§40. Every notion concerning the emergence1 of the world by means of which anything whatsoever is excluded from having been originated by God, or by means of which even God is placed under those definitions and those contrasts that have originated only in the world and through the world, is contradictory to our underlying religious self-consciousness.
Acts 17:24, Rom. 1:19–20, Heb. 11:3.2
1. The New Testament passages just cited take the lead in our dismissing every more closely defined notion of creation. Even the expression ῥήματι3 is only a negative factor for any closer definition, namely, to exclude any notion of any sort of instrument or means. It is also possible to say, in agreement with this expression and with equal correctness, that the world itself, viewed as having come into being through speaking, is that which has been spoken by God.4 On this ground, moreover, we may be satisfied to set forth those negative characteristics as rules of judgment regarding whatever has intruded in faith-doctrine, but by our own conviction unjustifiably, viewed as any closer definition of this concept. This is so, for since our immediate self-consciousness represents finite being only in the identity of emergence and continuing endurance, we find in that self-consciousness neither occasion for explication of emergence by itself alone nor any lead toward it; thus, by virtue of that self-consciousness, we also can take no special part in such an explication.5
The further explication of the doctrine of creation in dogmatics comes from a time when people wanted to draw even the material for natural sciences from Scripture and when the features that belong to all the more advanced sciences still lay latent in theology itself. Hence, it belongs to the subsequent total separation of the two fields of inquiry that we now leave this subject to natural science investigations that go back in time and space, whether they can lead us up to the formative powers and masses of world bodies or take us still further. Moreover, it also belongs to this total separation that, given the above presupposition, we calmly await the results of these investigations. We do so, in that every scientific endeavor that works with the concepts “God” and “world” without being dependent on any Christian faith-doctrine, or thereby becoming so, must be bounded by the same definitions of them if these two concepts are not to cease being two different ones.6
2. Now, we acknowledge that the New Testament passages offer no material whatsoever toward any further explication of the doctrine of creation. We also acknowledge that even when inquiries into faith-doctrine were caught up in that confusion of their task with that of philosophers to which we have adverted,7 they still always referred back to Scripture. Accordingly, we have, first of all, to look at the Mosaic narrative and at Old Testament passages that are, to a certain extent, collectively dependent on it. Now, it is undeniable that the Reformers took that narrative to be an actual historical account.8 Yet, what Luther says is primarily directed against allegorical explanation, and Calvin’s outlook forthwith excludes any use of this creation narrative toward formation of an actual theory. It is in every way advantageous for this subject that nothing from this material has gained entry into the creedal symbols, especially since the difference between the two narratives in Genesis is so significant—if one does not want forcibly to regard the second one as a recapitulating continuation of the first—that one can hardly attribute a genuinely historical character to them.
Suppose that we then add to all these considerations the fact that in those Old Testament passages which mention creation, in part the same simplicity prevails as in the New Testament passages that do so,9 and in part the Mosaic statements do indeed underlie them but are nonetheless very liberally handled.10 Let us also add the observations that a purely didactic use of this account never appeared and that Philo, who thoroughly rejected interpreting the “six days” of creation in the literal sense, would surely have had predecessors. On these grounds, we can rather securely conclude, first, that the literal account was never generally held to at that time but that a dim but healthy feeling has always lingered to the effect that this old monument should not be treated in accordance with our notions of history. Hence, we have no reason to maintain a stricter historical appreciation of it than the Jewish people itself did in its best times.
Suppose that it were granted, however, that people were fully justified in assuming that the Mosaic description was a historical account communicated in an extraordinary way. The only implication would be that in this way we would have attained a natural scientific insight not to be gained differently; yet, in accordance with our usage of the term, in no fashion would the particular aspects of that insight be “faith-doctrines” on that account, since our feeling of absolute dependence would obtain neither a new content nor a different formation nor any sort of closer definition thereby. Hence, not even an interpretation of that insight providing commentary nor any assessment of such interpretations can be a task for dogmatics in any way whatsoever.
3. As concerns the various definitions that have been proposed, it is quite clear that our feeling of absolute dependence could not be referred to the general constitution of all finite being if anything within it were, or ever had been, independent of God. It is also just as certain, however, that if within all finite being, as such, there were anything at all that would have entered into it at its emergence that could be viewed as independent of God, then because precisely this thing would also have to exist in us,11 the feeling of absolute dependence could itself have no truth in it, even in relation to ourselves. Suppose, on the other hand, that God were imagined to be limited in any way as the one creating, thus similar in God’s own activity to that which is nonetheless to be absolutely dependent on God. Then the feeling that gives evidence of this dependence likewise could not be true, in that this likeness and dependence would cancel each other out, and thus finite being, inasmuch as it would be like God, could not be absolutely dependent on God.12
Except under one of these two forms, however, a contradiction between any theory of creation whatsoever and the general foundation contained in our religious self-consciousness is inconceivable. With the Christian characteristic of our religious self-consciousness, however, given that this characteristic already presupposes an actual experience, a doctrine of sheer creation also cannot stand in contradiction. It cannot do so because that doctrine, as such, does not take the continuing endurance of that creation into consideration. Thus, Christian piety can have no interest in these investigations other than to steer clear of these two shoals. Now, whether pursuing this interest is easy, or whether here too whoever would want to avoid the one shoal would all too readily steer close to the other shoal, in both cases the results would have to be discovered based on a closer observation of additional items that are accepted in faith-doctrine.13
1. Entstehung. Ed. note: This term indicates a process, thus “emergence” is thought to be more appropriate than “origination.” However, Entstandensein and entstandenen, which follow, are less awkwardly rendered by “having been originated” and “that have originated,” respectively.
2. Ed. note: Sermon only on Acts 17:22–31, Nov. 18, 1810, “On the Relationship of That Which All Religions Have in Common with Each Other to What Is Distinctively Christian,” SW II.7 (1836), 528–37. These verses contain Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Athens. Verse 24 RSV reads: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man.” In Rom. 1:16–25, Paul also argues against idol worship. Verses 19–20 RSV read: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Heb. 11:3 RSV reads: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things that do not appear.”
3. Ed. note: “by the word” (Heb. 11:3).
4. Luther, On Genesis (1535), on Gen. 1:5 in 1, §51: “What else, then, is the entire creation than a word of God said and expressed by God, … thus so that creating is no more difficult for God than naming it is for us.” Ed. note: ET cf. also Luther’s Works (1958) 1:22; German: Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe, 1883–) 42:17.
5. Ed. note: Everything up to this first point of doctrine in the system is introductory. All of that material is indeed intended to be wholly consistent with the system and its conclusion but is also intended merely to assist the explication of it. Here, §§32–35 are introductory to Part One of the two parts (cf. also §§30, 65, and 90), and §§36–39 are introductory to the first section of Part One, which section presents “A Description of Our Religious Self-Consciousness as the Relationship between the World and God Is Expressed Therein.” Yet to come: 11 propositions presenting points of doctrine in Part One and 50 in Part Two; so, the remaining 62 of the 123 propositions in the system of doctrine itself are themselves either introductions or appendices, though they are also essential to an adequate understanding of the others. Already highly important for what is begun in §40, therefore, are the matters referred to in §§29–39.
6. Ed. note: Cf. §29, where Schleiermacher stated that as “doctrines of faith,” or “faith-doctrines” (cf. §§15–20), reflection must be based on “the facts” to which Christian “religious self-consciousness” (cf. §§3–6) refer, whether these facts are “already presupposed” by the “contrast” between sin and grace “expressed in the concept ‘redemption”’ (Part One) or whether these facts “are defined in terms of that contrast” (Part Two, cf. also §65 and §90).
7. Ed. note: See esp. the whole argument in §33; cf. §§8.P.S.2, 10.P.S., 12.3, 16.P.S., 19.P.S., 28, also 50.
8. (1) Luther, On Genesis (1535) on Gen. 1:3: “For Moses wrote a history and told of things that had happened.” (2) Calvin, Institutes (1559) 1.14.3: “To be sure, Moses, accommodating himself to the rudeness of the common folk, mentions in the history of the creation no words of God other than those which show themselves to our own eyes.” Ed. note: (1) ET cf. Luther’s Works (1958) 1:19; German: Luthers Werke (1883–) 42:15. Above, “Mosaic” refers to the “Five Books of Moses,” or the Pentateuch; the creation narratives appear in Genesis, the first of these books. (2) ET: Battles (1960), 162; Latin: Opera selecta 3 (1967), 154, and CR 30:119.
9. Isa. 45:18 and Jer. 10:12.
10. Ps. 33:6–9; Ps. 104; and Job 38:4ff.
11. Ed. note: Here the assumption is that everything in nature is interconnected; thus, if anything in it were independent of God, our own dependence would be compromised too.
12. Ed. note: Cf. §32, where Schleiermacher indicated that the being of God can be known—the “supernatural” can be grasped as “natural”—only in and through the world. Thus, it can be known only insofar as we ourselves are conscious of being part of the “interconnectedness of nature,” and thereby—in every “Christian religious stirring of mind and heart” (§32)—only as we feel ourselves to be “absolutely dependent on God.” These characteristics of our faith are the only general basis on which we can have a relationship with God, i.e., our own being and the infinite being of God can exist as one in self-consciousness (§§32–35). Consequently, the presentation given here supplants all so-called proofs for the existence of God (§33). In church doctrine, the original expression of this relationship, namely, that the world exists only in absolute dependence on God, is divided into two propositions: “that the world is created by God and that God preserves the world” (§36). Schleiermacher has pointed out that new work has to be done here, for the Evangelical church has affirmed both doctrines but has not given a “distinctive form” to either one in its confessional writings (§32).
