§46. Religious self-consciousness—by virtue of which we locate all that bestirs us and influences us within our absolute dependence on God—wholly coincides with our discernment that precisely all of this is conditioned and determined by the interconnected process of nature.1
1. In no way is it to be asserted that the “religious self-consciousness” just referred to also actually arises with every stirring of sensory self-consciousness. This is no more the case than that every sense perception also actually brings “the interconnected process of nature” to mind. In contrast, whenever some objective consciousness arrives at the degree of clarity indicated in our proposition, we also posit2 the interconnectedness of nature, in turn, as something entirely general and as something no less determinative even of all that in connection with which the “discernment”3 of this interconnected process of nature, mentioned above, has not reached consciousness in us. By the same token, in those instances in which religious self-consciousness does occur, we recognize that those instances in which it has not occurred are incomplete states. Moreover, we posit the feeling of dependence, because we also refer that feeling of dependence to our own being already, inasmuch as we are parts of the world, just as we regard it to be true of all other such being, without exception.
It is also no more the case, however, that our proposition should fall short of the concept of preservation, though in accordance with the nature of self-consciousness it is limited to what affects us and, to be sure, in a direct sense is limited only to those movements and changes of things which stir us, not the things themselves and their internal being. That is to say, every stimulus that is directed to sense perception and knowledge, both of which do have the properties and being and nature of things for their objects, also starts off with some stirring of self-consciousness. This stirring then also accompanies the operation of cognition from that point on. In this sense, then, the being and nature of things do also indirectly belong to that which affects us.
Now, within these bounds our proposition admits of no distinction. Rather, with respect to each and every thing we are to feel their absolute dependence on God, and to share that feeling, to the same extent that we conceive each and every thing to be completely conditioned by the interconnected process of nature.
In relation to this view, however, we do find the entirely opposing notion—that these two states do not coincide but are rather mutually exclusive—to be very widespread. That is, it is asserted that the more clearly we conceive something in its complete conditionality4 to exist through the interconnected process of nature, the less are we able to arrive at a feeling of its absolute dependence on God; and, conversely, the more lively this feeling of absolute dependence is, the more we would have to leave the role of that interconnected process of nature in this feeling undecided. It is plain to see, however, that from our standpoint and in agreement with all that has been established thus far, such a contrast between the two states cannot be validated. This is so, for in that case, if we were to reach consummate knowledge of the world, the development of religious consciousness in ordinary life would have to cease entirely, because at that point everything would constantly present itself in terms of the interconnected process of nature, which would be entirely contrary to our presupposition that piety is an essential component of human nature. Moreover, on the other hand, our love of piety would, conversely, have to strive against all zeal for research and all advancement of our knowledge of nature, which would be wholly opposed to the proposition that sense perception regarding the creation leads to consciousness of God. Furthermore, already, even before the consummation of both tendencies, every person most knowledgeable about nature would always have to be religious least of all, and vice versa. Now, in the human psyche the tendency toward having knowledge of the world, however, is just as essential as is the tendency toward having God-consciousness. Thus, it can only be a pseudo-wisdom that would want to cancel out piety, and it would be a misconceived piety for love of which the advancement of knowledge would be taken to be obstructed.
The sole pretext that can be given for the assertion we are now examining is simply the circumstance that as a rule, to be sure, the more strongly objective consciousness comes to the fore in a given instance, the more self-consciousness will be suppressed in that same instance, and vice versa. This happens because, in the second case, in being more occupied with ourselves we tend to lose touch with any object affecting us, just as, in the first case, we tend toward being totally absorbed in the object. Emphasizing one activity over the other activity, however, does not prevent either of these activities’ stimulating and passing over to the other activity once it has been satisfied. Patently, moreover, one would wrongly rely on the claim that as a general experience what is not comprehended would, as such, always stimulate us more than what is understood to be a stirring of religious feeling. As an example for this claim, people most love to cite the prodigious natural phenomena produced by elemental forces; yet, even the greatest confidence with which we accept any sort of hypothetical explanation of these impressive phenomena still does not put a stop to that religious feeling. The reason why those phenomena so prominently and readily stimulate religious feeling lies rather in the inscrutable complexity of their effects, both beneficial and destructive, on human existence and on the works of human art, thus in the aroused consciousness of our own efficacious action being conditioned by powers5 of a general nature. Precisely this consciousness, however, is indeed the fullest recognition of the all-encompassing scope of the interconnected process of nature, and so this observation too could be used in just the opposite way, to support our proposition.
In another way, it is indeed a sign of human laziness to favor referring what is not understood directly to the supernatural. At that point, however, this referral to the supernatural does not belong to the tendency toward piety at all. Rather, in that Supreme Being is then thought to substitute in place of the interconnected process of nature, one finds oneself in the tendency toward knowledge, just as, in this sense too, not everything but only what is incomprehensible is then placed in such an immediate dependence on God. Hence, based on this attitude, people have just as easily invented morally evil and destructive powers holding sway over them as they have traced certain events back to powers of the highest good. This fact directly suggests that this sort of linkage to the “supernatural” has not proceeded from the interest of piety, in that by such a juxtaposition the unity and wholeness belonging to the relationship of dependence is unavoidably destroyed.
Still further, in that we posit everything that bestirs us as an object of this religious consciousness, even what is in itself miniscule and least significant is not excluded from the relationship of absolute dependence. On this point, however, the following comments are to be made. On the one hand, not infrequently an improper value is placed on an explicit referral to this relationship even of the tiniest particular. On the other hand, often we resist such a reference with no greater justification. The first mistaken maneuver occurs in the opinion that even the smallest item must be expressly ordained by God, particularly because very often the most prominent item arises from the smallest. This opinion is mistaken, for the saying, so frequently heard, that great events issue from small causes, seems to be but an empty play of fantasy, though by no means an unquestionable one. This is so, in that thereby attention is simply distracted from the general interconnected process of nature, in which the true causes do actually lie. A pure calculation can be drawn up only on the basis of equivalence between cause and effect, whether this be in the historical domain or in that of nature, and in each instance only in well-defined relations may particular changes, along with their own causes, be extracted from the general interconnected process of nature and put on their own hook. As soon as religious feeling is combined with such an observation, however, it must revert to the general interconnected process of nature, this, as it were, so as not to impute to God an activity that is segregated off and partitioned,6 in the way human activity can be.
