing the core of religion as "a sense and taste for the Infinite in the finite." Thus, for Schleiermacher, doctrinal diversity must be embraced. I cannot believe that he who called himself the Son of Man was the true, eternal God; I cannot believe that his death was a vicarious atonement.". To the notion that religion must have utility beyond opening uninitiated people to “the sense for the unity of the original source of life (55),” and to love of the “World-Spirit (65),” he replies: “What degradation (20)!” Schleiermacher was born in Breslau to a Reformed chaplain and the daughter of a Reformed chaplain. For example, he refers to Spinoza’s non-Christian doctrinal position as springing from genuine piety (104). For example, he notes that Christian doctrine might have looked very different if the underlying experience of piety had occurred within a different—say Eastern—culture (107). Learn More in these related Britannica articles: Schleiermacher died of an inflammation of the lungs on February 12, 1834. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a theologian and philosopher. Halle and Berlin. Heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant, Schleiermacher made two key assumptions. In the Monologen he revealed his ethical manifesto, in which he proclaimed his ideas on the freedom and independence of the spirit, and on the relationship of the mind to the sensual world, and sketched his ideal of the future of the individual and of society. Now I was reading the King James Version of the Bible as it made sense to me being accustomed to William Shakespeare’s English of several centuries before my time. Moravian theology soon ceased to satisfy him, and […] Friedrich Schleiermacher was an influencial German theologian and philosopher known for his impressive attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant orthodoxy. The twenty-four years of his professional career in Berlin began with his short outline of theological study (Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums, 1811), in which he sought to do for theology what he had done for religion in his Speeches. ReligionFacts provides free, objective information on religion, world religions, comparative religion and religious topics. His orthodox Christian predecessors would have been more skeptical of the products of sinful human nature. Another work, Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre [Outlines of a Critique of the Doctrines of Morality to date] (1803), the first of his strictly critical and philosophical productions, occupied him; it is a criticism of all previous moral systems, including those of Kant and Fichte — Plato's and Spinoza's find most favour. Moreover, it is not a certain kind of activity or knowledge. The son of a Prussian army chaplain of the Reformed confession, he was born at Breslau. In the first article I began by noting that religion, according to Schleiermacher, is not the outward show of doctrines and systems. Religion is Not Knowing -- Schleiermacher rejects knowledge as the field of religion: “Religion is not knowledge and science, either of the world or of God” (On Religion, 36). Second, Schleiermacher assumes the Kantian account of knowledge. Augustine: Salvation and the Christian Life, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, Colossians 2:9-12 Commentary: Raised with Christ, Colossians 2:6-8 Commentary: Continue in Christ, Colossians 2:1-5 Commentary: Countering Deception, Colossians 1:24-29 Commentary: Paul’s Commission to the Gentiles, Colossians 1:21-23 Commentary: Paul’s Gospel, Part 2, Colossians 1:13-20 Commentary: Paul’s Gospel, Part 1, Colossians 1:9-12 Commentary: Knowledge of God’s Will, Colossians 1:3-8 Commentary: Paul’s relationship to the Colossian church, Colossians 1:1-2 Commentary: Paul’s Greeting. 1–5, 1804–1810; vol. In preceding centuries, Christian theology was expressed in creeds and confessions based on the authority of the Bible and tradition which extended back to the early church. Friedrich Schleiermacher has 546 books on Goodreads with 3089 ratings. Finally, in this third article I explained Schleiermacher’s view that Christianity is the superior form among many valid forms of religion, but that Christian doctrine, as fallible human reflections on piety, is subject to revision. A classic of modern religious thought, Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is here presented in Richard Crouter's acclaimed English translation of the 1799 edition, originally published in Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy. //