13. Ed. note: In earlier propositions, all introductory, Schleiermacher developed a conceptual framework for what this final paragraph points to, as well as for what is to follow in the rest of Part One. Thus, in §§30–31 he stated that reflections on the “direct description” of the “religious state of mind and heart,” or “dispositions,” that constitute this religious self-consciousness have always come in three forms. “In every instance,” the “basis” for all three forms of reflection lies in these religious states. Whether the form may primarily concern (1) “descriptions of situations in human life” or (2) “concepts regarding divine attributes” or (3) “assertions regarding the constitution of the world” (cf. also §35), their presentation throughout is to be interdependent (cf. §§19 and 28). Also, every doctrinal proposition, each proposition being both “ecclesial” and “scientific” (cf. §§2–17), strictly refers to “divine revelation” as expressed in “the redemption accomplished in Jesus of Nazareth” (§§11, 13–14); thereby, they are all meant to represent the highest of the monotheistic modes of life or religious community (cf. §§7–12). These doctrines are all to be systematically arranged (§§20–21), to present in Evangelical perspective faith-doctrine for a united (especially Lutheran-Reformed, Protestant) church (§§22–25). They exclude Christian ethics only for reasons based on tradition and convenience, not for any essential reason (§26). They “appeal” to Scripture and to confessional writings, but they do not use either source as proof texts (§27).
§41. If the concept of creation is to be further explicated, the emergence of the world must indeed be traced back entirely to divine activity, yet not in such a way that this is defined after the manner of human activity. Moreover, the emergence of the world is to be represented as that realization of time which conditions all change, yet not in such a way that divine activity would itself become a temporal activity.
(1) Belgic Confession (1561) XII: “We believe that the Father by the Word—that is, by his Son—created of nothing the heaven, the earth and all creatures, as it seemed good to him.”1
(2) John of Damascus (ca. 675–749), An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (743) II.5: “He brought all things from nothing into being.”2
(3) Martin Luther (1483–1546), On Genesis (1535) II.2, §7: “In short, God exists beyond all the means and occasions of time.” Ibid.: “All that God has willed to create he has created at that time when he spoke, even though not everything then appeared all of a sudden before our eyes. … I am indeed something new … but … for God I have been procreated and watched over directly at the beginning of the world, and this word that he spoke, ‘let us make human beings,’ has also created me.”3
(4) Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–367), On the Trinity (356–360) XII.40: “Even if the strengthening of the firmaments [etc.] … are done according to their proper order, there is not even a moment of time discernible in the work of creating the heavens, the earth, and the other elements.”4
(5) Anselm (1033–1109), Monologion (1076) 9: “For by no means can anything reasonably be made by anyone unless before-hand there is in the maker’s reason a certain pattern, as it were, of the thing to be made—or more fittingly put, a form or likeness or rule. … Therefore, although it is clear that before they were made, those things which have been made were nothing—with respect to the fact that what they are now and that there was not anything from which they were made—nevertheless they were not nothing with respect to their Maker’s reason, through which and according to which they were made.”5
(6) Photius (ca. 820–ca. 891), Biblioteca (late 9th cent.): “Origen … said that the universe is coeternal with God, who is singular, wise, and lacking in nothing. He said, in effect, that there is no such thing as the creator without creatures. … It is necessary that things exist in principle by the operation of God and that there is no time when they do not exist.”6
(7) Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity (356–360) XII.39: “It was present with God when the heavens were prepared. Is the preparation of the heavens a matter of time for God, so that a sudden movement of thought crept into his understanding, as if it had been previously inactive and dull, and in a human way God searched for material and instruments for the building of the world? … The things that shall be although they are yet to be insofar as God is concerned, for whom there is nothing new and unexpected in things to be created, since it belongs to the dispensation of time for them to be created, and they have already been created in the activity of the divine power that foresees the future.”7
(8) Augustine (354–430), The City of God (413–426) XI.4.2: “There are those who say that the universe was indeed created by God, denying a temporal but admitting a creational beginning, as though, in some hardly comprehensible way, the world was made, but made from all eternity. Their purpose seems to be to save God from the charge of arbitrary rashness. They would not have us believe that a completely new idea of creating the world suddenly occurred to God or that a change of mind took place in God, in whom there can be no change, etc.” Ibid. XI.15: “But when I consider what God could be the Lord of if there was not always some creature, I shrink from making any assertion.” Ibid. XI.17: “but by one and the same eternal and unchangeable will he effected regarding the things he created both that formerly, so long as they were not they should not be, and that subsequently, when they began to be, they should come into existence.” Ibid. XI.6: “then assuredly the world was made not in time but simultaneously with time.”8
(9) Augustine, On Genesis Against the Manichees (391) I.2: “Hence, we cannot say that there was a time before God made anything.”9
1. The expression “out of nothing” denies that before the emergence of the world anything at all would have been in existence besides God, anything that would have entered as material into forming the world. Indisputably, moreover, the assumption that there would have been any material at hand independent of divine activity would destroy the feeling of absolute dependence and would present the real world as a mixture made up of what existed by God and of what did not exist by God.10 Now, however, this formulation undeniably recalls the Aristotelian category ἐξοὗ11 and imitates it. In this way, it is reminiscent, on the one hand, of the human way of forming, which gives form to some material already present, and, on the other hand, of how nature proceeds to assemble bodies out of a number of elements. Inasmuch as all that is already in the course of nature is then strictly distinguished from the initial arising of it and likewise, inasmuch as the creation is raised above its sheer formation, the expression “out of nothing” is also beyond reproach.
Yet, one does see from Hilary and Anselm how easily a preexistence of forms before things appear can be concealed behind one’s negation of matter—not outside God, of course, but in God. In itself, this position too would seem to bear no risk. However, in that the two members of this contrast, matter and form, still do not then relate in the same way to God, God is drawn away from a status of indifference with respect to that contrast and is thus, to a certain degree, placed under it. Of course, it is also true that the forms’ being in God before things exist, viewed as already nevertheless relating to existing things, can be called a “being prepared” for them. Doing this, however, immediately violates the other rule, so that, on the other hand, we would then have to grant validity to what Luther stated. This is so, for then God would no longer be thought to exist beyond all God’s engagement with time if there were two divine activities that, as preparation and creation, could be conceived as occurring only in a distinct temporal sequence. In his fashion, most dryly and impartially, Anselm expresses this sort of temporal similarity.12 Hilary wanted to cancel out all temporal distinctions whatsoever; yet, he succeeded in this only with respect to what now still arises, albeit in its particularity, in time, but not with respect to the original creation, for one cannot say of this creation that it would have been made in God’s foreknowing efficacious action already before it came into being.
Here it can be remarked only incidentally that the expression “out of nothing” has also frequently come up in order to distinguish the creation of the world from the begetting of the Son.13 Now, if the begetting of the Son were generally acknowledged to be an eternal one and the creation of the world were likewise generally acknowledged to be a temporal one, then it would not be necessary to set forth yet another distinction; or, even if people were in complete agreement only in this domain on the distinction between acts of generation and creation, it would not be necessary to make any distinction beyond that one. Yet, even in this respect the expression “out of nothing” is not necessary for this purpose, in that even if one does not identify “word and Son” at all, the expression “are made by God’s Word”14 already adequately safeguards against any confusion between “Word” and “Son” even if one does not call special attention to the distinction between “creation” and “generation.”15
2. Now, suppose that, as is indicated above, we separate out the initial generation16 so strictly that we already reckon everything that is not absolutely primitive to the course of nature, which is involved in a process of development, and thus place it all under the concept of “preservation.” Then the question as to whether the creation itself occupied a given period of time would already be settled in the negative. The distinction between a first and second creation or between an indirect and a direct creation would always revert either, in general terms, to a becoming of what is complex out of what is simple17 or to a becoming of what is organic out of what is elemental.18 Here however, to let another creation enter in means either, in turn, to lift the distinction between creation and preservation entirely or to presuppose different “matter” in each case, without all the forces that are inherent in it; and the latter is a completely empty thought. If, instead, one first imagines “matter” even in the case of creation—even though one might just as well imagine “forces” instead—from that point on, being that is alive and in motion must have persisted and developed further. Otherwise, creation of sheer matter would also have been simply a preparation, an external, material creation corresponding to that internal, formal creation we have already noted here. Hence, we have no recourse but to refer these definitions back to a time when people could take pleasure in such abstractions, because then the question of a dynamic outlook regarding nature had not yet arisen.19
Another question that also does not at all belong within the domain of faith-doctrine concerns the relationship of the world’s creation to time. It is this: whether there was any time before the world was created or whether time would have begun only along with the world. Suppose, however, that we take “world” only in the broadest sense. In that sense we cannot affirm that there was any time before the world was created, because such a time could have referred only to God and therefore God would be displaced into time. With its quando ipsi visum20 the Belgic Confession plainly falls into this mistake, however, and we must again refer back to Augustine’s formulation in opposition to it.21
In fine, the controversy over a temporal versus eternal creation of the world, which can be referred back to the question as to whether a being of God can or must be imagined without creatures, is in any case of no concern whatsoever to what the feeling of absolute dependence immediately contains, and therefore it is, in and of itself, a matter of indifference how the controversy will be decided. Only to that extent need we be aware that one must combine with the notion of a creation in time that of a beginning of divine activity outward or that of a beginning of divine dominion, as Origen presented the matter.22 In the latter case, God would thereby be placed within the sphere of change, thus displaced into being temporally. Consequently, the contrast between God and finite being would be diminished, and in this way the purity of the feeling of dependence would then indeed be endangered. Although Augustine,23 in order to avoid such a danger, sets forth only a single act of the divine will with respect to the earlier nonbeing of things and the later being of things, this move is hardly a satisfactory solution either. In that case, an equally effective divine act of will that the world not exist earlier would belong to this one. Thus, one would have to assume that the world would have come into being earlier without this particular act of divine will, consequently that a capacity to move into existence would have been present independent of God. Suppose, however, that this same single divine will were also an ineffective will during the nonbeing of things, in that God no more blocked than brought about anything. Then what would still remain is the transition from nonaction into action—even if one expresses this transition differently as one from willing into efficacious action24—against which it may be said that it is impossible to imagine how the notion that God does not exist apart from what is absolutely dependent on God should be able to weaken or confuse religious self-consciousness in any way. The same observation applies, then, to another approach not to be dealt with here at all, namely, the referring of the word by which God is said to have created the world back to that word which was “eternally with God,” for this claim can never be properly clarified25 unless the creating by the eternal word was also eternal.