The second mistaken maneuver, which lies in a sense of resistance to referring the relationship of absolute dependence to the tiniest particular, is grounded in one’s worrying that piety could become sacrilegious if reduced to arbitrariness in insignificant matters—for example, over which foot one should put down first—and to mere happenstance in matters that have no serious import—such as winning or losing in games and competitions—by considering that they too must be ordained by God.
Yet, what is disproportionate in both kinds of instance lies not in the given object but simply in the way it is observed—that is, in the isolating of particular cases, since in cases of the first kind seeming arbitrariness is always simply a particular expression, in part, for an overall situation from which many things of the same kind follow and, in part, for a more general law by which a manifold set of similar things is regulated. Moreover, in cases of the second kind, the outcome is always subsumed under a single will that they are taken to share. Neither of these kinds of cases can be regarded as insignificant. Thus, there will be nothing against their also being considered to be included within the concept “absolute dependence on God.”
2. Now, if we consider our proposition purely in and of itself, in its entire compass, it must also be directly evident to anyone who grants in general terms, as a settled rule of experience, that the feeling of absolute dependence can be aroused by influences on our sensory self-consciousness. This is so, for that feeling rises to its fullest extent when we identify ourselves with the entire world in our self-consciousness and feel ourselves also to be no less dependent, so to speak, than this world is as a whole. This identification, however, can prosper in us only to the degree that we combine in thought all that is divided and segregated off in appearance and, by means of this conjoining, posit everything as one. Within this all-oneness of finite being the most complete and most all-encompassing interconnected process of nature is posited at this point. Thus, if we feel ourselves to be absolutely dependent, as this whole complex is, then these two things wholly coincide: the fullest conviction that everything is completely conditioned by and grounded in the totality of the interconnected process of nature and the inner surety regarding the absolute dependence of all that is finite on God.
Now, from this overall condition follow, at the same time, the possibility of religious self-consciousness for every element of objective consciousness and the possibility of a consummate world-consciousness for every element of a religious self-consciousness. That is to say, as concerns the second possibility, wherever a religious feeling has truly arisen, an interconnected process of nature is also always posited there already. Accordingly, without detriment to that feeling, the effort to pursue this posited interconnected process of nature further, as well as the effort to bring it to the point of having a notion of the whole world, can be effective to the degree that generally the tendency toward piety7 is dominant. Likewise, as concerns the first possibility, wherever an objective notion is present, an aroused self-consciousness is always present there as well, and on this basis, without detriment to that notion, religious self-consciousness can develop, along with the notion of the whole world that is more or less clearly coposited within it, to the degree that the tendency toward cognition generally dominates in each person.
Now, if we imagine both tendencies to be fully formed in one human being, then each tendency would also call forth the other with complete ease. As a result, each thought, viewed as part of the concept “world,” would lead that person toward the most unalloyed religious feeling possible, and each religious feeling, viewed as called forth by some part of the world, would lead that person toward the fullest notion of the world possible. Conversely, if either tendency would not call forth the other, but either tendency would curtail the other in some fashion, then the more completely developed one tendency would be, the more it would have to cancel out the other tendency.
Now, it has constantly been recognized by the most rigorous dogmaticians8 precisely that divine preservation, viewed as the absolute dependence of all occurrences and changes on God, and natural causation, viewed as the complete conditionality of all that happens through the general interconnected process of nature, are neither sundered from nor curtailed by each other; rather, they recognize that the two are the same thing, only regarded from different viewpoints.
Anyone who nonetheless wants to find a semblance of pantheism in this position might simply consider the following. As long as wisdom concerning the world9 sets forth no formulation generally recognized to be valid for expressing the relationship between God and the world, so in the domain of dogmatics too, as soon as its talk is no longer about the origination of the world but is about its coexistence with God and its being related to God, a wavering cannot be avoided between formulations that approximate more toward a blended identity of the two and formulations that approximate more toward a contrasting severance between them. Further, so as not to confuse oneself in this manner, one ought simply to pay better attention to the difference between general and particular causes. This is so, for within the totality of finite being only a particular and partial causality befits each individual item, in that each is dependent not on one other item but on all other items; general causality exists only in that source whereupon the totality of this divided causality is itself dependent.
Postscript. The method of division10 in forming faith-doctrine, originally employed among the medieval scholastics, has broken up our simple proposition into a mass of distinct parts and specified sections, this in a most multiply categorized fashion. Moreover, there are so many of these components that it becomes rather a matter of indifference which we choose so as to try to show in what sort of relationship they stand to our own presentation. Now, some scholars have divided the concept “preservation,” which our proposition expresses as one undivided whole, into three parts: general preservation, which refers to the entire world, viewed as a unity, special preservation, which refers to the species, and most special preservation, which refers to particular things. For the purpose, this classification already seems not to be formed in the interest of piety, from which everything is nonetheless to proceed here, because it leads to the question, which entirely belongs to natural science, as to whether there might be something in the world that is not to be brought under the concept of “species.” However, suppose that this question has to be answered in the affirmative, so that the classification would also have to be expanded. Then, for all that, “general” preservation would still encompass everything else, and, since our basic feeling would rest only on the finitude of being in the world overall, any strict division11 of categories would be superfluous for us.
Another aim to be served by this sort of classification can be anticipated, however, if one takes note of the addition that is usually made to the third member indicated here, namely, that God preserves particular things in their mode of existence and their powers as long as God wills to do so. The reasons given are threefold: First, species, viewed in terms of the reproduction of particular things, are intransitory in a way. Thus, people have wanted to establish a distinction between what is relatively permanent and what is transitory. Meanwhile, for those who assume a beginning and end of the world, there is no reason at all to make a sharp distinction between the world and particular things. In any case, however, our proposition has just as well to hold true of the world’s beginning and of its end. Second, we pretty much know, regarding our world, that species have existed that are no longer present and that present species have not always existed. Thus, our proposition must extend to all of these species as well. It thus expresses nothing other than that finite things’ being temporal or enduring is also to be thought of only in their being absolutely dependent on God. Third, the endurance of particular things, as well as of things that are of a general nature, is nothing other than the expression of the sum total of their power in the coexistence of each with all the rest. Thus, nothing is contained in the addition to the third member that we just referred to, observed in and of itself, that our proposition would not also say. As it is formulated, however, it could very easily provoke an opinion that, at some point or other, God’s will to preserve would begin or cease to operate. Thus, against that opinion, the prefatory answer must be given that in preservation as much as in creation, God would have to remain apart from all the means and occasions that belong to time.
