§20. Every system of doctrines of faith, as a presentation of dogmatic theology, is comprised of a self-contained and exactly conjoined whole of dogmatic propositions. Thus, with respect to the present mass of such propositions, the first task is to lay down a rule according to which some will be adopted and others excluded, but then to set forth a principle for their combination and arrangement as well.1
1. This proposition presupposes that the particular doctrinal propositions presented are what is original, indeed that they are in existence prior to the systematic tendency2 itself, and this affirmation is completely in keeping with the foregoing discussion as well.3 Thus, in no way is it the case that, first of all, a principle would somehow have been available externally or would be especially devised by any theologian and thereupon that the particular doctrinal propositions presented would emerge only on the basis of an explication of such a principle. This practice is indeed conceivable in the speculative domain, but it is not conceivable here. The reason is that Christian self-consciousness must already be developed in the community of faith before properly dogmatic features are formed, and only once fragmentary, perhaps even chaotic, features of this sort are in existence does the task of conjoining them in an orderly fashion arise. That task, however, fulfills its purpose only in a completeness of their combination, through which one can come to be sure of having indicated all the shared loci of Christian consciousness in doctrinal form. Hence, attaining such completeness is the task of every structured body of doctrine.4 That is to say, if one were lacking such completeness one would, on that account, also not be at all sure that the dogmatic expression used for what is most distinctive about Christianity would be correct, in that precisely a locus that had been passed over could furnish proof of just the opposite.5 Such a conviction of completeness and correction, however, can proceed only from a basic design6 of the whole, in one’s achieving confidence that a comprehensive and exhaustive arrangement of doctrine is clearly exhibited within that organized representation of the whole.7
2. Now, the undeniably great variety of structured bodies of doctrine, even at the same time and in the same ecclesial community, is based, at least in part, on the varied procedures used for their inclusion and for the conjoining of doctrine. Accordingly, general rules for the two kinds of procedures can be set forth only in very indefinite formulations. Any particular structured body of doctrine, however, would best characterize itself if, within that body of doctrine, its distinctive viewpoint is displayed with the greatest possible definiteness.8
A twofold method9 springs forth of itself from these considerations. On the one hand, based on a general apprehension of Christian consciousness, one can sketch out a basic design directed to the multiple ways in which that consciousness can be expressed in accordance with both the nature of the human psyche10 and of human life and then thereafter can try to fill out the basic design with existing doctrinal material. In this case, then it would simply be incumbent on one to be sure that one has included only features that are in harmony with each other. On the other hand, one can also draw together what has formed within a distinct region of Christianity, in accordance with one and the same type of it, as a statement concerning religious stirrings.11 At that point, the only thing left to be done is to order all this material in the most accessible and perspicuous way. Viewing these two methods together already clearly shows that one must conjoin the two methods, because only in the other method does each method find warranty regarding what is lacking in itself.12
1. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s usage, “rule” (Regel) implies some practical setting or (regulative) consideration regarding practice, whereas “principle” (Prinzip) has one of two meanings: (1) a set of rules and/or considerations that are seen to guide or govern a domain of conduct that extends over a wide range, as here, and (2) something within nature that is taken to provide motion, hence the term “moving principle.”
2. Ed. note: On systematization of doctrine, see also CF §30.3, OG 69f., and BO §§20 and 97–101.
3. Ed. note: See CF §28 and Schleiermacher’s discussion on the functions of dogmatics in OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 14. In OR (1821) I, supplemental note 6, regarding his rhetorical concluding section there, Schleiermacher indicates, against critics, that his original intention “was to defend the equal rank of morality and law with piety in human nature.” All are “basic functions” at the same time, but none may be “subordinate to every other basic function,” and “they are equal” in this respect. All three, moreover, predispositions for morality, government under law, and piety, respect each one being indispensable and unimaginable without each other. He also refers to CF §§19 and 28 and to BO §§1–20 there. Thus, he explains, instead of providing how living out the “idea” of each corresponding institution, he was chiefly (a) taking how those he was addressing tended to view them into account and (b) especially inveighing against reducing faith to customary morality and governmental institutions denominating the name of theocracy.
4. Lehrgebäude. Ed. note: The metaphor contained in this word is of a building. How distinctly systematic a body of doctrine would be, and on what basis, are precisely the two main topics of discussion here.
5. Ed. note: In OG 85–87 Schleiermacher repeats his often stated opinion that philosophy should not affect the “contents” of Christian dogmatics. Here he adds that the two disciplines can indeed coexist in one person and still remain separate—as he doubtless believed he had done as to doctrinal statements. In OG 88–89 he addresses the major division between rationalists and various brands of supernaturalists, which was of great concern to him. On what comprises a genuine “theological dogmatic system,” see OR (1821) II, note 7.
6. Grundriβ.
7. Ed. note: Cf. OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 9. On the “prime tendency” of the present “systematic” work: to fill “two functions,” namely, by two “factors” in the process: (1) “to avoid delivering the spirit unto death along with the letter, it secures the vital mobility of the letter and seeks within the overall structure of doctrine not merely to tolerate a variety of distinctive positions but to build that variety in,” and (2) “it does not profess that notions and concepts are the original, constitutive factors in this domain.” For key determinants of Christian Faith’s system, see §§96.3, 105.P.S., 110.2, 144.2, 169.3, and 172.5.
8. Bestimmtheit. Ed. note: This term directly presents the issue of how properly defined and well defined a given structured body of doctrine is to be.
9. Methode. Ed. note: Here Thönes (1873) reports this marginal note by Schleiermacher: “The basic design [Grundriβ] will be sketched out in Section Two below.”
10. Ed. note: Seele. Often this word is also translated “soul,” here and in other works. At this point, it seems to correspond more exactly to “psyche,” viewed as the subject matter of Psychologie. In his lectures on psychology, Schleiermacher always presents Seele and Leib (body) as inseparable, at least in this life.
11. Ed. note: The concept “religious stirrings” here is frommen Erregungen, those inner affective states that are at the root of piety and that give rise to the full life of piety, hence are both the root of piety and come to serve as the overall nurturance of all piety. In these two inseparable ways those states are basically definitive of the “religious” formation of human nature, in Schleiermacher’s view. See also On Religion (1821) for his fullest account prior to the more tightly organized general account in CF §§1–19.
12. Ed. note: On proper versus false attention to dogmatics in part depending on the degree of historical importance and autonomy that a church has, see explanation in BO §52, also in 4, 26, 45, 149, 207, and 271. See also OR (1821) IV, supplementary note 14. There Schleiermacher insists that dogmatics should not be “the exclusive concern” of clergy or scholars, nor should uninformed laity be embroiled in all their hassles. This CF proposition cannot possibly be fully understood in isolation from all those that preceded it (esp. §§15 and 18–20) or the entire section it introduces. See also OR (1821) V, supplemental note 9.
I. Regarding Selection of the Dogmatic Material
§21. In order to realize a structured body of doctrines of faith, it is necessary, first of all, to excise everything heretical from the totality of dogmatic material and to retain only what has ecclesial merit.
1. Suppose that we consider the Christian church from the viewpoint that it is what we call a “moral person”—that is, one put together out of many who exist as persons but one that nonetheless has a genuinely individual life. Then it is already to be conceded in advance that in any such individual life there exists a contrast between more healthy and more diseased conditions, just as is the case in individual lives taken in the narrower sense. Diseased conditions, however, are always such that they do not arise from the inner ground or the pure course of that life but are to be explained only in terms of influences alien to that inner ground and pure course. Accordingly, suppose that among a people individuals should enter who present an entirely alien physiological type, with the result that they also come to be on less friendly terms with the majority and its mode of life. Suppose, too, that citizens who have monarchical dispositions rise up within a republican state, and vice versa. In each case, we would regard this condition to be a disease of the whole1 and would also presuppose that it is to be explained only on the basis of alien influences. Now, not everyone would immediately agree, even with that last indicator. Nonetheless, within the domain of Christian doctrine anyone would call “heretical” only that which one cannot explain based on one’s notion of the distinctive nature of Christianity and cannot consider to be in harmony with it. This is so, inasmuch as what is heretical gives itself out to be Christian nevertheless and will also be regarded as such by others.2
Now, as a matter of fact, during the period in which church doctrine was actually developing, a great number of doctrinal features came to light that the majority was persistently staving off as of an alien nature, whereas it was giving recognition to the rest as self-consistent and as forming a harmonious continuum under the name of “catholic,” or what is held in common by the church as a whole. Indeed, while this process is going on, it sometimes occurs that religious stirrings of mind and heart3 that are presented in doctrine themselves stand in contradiction to the true nature of Christian piety. Also, sometimes the contradiction arises only during the formation of doctrine, in such a way that the religious conditions of mind and heart are not themselves diseased, and a semblance of heresy is evoked only by misunderstanding or by faulty method. Now, to be sure, seldom have these two cases been properly distinguished from each other, hence much has been declared to be heretical very overhastily. Yet, there has also been no lack of doctrine that is of a genuinely heretical nature. One would also be glad to admit that alien influences attach to heretical doctrine once one considers that, at first, the Christian church arose among people who had previously adhered to other modes of faith, with the result that features of an alien nature could readily creep in unawares.
