Schleiermacher, 1949

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834)

Georg Krönert wrote on the topic "Schleiermacher und die Gegenwart" (Schleiermacher and the Present) in the Zeitschrift für Relgions- und Geistesgeschichte 2 (1949/1950), discussing the relevance of the 19th-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher to contemporary religious problems.

He begins it with an interesting contrast between Schleiermacher and Martin Luther. Luther had a sense of being constantly engaged in struggle, Schleiermacher conveyed a deep sense of calm. Luther was preoccupied with evil and the Devil, for Schleiermacher those were more marginal concerns in a theology centered in love. Luther thought in exclusivist terms, Schleiermacher in expansive and universal ways. "Luthers Symbol ist die Linie, Schleiermachers dagegen die Kugel." (Luther's symbol is the line, Schleiermacher's in contrast the globe.)

Krönert takes Schleiermacher's universal sense to be more appropriate to needs of the times, including his embrace of the latest scientific findings. This world-openness is an essential part of the view of the modern European, Krönert argues.

Krönert also prizes Schleiermacher's concept of religion as the "Sinn und Geschamck fürs Unendliche," (sense and taste for the unending) as Krönert puts it. Here he strikes a mystical note that's seemingly different from his praise of Schleiermacher's openness to science. But he's making an historical point. Luther could call on a religious conscience among his fellow Christians that is no longer as universal even among Europeans as it was in Luther's time. On the contrary, modern people suffer from a "vollkommene religiöse Insensibilität" (complete insensitivity to religion). Luther's warnings of the wrath of God are not so persuasive to contemporaries. Martin Marty means something like this when he talks about how Hell disappeared (and no one noticed).

Krönert also argues that Luther could rely on rational arguments to persuade people of his time about Christianity, where Schleiermacher's awareness of the role of feeling in religion is more appropriate to contemporary conditions. Krönert's argument on this point is weak. Schleiermacher elaborated on the role of emotion in religion using a kind of psychological language that was not available to Luther. But, as Krönert himself points out in his discussion of the more prevalent role of the Christian sense of conscience in Luther's day, feeling was very much present in matters of religion in those time. Krönert also makes an embarrassing point here calling on the findings of "modern parapsychology" (!!!) to emphasize his point. Given his own personal trials with the occultist who became his wife's confidant and the sister-in-law of his daughter, it's safe to say that Schleiermacher would not have approved of this mode of arguing for his own theology. Nevertheless, Krönert continues in the following paragraph to praise Schleiermacher's effort to de-mythologize Christianity, or at least of the theology of the New Testament writings.

Krönert makes a dubious biographical speculation that Schleiermacher's disappointment in his love for Eleonore Grunow somehow gave him his strong sense for what the Christian Church ideally is by strenthening his understanding for family. He fell in love with her, she was married, they never got together. Maybe that affected his theological understanding of the Church, maybe not, but Krönert certainly does not make it clear why he thinks it did.

Krönert also praises Schleiermacher's embrace of the ecumenical goal of uniting the Reformed and Lutheran Churches of the Prussia of his day under a common Protestant grouping, which Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III proposed in 1817. Schleiermacher supported the union of the two Protestant traditions and elaborated his own theology (Schleiermacher was a Reformed minister) in a way that would accomodate such a union. But he also warned against government dictation of the church rituals and insisted that freedom of conscience in Christian scholarship and ritual should be maintined in the unified Protestant Church.

Tags: christian theology, schleiermacher