Another allied classification lies in people’s distinguishing between God’s preservation and God’s cooperation. This distinction, however, is not made in the same way by all teachers of faith-doctrine who use it, in that some refer the term “preservation” only to matter and form, reserving “cooperation” to refer to powers and actions, while others relate “preservation” to the mode of existence and powers of things and relate “cooperation” only to activities. Yet, it is not to be overlooked that a suggestion lies hidden in the term “cooperation” that within what is finite there might be an efficacious action existing in and of itself, therefore independent of God’s preserving activity. This suggestion must be entirely avoided and not, as one might suppose, be retained simply under the cover of its indefiniteness.12 Thus, let us suppose that such a distinction is not made and that the powers of things are something no more apart from the divine activity of preservation than is their being, which latter could still be split up, by means of an abstraction that does not belong here, into matter and form. Then the distinction between preservation and cooperation would also be rooted only in an abstraction. This is the case, for any being that is to be posited in and of itself actually exists only where there is power, just as power unexceptionably exists only in the activity of some being. Thus, a preservation that does not, at the same time, include in itself the fact that all activities of any finite being of any sort are positioned under the concept “absolute dependence on God” would, by the same token, be just as empty as a creation lacking in any preservation.
Likewise, if one should imagine a cooperation without the being of things over their entire duration being dependent on God, this being of things could also have been independent at its very first instant, and this status would indeed amount to a preservation such that it would not include creation within it but such that the creation would not be posited in it either.
Now, the following observation also belongs here, that even teachers of faith-doctrine who have, as a whole, very correctly framed the subject have nonetheless been led to depict cooperation as something more direct than preservation.13 They do this in such a way that they still separate activities of finite beings from any preservation of powers that is engendered from some divine efficacious action. Thereby, strictly speaking, they, in turn, trace preservation of powers back to nothing, since in the domain of the interconnected process of nature this preservation is still repeatedly dependent on the activities that issue from the rest of things. Thus, in the domain that pertains to absolute dependence on God, one can only say that everything is directly mediated and directly unmediated, the first in the one relation and the second in the other relation.
Some then directly combine the concept “divine government” with these two concepts. To a certain extent, however, the intended meaning is a fulfillment of divine decrees14 or a guidance of all things toward meeting divine ends, and by these assertions is to be understood something different from the view that, by means of all powers that are distributed and preserved in the world, everything happens or can happen as God originally and continually willed it—for the latter view is also already contained in our proposition. To that extent, then, we cannot treat of the concept of divine government at this point.15 This is so in that here, where we have to do only with an overall description of the feeling of absolute dependence, a reflection based on the contrast between purpose and means must be completely excluded, this quite apart from the issue of whether such a contrast can apply to God. That is to say, on the one hand, for our Christian religious self-consciousness it could be only the reign of God that is to be grounded by redemption, in any case, thus something that lies beyond our present reflection, whereto everything else is related as to its purpose. On the other hand, however, if our self-consciousness is nonetheless to represent finite being overall at present, herewith purpose and means would be related as that-which-is-posited-for-its-own-sake versus that-which-does-not-exist-for-its-own-sake, thus actually as that-which-is-willed-by-God versus that-which-is-not-willed-by-God16—herewith a contrast that would have to be taken up into our religious self-consciousness but of which our present reflection knows nothing.
Thus, the only thing that this concept of divine governance could offer us here would be the following. To the extent that divine preservation, viewed as cooperation, is referred only to the powers and activities of every being that is to be posited as operating of itself, we require a counterpart to stand for the passive conditions of finite things. Now, these passive states are components just as essential for the attaining of divine purposes, and thus the absolute dependence of these passive states is also included within the concept of government. Yet, at this point even this consideration is superfluous. Such is the case, for, in the first place, passive states are already also assumed under the concept “absolute dependence” and, in the second place, they are also included in our general proposition. The first reason is applicable, since preservation has the being of things as its object, but in this being of things is contained the contrast between self-initiated activity and receptivity—this insofar as these things are a locus for exercise of powers and the passive states are also already assumed under the concept “absolute dependence.” The second reason is especially applicable, since these states belong to what affects our self-consciousness, both under the form of sense perception and under that of compassion,17 thus they are also included in our general proposition. In addition, however, on the one hand, the passive states of one thing are simply what has proceeded from the active states of other things; and, on the other hand, the way in which the active states of things successively arise from each other and in what strength they appear depend on two things. They depend not alone on the distinctive mode in which a given thing exists but also on the actual engagement of each thing with others, consequently on the influences of other things and on the given thing’s passive states.
Hence, one could imagine that one would perhaps form a still better differentiation if one were to say that if placed under the concept “absolute dependence on God,” it would be a matter of indifference what arises from each thing’s being posited as existing of itself in accordance with its distinctive nature and what arises from its coexistence with everything else. Even this claim, however, would simply be an abstraction without any significance for our religious self-consciousness, for there the two processes, each viewed as a source of stimulation, are not distinguished from each other at all. Moreover, we would therefore do better to garner everything that bestirs our consciousness into the notion of finite being that is only relatively posited as existing of itself and that is itself conditioned through the general coexistence of things even in its being segregated from the rest. This notion is simply the very same thing as what our proposition designates by the expression “interconnected process of nature.”18
1. Ed. note: In what guiding and protecting activity can God be seen to engage in the world God has created? The basis for further exploration of this question is set forth in the remaining propositions of Part One (through §61). The whole of Part One deals with what is presupposed in Christian religious self-consciousness regarding God’s activity in and through the world, taken as a whole. This whole, of course, includes the nature and history of human beings, to be taken up more directly in Part Two, where the focus is placed on redemption accomplished in Christ, thus on the contrast between sin and grace. Where, then, does the traditional doctrine of “divine providence” lie in all of this? The answer has to be: everywhere! This would appear to be the main reason for Schleiermacher’s rare use of the term itself. In his view, there can be no separate locus for this doctrine (cf. §164.3). In Part One it is represented especially in his accounts of God’s activity with respect to “preservation” (Erhaltung). See also §46n18.