Postscript. To these considerations can be added the claim that God created26 the world by a free decree. Now, it is self-evident that one on whom everything is dependent is absolutely free. Yet, suppose that by “free decree” one is thinking of a prior deliberation from which a choice follows. Alternatively, suppose that one expresses that “freedom” in such a way that God could just as well not have created the world, because one opines that the only options are either that it was possible for God not to have created or that God would have had to create the world. In this way, one would already have been thinking of freedom only in contrast with necessity and thus, in that one was ascribing such a freedom to God, have displaced God into the domain of contrasts.27
1. Ed. note: ET Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 395; Latin: Niemeyer, 366.
2. Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 37 (1958), 210; Latin and Greek: Migne Gr. 94:880.
3. Ed. note: ET Tice; Latin: Luthers Werke 42:57f.
4. Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 25 (1954), 529; Latin: Migne Lat. 10:458–59.
5. Ed. note: ET and Latin: Hopkins (1986), 84–85; cf. ET only: Williams (1996), 9; Latin only: Migne Lat. 158:157.
6. Ed. note: ET Tice, cf. Greek and French in Bibliotheque (1967), 109. Schleiermacher used the edition by J. Bekker (1824–1825), 302; Henry’s more recent edition comprises seven volumes (1959–1974); cf. Migne Gr. vols. 101–4.
7. Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 25 (1954), 327–28; Latin: Migne Lat. 10:457.
8. Ed. note: (1) ET Fathers of the Church 14 (1952), 191f., and cf. the somewhat different reading in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. 1, 2:450; Latin: Migne Lat. 41:319. (Items 2–4) ET Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. 1, 2:508, 513, 452; Latin: Migne Lat. 41:363, 367, 322.
9. Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 84 (1991), 50; Latin: Migne Lat. 34:175.
10. Ed. note: Cf. §§38–39. The doctrines of creation and preservation must be understood and explicated in such a way that “the original expression” can be fully presented based on either doctrine (§38). “The doctrine of creation is to be explicated, first and foremost, with a view to warding off anything alien, so that nothing of the way in which the question of how the world has emerged is answered elsewhere would slip into our sphere and contradict the pure expression of the feeling of absolute dependence. In contrast, the doctrine of preservation is to be explicated, first and foremost, so as fully to present that basic feeling itself “ (§39).
11. Ed. note: “out of what is not.” In the views cited above, John of Damascus and the Belgic Confession both present this view, though differently.
12. Zeitgleichheit. Ed. note: That is, Luther’s statement was: “God exists beyond all the means and occasions of time.” Anselm asserted that “before” things were made there was “nothing,” except that there was already a “pattern” or “form” in the Maker’s reason, hence the temporal similarity just mentioned between the “beforehand” and the act of creation itself. Hilary had held that all things were originally made simultaneously, without even an instant’s distinction in time. Without explanation, Schäfer has Zeitlichkeit (“temporal state”) here.
13. Augustine, Confessions (ca. 397–401) 12.7: “Thou didst not make heaven and earth out of Thyself; otherwise, it would have been equal to Thy only begotten Son. … And, apart from Thee, there was nothing else from which Thou mightest make them. … Therefore, Thou hast made heaven and earth out of nothing.” Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 21 (1953), 372f.; Latin: Migne Lat. 32:828.
14. Luther, Psalm 90 (1534): “For this all things are made by God’s Word, so that they may more reasonably be called born than created or renewed, for no instrument or means was attached thereto.” Ed. note: ET Tice: cf. also Luther’s Works (1956) 13:92; German: Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe, 1883–) 40, pt. 3, 509. An example of this “confusion” might be given in item 1 above, in the Belgic Confession, where creation is said to be by the Son named as “the Word.”
15. Ed. note: The words used here and just above are Schaffen and Erzeugen.
16. Erste Entstehung. Ed. note: Here this act corresponds to that of “creation” (Schöpfung), strictly comprising only that which is “absolutely primitive” (alles schlechthin Primitive).
17. Hippolytus (ca. 170–ca. 236), Fragments in Genesis: “On the first day God created as much as God wanted from that which did not exist. On the other days God created not from that which did not exist but from those things created on the first day, changing course as God wanted.” Ed. note: ET Valantasis/Tice; Greek and Latin: Migne Gr. 10:585–86.
18. John of Damascus (ca. 675–ca. 749), An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (743–) 2.5: “Some [things], such as heaven, earth, air, fire, and water, [he made] from no preexisting matter, and others, such as animals, plants, and seeds, he made from those things which had their existence directly from him.” Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 37 (1958), 210; Latin and Greek: Migne Gr. 94:880.
19. Ed. note: Schleiermacher, in contrast, could and did regularly think at least of Newtonian “forces” (Kräfte) in general and, in biology and psychology, of vital, organic, developmental forces; and he could and did think of all these forces as inherent in all created being. This outlook was of great assistance to him in his also thinking of how enactment of “the divine causality” was possible in the nature of human beings, as under conditions of “the world” in general, this as an expression of “the one eternal divine decree” of creation and of its special fulfillment in redemption.
20. Ed. note: “as it seemed good to him.” See item 1 cited under this proposition.
21. Ed. note: See item 9 under this proposition.
22. Ed. note: Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254) was a great exegete, a doctrinal theologian, a devout ascetic, and a noted preacher, initially in his native Alexandria, Egypt, and successor to Clement (ca. 150–ca. 215) as head of the Catechetical School there. Later (231–250), after some years of persecution and private study, he founded another famous school in Caesarea, Palestine, where he thrived until he was imprisoned, underwent extended torture, and eventually died from it. With few exceptions, only fragments of his large corpus of writings have survived; otherwise, Schleiermacher might well have made greater use of them. Notably, though perhaps dubiously attributed to Origen, is the thesis that Almighty God was always accompanied by the world, which he eternally created, and that God was also finite, not infinite, else God could not have had thought even of Godself.
23. Ed. note: See item 8 under this proposition.
24. [In Latin:] “Let us add that God willed it from eternity, for whatever God wills he has willed it from eternity. What he had already willed from eternity was finally done at some time.” [In German:] “Thus he did work and was active in such a way that the world came into being.” Friedrich Nathanael Morus (1736–1792), Commentarius exegetico-historicus in suam theologiae christianae epitomen, ed. K. A. Hempel (Leipzig, 1797–1798), Tome 1, 292. Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice; quoted also by KGA I/7.3, 439.
25. Cf. Luther, Sämtliche Schriften (Walch, 1740) 1, 23–28, and 3, 26–40. Redeker note: Cf. especially Walch 1, 25f.: “Here reason commits sacrilegious blunders with its stupid questions. ‘If,’ it says, ‘the Word was always in existence, why didn’t God create heaven and earth through this Word at an earlier time?’ Likewise: ‘Because heaven and earth came into existence only when God began to speak, it appears to follow that the Word had its beginning at the same time the creature had its beginning.’ But these wicked thoughts must be banished. Concerning these matters we cannot establish or think out anything, because outside that beginning of the creation there is nothing except the uncovered divine essence and the uncovered God. And so, because He is incomprehensible, that, too, is incomprehensible which was before the world, because it is nothing except God.” “It seems to us that He begins to speak because we cannot go beyond the beginning of time. But because John and Moses say that the Word was in the beginning and before all creatures, it necessarily follows that He always was in the Creator and in the uncovered essence of God.” Ed. note: ET Luther’s Works (1958) 1:17f. (the entire passage is on 16–19, corresponding exactly to Walch, 23–29); cf. also Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe, 1883–) 42:13–15.
26. Ed. note: Here, as above, the verb form “create, created” translates schaffen, geschafft (which can also mean “make, made”). Schleiermacher does not use the verb schöpfen in this doctrinal discussion, only the noun Schöpfung (or the “creation”—except when it is noted that he uses Schaffen to refer to the process rather than the product).
27. Ed. note: The real, organic world, for Schleiermacher, was always defined in part by the existence of contrasts within it, none of them absolute (as is possible in the logic of mathematics). As infinite—not caught up in finitude—“God” is different, wholly other, in not admitting of internal contrast, by definition. See his various notes and lectures on Dialectic. In the strictly theological domain, God is viewed in the same way, though now always within the divine “economy”—i.e., engagement in and with the world—not in se, not in Godself apart from that economy. Of God in se the only thing that can be said with perfect confidence is “God is love” (§167).