2. Undeniably, in accordance with what was just pointed out, determination of what would be heretical, and should thus remain excluded from the accepted body of doctrine, does appear as a very precarious business, and everyone who proceeds from a different basic formulation for articulating the actual nature of Christianity will pose that determination differently. The situation also cannot be otherwise, however, and the whole course of events within the Christian church proves this. That is to say, brand new heresies do not emerge anymore, in that the church we know expands out of itself, and actual influence of alien modes of faith, even in frontier areas and on the mission field of the church, must be reckoned to be nil as concerns formation of doctrine. It is true, however, that for a long time much that has crept into the piety of new converts from their previous religious conditions would be recognized to be heretical once it would have come into clear consciousness and would have been uttered as doctrine. On the other hand, quite varied judgments exist concerning earlier heresies, just as actual ways of conceiving the nature of Christianity vary among themselves.
Hence, anyone who would set forth a structured body of doctrine can follow even the rule of our proposition only in such a way that one will include nothing that, according to the basic type of Christian doctrine one has already laid down, can be traced back only to an alien source. If, however, in this process everything is to be done not haphazardly but with proper surety, then one must not retain that contrast between catholic and heretical as it has been posed historically up to a certain point in time, all the less so in view of the fact that since then further championings of one or the other, such positions have gained a hearing. Rather, one must try to construe what is of a heretical nature, present in its manifold forms, in distinction from the nature of Christianity. One must do so by asking in how many ways the nature of Christianity can be contradicted in such a way that a semblance of Christianity remains nonetheless. By being carried out in this way, investigation concerning heresy serves to complement that concerning the nature of Christianity, and the two investigations become mutually confirming. The more what is set forth in such a problematic way as to be heresy is also found to exist historically, the more reason one has to regard the formulation on which its construction rests as a correct expression for the nature of Christianity. The more naturally a doctrinal formulation that Christendom has constantly confessed has developed based on that same formulation, the more reason one has also to hold anything that stands in contradiction to that formulation, in whatever aspect that may be, to be truly diseased and worthy of rejection.
1. Ed. note: Here Thönes (1873) reports this marginal note by Schleiermacher: “This is all the more the case the more complete Christianity is in itself. An ethical diseased state is something different.—Nota bene: Since this separation [between what is alien and what is distinctive] is not yet established, it should have been treated in a more general fashion.”
2. Ed. note: On what “heresy” means, see also OR (1821) II, supplemental note 10, and V, supplemental note 7, and BO §§58–62.
3. Gemütserregungen. Ed. note: Or affection, emotive stirrings within one’s spirit.
§22. In Christianity the natural heresies are the Docetic and Nazarean, the Manichean and the Pelagian.
1. Given these expressions, if one were simply to think about the historical phenomena to which these same names are applied, the choice of these expressions to stand for the whole range of heresies can seem quite arbitrary. They can also seem very disproportionate, in that the last two have indeed been very widespread and have often recurred, but the first two have been very transitory and of limited compass. In contrast, other names for heresies have much greater weight and are far more likely to be on everyone’s lips. Here, however, these names are to stand only for general forms that are to be explicated precisely in this place. Moreover, the definitions that they are to recall spring from the actual features to which they refer—even if Pelagius, for example, was never a Pelagian in our sense. An actual set of such facts, however, bears the following character above all: no matter in how many ways the distinctive basic typus of Christian doctrine may be placed in opposition by that set of facts, some semblance of what is Christian remains, nonetheless.
Now, the question arises as to from what sort of alien influences these deviations would have emerged. This question requires a purely historical investigation, which actually no longer belongs here once it is raised. Yet, it is the case, to be sure, that [for us] to be convinced that anything alien, if it wants to lay claim, albeit divergently, to the name “Christian,” has to fit into one of these forms of heresy, would constitute an initial full-scale guarantee for the truth of our presentation of doctrine.
2. Suppose, now, that the distinctive nature of Christianity consists in the fact that all religious stirrings to be considered here are referred to the redemption that has occurred through Jesus of Nazareth.1 This being so, and if this basic formulation has indeed been retained in general terms, then what is heretical will have been able to arise in a twofold fashion, as will be shown. Indeed, quite apart from heresy, a position that contradicts this basic formulation would be both obvious and total, with the result that not once could participation in Christian community have been desired. Accordingly, heresy could arise in that either human nature would be defined in such a way that, strictly speaking, no redemption could be accomplished, or the Redeemer would have to be defined in such a way that he could not accomplish redemption. However, either of these two cases, in turn, can arise in a twofold fashion. That is, as concerns the first case, if human beings are to be redeemed, they would have to be both in need of redemption and capable of receiving it. If the need of redemption is overtly posited, but the capability of receiving it is covertly denied, then this contradiction would directly go against our basic formulation itself, though this fact would not become immediately clear.
Now, as concerns the first track by which heresy can arise, let us suppose, on the one hand, that the very needfulness of human nature for redemption—that is, its inability to bring the feeling of absolute dependence into all human states—is posited unexceptionably in such a way that thereby the capability for receiving redemptive influences would in fact disappear. The result would be that human nature would not be in need of redemption and capable of receiving it at the same time. Rather, the latter feature could enter the scene only after a total transformation of human nature, and thereby our basic formulation would then be immediately abrogated. Now, this very consequence would unfailingly follow, however, if one assumed that something exists that is in itself evil, originally so and set against God, and if one thought of human nature, in that incapacity for receiving redemption it would have, as under the dominion that this original evil being exercises over it. On this account, we call this deviation the Manichean heresy.
Likewise, let us suppose, however, that, on the other hand, the capacity to receive redemption is assumed to such an uttermost extent—consequently that any hindrance to the introduction of God-consciousness would be so infinitesimally small—that in each person and at every particular element of life that hindrance could be effectively wiped out by an infinitesimally small counterweight. At that point, then, one’s need for redemption would be nullified, at least inasmuch as the need would no longer be the need for a particular redeemer but would be only the need for some other stronger individual that arises at a weak element of life in each person, though only in an element such that someone else’s calling forth one’s God-consciousness is needed. In that case, redemption would not need to be the work of a particular redeemer. Rather, it would be a work effected in common by all upon all, a work in which only a certain number of others at best would always have a more prominent role to play. This deviation, moreover, we can rightly call the Pelagian heresy, much in the same way as we did for Manicheism.
Let us now turn to the second track by which heresy can arise, that Jesus is to be regarded as the Redeemer—that is, as the actual starting point of a constant and vital, thus unrestrained, calling forth of God-consciousness, such that the participation of all others in this process is mediated only by him. If this affirmation is to be upheld, it would be necessary, on the one hand, that he should enjoy an exclusive and distinctive precedence2 over all other persons. On the other hand, however, an essential likeness must also exist between Jesus, viewed as the Redeemer, and all other persons, because otherwise what he could communicate could not be the same thing as what they need. Hence, in this respect too our general formulation can be contradicted in a twofold manner, because each of the corresponding pair of heresies can be conceived in such an unrestricted way that thereby the other heresy could no longer be coposited but would simply disappear. Suppose, moreover, that Christ’s difference from those who are in need of redemption were indeed posited in such an unconditional way that no essential likeness between them could be compatible with that difference. Then his participation in human nature would also disappear into a mere semblance, and in consequence our God-consciousness, thus viewed as something essentially different from his, could not be derivable from his own God-consciousness, and redemption would also be a mere semblance of what it really is. Now, the actual so-called Docetics directly denied only the reality3 of Christ’s body. Nevertheless, on account of that inseparability of body and soul by which they can alone exist for us, this position does likewise exclude the reality of human nature anywhere in his person. Hence, it is fitting that we should call this deviation the Docetic heresy.