2. Ed. note: “Posit” (setzen) stands for what Christians are thought to “presuppose” (voraussetzen) in their religious self-consciousness, or affective states. In §32 Schleiermacher affirms that this positing is “the only way that in general terms, our own being and the infinite being of God can exist as one [eines sein kann] in self-consciousness.”
3. Einsicht.
4. Bedingtheit. Ed. note: That is, in the unexceptionable restriction that it places on our existence, by virtue of which we are dependent on it.
5. Potenzen. Ed. note: This term appears to be one borrowed from mathematics, a field in which Schleiermacher was quite adept; otherwise Kräfte would have been used. The term suggests higher and higher exponents of power, beyond ordinary comprehension, perhaps beyond any at present.
6. Vereinzelte und geteilte. Ed. note: That is, split off from the exquisite interconnectedness of the whole and split up into arbitrary divisions. In the next paragraph, “isolated” (Isolieren) seems roughly to stand for both descriptions, a word now chiefly used in the nominative for operations like “insulating,” “screening,” and “quarantining.”
7. Ed. note: In this sentence all the texts have Erkennen (cognition) here; but at this exact spot in the first edition of 1821 the word is quite appropriately Frömmigkeit (piety), in counterpoint to Erkennen in the contrast being offered here. In turn, development of each of the two tendencies is dependent on that of the other tendency, even when the other tendency is dominant.
8. Johann Andreas Quenstedt (1617–1688), Theologia didactico-polemica, sive systema theologicum (1685–1690), Tome 1, 761: “Thus, that the same effect is produced not by God alone nor by creation alone but by one and the same efficient power from God and creation at the same time. … I say that this (concurrent) act is not prior to the action of a secondary cause nor subsequent to it, … but the act is such that it is included most profoundly in that very action of creation rather than that same action’s being of creation alone.” Page 762 states: “One action is not on its own the influence of God and the other the work of creation, but there is one indivisible action regarding both and depending both on God as the general cause and on creation as the particular cause.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice.
9. Weltweisheit. Ed. note: This word is a familiar substitute or synonym for “philosophy” (which is itself literally “the love of wisdom”).
10. Spaltende. Ed. note: This important, generally authentic method of dividing up (spaltende Methode) subject matter for closer examination was an analytic tool first laid out and demonstrated by Socrates. By the period of the scholastics it had sometimes reached an extreme, artificial form, later widely associated pejoratively with their name, called “hairsplitting” (Haarespaltende). Here Schleiermacher seems to leave the extent of its value itself open to examination, though ironically giving examples of the more extreme kind.
11. Zerteilung.
12. As does Friedrich Nathanael Morus (1736–1792), Commentarius exegetico-historicus in suam theologiae christianae epitomen (1797–1798), Tome 1, 306: “For limits are not set by the extent to which the sun has an effect, or the farmer, or where God may begin. … God effects by aiding and by setting bounds, so that his plan may be carried out.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles.
13. Johann Andreas Quenstedt (1617–1688), Theologia didactico-polemica, sive systema theologicum (1685–1690), Tome 1.c, 760: “It should be observed that God not only gives the power of acting to secondary causes and also preserves it but that he directly influences the action and effect of creation.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles.
14. Morus, Commentarius, Tome 1, 319: “Governance is the work of God, effective in such a way that his plan may be carried out.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles.
15. Ed. note: Thus, a discussion of the divine government of the world is postponed to a point in the presentation of doctrine by which it has been fully prepared for, under the rubric of “the divine wisdom” (§§168–69). Regiergung may be translated either as “government” or as “governance,” as may Regiment for administrative activities in the church (Kirchenregiment vs. Kirchenleitung, the latter word meaning overall “church leadership”).
16. [W]ie das um sein selbst willen gesezte und das nicht um sein selbst willen, eigentlich also wie das von Gott gewollte und nicht gewollte.
17. Ed. note: That is, both sense perception (Wahrnehmung) and compassion (Mitgefühl—literally, a feeling with or for another or shared with another). The first is a precondition for all other types, and levels of perception (Anschauung) are included. The second becomes a critically important component in Christ’s redemptive work and in the life and work of the church. Mitgefühl can also be translated “sympathy,” but in Schleiermacher’s theological usage it is more than what is usually meant by that. It reaches out, empathically and actively, to the other.
18. Ed. note: Part One only begins to present what some have called the doctrine of divine providence, which is present everywhere in the system, not in any special place (see §46n1). In Part One it appears in his explication of the following sets of concepts: (1) for Christians the fundamentally important, advanced “feeling of absolute dependence,” which always includes a sense for “the interconnected process of nature” (Naturzusammenhang) (§47); (2) “stirrings within self-consciousness” that express either “restraints against life” or “promotions of life” and the tracing of both either to “the mechanism of nature” or to the exercise of “freedom,” each of these being “ordained by God” (§§48–49); (3) God’s “absolute causality” as activity to which the feeling of absolute dependence refers, a causality equal in scope to the whole interconnected process of nature but to be distinguished from it (§51), and, couched in these terms, God’s “eternity” (re: time), “omnipresence” (re: space), “omnipotence” (realized within though contrasted with all “finite causality”), and “omniscience” (re: spirituality) (§§52–56); (4) belief in an “original perfection” of human nature and of the rest of the world (a concept holding that all conditions for the development and expression of the human spirit are at hand, not conditions of a golden age, as well as conditions for the experience of “God-consciousness”) (§§57–61).
Thus, in neither part of the system of doctrine is there any suggestion of a divine providential activity that is independent of “the divine government of the world” as a whole—no pipeline-grace, as it were, and no miracles of the sort that would deviate from the natural order. See also §46n1 and §47n5.
§47. Based on the interest of piety, it is never possible for a need to arise to conceive a fact in such a way that the fact’s being conditioned by the interconnected process of nature1 would be absolutely annulled by its dependence on God.