Now, it is also true that theologically little or nothing can be said with any great specificity about what may lie outside the reality of this world in which we meet God, hence the following two appendixes on angels and the devil. The criteria regarding Christian “religious self-consciousness” in relation to God and to the coinciding “absolute dependence” of the entire interconnected process of nature discussed in §46n6 are to be used for all doctrinal propositions. The notions of “angels” and “the devil” do not seem to meet these criteria. Nevertheless, with the same critical and analytical care exercised in §§40–41, Schleiermacher examines these two notions in §§42–43 and §§44–45, respectively, with a view to deciding whether any authentic use can be made of them. In sum: The first appendix thus discusses references to angels in the Old Testament, taken somewhat into the New Testament, yet notes that the notion of angels has not been taken into “the sphere of genuine Christian doctrine,” at least in Evangelical theology. Its continuing presence in Christian language, he there argues, does not obligate us to hold that it refers to anything real. Whether angels exist or not should, therefore, not bear any influence on our own way of acting; nor are we to expect any further revelations of their existence. The second appendix notes the frequent references to the devil in the New Testament but indicates that neither Christ nor the apostles make any use of the notion or draw any implications regarding belief in the devil. Nor has the Evangelical church made any use of the notion. In sum, this belief is so “unsupportable” that no conviction of its truth can be imputed to anyone. Thus, belief in the devil “may in no way be laid down as a condition of faith in God or in Christ, and … there can be no talk of his bearing influence in the reign of God.”
Appendix One: Regarding Angels1
§42. This notion of angels, indigenous to books of the Old Testament, has also carried over into the New Testament. On the one hand, it does not in itself imply something impossible, nor does it contradict the foundation of any and all consciousness that contains faith in God. On the other hand, however, it has not been taken into the sphere of genuine Christian doctrine anywhere. Thus, it can continue to appear in Christian language, yet without obligating us to establish anything as to whether it refers to something real.
1. The narratives regarding Abraham, Lot, and Jacob, regarding the call of Moses and Gideon, and also regarding the proclamation of Samson, all very clearly bear the stamp within them of what we customarily call “legend.”2 Indeed, in a great many of these tales God and the angels of the Lord are interchanged in such a way that the whole narrative can also be thought of as a theophany, wherein what is acquired through sense perception does not at all need the added appearance of some being that is differentiated from and independent of God to be what it is. Thus, what is envisaged in this indefinite flow is older than these narratives. Indeed, it perhaps even predates the events told of. At that point, moreover, it might not be exclusively Hebraic in the narrower sense, as would also seem to have arisen from numerous other traces—for example, from the story about Balaam. Many sorts of poetic discourse carried out in the Psalms and the prophetic literature also lead to the view that whatever is a bearer of some divine command can also be called an angel. As a result, sometimes particular, distinct beings are to be placed in this category and sometimes not.
Now, we can probably not explain those supposed beings otherwise than in terms of how various peoples have generally tended to generate spiritual beings of multiple sorts, viewed under diverse forms. That is, these beings have always been generated because of a consciousness of spirit’s holding sway over matter. The task of explaining this consciousness then arises, and the less it is resolved, the greater is the inherent tendency to presuppose the existence of more spirit than is manifested in the human race, also to presuppose that such spirit is different from the vital forces and mating instincts in animals, which do hold sway over matter but are themselves to be regarded as matter to be controlled, in turn, by us.
Then, we, being acquainted with the existence of a plurality of heavenly bodies beyond our own earth, satisfy that same craving to understand by the presupposition, current among us, that these bodies are all, or for the most part, filled with beings animated in accordance with their various levels of being. In earlier times, there was no alternative left than to people either our own earth or heaven with spiritual beings hidden to us. The Jewish people seem to have decided to hold to the latter, heavenly option, especially since Supreme Being had been thought, at the same time, to be the King of that people. Thus, that king would have to have servants around him to send at his bidding to every spot within his realm and to have them intervene in every branch of his governing activity, and this is certainly also the most advanced notion of what angels might be.
Accordingly, we would have to divorce this notion entirely from our notion of spiritual life on other world-bodies, life developed in union with some organism, in accordance with the nature of those other world-bodies. This is so, for one cannot get to the biblical notion from this starting point.3 Rather, this more recent notion sets something entirely alien to the biblical notion in its place. Instead, we would have to imagine them to be spiritual beings that do not belong to any distinct world-body. Each of these spiritual beings, for their work on some world-body, would be constituted in such a way that they could take on the form of some organism, albeit only temporarily, just as they are supposed to have appeared, simply in a temporary manner, in our own world-body from time to time. It is quite clear, moreover, that we know much too little about the space between worlds as well as about the possible relationships between spirit and bodies to be obliged absolutely to deny the truth of any such notion. Indeed, suppose that we would regard the appearance of such spiritual beings to be something to be marveled at. Then this marveling would occur far less for the reason that we would be forced to claim that such an incursion of alien beings into the sphere of our lives would in itself transgress the interconnectedness of nature than for the reason that their appearance—in Christianity overall, but also in the Old Testament for the most part—has been tied instead to certain points of human development or points of new revelation.4 In the New Testament, angels are said to have appeared at the annunciation of Christ and of his forerunner, also at Christ’s birth—all in more or less poetical narratives that were retained from outside the actual tradition of the Gospels. To a certain measure, the latter characteristic also obtains regarding the “strengthening” angel in Gethsemane5—for which no witness is cited, at the very least. In the re-surrection and ascension, as well as in the conversion of Cornelius and in Peter’s being set free, one can be doubtful as to whether angels or human beings are meant. Moreover, in the story regarding Philip the expressions “angel of the Lord” and “Spirit” alternate in the manner of the Old Testament. After these narratives, however, angels totally leave the scene, even in the Acts of the Apostles.
2. In our Holy Scriptures overall, however, angels are simply presupposed, but nothing is ever taught in reference to them. Apart from poetic descriptions of the Last Day, likewise to be found in the domain of prophetic utterance, Christ himself mentions them only in his warning against despising “the little ones” and on the occasion of Peter’s useless defense of him.6 If someone would want to take these instances to be didactic in nature, then one would have to set forth as doctrine that children, or perhaps all human beings, have special angels, that angels see the face of God, and that they can be deployed in legions.7 The same thing applies to apostolic passages, if someone would want to refer those vague and ambiguous expressions concerning “thrones” and “principalities” to angels. Indeed, even in the Epistle to the Hebrews angels are not so much topics for dogmatic use as occasions for presentation of the kinds that Christ and the apostles made.8 In the latter case, for example, it is also claimed that Christ is “much superior” to all the angels told of in the Old Testament stories as in the prophets and psalms, but there is no mention there of actual appearances of angels drawn from the Old Testament.9
Thus, Christ and those men who were apostles could have said all this without having had any real conviction of their own regarding the existence of such beings or having wanted to pass on any such conviction, in the same way as people everywhere tend to appropriate popular notions. That is to say, people make occasional use of them in treating of other topics, just as we too can speak of fairies and ghostly appearances, without these notions being posited as having had any kind of definite relation to those notions that structure our actual convictions. Thus, this usage is in no way meant in the same manner as what people presuppose in what is ordinarily called “accommodation”—namely, that persons who condescend to use prevailing notions themselves hold a different conviction, one that actually contradicts those notions.
Even the confessions of the Protestant church have only occasionally taken this notion of angels into them, and these expressions show clearly enough that they place no value on teaching anything about angels.10 This does not at all mean that the Reformers were lacking in familiarity with the subject itself or that they had doubted the literal truth of appearances of angels told of in Scripture, for their ecclesial hymns prove the contrary. It simply means that they in no way placed any great value on angels within the domain of piety.
1. Ed. note: In his marginal note here, Schleiermacher refers to a pertinent remark by Johann Christian Friedrich Steudel (1799–1837): “Why [treat of ‘Angels’] here and not after the second point of doctrine?” Steudel [(1829) supplies the answer]: “strictly cosmological.” Schleiermacher then adds: “Since angels are not included in creation, they hover somewhere between being eternal (theophany) and not being at all ([the notion of their being] bearers of God’s commands)” (Thönes, 1873).
2. Sage.
3. Cf. Reinhard, Dogmatik (1818), §50. Ed. note: Redeker quotes from 181: “Now, the remaining heavenly bodies, the number and size of which is almost boundless, surely cannot possibly have been left empty by God. Rather, they will undoubtedly have been filled with creatures suited to those bodies’ constitution. So, one is indeed warranted in assuming a multitude and multiplicity of creatures that endlessly exceeds all human notions” [ET Tice].
5. Ed. note: Luke 22:43, the only Gospel narrative mentioning that an angel came to Jesus while he prayed at Gethsemane, “strengthening him.”
6. Matt. 16:27 and 25:31; Matt. 18:10 and 26:53. Ed. note: These passages refer successively to the three instances cited in the sentence. One tradition supposes that Peter was the one who tried to defend Jesus with his sword when Jesus was seized and arrested, though his name is not mentioned in this passage.
7. Obviously, John 1:51 is figurative.
8. Col. 1:16 and Heb. 1:4ff.
9. Ed. note: The third edition contains a conjecture that Schleiermacher’s text intended to refer to appearances indicated elsewhere in the “New Testament.” Schäfer found “New Testament” in Schleiermacher’s draft text but found “Old Testament” in the corrected original printing, then chose the draft text. Here “Old Testament” is retained, as in all previous editions, for it seems to make somewhat better sense.