Finally, suppose that, contrariwise, the Redeemer’s likeness with those who are to be redeemed were posited in such an unrestricted way that thereby no distinctive precedence that serves to constitute the Redeemer’s very existence could be upheld any longer. Suppose, instead, that the Redeemer’s existence were to be conceived wholly under the same formulation that applies to all other human beings. Then, in the end the need for redemption would have to be coposited of him as well, even if it were to an infinitesimally small degree, and by its very nature the basic relationship between the Redeemer and the rest of us would likewise be abrogated. Now, this deviation we call after the name of those who were first said to have regarded Jesus wholly as an ordinary human being: the Nazareans or Ebionites.4
If the concept of Christian piety is to remain the same, however, it is not possible to conceive of any heresy other than those that can be placed under one of these four formulations. This is the case, for there are not any more points at which that concept of piety could be even indirectly5 attached. If, however, the concept of redemption were denied outright or if yet another redeemer were set forth, thus if the outright claim were made either that human beings are not in need of redemption or that no redemptive power is to be found in Jesus, then such a claim would no longer be heretical but would simply be non-Christian.
3. From our point of view, these concepts of natural heresies stand, at the same time, as points of demarcation6 for the construction of every body of Christian faith-doctrine. One must not even come close to these points of demarcation if, in agreement with particular instances of doctrine, one is to avoid violating their being in one accord with the remaining faith-doctrine. Also cohering with this requirement is the fact that no formulation, in whatever point of doctrine it may reside, that avoids each pair of contrasting deviations may be regarded as heretical. This is true however much one part of a formulation may lag behind another in this respect, as long as it does not fall out entirely. Rather, every such formulation is to be regarded as properly ecclesial, or catholic. On the other hand, every formulation must be regarded as questionable7 that permits of being identified8 with any one of these deviations. May every inquirer, however, guard against those illusions which amount to foreshortenings. These sorts of illusions do naturally occur, as our forming perspectives of distance can so readily produce. That is to say, the closer one stands to the Pelagian end of a line, the more readily will one believe that one sees another who actually stands almost at the midpoint as already at the Manichean end, and the same thing would be true with respect to the other pairs. This is why it is so highly important, if such aberration is not to wax ever stronger, that one attend to this work with the greatest of caution when it comes to the point of declaring something to be heretical.
For the rest, every two among these four heresies can be seen to stand in a particular combination with each other. That is, in relationship to the nature of Christianity the Manichean heresy belongs together with the Docetic heresy, and so, in turn, does the Pelagian heresy belong together with the ebionitic heresy. These combinations are shown in that if human nature is essentially afflicted with positive9 original evil, then even the Redeemer can have no genuine participation in human nature; moreover, if in Christ higher self-consciousness is hindered by lower self-consciousness in the same way as it is in all other human beings, then even his contribution to redemption can relate to that of others only as a greater quantity relates to a lesser quantity. Suppose, on the other hand, that one views anything that cannot be conceived on the basis of the nature of Christianity as having to have arisen from influences of an alien sort; also suppose that within the early period in which its doctrine developed Christianity came into contact almost exclusively with Judaic and Hellenic-Gentile influences, as it did. In those contexts the Manichean and Nazarean heresies seem to be rather closer together, affected as they are by Judaic sources—the first in a purer form and the second being more suffused with Eastern10 sources. In contrast, Docetism and Pelagianism seem to lean toward the Hellenic side, in that mythology would have led to the first heresy and, in contrast, the ethical tendency in the mystery cults would have led to the second heresy.
Postscript. Far be it from us to draw into this account the contrast between supernaturalism and rationalism, a contrast that is so greatly strained at this time. Yet, it would be worth noticing the following tendencies. First, since, as a result of the accounts given above, we have to admit that various approximations to these heretical extremes do appear, even within doctrines of the church, these approximations may also be parceled out between those two ways of treating doctrine. Second, then, just as many echoes of Docetic and Manichean heresies are to be found in supernaturalist presentations—not only in actually dogmatic presentations but in popular presentations as well—as approximations to Ebionite and Pelagian heresies are rightly to be reproached in rationalistic presentations. Third, the fact that every treatment of doctrine that does not remain free of all one-sidedness necessarily leans toward one of these two sides— Docetic and Manichean or Ebionite and Pelagian—does seem to bear witness to the correctness of the way heresy is conceived here.11
1. Ed. note: The content of this stipulation, to be laid out only in the actual presentation of doctrine, is made in §11, where “accomplished” (vollzogen), also used just below, rather than “occurred” (geschehene) is the verb used. Otherwise the statement is exactly the same.
2. Ed. note: eigentümlichen Vorzuges.
3. Realität.
4. Ed. note: In OG, Schleiermacher indicates that ebionitic Christology “leaves very little of Christ” (62f.).
5. Ed. note: Here Schleiermacher uses indirekt, as in a flanking action in a battle.
6. Grenzpunkte.
7. Ed. note: Here verdächtig would also mean, variously, held in suspicion of doubt, or taken to be suspect or doubtful—in short, must be inquired into further so as to avoid its having an heretical cast. This becomes Schleiermacher’s regular practice throughout the present system.
8. Ed. note: The term used here is identifizieren, which implies a correct, well-supported labeling of a stated position as heretical in cast, or at least obviously tending in a heretical direction more than some alternative formulation offered. Again, in this systematic presentation Schleiermacher routinely attempts to leave room for a variety of formulations as long as they do not clearly encroach upon heretical territory in one of the four forms laid out in preliminary outline here. Thus, he regularly evinces an effort not ardently or overhastily to attach a heretical label, while accepting the responsibility to offer the most accurate doctrinal formulations he can find.
9. Ed. note: The term positiven here refers to an actual, unavoidable social condition of humanity.
10. Ed. note: orientalischem. This name typically referred more to what would be called the Middle East domain today, not the Far East. In a marginal note, Schleiermacher refers to a like distinction within Judaism between λαός (the people of Israel) and ἔθνη (the neighboring Gentiles).
11. Ed. note: In his second letter to Lücke, “Über die Glaubenslehre” (1829), KGA I/10 (1990), 357–59, Schleiermacher wrote: “I have no concern that there might be schism among us over the claim I have made that it is neither Christian nor salutary to urge that so-called ‘rationalists’ be expelled from our ecclesial community, even in a friendly and good-natured fashion. It is painful, moreover, to see men of tender character and well-grounded reputation deny the true interest of the church in such a way that they let themselves be drawn into such an aggressive war” (ET Tice).
Since 1825, when the faculty at Leipzig at first declared that rationalists should be expelled from the church, later softening this hard requirement to suggest simply that they leave on their own recognizance, there had been a “storm of controversy” (Duke and Fiorenza, n. 22) over this issue. The Traulsen and Ohst edition of On the “Glaubenslehre” indicates here that probably Schleiermacher was referring especially to August Hahn, De rationalismi (1827).
Schleiermacher immediately continued: “Now, when a lopsided tendency emerges as strongly as has occurred in this case, it is my habit—or perhaps my bad habit—to shift my meager weight as much as possible to the other side, out of a natural fear that the little boat in which we are all traveling might capsize. Moreover, since I am not then satisfied simply to declare in some fashion that I am obligingly ready for these worthy men whom people call by this name to remain in our ecclesial community, I would also wish to show that they can be there and remain there entirely on their own right.”
Schleiermacher further continued: “My attempt to construe and delimit what is heretical as well as definitely to distinguish what is heterodox from what is heretical—a subject usually almost entirely neglected, almost as if the now completely obsolete investigation into ‘fundamental articles’ were already settled—and much else besides that I have stated elsewhere have all been aimed at fulfilling this very same purpose.” As Duke and Fiorenza state in their note 23, during the period of Protestant orthodoxy Nikolaus Hunnius (1563–1643) instigated this fundamentalist effort at Wittenberg (1617–1623) and Lübeck (1624–1643), especially in his long-used dogmatics for laity, Epitome credendorum (1625) and in his Theologicae fundamentali (1628), wherein he distinguished between foundational doctrines, belief in which he deemed necessary for salvation, and other true doctrinal statements, belief in which were not required for that purpose. Formally, without reference to specific norms or other content, in Brief Outline (1811, 1830) Schleiermacher distinguishes between the more orthodox (“holding fast to what is already acknowledged” and to any inferences therefrom) and the more heterodox (“the inclination to keep the conception of doctrine mobile and to make room for still other modes of apprehension”) (§203, then §§204–8, and, in relation to New Testament exegesis and creedal symbols §§210–11).