1. This proposition is so much a direct consequence of the preceding one that achieving a natural progression would not at all have required expressly setting it forth. However, notions that are, to a certain degree, still widely held in the Christian church have to be carefully examined at the appropriate place in every systematic account of faith-doctrine.
Now, regarding “miracles,” a notion of miracles that are implicated in the origination of Christianity, or that are at least somehow reported in Scripture, is still quite familiar, and the notion is that they are precisely events of the sort that our proposition describes. Moreover, teachers of faith-doctrine have long treated the issue in a general way, since if the notion is itself untenable, it also cannot be assigned to this or that particular fact. Here we do not have to adjudge the possibility of miracles in and of itself, however, but have only to consider the relationship of accepting the possibility of miracles to the feeling of absolute dependence. That is to say, if the matter stands as our proposition states, then in our domain we will seek to apprehend every fact, as long as may be possible, with reference to the interconnected process of nature and without detriment to it.2
Now, some have presented miracle, defined in this way, to be necessary for providing a complete exposition of divine omnipotence.3 However, on the one hand, it is difficult to grasp how omnipotence was ever to be more fully demonstrated in relation to interruptions within the interconnected process of nature than in the original unchanging course of it that is yet indeed also in accordance with divine order. This is difficult to grasp, since indeed the capacity to change things within what is ordered is only a prerogative of one who effects order in instances where the orderer faces a necessity to change. This necessity to change, in turn, can be grounded only in an incompleteness both in the orderer and in the orderer’s works. So, suppose that someone wanted to postulate such an intervention as a prerogative of Supreme Being. In that case, one would first have to assume that something not ordered by Supreme Being would exist that could be placed in opposition to Supreme Being and thus could intervene in the very being and work of Supreme Being. If we assumed this, our basic feeling would then be entirely contravened. On the other hand, yet to be considered is the fact that our basic feeling appears to be most weak and ineffectual precisely when such a notion of miracles is most often employed—that is, in circumstances where there is as yet little acquaintance with nature. In contrast, the more widespread authentic information about nature is—thus, the more sparingly such a concept of miracle is employed—the more does that honoring of God which is an expression of our basic feeling arise. It then follows from this consideration that the most comprehensive exposition regarding divine omnipotence would occur in terms of a conception of the world that would make no use of this notion of miracle at all.
Along this line, others4 have more shrewdly, but hardly more tenably, defended the matter in such a way that, in part, God would have needed miracle in order thereby to countermand the influences of free causes in the course of nature and, in part, God could generally have had reasons to remain in “direct” contact with the world. Now, the latter position, in part, presupposes an entirely lifeless view of divine preservation; in part, it presupposes an overall contrast between indirect and direct activity in God, which contrast cannot be conceived without lowering Supreme Being into the sphere of limited intelligence. The first position almost sounds as if free causes were not also objects of divine preservation—and indeed, they are objects of divine preservation, just as the concept of preservation also implies the concept of creation, in such a way that they are both included and sustained within all that is absolutely dependent on God. That is to say, if free causes thus came to be and are sustained, then for God there can no more arise a necessity to countermand their influences than to countermand the influences that one power of nature that has no will exercises on the area of another one. Neither, however, does anyone understand by the world that is the object of divine preservation the mechanism of nature alone; rather, this world includes the intertwining of this mechanism and freely acting beings, with the result that each of the two is inclusive of the other.
Furthermore, the biblical miracles, for the sake of which this whole theory has been set forth, are much too isolated and encompass too little in their content to have a usable theory in relation to them, a theory that has posed for these miracles the task of restoring what free beings would have altered in the mechanism of nature. Rather, only one miracle, the sending of Christ,5 definitely bears the purpose of restoring6 what free causes have changed, but in their own area, not in that of the mechanism of nature and also not against the course of nature originally ordered by God. Nor does it serve the interest of piety to insist that any restorative free cause that occurs within the domain of phenomena must relate to the interconnected process of nature differently than other free causes do.7
Still, it is possible to advance two other reasons for the sake of which there can be an interest of piety in an absolute abrogation of the interconnected process of nature by miracle. Moreover, it cannot be denied that it is precisely for these reasons—even though they have never actually been set forth as ecclesial doctrine—that this notion of miracles has, nonetheless, kept at least a practical hold on many Christians. The first reason is “prayer being heard,”8 because this very act would really seem to mean something only if, on account of the prayer, an outcome ensues that is different from what would have arisen otherwise, thus an outcome wherein there appears to lie an annulling of an event that would have resulted in accordance with the interconnected process of nature. The other reason is “regeneration,”9 which tends to be presented as a “new creation” and thus, in part, may require an annulling of the same sort and, in part, may import into the interconnected process of nature a principle10 that does not comport with preserving activity.
These two subjects cannot be fully discussed at this point. However, it will suffice to remark with respect to the first subject, which has more to do with piety in general terms, that our proposition also places prayer itself under divine preservation. As a result, prayer and its fulfillment or nonfulfillment are only aspects of the same original divine ordering; consequently, to think that a “being would otherwise have been different” is simply an empty thought. As concerns the other subject, here we need only to rebuff something already mentioned above. That is to say, if God’s revelation in Christ must not be considered to be something absolutely supernatural, then Christian piety too cannot be defined in advance to hold that anything that is associated with that revelation or that emerges from it is absolutely supernatural.11
2. The closer determinations, by which the assumption of such miracles is to be brought into connection with statements and concepts that designate the total dependence of the interconnected process of nature on God, very clearly give rise to the recognition of how little that notion of miracle is required by our religious stirrings. This is so, for the more definitely these stirrings intend to establish the existence of an absolute miracle, the farther away it is from being an expression of any religious stirring and the more something of a very different stamp enters in the place of genuine dogmatic content.12
In general, this topic can be most readily surveyed if one proceeds from two observations. The first observation is the following. Since anything in relation to which a miracle would come about would be bound together with all finite causes, every absolute miracle would severely disturb the entire interconnected process of nature. The second observation is that one can look at such a miracle from two points of view: a positive one, which extends into the whole future, and a negative one, which in a certain sense affects the entire past. That is, the latter would be the case in that what would have resulted from the totality of finite causes in accordance with the interconnected process of nature would not actually occur. Thus, an effect that would have happened would be blocked, and indeed this blocking would occur not by the influx of other finite causes countering it in a natural fashion, and thus present within the interconnected process of nature, but in spite of all effectual causes working in accord to bring about this effect. Therefore, everything that ever contributed to this end would, to a certain degree, be annihilated, and instead of installing at that spot within the entire interconnected process of nature only a single supernatural event, as one would actually want to have it, one would have to cancel out the concept of “nature” entirely.