10. (1) Apology Augsburg (1531) 21: “Besides, we also grant that angels pray for us.” (2) Schmalkaldic Articles (Luther, 1537) 2.2: “Although the angels in heaven pray for us (as Christ himself also does), and in the same way also the saints on earth and perhaps those in heaven pray for us, it does not follow from this that we ought to invoke angels and saints, pray to them, keep fasts and hold festivals for them, celebrate masses, make sacrifices, establish churches, altars, or worship services for them in still other ways, and consider them as helpers in time of need, assign all kinds of assistance to them, and attribute a specific function to particular saints, as the papists teach and do.” Ed. note: (1) and (2) ET Book of Concord (2000), 238 and 305; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 318 and 425.
§43. The only theme that can be set forth as doctrine concerning angels is this: that the question of whether angels exist ought to have no influence on our way of acting and that today revelations of their existence are no longer to be expected.
1. A Christian’s trust in the protection of angels is not to be referred to without divers misgivings. This is so, for several reasons. First, the suggestion that angels fend against the mighty blows of evil spirits1 could hardly be proposed without detriment to anyone but small children, in that we are to use the spiritual “armor” that Scripture recommends to us2 against all that is customarily ascribed to the devil but are not to rely on any angelic protection. Second, it is no less dubious to teach even some external protection by means of angels.3 That is to say, if one would not want to assume a continual efficacious action by angels, thus entirely abrogating the interconnectedness of nature, one would no doubt have to teach that God has no need of angels for that purpose.
Third, in contrast, suppose that it were to afford greater consolation if God were to make use of angels than if our protection were secured along a natural path, with the result that, for the sake of our weakness, God would prefer to use angels and to reveal this preference to us. On the one hand, this consolation could not be conveyed without very limited, indeed almost childish notions about God. On the other hand, it could only feed our vanity if one were to assume that an entire species of beings actually higher than we are would exist only to serve us. Hence, in our confessions—though actually in opposition to the view of saints in the Roman church, angels’ intercession for us is wisely substituted for their active engagement in influencing us, except that we cannot attribute any probative force to the biblical passage4 on which this position is based.
That this notion has been losing its influence among Christians is also plain to see, since it belongs to a time when acquaintance with the forces of nature was still very minimal and when mastery of human beings over them stood at its lowest level. By today, at every such suggestion our observations have automatically been taking an entirely different course. As a result, we do not readily have recourse to angels in our daily life anymore. Even what Luther5 propounded concerning angels especially bears the tendency to suppress all thoughtlessness that people might gladly be lured into by supposing angels’ supernatural intervention. Yet, the confidence that he wished to undergird would remain the same, even if we would have no thought of angels but would expect divine protection along the usual path. Our church, however, has declared itself against veneration of angels. Thus, we can rightly say that it would be the worst sort of veneration if we were to believe that, with a view to their obscure service to us, we ought to relinquish any caring for ourselves and others that we are enjoined to do.6
2. Yet, more closely considered, nothing can be concluded, for our present time or for the future, from all the appearances of angels that we have reports of. This is so, in part, for these appearances belong to that primitive age when the interconnectedness of human beings with nature was not yet sorted out and human beings themselves had not yet developed very far. Moreover, since obtaining education through higher beings was not alien to a number of philosophers who held forth in that primitive era, these warning and comforting appearances could also be an echo of that connection between human beings and the whole of nature. Later on, we find angels almost exclusively at certain great points of development,7 when other amazing events were also usually occurring. Moreover, even when ancient teachers of the church8 claimed that traffic between angels and human beings, which had been interrupted for such a long time, had been restored by Christ to a greater extent than ever, this claim too would have to be understood in the same way, for this supposed restoration did not actually extend beyond apostolic times.
Now, since angels do not come into our province at all, there is also no reason to set forth any more precise investigations into the creation of angels, as such or in relation to the Mosaic creation story, likewise into other accounts of their qualities, modes of life, and functions.9 Rather, this subject remains wholly problematic for the actual domain of dogmatics, and only a private and liturgical use for the notion of angels is to be recognized. Even so, private use would always be restricted to a sensory representation10 of higher protection insofar as it does not employ conscious human activity. In liturgical use, people have long held in mind that God is to be depicted as surrounded by pure and innocent finite spirits.11
1. Luther, Small Catechism (1529): “Let your holy angel be with me, so that the wicked foe may have no power over me.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 363; Latin: Bek. Luth. (1963), 521. Here “wicked foe” translates diabolum. This passage is contained in Luther’s recommended Morning Prayer.
2. Eph. 6:11ff., 1 Pet. 5:8–9. Ed. note: The first passage is about putting on “the whole armor of God” to fend off all sorts of devilish forces, including “hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,” but what is taken to shield against all this are truth, righteousness, peace, and faith, also alertness, blessedness, perseverance, and prayer, all in that Spirit by which the gospel is proclaimed. The second passage speaks of being “sober” and “watchful” in faith, resisting the devil, viewed as an “adversary,” prowling about like a “roaring lion.”
3. Calvin, Institutes (1559) 1.14.6–11. Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 166–71; Latin: Opera selecta 3 (1957), 158–63, and CR 30:121–25.
4. Zech. 1:12. Ed. note: There an “angel of the LORD,” who is said to have been talking with this son of a prophet at the time, asks God how long “the Lord of hosts” will yet withhold mercy from the people. Then the LORD replies with “gracious and comforting words” (v. 13).
5. Luther, On Genesis (1535), Gen. 2: “Surely the angels are to be our guardians and are to protect us, but only so far as we remain on our own paths. Christ refers to this outcome in that he holds up to the devil the command from Deut. 6:16 [“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”]. Thereby he indicates that it is not the way of human beings to fly in the air…. Consequently, if we exist in our office or calling by command from God or from persons who are properly competent in that office, we are to believe that protection of loving angels cannot be lacking to us.” Ed. note: ET Tice; cf. also Luther’s Works (1958) 1:107f.; German: Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe, 1883–) 42:81f.
6. Ed. note: Looking ahead, Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “2. Lack in justification for the belief. Back to Steudel (1828) once more. All these passages have the character of proverbial phraseology. Steudel opines, nevertheless, that belief in angels would have been closely associated with Christ’s God-consciousness and that Christ made that belief valid for purposes of the highest order. If that were the case, then angels would have to belong within our reign of God, but I find nothing to that effect. It is truly odd that he wants to derive the existence of angels from [the Lord’s Prayer]: ‘Thy will be done … as it is in heaven.’ Nonetheless, he also wants to argue against the historical Christ on the same basis” (Thönes, 1873). See Steudel, 12, and §42n1.
7. Ed. note: See §42, in the main text at note 4.
8. Cf. John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407), Homily on Colossians, Homily 3 (on Col. 1:20). Ed. note: ET Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. 1, vol. 13 (1889), 272–75; Migne Gr. 62:321–24.
9. Cf. Reinhard, Dogmatik (1818), §§53–54, 190ff.
10. Ed. note: versinnlichen.
11. Cf. Heb. 12:22. Ed. note: The image here is of coming to “Mount Zion,” “the heavenly Jerusalem,” where “the living God” is accompanied by “innumerable angels in festal gathering” (RSV).
Appendix Two: Regarding the Devil
§44. The notion of the devil, as it has taken form among us, is so unsupportable that a conviction of its truth cannot be expected of anyone. Our church has also never made doctrinal use of it, in any case.
1. The main elements in this notion are these: spiritual beings, possessing an elevated sort of perfection, who had lived in close association with God, have passed over, by their own free will, from this condition into a condition of antagonism and rebellion against God.
Now, no person can be required to perceive what this notion refers to unless that person can be helped to surmount a great many obstacles. That is, first, regarding the so-called fall of the good angels, the more nearly perfect they are supposed to have been, the less could any motives be assigned other than such as would presuppose a preexisting fall, e.g., haughtiness and envy.1 Then further, suppose that after the fall the devil’s natural strengths would have remained just as they had been.2 Then it would be inconceivable how unwavering evil could be taken to persist alongside superbly outstanding insight. That is to say, this very insight would have to have depicted any battle against God as a wholly vain undertaking. Indeed, for one who is lacking in true insight, moreover, only momentary satisfaction can be imagined, whereas for any being that is full of insight to venture into such a battle and to persevere in that conflict, it would be necessary for that being to want to be lacking in blessedness and to remain so.
Now, if this were a human being, the favorite explanation would be that one is “possessed,” because no explanation is to be found in the actual subject. Would it not be even less explicable, given the more perfect status of angels, by whom would they then have to be possessed? Suppose, however, that at his fall the devil would have lost his finest, purest capacity for understanding, since it would indeed be the greatest derangement to “change from being God’s friend into being God’s bitterest and most obdurate enemy”? Then, on the one hand, it would be incomprehensible how one’s capacity for understanding could be considered to be lost forever by means of a single aberrant act of will, unless that very act would already have rested on a lack in that capacity for understanding? On the other hand, it would be inconceivable how, upon such a loss in his capacity for understanding, the devil could be considered to be such a dangerous enemy, since nothing is easier than to contend against an evil perpetrated by one who lacks all understanding of what one is doing.3
Now, it is also just as difficult to account for the relationship of the fallen angels to the other angels. This is so, for if they were all alike and no special, personal motives could be assigned to any one group of them, how is it possible to conceive that one group has sinned and the others did not? Certainly it would be no less difficult, moreover, if someone were to assume4 that before the fall of the one group all the angels would have been in “a variable state of innocence,” but that just as that one group would have been “judged and condemned forever” on account of a single misdeed, likewise the other angels, on account of a single act of resistance to it, would thus have been “forever approved and secured,” so that thereafter they would never have been able to fall anymore.