In his letters On the “Glaubenslehre” he then directly adds (358): “I, however, have wanted generally to leave plenty of room within the ecclesial domain in contrast to these two parties, each of whom, based in its own focus, seeks to narrow that domain more and more, with the result that the danger arises of the church’s actually being divided. Not only that, but in the particulars my aim has also been to show as much as possible not only how much space there may be between theses that are ecclesially acceptable and contrary heretical positions but also how much amiable agreement is allowable by what is held in common between orthodox and heterodox positions within this space. The more we hold to this attitude, the easier it will then be truly to discover how much of a controversy might actually emerge over what basic mode of thinking is to be adopted. As it seems to me, in these days this issue often tends to be fought over rather too hastily on both sides.”
In 1818, close younger colleagues of Schleiermacher and admirers of his general approach as a theologian—including Hochschule theologians Karl Immanuel Nitzsch (1787–1868) and Friedrich Lücke (1791–1855), who was also a New Testament scholar; church historian Johann Carl Ludwig Geiseler (1792–1854); Hochschule theologian Carl Christian Ullmann (1796–1865); and Old Testament scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Umbreit (1795–1860)—founded the periodical Theologische Studien und Kritiken, to be an organ of their “mediating theology” movement. This group, not itself a school, sought to support unity between Lutherans and Reformed churches and to combine Christian faith and science in ways that would obviate the then-current split between rationalists and supernaturalists. Nonetheless, tendencies could be found among them either to border on or to overstep the protections against “natural heresy” that Schleiermacher had carefully set. In 1822 the congregation in which Schleiermacher had served since 1808 as a Reformed pastor was the first in all of Prussia to unite. Some united churches have continued to be so.
§23. A set of faith-doctrines1 to be drawn up at the present time within the Western church cannot be related indifferently to the contrast between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches but must appertain to one of the two branches.2
1. Here the contrast between the Western and the Eastern church is made superordinate3 to that between the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches and is then passed over. Both moves would seem to require some justification. That the antipapal view of the Eastern church appears to place it on the side of Protestantism might seem to be contrary to the first move. However, if that first contrast were conceded to be superordinate, it would appear to be inconsistent to pass over it, and it would seem to be necessary to specify what the common character of the Western church is so that one could discern within it the principle underlying the subordinate contrast between Romanism and Protestantism. Against this view, it is to be noted that this cannot at all be the place fully to construe these contrasts in their various gradations. What can be done, however, is to indicate their relation to faith-doctrine.
Now, how little importance the antipapal view of the Eastern church has in this respect is already clearly displayed in the ease with which individual portions of that church acknowledge the Roman primacy without giving up their Eastern typus or, more specifically, altering anything significant in their doctrine. Precisely in relation to our concern here, however, the East-West contrast is the more superordinate inasmuch as a brisk activity in the domain of faith-doctrine has remained common to both of the Western churches even after their separation, whereas since the Eastern church broke away, it has grown increasingly more rigid4 in this domain. Within that church, moreover, the connection of knowing, as concerns piety, with any properly scientific mode of organization has been almost entirely snuffed out.
Yet, precisely on account of this purely negative character of the Eastern church with respect to doctrine, here too there is all the less to be said about that church as it is also not possible to determine whether it will have the strength, as it takes more steps to resume an interconnection with the world’s intellectual conversation,5 to call forth and give shape to a contrast within itself analogous to that in the Western church.6
2. This contrast between Roman Catholic and Protestant has not affected the entirety of faith-doctrine. Rather, alongside those doctrines over which the two churches are known to be in conflict, there are others concerning which they set forth the same formulations and still others concerning which analogous differences are to be found in both churches. Furthermore, however, the contrast itself must be regarded as destined to disappear somehow and at some point, as is true of every similar contrast within the Christian community. All this being said, it is indeed possible to conceive of a very different process in construction of a set of faith-doctrines whether one believes that the contrast has not yet reached its point of culmination or believes that it has already surpassed it. This is so, for in the latter case, it would be a true advance if one were to seek out or prepare for mediating formulations in contested doctrines for the purpose of facilitating and introducing the impending dissolution of the contrast from all points. Likewise, moreover, that case would then be in order to establish what is jointly held in the uncontested doctrines quite firmly for the purpose of making it as hard as possible for zealots—perhaps well meaning yet failing to recognize the church’s overall situation—so that they could not put off union of the two parts further than is necessary by stirring up useless new controversies. On the other hand, in the first case, in which one believes that the contrast has not yet reached culmination, it is likely to be presupposed that if the tension between the two parts is still to increase in general, this would be the case in the domain of doctrine as well. Where that situation obtains, however, the opposite activity would necessarily occur in the same spirit—that is, acting to the greatest extent possible to expedite the entire process along a steady course toward union. Then a set of faith-doctrines produced from the Protestant side would have to set itself the goal of pointing out the contrast even in those points of doctrine wherein it had not yet come to light previously. This effort would be necessary, for only once the contrast would be worked out in all points of doctrine could one be fully confident that it had reached its point of culmination in doctrine as well.
Now, rarely is the course that such a contrast takes entirely smooth. Rather, from time to time its main trend is interrupted by reactions from one or both of the two opposing sides toward the other. Thus, in one half of the contrasting pair it can easily appear as though one were standing within the other half, and vice versa. Hence, customarily the two modes of treating doctrine are also to be found standing in close proximity at the same time, yet in each mode a consciousness of an actual point at which they have placed themselves also exists to a greater or lesser extent.7
3. Accordingly, the proposition set forth here excludes neither of the modes of treating doctrine. That is to say, even a person who views this tension as already on the wane and is preparing means for settling past disputes cannot do otherwise than to set forth the actual difference as still having currency, not if the person wants to stay within the precincts of dogmatics, and thereby to profess belonging to the side that corresponds to the rest of the person’s presentation of Christian dogmatics.8 In points of doctrine under dispute, a set of faith-doctrines could take a neutral position only if it reverted back to older formulations; but, in every instance, that means relying on more indefinite formulations from which what is better defined will have developed only through controversy. In addressing the issues scientifically, however, it is not possible to rest satisfied with something ill-defined if something well-defined is already available.
We, however, cannot consider the tension in this contrast to be already on the wane. This is the case, for whenever a multiplicity of views concerning any point of doctrine has opened up within the Evangelical church,9 the result has never been a greater approximation to Roman formulations; likewise in the Roman church too those movements which take an anti-Protestant direction have appeared to have the greater success. Hence, it is rather to be presumed that even among doctrines that have the same ring to them, hidden differences are still there, than to suppose that where formulations significantly diverge, the distinction between actual religious states of mind and heart10 is, nonetheless, only insignificant.
1. Glaubenslehre. Ed. note: This term comes from the Latin doctrina fidei. On the contrast between Protestant and Roman Catholic, see CF §4, BO §53, and also BO §§39–41, 60–61, 122, 134, 216–19, 228, and 338.
2. Ed. note: See OR (1821) II, supplemental note 10, for additional discussion regarding the four heresies and the view that Roman Catholics have by far done more toward doctrines’ degenerating into “dead letter” by their “receptivity to strange cults” than by heresy hunting. See his understanding that proofs can easily veer off into making statements that appear to be heretical without actually being so, in §22.3 and 22.P.S., also in §25.P.S.
3. Ed. note: höher gestellt.
4. Ed. note: At this point in the first edition (§26) the text reads: “has for several centuries remained as good as stock-still.”
5. Ed. note: In stating in den Zusammenhang des geistigen Weltverkehrs zurücktretend here, Schleiermacher is assuming both this church’s isolation from the rest of the world and its not being engaged with intellectual (and perhaps spiritual) currents there, thus lacking in its Wissen um die Frömmigkeit (“knowing as concerns piety”). As here, this process would combine “religious interest” with a “scientific spirit” (Brief Outline §9).