Now, the positive point of view is that something would have to result that cannot be comprehended based on the totality of finite causes. However, in that this result of an absolute miracle would enter into the inter-connected process of nature as an active component, in all future time everything would become different than it would have been if this particular miracle had not occurred. Moreover, not only would this absolute miracle annul the entire interconnected process of nature that belongs to the original ordering for all future time, but every subsequent miracle would also annul all earlier ones insofar as they had already entered into the series of effectual causes. Then, however, in order to describe the origination of what would follow, one would have to introduce the possibility of a divine influence apart from any natural causes.13 Yet, at whatever point one would also want to introduce this divine efficacious action as toward something particular—which action would always have to appear to be something magical—at that point one would conjure up a number of possible ways in which the same result could have been effected by natural causes if they had been arrayed to that end at the opportune time. The outcome would be that either one would be led to a purely epideictic14 intention behind miracles, for the sake of which God would intentionally not have arranged the interconnected process of nature in such a way that the entirety of what God wills would proceed from it—against which the above discussion concerning the relationship of omnipotence to this concept of miracle was directed. Or, if the totality of finite causes could not be arranged in this way, the outcome would be that then even what is not to be conceived as coming from the interconnected process of nature could never rightly arouse in us a feeling of the absolute dependence of all that is finite.
Now, others believe that they can more readily establish this notion of absolute miracles if from the very outset they classify divine cooperation into an ordinary type and an extraordinary type—which is only seemingly different from a subordinate type—and then they would assign the ordinary type to natural operations and the extraordinary type to supernatural operations. As a result, the negative aspect of miracle would consist in the withdrawal of ordinary cooperation.15 In contrast, the positive aspect would consist in the entry of extraordinary cooperation. On the one hand, then, ordinary cooperation would, nevertheless, no longer be ordinary if it could be withdrawn and would no longer be at all distinctly different from extraordinary cooperation. Rather, we would then call more frequent occurrences “ordinary” and rare occurrences “extraordinary,” a relationship that could just as well be reversed. Suppose, on the other hand, that miracle is still chiefly accomplished by finite causes, though by means of some divine cooperation, even if it be an extraordinary one. Even so, in that something would come to pass by finite causes that could not have come to pass in accordance with their natural constitution, alternative consequences would then follow. First, they would not be causes in this case, and then the expression “cooperation” would be incorrect. For, second, they would have become something different from what they once were, and then every such extraordinary cooperation would truly be a “creation”; after this creation the restoration of a given active thing to its original status would be a reiterated creation that would, in turn, annul the previous one.
It is not to be denied, moreover, that of these two explanations the one is more suited to one class of biblical miracles, and the other is more suited to the other class,16 and thus the different makeups of these purported events have borne significant influence on the construction of these different formulations. So, if someone should not find it easy to profess belief even in this notion of absolute miracle, one must still concede to the following. That is, first one notes that earlier theologians did hold fast to this notion of miracle, in its totality17; more recent theologians,18 however, do not want to afford exclusive currency to this hypothesis but also find it reliable to hypothesize that, in a way inconceivable to us, God would have prepared for miracles in nature itself. Thus, in the interest of piety we also have to regard this position as a real step forward.
3. Accordingly, even in relation to what is wondrous19 overall, the general interest of science,20 particularly investigations into nature, and the interest of piety appear to meet at the same point. That is, that point is where we let go of the notion of what is absolutely supernatural, because in no instance would we really know anything to be such, nor is such an acknowledgment ever required of us. Before long, in part, it will be generally agreed that because our acquaintance with created nature is only in the process of growing, we have very little grounds for holding anything to be impossible. In part, it will also be admitted, in particular, that since by far the most New Testament miracles do lie within this broader area, we can indeed also neither exactly define what the boundaries are in the fluctuation of relationship between body and mind, nor even simply assert that they are overall and always completely the same, not being able to undergo expansions or to be exposed to unsettled variations. In this way, everything remains a task for scientific investigation to tackle, even the most wondrous thing that occurs or has occurred. At the same time, however, wherever that wondrous event would stimulate religious feeling, whether on account of what it aims at or for some other reason, the value of that event would not find itself to be detracted from in any way by pointing out that some future knowledge concerning it is possible. In addition, we are entirely released from the difficult and highly dubious task on which dogmatics has so long labored in vain,21 namely, that of discovering secure marks for distinguishing false and diabolical miracles from miracles that are divine and true.
1. Naturzusammenhang. Ed. note: In this context (§§46–47) especially, this characteristic of the natural order is indicated as a “process” by the translator, simply as a reminder that for Schleiermacher this order is far from static; it is a process in which the creative-preserving activity of God is taken to be very much engaged. In earlier, introductory discussions, the two points of special importance for Christian piety were that this intricately interrelated process is, in principle, ultimately to be grasped as natural and as accessible to human reason, including whatever may be affected by human, relatively free choice. Whatever “chance” may be defined as included in this process, this sort of event is not taken to abrogate the divine ordering, in view of which ordering the feeling regarding the absolute dependence of everything on God is seen to arise.
2. Ed. note: See §14.P.S. for the introductory discussion on miracle, where the rejected notion would define miracle as an “absolutely supernatural” event. In §13.1, Schleiermacher had already explained that even “divine revelation” in Christ’s appearance, though of a uniquely general nature and bearing significance for all humanity irrespective of time and place, is not an “absolutely supernatural” event; nor (§13.2) is it an “absolutely superrational” one. The corresponding proposition in the first edition (§61, 1821) itself phrases this issue in terms of the needless notion of “absolutely supernatural” events. Regarding Christ’s life and work in this regard, see §§93.3, 99.2, and 103.1; for the same considerations regarding the Holy Spirit, see §§117.1–2, 123.2, and 124.3; on the Holy Spirit and the forming of Scripture, §130.3–4. Such discussions do presuppose “the supernatural becoming natural” but not the supernatural’s absolutely annulling or abrogating the interrelated, interwoven laws of nature.