Finally, let us consider the state of the fallen angels after the fall. In that case, it is difficult to find any coherence between the following two thoughts. The first thought is that these fallen angels, already distressed by evils that have befallen them and expecting still greater ones, and yet, at the same time, out of their hatred toward God, also so as to assuage their feeling at suffering such ills, would then engage in some active resistance against God. The second thought is that they would, nonetheless, not be able really to achieve anything except by God’s will and permission,5 in which case they would indeed find far greater relief from their ills and contentment in their hatred toward God by retreating into total inactivity.
Suppose, as a last consideration, that the devil and his angels were to be thought of as comprising a single reign, consequently one in which all of them would be working harmoniously yet always outwardly and, in particular, within the domain of human affairs. Then, on the one hand, such a reign would not be thinkable, given the generally recognized limitation that was just set forth, unless its overlord were omniscient and would have foreknowledge of what God would permit. On the other hand, moreover, not only would the most evil6 that is wrought in one human being serve to repel the same evil in other human beings, but also a given evil wrought in every human being would serve to repel some other evil.
2. In the main, doctrinal use of this notion could be made in two places: first, where the human evil in human beings would be traced back to prior evil in Satan and would be explained on that basis; and, second, where an active role of the devil in punishment for sin would be specified. However, our confessions are too wary to base anything in the present point of doctrine on such a risky notion. Accordingly, as concerns the first maneuver, at most they place the devil together with “the evil ones” only as the one fronting their ranks.7 By this route, nothing is to be set forth by means of a supposed preexistence of evil in the devil for explaining human evil in human beings. Rather, the devil’s evil remains just as much to be explained as is the evil of human beings. Even though in some confessional passages human evil is taken to have its origin in Satan’s temptation,8 moreover, the following is also true. First, in some passages the aim is less directed to explanation than to mitigation against the view that the devil would have substituted an entirely different creation for the original one. Second, on the one hand, letting oneself be tempted does indeed also presuppose some deviation and evil, already and always, with the result that such an attempt at explanation would be no explanation at all. Third, suppose, on the other hand, that the might and sway of the devil were posited among punishments for sin. Then, in part, this inclusion would bear no other influence on all that belongs to deliverance of human beings from sin and from punishment for sin than would be the case when influence of evil is declared apart from any supposed overlord. In part, if the devil’s might were taken simply to be the result of sin—and the tempting activity of the devil were taken to be the greatest exercise of that might—then when the devil accomplished his supposedly most effectual temptation, he would yet have to have been powerless to counter what belongs to human deliverance, and this too would be contradictory.
In other passages, however, even punishment is presented as something that the devil and wicked human beings have in common.9 There too, the notion, which rather frequently appears in still other passages, that the devil is God’s instrument for punishment of the wicked inveighs against the devil’s supposed opposition to the divine decrees.
1. Luther speaks quite rightly in On Genesis (1535), Gen. 1:6: “And Bernard had these thoughts, that Lucifer had beheld God and that human beings were suffered to become higher in their nature than the angels and so this haughty spirit grew envious that humans would have such a blessedness and thus fell. However, even if such thoughts retain some worth, I would, to be sure, not want to persuade anyone to fall for such opinions.” Ed. note: ET Tice; cf. also Luther’s Works (1958) 1:23; German: Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe 1883–) 42:18.
2. Cf. Luther, On Genesis (1535), Gen. 3:1: “Therefore it is a cause for great errors when some people exterminate or minimize this evil and speak of our depraved nature in the manner of the philosophers, as if it were not depraved. Thus, they state that the natural endowments have remained unimpaired not only in the nature of human beings but also in the devil. But this is obviously false. … But how much more impudent it is when the sophists assert this very thing about the devil, in whom there is even greater enmity against God, greater hatred and fury, than in human beings, in spite of the fact that he was not created evil but had a will in conformity with the will of God. This will he has lost; he has also lost his very beautiful and excellent intellect and has been turned into an awful spirit that rages against his Creator. Is this not the utmost depravity, to change from a friend of God into the bitterest and most obdurate enemy of God?” Ed. note: ET Luther’s Works (1958) 1:141–43 (with changes, including gender reference); German: Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe, 1883–) 42:106f.
3. Ed. note: In ordinary usage, to which Schleiermacher subscribed, unverständige Böse means an evil or wicked act that, by definition, is to be perpetrated by a being possessed of some intellect or capacity for understanding (Verstand), but wherein that capacity has come to be lacking—that is, has been lost. It does not mean that the act is, to all intents and purposes, incomprehensible (unverständlich) from someone else’s point of view.
4. Cf. Luther, On Genesis (1535), Gen. 2:16–17: “… so it is certain that the angels were also in a state of innocence that could be altered. However, since the bad angels were thus judged and condemned, correspondingly the good angels were approved and secured, so that they were no longer able to sin.” Ed. note: ET Tice; cf. also Luther’s Works (1958) 1:112f.; German: Luthers Werke (Weimar Ausgabe, 1883–) 42:85.
5. Mosheim, Elementa theologiae dogmaticae (1764), 417ff., and Calvin, Institutes (1559), 1.14.16. Ed. note: Mosheim’s 1758 edition, 366ff. Calvin: ET Battles (1960), 175; Latin: Opera selecta 3 (1967), 166f., and CR 30:117ff., also KGA I/7.3, 144ff.
6. Böse. Ed. note: In the human domain, Böse is normally to be translated as “human evil,” but in this context evil wrought by the devil and other fallen angels possessed of intellect is also done by free will, in contrast to evil in general (Übel). Above, the “evil,” “distress” or “ills” (all translating Übel) that is suffered by the fallen angels is taken to occur by the sovereign decree or will or permission of God. It would have to be presupposed that if “free will” is to be attributed to God, it cannot be either simply arbitrary or subject to deviation from what is good. Otherwise, God could become either wavering and frail in expression of God’s will or fall into making bad decisions. To complicate matters further in this imaginary scenario, it also appears that a measure of steady-state conditions would have to be presupposed as well. It is already assumed, in this case, that if any additional human evil were to be introduced into humanity from outside its own domain, it would have to be permitted by God. Then, however, the effect would necessarily be that of repelling some other evil by equal measure. Otherwise, the new, added amount of evil would be permitted by God, and God would be the original perpetrator of evil. This is exactly the sort of “scholastic” speculation that Schleiermacher has already deemed to be meddlesome and useless in earlier discussions of miracles. Typically, he uses such conditional arguments to subvert positions that seem to have got off track, showing that they lead either to dead ends or to places to which practically no one would want to go. In subsection 2 here and in §45, similar tactics further serve to clarify difficulties inherent in various other beliefs regarding the devil.
7. Augsburg Confession (1530) 19: “The cause of sin is the will of the devil and of evil ones [malorum] … that turn away from God.” Ed. note: ET Tice; cf. Book of Concord (2000), 55; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 75.
8. (1) Belgic Confession (1561) 14: “… giving ear to the words of the devil.” (2) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 8: “… at the instigation of the serpent and by his own fault.” (3) Solida Declaratio (1577) 1: “As a result of Satan’s seduction through the fall, human beings … have as their punishment lost the original righteousness with which they were created.” Ed. note: (1) ET and French: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 598; Latin, quoted here, in Niemeyer (1840), 368; (2) ET Cochrane (1972), 235; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 247. Cf. note at §37n3. (3) ET Book of Concord (2000), 536; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 852; on ETs of that document, which comprises the second part of the Formula of Concord, see §111n6.
9. Augsburg Confession (1530) 17: “… but to condemn the ungodly [impious] and the devils to hell and eternal punishment.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 50; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 72.
§45. Now, the devil is indeed frequently brought up also in the New Testament Scriptures, yet neither Christ nor the apostles set forth any new doctrine concerning him, much less implicate this notion in our economy of salvation. Thus, for our presentation of Christian faith-doctrine the only thing that we are permitted to establish on this matter is the following: that whatever is asserted concerning the devil is subject to the condition that belief in him may in no way be laid down as a condition of faith in God or in Christ and that there can be no talk of his bearing influence within the reign of God.
1. Among all the New Testament passages that definitely and undoubtedly treat of the devil, there is not a single one of those in which Christ or the apostles would perchance want to say something new or of their own concerning this topic, not even if it be either corrective or supplemental. Rather, they make use of this notion in its then-popular form.
Now, suppose that someone would still want to set forth a Christian doctrine regarding the devil. Then that person would still have also to assume that this notion, as Christ and the apostles found it, would have been exact and irremediable, in complete accord with the truth. Moreover, anyone would have to presuppose this view all the more, the more disinclined one is to assume what is customarily called “accommodation”1 on Christ’s part. Further, such completeness regarding this notion would be all the more unlikely as it can be shown that its main features have no basis even in the Old Testament, thus that its origin is wholly apocryphal.
Now, it is plain to see, based on the whole way in which this topic was broached, that Christ, and likewise the apostles, made use of the notion only to serve other purposes, not wanting to provide any new support or warrant for it, this without Christ’s having been given any particular occasion to do so. That is, without exception, he referred to the notion only in parables or epigrammatically or in brief adages, all of which, however, unexceptionably treated of some other topic.
In the parable of the sower, the expressions used2 are of dubious interpretation. Moreover, the enmity of human beings directed against the divine word would be just as close to what is meant as is the devil. Now, if this parable were to be addressing at least the devil’s relation to the human soul and the devil’s way of affecting it, then the lack of surety that we have noted would be overcome, and it would be possible to set forth a doctrine regarding the devil. Then, however, the devil would, at most, have the status of a totally unknown cause of rapid transitions to an opposing state of mind and heart.