6. Ed. note: That is, to have a reformation. See Schleiermacher’s account of the key role of the universities in the rise of the Protestant Reformation in his 1817 Oratio, in Nicol (2004), 45–64.
7. Ed. note: Thönes (1873) reports the following marginal comment by Schleiermacher: “One side can be the main trend, but the other can be present as the exception,” to which Schleiermacher subsequently adds: “The two features can exist in combination: the vigorous reaction and the tension, one of these two being the main trend and the other an exception. Most dogmaticians seem to have no distinct consciousness of this relation.” Then, in another comment, he offers (historical-critical) use of scriptura as a possible exception.
8. Ed. note: The description of this approach given here comports exactly with what Schleiermacher seems consistently to do in his theological work overall, even when he makes no explicit reference to the Roman Catholic side, except that he does not see differences to be on the wane in his context. For him, the nub of the matter at that time is indicated in §24. Today some theologians, on both sides, would dispute whether the contrast need be so sharply stated in dogmatics, whatever the institutional praxis of the two communities of faith might often be.
9. Ed. note: The present work offers a set of faith-doctrines specifically for the Evangelical church in Germany, a church that bears Lutheran and Reformed heritage. Thus, it does not claim to represent the larger class of Protestant churches there or elsewhere, except by possible union or integration later on.
10. Ed. note: frommen Gemütszustände.
§24. Insofar as the Reformation was not merely a purification and an aversion against abuses that had crept in, but it is, rather, the case that a distinctive formation of Christian community has emerged from the Reformation, the contrast between Protestantism and Catholicism can be grasped in a preliminary way as follows. Protestantism tends to make the individual’s relationship to the church dependent on that person’s relationship to Christ. Conversely, however, Catholicism tends to make the individual’s relationship to Christ dependent on that person’s relationship to the church.1
1. To be sure, if one confines oneself only to the way Protestantism arose, it is not to be denied that the reformers and their initial adherents were conscious only of a purifying effort. In no way, however, did they intend to form an ecclesial community of their own. Rather, they were simply forced into it. Suppose, on the other hand, that we just stick to the present time and consider that the Evangelical church never does exercise any organized missionary activity toward the Catholic church. Indeed, it never even expresses the wish to draw over the entire Catholic church into the Evangelical church, as if it would belong to its very nature to do so. Suppose that we consider, moreover, that this would still have to be the case if we were to view all those features which are both alien to us and distinctive to Roman Catholicism simply as corruptions of Christianity, be they doctrines or arrangements and practices. Then the following would flow from this consideration. First, we do not cease by word and deed to exercise polemics against what we truly reckon to be among the corruptions of Christianity. Second, we nonetheless presuppose, at the same time, that other matters that are indigenous to Roman Catholics and that are likewise alien to us are such that we think we may let them stand as they are, alongside matters of our own, thus viewing them as taking a shape different from our own matters but just as Christian. Third, it will surely be just as vividly clear2 to us that even though the Catholic church were to lean toward our definitions in all those doctrines that have been in dispute, still no reunion would ensue therefrom. This phenomenon could be explained only in terms of a spirit existing there that is alien to our own and that would be repulsive to us.
Patently, two points immediately follow from this conclusion, however. The first point is that just as we ascribe such a distinctiveness of character to the Catholic church, we do so to our own church as well. To this point a second one is added, that should we want to stick solely with the concept of purification, we must observe, on the one hand, that already, in general terms, what has existed earlier never returns in exactly the same form at a later date and, on the other hand, that in every respect it is impossible to assign any distinct point in the past to which the church should have been brought back through the Reformation itself. That is to say, we cannot return to the apostolic age, in part because we cannot sacrifice the dogmatic precision of the notions we now hold and in part because we can no more reestablish its relationship to Jewish and Gentile positions than we can adopt its political passivity. Now, in the Evangelical church some things point to earlier eras, others to later ones. Thus, even its self-reproducing unity is of a kind that never did exist heretofore, though the piety of certain individuals in the past can already have been analogous to what would constitute that unity now.
2. Based on these considerations, for the Evangelical dogmatician there then quite naturally arises the task of bringing to clear consciousness the distinctive character of Protestantism in contrast to Catholicism and thus, wherever possible, the task of ascertaining in some formulation that wherein the contrast itself would consist. Otherwise, the Evangelical dogmatician would no more be able to carry out one’s work with any surety and comprehensiveness than the Christian dogmatician would generally be able to do by not likewise establishing what constitutes the distinctive nature of Christianity.
Now, it is probably very natural that such a formulation could not arise out of the actual controversy between the two parties. Unfortunately, however, even we Protestants are, as yet, in no way agreed among ourselves as to what the formulation expressing the contrast would be. Instead, ordinarily the contrast is referred to some point or other that happens to stand out but that still does not serve to explain everything, and this is done in such a way that one of the two parties seems to be defined only negatively, or the contrast is treated as a rather arbitrary aggregate of particular differences. Some have, perhaps, believed that for Evangelical dogmatics such a formulation would have, alas, already come into being too late, because our church’s doctrine is entirely encompassed in our creedal symbols and so nothing more is to be gained for the purpose. Others have, perhaps, believed that the time to state such a formulation had not yet arrived, because the spirit of Protestantism would not yet have come to be fully explicated doctrinally on all sides. Today, however, the relationship between the two churches is such that, on the one hand, it is now not only possible but already necessary to get fully oriented regarding that relationship and is such that, on the other hand, we also have to provide well against unprotestant elements creeping into our further development unawares. However, since so little has accrued thus far toward carrying out this task, even the attempt to be made here can claim to be only a provisional one.
3. The distinctive nature of Protestantism could no more be located based on the general expression that we have set forth for Christianity than the distinctive nature of Christianity could be located based on the sheer concepts of piety and religious community. Furthermore, just as the distinctive nature of Christianity could scarcely be discovered on a purely empirical basis, it would be just as difficult to attain to the principle of the inner unity of the Evangelical church by taking this route. Indeed, here the difficulty would be still greater, for two reasons. On the one hand, in the emergence of Protestantism the effort to purify came to the fore as alone decisive, and the distinctive spirit that began to unfold at that time lay hidden, unconscious, behind that effort. On the other hand, even the external unity of the new church is much harder to determine, since unity at its starting point was lacking, and yet it is also true that not so many new communities emerged as there were starting points. Hence, even now—given the great mass of very differently formed, mutually independent, personally distinctive characteristics3 that have arisen—it has then had to be almost impossible to determine how these communities would ever be united and to what extent they would all belong together in the absence of those purifying efforts.
Now, perception of this contrast4 is to be drawn most clearly from the consolidated, continuing existence of the two churches alongside each other. Thus, it has also seemed best to try to fulfill this task by observing what kinds of attribute belonging to each community arouse consciousness of the contrast in the shared feeling of the other community. Accordingly, the most general charge lodged by the Roman church against Protestantism is that it has destroyed a great deal that was present in the old church, and yet, by virtue of its principles, it is not in a position to rebuild a firm and sustainable community. Instead, according to this charge, everything in Protestantism is left unresolved, wavering to and fro, so that every individual is left to stand on one’s own. For the most part, we, on the other hand, lodge the reproach against Catholicism that in its attributing and referring everything to the church, it deprives Christ of the honor due to him, placing him in the background, indeed in such a way that to a certain degree Christ himself is subordinated to the church. Suppose that we then add to these points that the ecclesial aspect of Protestantism can no more be held to the charge against it than Catholicism can be held to the charge against it. Suppose too that we consider that each part of the Christian church nonetheless wants chiefly to designate in the other part that whereby the other part could most readily veer outside the general domain of Christianity. Accordingly, it would then obviously be the opinion of Catholicism that although we Protestants have held fast to our relation to Christ, we would still be in danger of giving up the principle that drives Christianity by dissolving community. Likewise, our opinion regarding the Roman church would be that however much it might hold fast to that same community, it would still be in danger of becoming non-Christian by abandoning the relation to Christ. Suppose that we then further affix to this conclusion the observation that the spirit of Christianity that holds sway in both parts of the church does not permit either of these two parts ever to reach that extreme point, nonetheless. The formulation set forth here actually arises from this affirmation.