4. See Gottlob Christian Storr (1746–1805), Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmatik (1803) §25. Redeker note: Page 319 reads: “It is very possible that God either had to have bound the interaction of natural causes to laws such that the freedom of beings possessed of reason would have done injury to them and precisely therewith would have countermanded his purpose or, if he did not will this, that the course of nature would have come to contradict his other purposes to the extent that he would not have brought them into harmony with his aims now and then through direct influences.” Ed. note: Redeker quotes from the first (1803) edition of Storr’s work. In KGA I/7.3, 635, exactly the same passage is quoted from the 2nd ed. (1813), §35, 333. [ET Tice]
5. Ed. note: Even in Christ, who is, for Schleiermacher, the greatest so-called miracle, revelation, therefore, is always about “the supernatural becoming natural,” not about breaking through the natural order. With respect to Christ, however, viewed as the completion of God’s creation of human nature (§§89, 91, 93, 98)—in this sense as the prototypical “second Adam”—we may discern two roughly distinguishable but not strictly successive phases of God’s activity in human history: a phase of “preparatory and introductory” activity before Christ appeared and a phase of spiritual “development and fulfillment” by God’s grace in Christ (§164.2). By the Conclusion, then, we can have seen that the God on whom Christians are enabled to feel absolutely dependent is the triune God, manifested only from our temporal and finite perspective in a relatively successive way as Father/Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit—expressed in three circumscribed roles, as it were, as one God (μόνος). Thus, the entire systematic presentation of faith-doctrine has been organized so as to make as clear as possible what this one divine reality is. Cf. §46n1 and n18.
6. Ed. note: Cf. §93, also §163.1 and the end of §163.P.S.1. The term here is Wiederherstellung. In §162.1 the word translated “restoration” is Wiederherbringung; both words used in these later contexts refer to a concept of ἀποκατάστασις (universal salvation).
7. Ed. note: Cf. use of the same categories for this subject in §34.2; cf. also the distinction between being absolutely dependent and relatively free, explicated in §4.
8. Gebetserhörung. Ed. note: See §§147.2 and 157.2. Implicit in the interpretation being discussed is the belief that what is asked for (petitioned) will presumably be answered in some fashion.
9. Wiedergeburt. Ed. note: Or “rebirth.” See §§106–7, also 110–11 and 118.1.
10. Prinzip. Ed. note: That is, a moving or motivating factor. On the sins and good works of the regenerate, see §74.4 and §112. The contrast referred to is between the start-off factors of creation and regeneration and the otherwise not very strictly differentiated factors of preservation and sanctification.
11. Ed. note: See §47n2 above and its immediate context.
12. Johannes Laurentius Mosheim (1694–1755), in his Elementa theologiae dogmaticae (1764) 1, §8, 462, calls the divine activity by which miracles are performed “immediate” or “nonarranged government” (gubernatio immediata or inordinata) whereby a contrast is made between miracles and God’s preserving activity, to the advantage of the latter in the second formulation but to its disadvantage in the first formulation. However, pious feeling will likewise shy away from putting something in the middle between that which is and the divine activity by which it is, just as it shies away from ascribing something to the divine activity while at the same time wanting to call it subordinate to that activity. Moreover, the expression conflicts with the general definition that Mosheim gives of government (gubernatio), that it is to be a directing of power over alien forces (direction virium alienarum), if a miracle is not to permit of being construed as based on pertinent natural forces.
Franz Volkmar Reinhard (1753–1812), in his Dogmatik (1818), 236, calls this same divine activity “extraordinary providence” and explains it in terms of “divine care in which God accomplishes some alteration or other that is quite inconsistent with the ordinary course of nature.” If one may seek opposing elements in divine care, as here, preservation would then be a lack of care, or if it is to be sought in the normal course of nature, the latter would appear as something not dependent on divine care, and pious feeling would necessarily pronounce against both. Ed. note: See KGA I/7.3, 450, for the Mosheim passage to which Schleiermacher refers.
13. The formulation that God is active in this case without being linked with any intermediate causes is, on this account, already in contradiction to our basic feeling, because therein God is presented as linked with the normal course of nature. In a hidden way, however, this very terminology, which describes natural causes as intermediate causes, is infected with the fundamental error of thinking that the dependence on God of that which happens is of the same sort as dependence on particular finite causes, only lying further back. Accordingly, then, where Storr intends to show how God can influence the world directly and alter the course of nature without abrogating natural laws (Dogmatik, 336), he, in fact, seems to represent God after the manner of a finite free cause. Ed. note: Cf. Gottlob Christian Storr (1746–1805), Dogmatik (1803), 320.
14. Ed. note: In rhetoric, discourse for mere show or mere persuasion, not strictly a result of reasoning.
15. Johann Andreas Quenstedt (1617–1688), Theologia didactico-polemica, sive systema theologicum (1685–1690), Tome 1.c, 760: “If God removes his concurrent action, the action of creation stops.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles.
16. Friedrich Nathanael Morus (1736–1792) puts the distinction this way: “For indeed, mention is made of natural support, or such mention is indeed made but the thing was done with the word having preceded it.” See Morus’s Commentarius exegetico-historicus (1797–1798), Tome 1, 98f. Ed. note: ET Kienzles.
17. Johann Franz Buddeus (1667–1729), Theses theologicae (1717), 291: “Operations that, in truth, are the laws of nature, by which the order and preservation of all this world are supported, are suspended.” According to Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274), Summa theologica (1772–1774), 1, q.10, a. 4: “It is for this reason that a miracle is defined as an event that happens outside the ordinary processes of the whole of created nature.” Ed. note: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Latin text and ET in Charlesworth (1970), 17.
18. See Reinhard, Dogmatik (1818), 238, to see how the expression “ordinary course of nature,” adduced above, was already prudently chosen in this respect as well.—Morus treats of the matter in the same sense, albeit superficially, in his Commentarius (1797) Part 1, 97f.