Now, an attempt to set forth a doctrine regarding the devil based on the parable of the weeds in the field would yield just as minimal a result. There the sower is contrasted with the Son of Man, who sows quite overtly by means of teachings, whereas the sower of weeds performs the same activity but under cover of darkness—that is, covertly—and in this way one can also easily be led here to the proper meaning of the name “slanderer”3 when used for the devil. However, the apostles, at least, did not understand as a teaching that it would have been the devil that sowed weeds in the field tilled by Christ. We can see this, because when speaking of false brethren or totally unworthy members of the community, they never cited the devil as the cause but, at the very most, consigned them to the devil.
Yet, if one considers that the devil’s “seeds” are declared to be the children of “the evil one,”4 then this passage does recall one of the weightiest passages on this topic,5 in which Christ tells hostile-minded Jews that they are “of your father the devil.” In the latter passage, it is obvious that, in accordance with the distinctive character of Hebrew language usage, expressions of this kind are employed only to convey the relationship of resemblance and solidarity. That is to say, no one would actually want to take that claim literally, because the Jews could not be descended from the devil in the same sense as they took pride in being descended from Abraham, nor could they be descended from the devil in the sense in which Christ, whom they had been mocking, had said that he had God for his father. As a result, one cannot strictly interpret this passage overall under the presupposition that reality is to be ascribed to “the devil” without either placing the devil opposite to God in an entirely Manichean fashion or, on the other hand, calling Christ “Son of God” only in exactly the same broader sense in which those Jews could really be named “sons of the devil.” To be sure, a story regarding the devil is alluded to here, but also only as a well-known story and even then, as in the previous case, only in relation to the proper expression to the effect that they were “not of God.”6
The expression that “Satan demanded to have” the disciples “that he might sift” them7 bears the stamp of a proverbial usage, wherein one is obviously not to think of the devil as “the overlord” of the wicked. Rather, the entire phrase is derived from the book of Job. Here, as there, moreover, Satan’s relation to God is depicted in the same way. As a result, the only use made of that genuinely biblical notion is to warn, but there can be no underlying intention to teach anything about Satan or to provide confirmation of that notion.
Similar proverbial usage also belongs to the phrase “Satan … gaining the advantage.”8 It is indeed used in connection with the thought of someone’s having been given over to Satan, but apart from that it is certainly usable in any case wherein something meant to be good actually turns out to be detrimental to what is good. Yet, here one would have to think not perchance of Satan, who would bring to light only what is bad, but only of someone who does battle with what is good.
Clearly, hovering between these two meanings is the “roaring lion” of Peter,9 for there “to devour” signifies the activity of one’s deadly enemy, but “adversary” signifies one’s accuser.
In consequence, these three passages belong together, and, viewed as a useful adoption of a figurative notion that is supremely variable, they completely supplement each other.
If passages that belong together are compared, the expression “ruler of this world,” of which Christ frequently makes use,10 permits of a different interpretation just as well. It does so, at least, for even if Christ’s disciples did use this aphoristic phrase for the devil, it is uttered in passing without anything else having been advanced as distinctively Christian teaching over against popular tradition. That is to say: First, a few New Testament books do reckon Satan to have been kept away11 already from early on, whereas other indications,12 which are also, admittedly, only of dubious interpretation, assume a still ongoing war with Satan. Second, as a result, if Christ had wanted to set forth a teaching concerning the devil by means of the expressions cited above, he would have fallen short of his purpose in every respect.
The temptation story is just as little suited for the purpose. Suppose that this story had also been taken to be accepted literally, as a fact, though a great deal could be marshaled against this possibility. Nevertheless, the story itself permits neither of constructing a complete notion of the devil nor of making any sort of broader use of it. In the two passages wherein special occasion is given Christ to mention the devil,13 the matter has to do with so-called possessions by the devil, thus with the natural significance of those possessions, which also generally have nothing to do with faith. However obscure the first passage might be, it does nevertheless interconnect most closely with “casting out demons.”
The second utterance, which concerns “the divided reign of Satan,” includes that same reference. Therein the figurative depiction of the return of a cast-out evil spirit, which interconnects with that utterance, is in no way meant to arouse suspicion regarding the surety of sanctification. Rather, it too has as its topic that same natural domain of possessions by the devil. Above all, moreover, it points out the distinction between the effectual and lasting healings of Christ, on the one hand, and the seeming and evanescent healings of Jewish exorcists, on the other hand.
In these and all similar cases that might have occurred but that have not been passed down to us in any record, there has been just as minimal occasion to subject popular notions of the time to close examination as there could also have been any aim to employ the use that has been made of them to sanction them as divine doctrine.
Now, let us consider that in his letter14 John views the interconnection between the devil and those who sin exactly as Christ did in his discourse with the Jews cited above. On this basis, one would have also to explain John’s ascribing Judas’s betrayal of Jesus to the devil in the same way—something Christ never does, however.
The few apostolic passages that still remain15 are not, in any case, to be employed for didactic purposes any more than those already considered are to be. Suppose that Christ and the apostles had ever wanted to interweave “fear of the devil” into Christian piety and therewith to set forth teaching derived from this distinctive feature of religious consciousness and corresponding to this feature. Then they would, nevertheless, have had to grant proper room for this notion. This would have been the case, in the first place, whenever they were really teaching about the origin and spread of human evil in human beings in general, teaching about times when sin still remains in persons of faith, or even treating of the way in which it does; and, in the second place, whenever they were speaking of the necessity for redemption, in which case the devil’s possibly having held sway over human beings would itself somehow have necessitated sending the Son of God to deal with the situation. However, nowhere is even the slightest trace of such a case16 present, nor is any mention of the devil whatsoever to be found where sin is treated of, not even where such treatment would have been most expected.17 Nevertheless, this total silence in all actually didactic passages should itself have been attended to in a major way.
2. Thus, even if only a few scriptural passages treat of the devil, or even if all the passages actually cited here and those otherwise still reputable for the purpose treat of the devil, all grounds for taking up this notion as an enduring component in our presentation of Christian faith-doctrine would be lacking to us. Accordingly, all grounds would also be lacking for defining the notion so much more closely that everything that is ascribed to the devil could also really be considered together. This is so, for in Christ and his disciples this notion was not used as one that would be derived from the Sacred Scriptures of the old covenant, nor even as one that would be acquired from divine revelation by any pathway whatsoever. Rather, it arose from the common life of that time, thus in the same way in which it more or less arises in all of us, despite our complete ignorance as to the existence of such a being. Moreover, that wherefrom we are to be redeemed remains the same, whether the devil exists or not, and that whereby we are redeemed also remains the same. Thus, the very question concerning the existence of the devil is also no question for Christian theology at all. Rather, it is a cosmological question, in the broadest sense of the word, exactly the same as that concerning the nature of the firmament and of heavenly bodies.18 Moreover, in a presentation of faith-doctrine we actually have just as little to affirm as to deny on this topic, and likewise we can just as little be required to hold a dispute over that notion in a presentation of faith-doctrine as to provide a grounding for it. What the biblical deposit shows is nothing more than that the notion was a confluence of two or three very different components among the Jewish people themselves. The first component is the servant of God who locates the whereabouts of wickedness,19 and who has a certain rank and work among the other angels, but of whom there can be no talk of being cast out from being near God. The other main component is the basically evil being of oriental dualism, modified in such a way that the Jews alone would have been in a position to adopt the new version.
Now, to a certain degree the work attached to the first component already borders on taking some satisfaction from wickedness. Thus, by means of some such fiction as the angels’ apostasy, the first kind of work could easily transpose into the second kind, or rather the same name could easily pass over and be attached to the second kind. It can be plainly seen that sharp-minded Calvin composed his formulations based on these two features.20 Nonetheless, these formulations would also not fit together into one clear perception of the matter.21
The third feature, perhaps not quite so securely fixed but also composed of both native and foreign material, is “the angel of death,” which can also be depicted as having its realm in the underworld. On the other hand, the beings that are taken to be active in those who are “possessed” are constantly being designated differently, and they are only indirectly combined with the notion of the devil.
Now, apart from the fact that this notion of the devil would have advanced by the same mode of reflection on these conditions—this by means of manifold conundrums that sudden changes of mind and heart would also have presented to us for self-observation—it has gained such a strong hold in people that one could almost say it has constantly and repeatedly been produced of itself, notably within all those who are not fit to engage in deeper investigations.
This claim is plausible, in that all too often wicked stirrings do arise within us in a highly unusual and abrupt fashion, stirrings that have no connection with our main tendencies. Indeed, up to a certain point these stirrings do increase in us, without resistance. As a result, we also do believe that we have to regard them not as our own but as something alien, indeed without being able to point out any actual external stimulation. Then, just as such a largely unexpected good, the emergence of which is not traceable, would have been chiefly ascribed to the ministration of angels, so too wickedness and evil, the primary source of which would not be discoverable, has been explained based on the malicious pranks and influences of the devil and of wicked spirits. In this way, moreover, the notion of the devil is repeatedly proffered, chiefly in relation to wickedness and at times when we reach the limit of our ability to observe.
Now, in this respect, however, even Scripture then also refers us to our inner self alone, and, accordingly, our capacity for observation is also to be advanced ever further. In this way, more and more should cease to be viewable as due to the devil’s influence, thus the notion of the devil would gradually become obsolete from this point on as well.
The same process applies to that interplay and cooperation of wickedness,22 whereby it seems to be revealed as a reign and a mighty force in significant instances wherein it operates as a counteraction to some sudden development of what is good. Actually, the more what is good would be established as a historical whole, the more rarely could such counteractions recur and the more they would split into tiny bits, with the result that, here too, the devil would eventually be thought of no more.