This formulation can come gradually to be warranted within the very doctrines currently contested only in their further construction, unless a great part of the faith-doctrine of the future is to be anticipated in some fragmentary fashion now. What can be done at this point is simply to make some preliminary remarks in favor of the formulation and then to indicate some things that follow from it in the way Evangelical dogmatics is treated.
4. It can be said in favor of our formulation that, despite our not being able to make it our own starting point, it does, nonetheless, attribute to each of the two parts of Christianity contrasting characteristics that modify the nature of Christianity in contrasting ways. That is to say, since in no individual does Christian piety arise independently, in and of itself, but arises only from and in the community, thus there is no such thing as an adherence to Christ except in combination with an adherence to the community. The possibility that the two features could be subordinated to each other in a contrasting fashion rests only on this observation: that it is the same bare fact5 that we Evangelicals regard to be the institution of the church on behalf of Christ’s efficacious action that is regarded by Catholics to be a transfer of Christ’s efficacious action to the church. This observation, too, speaks in support of our formulation, namely, in that in this context—where we are seeking, first and foremost, to define what this contrast means for the theoretical aspect of doctrine—the formulation is chiefly attached to the concept “church.” That is to say, on this basis it becomes probable that even what takes place in starkest contrast within the customs6 of the two churches, and in their principles regulating polity, would permit of being further developed on the basis of this same formulation.
Yet, what follows from this formulation for the way dogmatics is treated is this: On the one hand, in points of doctrine to which the formulation can be most directly applied, the treatment must also be most careful not to overstep the parameter of this contrast, lest the treatment should deteriorate into being non-Christian. Thus, on the other hand, in doctrines wherein this contrast is most recessive,7 the treatment must also take the greatest care not to set forth formulations that have not yet discarded the contrasting characteristics identified here or that have perhaps put into them something of those characteristics anew. In this fashion, the extent to which the distinctive Evangelical spirit is or is not already widely developed in doctrine can then also best be ascertained. At the same time, it naturally appears that any church that tends to place the community above a relation to Christ will also most readily take on something from earlier religious communities, consequently that everything carrying a certain flavor of Jewish or Gentile characteristics will be more in keeping with the Roman church, just as any likewise earlier opposition to those characteristics will already have included within it something akin to Protestantism.
Postscript. What has been said regarding the indeterminate nature of the Evangelical church’s external unity also refers in particular to its various branches and especially to the separation between the Reformed and Lutheran communities of the church. It does so, for their original relationship was such that, despite their different starting points, they could just as well have grown together to a point of external unity as have issued in a separation.
Now, already in its title this presentation of doctrine professes to relate only to the Protestant church in general, not naming either of those two branches in particular. Thus, it proceeds based on the presupposition that the separation between these two branches has not been sufficiently grounded, in that the differences in doctrine to be found in them are not in any way to be traced to an actual difference in religious conditions of mind and heart.8 Neither branch, moreover, deviates from the other branch— either in their customs and ethical theory9 or even in their polity—in a manner that interconnects somehow or other with those doctrinal differences. Hence, we cannot then treat these differences other than in the same way that people also look at otherwise divergent presentations made by various teachers—in short, solely as a matter of the school.10
1. Ed. note: Schleiermacher left tasks of Roman Catholic theology entirely to its own scholars. However, he did release a number of statements contrasting Roman Catholic to Evangelical beliefs and practices. In BO what Schleiermacher calls “polemics,” half of philosophical theology, is wholly directed to “diseased conditions” within the church. Insofar as it would represent Christianity universally, in relation to the Roman church it would be directed only against that which is alien to its particular form and is thus to be regarded as a diseased condition of Christianity (§41). In student notes to his 1831 lectures, he says that he had always been for a “purified Catholicism within a radical contrast” with Protestantism, and not for a transition into Catholicism (§52n). This writing is further underscored and elaborated in §60n, including a certain “indifference” as between the two forms due to differences in their development. A Roman Catholic theologian could easily sort out what would be relatively the same and relatively different in its more inwardly direct “special polemics” by consulting remaining comments in this work: §§122, 212, 216–22, 228 (comparisons of developments at various times and currently in faith-doctrine and ethics) and 338 (the final proposition in BO, indicating the historical contrasts between the two traditions regarding church service and church government in their practical theology). In the first edition of Christian Faith (1821–22), §146.3 cites part of what is covered in the last BO proposition, §338.
In Christian Faith (1830–31) this proposition sets up Schleiermacher’s entire irenic position on Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, which are to be related to each other as two forms of Christianity possessing two differing emphases. Consistent with assessments of that relationship elsewhere in his lectures and writings are (1) what he reports in BO and (2) additional considerations in the present work. (3) On those who switch from Evangelical to Roman Catholic churches, see OR (1821) Epilogue, supplemental note 3. (4) On the issue of which church might take the upper hand in Germany at the time and the necessity for the Evangelical church to maintain its freedom from the state, see Epilogue, supplemental note 4. See also his Lehre von Staat, KGA II/8 (1998).
2. Ed. note: The word is anschaulich. Schleiermacher’s marginal comment here reads: “Nota bene: It is not strictly correct to mention only doctrine here. The reason for doing this is that doctrine is alone being dealt with in this context” (Thönes, 1873).
3. Ed. note: The phrase persönlicher Eigentümlichkeiten seems to refer to collective human entities, in this instance communities of faith, as socially formed “persons.” Schleiermacher occasionally displays this usage in his socioethical writings. In his Christian ethics, what is called “purifying” action here is placed in an interdependent triad referring also to the presentational and propagative actions of both ecclesial communities and individuals in the Christian life overall—that is, in how people of faith together live out their relationship with God in Christ. Here the emphasis is on faith as the specific concern of doctrine, faith viewed as people’s actual relationship with God in Christ.
4. Anschauung des Gegensatzes.
5. Faktum. Ed. note: Since ordinarily Schleiermacher would use Tatsache for a factual claim, this term is here taken to refer to a “bare fact,” however the claim about it may be formed.
6. Sitte. Ed. note: As Hermann Peiter (2010) has decisively demonstrated, in Schleiermacher’s usage Sitte refers to customs practiced throughout the entire ethical domain versus the purely physical domain (thus, within the church this domain includes customs regarding morals, worship, and polity), hence the general root meaning of Sitte used here.
7. Ed. note: dieser Gegensatz … zurücktritt. Here the fast-moving succession of descriptions calls for some unpacking. First, “contrasts” come in many forms. Second, in the form used here the “contrasting characteristics” are identified as relationships between “Christ” and “church” in a comparison of Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches.
Third, these contrasting relationships tend to be more or less reversed. Fourth, in some views and actions, as in the underlying faith experience that people express through them, aspects of these two major characteristics and of how they are defined or take form on each side can be “discarded” and others added “anew.”
Fifth, with respect to various doctrines, the various contrasting characteristics of “Christ” and “church” and of their contrasting relationship in each church can come to vary in their degrees of “dominance” or “recessiveness.” Hence, sixth, the comparison made produces no hard-and-fast rule. Rather, it opens up major tendencies only, and it indicates the possibility of quite varied changes and results on both sides.
Seventh, by implication, in the present situation of the Christian churches, the more accurately comprehensive a purely descriptive study of faith-doctrine would be on either side, the more likely it would be that the general contrast identified here would be found to hold up uniformly throughout either side. For Schleiermacher, however, this does not necessarily diminish the value of utilizing the contrast, as it is carefully qualified here, for either descriptive or comparative purposes.
Finally, it will be noticed that Schleiermacher makes little direct use of the contrast in his presentation of faith-doctrine in the German Evangelical church. Other theological disciplines are more appropriate for doing that. However, throughout there are more than enough indications to show that his treatment of doctrine is guardedly using this relative contrast at every turn, confident that it is well grounded historically.
8. Gemütszustände.
9. Sittenlehre.
10. Schule. Ed. note: That is, merely scholastic or academic in nature, not strictly ecclesial, not addressing real differences between communities of faith.
§25. It is appropriate that every Evangelical dogmatics contain something distinctive, except that this will be more the case in some than in others and that what is distinctive will sometimes be more prominent in some points of doctrine and sometimes more prominent in others.1
1. We could never concede the term “dogmatics” for a presentation of purely distinctive faith-propositions.2 Even the first interconnected presentations of Evangelical faith could carry that name, moreover, only insofar as they connected with earlier material, and most of that material would be held in common with what had already been present in the church. Thus, even a body of faith-propositions that would not hold claim to any connection with what, on the one hand, took shape in the epoch of the church’s Reformation and, on the other hand, had also been acknowledged anew within the Evangelical church could not in any way enjoy currency as a body of Evangelical faith-doctrine.3 This would be true no matter how much everything in it were opposed to Roman doctrine. Furthermore, if we had nothing more to show than a body of doctrine4 of this sort, then, in fact, the unity and self-identity of our church would not appear in this doctrine at all,5 and in this respect it would provide no warranty whatsoever for those calling themselves Protestant to belong together. Suppose, taking the other direction, that our body of doctrine were so completely and exactly defined that no deviation from it could take hold unless someone desired to be excluded from the community of the church at the same time. Then it would be something wholly superfluous and meaningless to have new presentations of faith-doctrine within our church. If repetitions of a fixed letter were to have any status, linguistic expressions and usages would have to be different, in any case, or the arrangement of propositions would have to be different. Either of these two moves, however, would still point to distinctive alterations. This would be the case, since there is no such thing as two expressions that bear exactly the same meaning and since any sentence placed in a different context is bound to take on a somewhat different meaning. Consequently, where even but a slight trace of variety were to appear in several presentations of doctrine, in every case divergent and distinctive doctrines would also be there.
Now, our own body of doctrine, however, is quite far removed from having any such thoroughgoing definiteness, since even in our various confessional documents the same subject matter is not always phrased in literally the same way. Moreover, these unique, official, perhaps generally recognized presentations nevertheless always have as their subject matter only particular portions of our body of doctrine. Also, just as this kind of common statement arose during that Reformation epoch, based only on the free agreement of certain individuals, so too in the period since the Protestant church established itself, something can have come to be held in common and can have gained currency in no other way than by the free concurrence of results on the part of individuals engaged with the same subject matter. The fact that despite this process there is no lack of commonly held doctrine sufficiently demonstrates that a shared distinctive character of doctrine binds individuals together. Moreover, as concerns unity of doctrine, we have nothing more than this to expect within the Evangelical church, nor are we in need of anything more.
2. So, suppose, first, that we proceed based on the fact that overall the body of doctrine in our church is not something firmly established but is in a process of becoming. Suppose, second, that the claim can well be made that in doctrine what is distinctive in our church has not yet appeared in all its fullness. Then we will not be able to presuppose anything other than that, in the future too, in the further development of our body of doctrine overall, expressions that are held in common—that is, what gains currency as a pure and generally recognizable expression of the distinctive Protestant spirit—and expressions that are distinctive—namely, what expresses the personal view of anyone presenting doctrine—will come to the fore with and through each other. Moreover, every particular presentation of the body of doctrine that lays claim to having ecclesial status will be the more complete the more integrally expressions held in common and expressions personally distinctive are bound together and refer each to the other.
What is held in common naturally is based on and most strongly comes to the fore in those points of doctrine which are most akin to the original efforts to purify faith. Now, this effort did not transform the entire body of doctrine in the epoch of the Reformation itself. Rather, at that time much was simply taken over from earlier determinations without alteration. Thus, naturally this very domain would become one that is disputed over, and much that had been valued in common would gradually become obsolete. What is distinctive had its original placement in the arrangement of particular doctrines, wherefore as good as nothing would exist or could exist that could be recognized as necessarily held in common. Adjacent to that domain, however, all those points of doctrine—even those that reside within the generally acknowledged expression of doctrine—can in many ways still be more exactly defined. Everyone contributes something, moreover, who brings this modifiability of doctrinal expression to the point of gaining recognition and who exercises one’s right to do this in one’s own fashion. Finally, distinctiveness of presentation also encroaches on the region that is gradually becoming antiquated, this for the purpose of reshaping particular doctrines to correspond more to the Protestant spirit. Yet, even the liveliest distinctiveness can strive for nothing higher than putting common doctrine in the clearest light. Likewise, the other way around, there is no higher purpose for doctrine held in common than to facilitate the distinctive unfolding of doctrine without disrupting community, this by establishing its Protestant character as distinctly as possible.
The more these two features6 come to suffuse each other, the more ecclesial and, at the same time, the more serving of its further advance the presentation of doctrine will be. The more these two features are divorced from each other and simply persist, standing side by side as if they do not belong together, the more what is tied to historical accounts and is set forth as having common currency is merely paleological7 and what is advanced as distinctive is merely neo-modish.
Postscript. The terms “orthodox” and “heterodox,”8 which etymologically also do not form a properly contrasting pair, fluctuate too much in their meaning for me to have wanted to make use of them. However, one may recall how much within our church was initially decried as heterodox that was nonetheless admitted to be orthodox later on, yet always only to the extent that what was earlier deemed to be of an orthodox nature had already become antiquated. In recalling this, one can well see how this contrast would be referred solely to doctrines that are intended to be held in common. As a consequence, whatever unmistakably conforms with what is established in our confessions would be termed “orthodox,” but what does not conform would be termed “heterodox.” Now, suppose, however, that something of a heterodox nature should prove to be in better accord with the spirit of the Evangelical church than does the letter of these confessional documents. At that point, the latter will become obsolete and the former will become orthodox.
Now, in our church such alterations of status can never be declared to have general currency by a particular act. Thus, the use of these two terms for matters still being dealt with is always off the mark. Occasions for such usage will not readily cease to arise at any time, however, for the simple reason that what is established in our confessions contains scriptural interpretations at the same time, and thus the advancing art of interpretation9 can also render a given point of doctrine stated in such a confessional symbol quite unsteady. Likewise, to take the other direction, what is heterodox—even if in its content and mode of expression it could not permit of being definitely distinguished from what was taken to be heretical in ancient times—may nonetheless not be regarded to be heretical10 if it intends only to gain currency in connection with the shared features of our church’s body of doctrine. That is to say, among those who do not want to separate themselves from our church’s body of doctrine, we ought to presuppose only that they are misconceiving doctrine, even in the case of such heterodox deviations, and that the mistakes they are making would, in turn, also have to be resolved by means of scientific exchange within the church itself. This approach is all the more necessary as there is to be no thought of any hidden influence from principles that are peculiar to other religious communities.11
1. Cf. Brief Outline (1811), 56ff. Ed. note: See Brief Outline (1811), footnotes I: §§1–30 and 40–42 under §§195–222 (1830, 2011 ET). Clemen (“Schleiermachers Vorlesung,” 1905) indicates that in his further explanations here in 1831–1832, a “recent event” that Schleiermacher discussed then had been instigated by August Hahn in his book An die evangelische Kirche zunächst Sachsen und Preußen (1827). Student notes quote Schleiermacher as saying: “If the most recent event had reached the conclusion that the rationalist academic teachers had lost their positions, that would have been an official opposition. However, that opposition would have been related strictly to the Prussian territorial church, which in that action would have been separated from the other Evangelical churches. Or the action would have opened a wider discussion, including whether the entire Evangelical church is prepared to do the same, and there it would have gained currency. Or the Prussian territorial church could have reversed its decision. Since none of this has happened, rationalist and supernaturalist thinking have currency side by side in the Evangelical church, thus they have no official opposition.”
2. Glaubenssätzen. Ed. note: Indirectly from doctrina fidei, doctrinal propositions (or “sentences”) regarding faith, presenting what it is and means.
3. Glaubenslehre.
4. Lehrbegriff. Ed. note: Historically, such collections have been termed loci (an array of sentences or points of doctrine) or epitomes (sum-ups), and they have not tended to display much clear interconnectedness within the body of doctrines treated.
5. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “At that point, the Roman church would have had only sects over against it” (Thönes, 1873).
6. Ed. note: That is, (1) distinctive individual contribution to what comes to be (2) distinctive doctrine held in common.
7. Ed. note: The distinction here is between paläologisch (just digging into the past) and neoterisch (just fancifully offering something new that really does not belong there).