On the other hand, suppose that someone should still want to set forth as Christian doctrine a belief in ongoing influences of the devil within the reign of God itself or in an enduring reign of Satan over against the reign of God.23 That person would not only be set in direct contradiction to many of the scriptural passages cited here but would also be setting forth extremely dangerous assertions. This is so, for in making the first move, at every difficult spot the person would be blocking every effort to understand all the pertinent phenomena—even the most peculiar ones—in the individual psyche, based on its own distinctiveness and on the influences of life shared in common, an effort that cannot be recommended highly enough for the sake of being blessed by God. Moreover, it would, at the same time, be providing dubious support to the already great inclination of human beings to shift blame for one’s actions from oneself.
Now, it would already be bad enough if anyone wanted to neglect any care of self or others that is entrusted to oneself on account of one’s confidence in the protection of angels. Likewise, it would be still more dangerous if, instead of exercising vigorous self-examination, one were to prefer to ascribe one’s own increase in wickedness to influences of Satan, since distinct marks and boundaries could indeed not be assigned in this regard and, consequently, unrestricted space would open up for making hugely arbitrary choices. Indeed, in the strict sense, influences of Satan could not be other than immediately internal, thus could well be magical in nature. Therefore, any real belief in such influences would have to put a stop to one’s joyful consciousness of having a sure inheritance within the reign of God. This would be the case, in that all that God’s Spirit would have effected would be surrendered to the opposing influences of the devil, and all assurance in the capacity of one’s own mind and heart to exercise care and control24 would be abrogated. Even if one were to believe only in the occurrence of such influences outside the Christian church, genuinely Christian treatment of individuals, to whom the gospel is to be proclaimed,25 would be impeded.
In contrast, belief in an enduring reign of Satan, within which individual human beings would always have to be regarded as his instruments, would not only weaken the joyous tenor of one’s heart and endanger the reliability of one’s conduct but would also be injurious to one’s Christian love. However, those who go so far as to claim that living faith in Christ would be conditioned in some way by belief in the devil might well be watchful lest they thereby debase Christ but excessively exalt themselves. This is so, for this belief always amounts to the result that redemption through Christ would have to be less of a necessity if there were no devil. Seen in this way, moreover, redemption would appear to be but a means of rescue from an external enemy, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, it would follow that human beings would likely know how to rescue themselves if wickedness were to have its seat in human nature alone, without any devil.
Postscript.26 Yet, suppose that the discourse intended is to be not that of interconnected doctrine but of particular employments of now this, now that line of thought, all based on this same fluctuating image. Then, as long as that is the case, no Christian should be denied the following entitlement—just as everything that is contained in the actual New Testament writings would indeed also have to be present in our religious communication27 as well. That is, not only would one be entitled to visualize elements of one’s actual Christian religious28 consciousness by means of similar lines of thought, staying within the boundaries defined above. One would also be entitled to make use of this notion of the devil in religious communication.
In the latter case, one can speak of the notion of the devil if one finds it to be either opportune for the purpose, or seemingly indispensable for the purpose, of making clear the positive state of being without God, thought of in and of itself. Alternatively, one can speak in this way so as to drive home the point that only with some higher assistance can one find protection against wickedness, protection here being viewed as against some force holding sway over oneself that is, in accordance with its origin, beyond the reach of one’s will and of one’s capacity for understanding.
Now, as long as this notion will, in this manner, have found its bearing enduringly within the living tradition of religious language, there will also be a liturgical usage of it, here and there. In all its various relations, however, this usage must all the more necessarily hold to the typus29 of Scripture as any deviation from that typus would engender greater confusion. This holding to that typus all the more strongly, on the one hand, the more people’s receptivity to the notion will have abated over time but, on the other hand, the more liturgical communication of it will have come closer to a rigorous, scientific character, in part, and, in part, come closer to the kind of authority that is invested in creedal symbols.
Hence, the freest usage of the notion of “devil,” also the least objectionable usage, is that of the poetic kind. This is the case, for in poetic discourse personification of notions is entirely appropriate; hence, in and of itself, making robust use of this notion to express certain religious dispositions cannot readily arouse much concern lest it be to some disadvantage. Thus, it might be considered not only pointless if someone should want to banish the notion of the devil even from our Christian treasury of songs but also not readily supportable.30
1. Akkommodation.
2. “The evil one” in Matt. 13:19, “the devil” in Luke.
3. Ed. note: Only in 1 Tim. 3:7, one of the many words used very rarely in the New Testament that Schleiermacher found in his critical study 1 Timothy (1807), this time referring to the devil.
4. Matt. 13:38: “sons of the evil one.”
5. John 8:44. Ed. note: See sermon on John 8:39–45 in the series on John, June 5, 1825, in SW II.9 (1847), 108–22.
6. John 8:47.
7. Luke 22:31. Ed. note: In a marginal note (Thönes, 1873), Schleiermacher refers to this usage as “paronomyous”—that is, a word having an allied root or derivation.
8. 2 Cor. 2:11.
9. 1 Pet. 5:8.
10. John 12:31: “Now shall the ruler of this world be cast out”; John 14:30: “The ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me”; John 16:11: “The ruler of this world is judged.” Ed. note: Or “prince” (Fürst).
11. 2 Pet. 2:4, Jude 6. Ed. note: Gebundensein. In both passages, the fallen “angels” are taken to have been kept “in chains” and sequestered—eternally or “in the nether gloom” until judgment day, respectively.
12. 2 Cor. 12:7; Eph. 6:11–12.
13. Luke 10:18 and Matt. 12:43//Luke 11:14[–26].
14. 1 John 3:8.
15. 2 Cor. 4:4 and 11:14; 2 Thess. 2:9.
16. Surely the passage in Heb. 2:14–15 is little suited to this purpose, for neither does it say of the devil that he holds sway over human beings—rather, only over death, so that here one thinks above all of the angel of death—nor does it say of human beings that they would slavishly succumb to the devil—rather, only that they would slavishly succumb to the fear of death.
17. Cf. Matt. 15:19; Rom. 5:12–19 and 7:7ff.; Jas. 1:12.
18. Ed. note: At that time, both of these terms were used only in devotional or wholly speculative contexts, regarded to be things not closely observable. The “firmament” was the entirety of the night skies, the “heavens,” and those could as yet be only minimally penetrated through primitive telescopes. What shone could be considered to be “world bodies,” but all but a few were therefore totally unobservable “heavenly bodies.” In the view Schleiermacher was representing, evidences of a devil were no less obscure; in fact, they seemed to be even more obscure.
19. Böse.
20. Calvin, Institutes (1559) 1.14.17–18: “As for the discord and strife that we say exists between Satan and God, we ought to accept as a fixed certainty the fact that he can do nothing unless God wills and assents to it. For we read in the history of Job that he presented himself before God to receive his commands and did not dare undertake any evil act without having obtained permission. … 18. Now, because God bends the unclean spirits hither and thither at will, he so governs their activity that these exercise believers in conflict.” Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 175–76; Latin: Opera selecta 3 (1957), 167–68, and CR 30:128. This quotation is somewhat longer than Schleiermacher’s but contains the same elements.
21. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note here states: “How is an impius [nonreligious] being to be distinguished [from a religious being] prior to its deliverance?—The ‘deliverance’ is a figure of speech, otherwise the condition could not have been removed by forgiveness” (Thönes, 1873). The deliverance mentioned is to Satan—1 Cor. 5:5 RSV: “You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
22. §43.1.
23. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note here offers material not included elsewhere here. “The dangers inherent in setting forth any dogmatic presentation of this notion. Nota bene: Can we say that belief in the devil would be implicated in Christ’s God-consciousness?—Nothing about that in discourses that Christ directed to the apostles; nothing in his high-priestly prayer, also nothing in his singling out Judas; nothing where he applies the prophets” (Thönes, 1873).
24. Ed. note: Leitung. “Care and control,” or “to lead, guide, and govern.” The corresponding category for the community of faith is “church leadership” (Kirchenleitung), which is the purpose all theology is meant to serve, in Schleiermacher’s view (cf. BO §§3–20). Such leadership, in both “ministry” and “governance,” he expected to become increasingly more nearly equally shared among theologically competent clergy and laity (cf. Brief Outline §§3, 236, and 267–70). Seelenleitung (“care of souls”) is the focal aim of Kirchenleitung in both ministry (or service—both translate Dienst) and governance (or polity and administration, Kirchenregiment). Hence, both care and control, especially self-control, are involved at the individual level.
25. Ed. note: When Schleiermacher uses the word “proclaim” (verkündigen), in general terms, he always means by word and deed, beginning with the self-proclamation of Jesus (cf. §§91–93 and 100–101).
26. Ed. note: “Good advice for nondogmatic treatment” heads this postscript in Schleiermacher’s marginal note (Thönes, 1873).
27. Ed. note: The broader concept “religious communication” (religiösen Mitteilung) is used here, not frommen (“pious,” or “religious” in the narrower sense that refers to the deeper roots of the entire scope of piety and religious communication in feeling and perception).
28. Ed. note: Here the word frommen serves for the narrower sense of “religion” or “piety” just indicated in §45n27.
29. Ed. note: The Latinate German word Typus is also a term of use in English, though one rarely seen. Here it refers to the standard kind of meaning generally to be found in the New Testament—in this case ordinarily figurative and not part of any teaching, as Schleiermacher has taken some pains to show in §§44–45.
30. Ed. note: Schleiermacher no doubt faced this practical problem during the several years he had just devoted to a new revision of the Berliner Gesangbuch (Berlin, 1830), a major, much-celebrated contribution to German hymnody.