8. Ed. note: See Brief Outline (1830) §§203–8 and 210. On heresy as an honorable word and “heterodoxy” vs. “orthodoxy,” see OR II, supplemental note 10, and OR V, supplemental note 7. See also CF §§22, 32–61, 89.4, 113.2, 126, and 132.2; BO §§203–2; and OG 70f. On “anathema,” see his Augsburg sermons in Reformed but Ever Reforming (1997), 127–40. Although rationalist theologians might be deemed “heretics” on occasion, they would surely fall into Schleiermacher’s definition of “heterodox” and should not be repelled from the church (OG 68).
9. Ed. note: fortschreitende Auslegungskunst. According to Schleiermacher, in Evangelical theology this art would focus on the biblical writings and would employ the interactive general rules of both hermeneutics and criticism and of the closely allied art of translation. See his Academy addresses on these three subjects (1829–1830 and 1813, respectively, in KGA I/11).
10. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note here: “Presupposition: In the spirit of Evangelical freedom” (Thönes, 1873).
§26. In the Evangelical church Christian doctrines of faith and Christian ethics1 have been treated separately for a long time now. Likewise, for our presentation we too separate out from the totality of dogmatic material those propositions of faith that are features of Christian ethics.
Cf. Brief Outline (1811), §31ff.2
1. In the sense given above, the propositions offered in Christian ethics are also faith-propositions. This is so, for the modes of treatment that the two terms describe in the form either of doctrinal propositions or of prescriptions—for the two forms amount to the same thing—are, in either case, statements concerning religious states of mind and heart that are Christian. That is, every religious stirring is essentially a modification of human existence, and if a given stirring is conceived as in a quiescent3 state, a proposition thus arises with reference to that state, and in that manner that proposition belongs in a presentation of Christian faith-doctrine. Every religious stirring, however, also proceeds just as essentially into activity—on condition that this stirring is not interrupted in its natural course or is too weak to register, neither of which cases can be taken into account here. Moreover, if different modifications of Christian religious consciousness are thus conceived as activities that variously come into being in terms of the summons by which they would be determined in each instance, in that manner propositions arise that belong to Christian ethics. Rules for living, however, and formulations that refer to modes of action that have not been constituted in this way would also not belong to Christian ethics but would belong either to ethics of a purely rational sort or to some special technical or practical discipline of one kind or another.
2. Now, it is self-evident that only these two disciplines, taken together, present the whole reality of Christian life. This is so, for no human being can be imagined who would be constantly stimulated overall in one’s self-consciousness in the same manner in which the expressions of self-consciousness make up Christian faith-doctrine. Moreover, no human being can be imagined who would not also constantly behave overall as Christian ethical teachings present that life. Likewise, it is easily conceivable how, for such a long time, the two disciplines can have been conjoined in their presentation, in such a way that they formed only one discipline. The reason this happened is that the various issuings of religious stirrings into activity, if brought together at certain convenient points, could always be described by way of a postscript in presentations of faith-doctrine too, viewed as natural outcomes of the very states that are described there. For example, what are called “duties to God” could be placed just after the doctrine of the divine attributes. Likewise, doctrines do exist that already of themselves belong, as it were, to both forms of treatment and thus offer a locus within a presentation of faith-doctrine wherein particular aspects of ethics or even the whole of it could easily be fit in. Points of doctrine regarding sanctification and regarding the church4 are of this kind. In contrast, by the nature of the matter a presentation of faith-doctrine could also just as well have been fitted into one on Christian ethics. Indeed, this could have been done in the same twofold manner, in that religious states of mind and heart would be described, each as something coming into being in these activities but also as something coposited and also as reverberating, as it were, in these activities. If this procedure were adopted, the material would also be variously added at particular loci of ethics. This could be done for the reason that the articulation of self-consciousness is also a moral5 activity. Thus, where moral activity is treated of, faith-doctrine as a whole could be fitted in, viewed in this case as an unfolding of Christian religious self-consciousness outward.
Actually, the relationship between the two disciplines has always been one-sided, Christian ethics being handled within the presentation of Christian faith-doctrine. In this fashion, presentations of Christian faith-doctrine would become unwieldy in its unevenly distributed ethical postscripts. Moreover, the need to envisage the two modes of treatment that have had currency within the Christian church being joined together was never satisfactorily met. On this account, sooner or later ethical interest had to effect a divorce between the two disciplines.
1. Glaubenslehre und … Sittenlehre.
2. Ed. note: For §§31–39 from 1811, see Brief Outline notes under §§223–230 in the 1830 editions in German or English. In his 1830 explanation of §223 there (corresponding to §§31–32 in 1811), he states: “Neither the designations ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ nor the terms ‘faith-doctrine’ and ‘ethics,’ or ‘moral doctrine,’ are fully adequate. This is so, because rules for Christian life are also theoretical propositions, as explications of the Christian concept of what is good; and they are also faith-propositions, statements of faith, no less than those which are dogmatic proper, since they too have to do with the same Christian religious self-consciousness, only in its particular manifestation as motivation [Antrieb].
“Now, it cannot be denied that the treatment of the two together belongs to a period in the history of theological sciences that was in many respects incomplete. Nevertheless, it is also true that a progressive improvement of this area of study may well be conceived apart from such a separation.
§224. “This separation does afford to both sorts of proposition the advantage of being more easily apprehended in their respective interconnected structures. Thus, it has brought to Christian ethics the further advantage of undergoing a more elaborate treatment.
“The latter advantage, however, is not essentially a consequence of the separation. The reason is that a treatment in which the two are conjoined is also conceivable, one in which the relationship would be just the reverse of what actually existed before the tendency to separate them arose; and then the separation would have led to the same advantage on the side of dogmatics. In contrast to the first advantage mentioned, a well-ordered, vital conjunction of the two would appear to provide special security against the ease with which dogmatic propositions proper can degenerate into lifeless formulations and ethical propositions into bare, external prescriptions.” See §26n4 below.
“Student notes on the 1831/32 lectures: Schleiermacher referred here to Karl Immanuel Nitzsch’s System der christlichen Lehre (1829), then added: ‘The new mode of treatment is entirely opposed to this. Frequently Christian ethics is thoroughly blended with rationalist or philosophical thought. That, however, is completely wrong. The two [aspects of dogmatics] can only be subject to the same rules and can only be evaluated by the same standard.’
§225. “The division of this area of study can very easily give rise to the opinion that among entirely different interpretations of faith-doctrine there could still be the same interpretation of ethics, and vice versa.
“This error has already penetrated very deeply into the common life of our church. It can be effectively countered only by doing both aspects of dogmatics scientifically.”
“Student notes on the 1831/32 lectures, at §225: ‘The supernatural and rational interpretations of faith-doctrine are entirely different. By the same measure, does each have a different ethics? No one could claim that. To be sure, there are differences, so that one can say that in ethics supernatural theology has greater strength at certain points than rational theology has; but that applies only to details, not to the system.”’
Finally, in §230 Schleiermacher states that the more Christian ethics meets the same standards he set forth for the whole of dogmatics and for presentation of faith-doctrine, the more likely that each of the two aspects will aid the further explication of the other (cf. §§196–216) and the easier it will be to reinstate their interconnection via cross-references. He had already emphasized this point in §39 of the 1811 edition.
3. Ed. note: Here rühender means at rest, in stasis, not active, and not referring to a state of action (or conduct), which latter state is the occupation of Christian ethics.
4. Ed. note: Under §223 of Brief Outline is Schleiermacher’s comment, from his 1831–1832 lectures, where he places Christian ethics on exactly the same nonphilosophical basis as Christian doctrine. He does so in direct contrast to Karl Immanuel Nitzsch (1787–1868), System (1831), 198–251. Regarding this work by Nitzsch, Schleiermacher’s marginal note at this place cited it as putting the bulk of Christian ethics in sections on “sanctification” and “the church” (Thönes, 1873). To “sanctification” Nitzsch affixed basic ethical concepts under three headings: “Law of the Spirit,” “Spiritual Discipline and Practice,” and “The Fruit of the Spirit.” In his third section, “The Community in a State of Grace [im Heils],” he inserted the basic ethical concepts of “Calling” and “Social Standing.” See also §26n2 above.
5. Ed. note: In this context, sittliche activity, translated by the more limited English term “moral,” would have to include activities, such as worship and spiritual practices, that are usually not included in a strictly defined moral domain. In Schleiermacher’s conception, however, Christian Sittenlehre includes the entire range of human activities.