19. Das Wunderbare. Ed. note: In German usage, this is usually a broader concept than that of the absolutely miraculous, referring rather to what is wondrous, wonderful, marvelous, amazing, or astounding.
20. Ed. note: Wissenschaft, then Naturforschung. Cf. §17, which articulates the twofold interest in dogmatics as “scientific” and “ecclesial,” the latter interest focusing on piety.
21. Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), Loci (1610–1625, ed. 1764) 23, §271. Ed. note: Apparently, Schleiermacher has derived some of the positions examined under this proposition from this source, or he has found them to be conveniently cataloged there.
§48. Stirrings belonging to self-consciousness that express restraints against life are to be located completely within absolute dependence on God, just as much as are those that express some promotion of life.1
1. This proposition has actually to do with the contrast between cheerful and troubled elements of life. However, it follows so immediately from our main proposition,2 or rather lies so completely contained within it, that we would have had no occasion at all to set it forth as something special if long experience had not taught us otherwise. This experience tells us that, at all times, incomplete piety has found it difficult to unite the presence of more troubled and unhappy elements of life with God-consciousness, whether it then be because such piety is itself overwhelmed by restraints of life or because such piety is entangled in presentations that are skeptical or do not apply to faith. This experience also tells us that, on this account, almost every teaching about religion, thus also especially almost every presentation of faith-doctrine, has had to undertake the special task of depicting how these two states can be reconciled. Usually, pursuit of this task has ended up in faulty complaisance regarding those deficient stirrings of mind and heart.
This overly pliable effort has taken the form, in part, of coming to the defense of Supreme Being concerning the presence of such conditions of life and, in part, as may be, of granting some alteration in the feeling of absolute dependence with reference to these same conditions of life. Here it is thus fitting only to protest against two things: both against falsification of the feeling of absolute dependence and against the overly pliant and unclear treatment of it, so that provision of a full and simple conception of this basic feeling does not run into danger.
Now, suppose that troubled conditions of life were to come about only in isolated fashion, however frequently, and in such a way that no inter-connection among them could be detected. In that case, they could hardly have brought about such an effect. Instead, this effect depends on there being conditions that carry with them a constant, regularly renewed consciousness of life’s restraints. These restraints are then what we are accustomed to designate by the word “evil.”3 Moreover, it is thus all evils, in the entire scope covered by the word, of which it is to be asserted that they relate to absolute dependence of everything on God in the same way as does their opposite, namely, all good. Obviously, however, we must also count wickedness under the category “evils,” for everywhere that wickedness is, it shows itself to be an inexhaustible source of life’s restraints—except that here we are to consider it not as human activity but as a human condition. Hence, whereas later on, in a different mode of reflection, we will have occasion to treat of evil in ways it connects with wickedness,4 here, in reverse order, wickedness is to be reckoned as subsumed under the category of “evil.” Thus, at this point it is to be considered apart from ethical reflection, and it appears simply in its existence as a condition that influences self-consciousness as a restraint on life. As a result, after this matter has been discussed here it will not be lifted out for any further separate treatment.
Meanwhile, another classification of evil does exist, one, however, that we need also to bear in mind only to a certain extent. That is, just as we claim that what is evil and what is good are equally grounded in dependence of everything on God, likewise it would become clear that in this same respect there would be no difference, in any case, between two kinds or classes of evil that are spoken of. The one kind, which is comprised of those conditions in which human existence is partially done away with, we call “natural evils.” The other kind, which we call “social evils,” is comprised of those conditions in which a given human activity is partially overcome in conflict with some other human activity, and to these activities the influence of wickedness also belongs above all else.
Patently, however, not only do these two kinds of evil lead reciprocally to each other, in that when human existence is diminished, human activity is all the more easily overcome and in that when an overcoming of human activity occurs, this always has a diminishing effect on the whole of human existence. It is also true, accordingly, that conceptually they also elide into each other, since human existence is comprised, nonetheless, of the totality of human activities and vice versa. Hence, the distinction between these two kinds of evil consists, first and foremost, in the fact that the one kind is predominantly determined by the totality of natural forces, the other kind by the overall condition of human activities.
2. Now, in order to fulfill our task within the prescribed limits, we are not at all required to delve deeply into teleological reflections or to look over and beyond the concept “evils” to what might perchance be effected by them and—something that cannot ever be proven in any case—that it could not have been effected in any other way. We have no more reason to move backward from the concept “preservation” to that of “creation,” or beyond it, in order to show perchance that evils would have been unavoidable. Rather, remaining quite strictly within our domain, we have only to demonstrate the compatibility of certain processes, which might seem at first to be opposed to each other, once they are viewed in terms of the dependence of everything on God.
Now, in this perspective, two points are to be made regarding the two kinds of evil. The first point refers to the relationship of what is changing and transitory to what is persistent in all finite being. To what is transitory then also belong all individual beings, first in the form of a progressive development of life up to a certain peak but from then on a gradually diminishing activity of life until death. Regarded in large scale, all circumstances that condition the individual development just mentioned stir up consciousness of a life in process of advancement; and, in reverse, all that fosters coming nearer to death is conceived as a restraint on life. Thus, an incidental shift also exists between the two processes all through the life course of an individual.
Clearly, it is the same overall human relationship with nature, on the one hand, that conditions both advancements of life and restraints on life, with the result that the one process cannot exist without the other process. The same is true, on the other hand, of the social domain, where, for example, a later formation of life held in common could also not grow and expand without some earlier formation’s being pushed back and degenerating. As a result, since each is a form of life, even here advancements of life and restraints on life are conditioned by each other.
The second point refers to the relationship between what is only relatively existent, in and of itself, and the corresponding reciprocal conditionality of what is finite. That is, there is nothing absolutely isolated in anything finite. Thus, everything finite subsists, in and of itself, only insofar as other finite being is conditioned by it, and everything finite is conditioned by other finite being only insofar as it also subsists in and of itself. Then, however, another finite being is conditioned by me only if it can be advanced in some fashion only by me, which implies, at the same time, that it is also possible for me to bear a restraining influence. Moreover, the entire relationship between the two of us comes into consciousness only inasmuch as both parties come into consciousness and indeed as they are subsumed under both forms—that of being posited in and of oneself and that of being conditioned by another. Consequently, restraints on life are arranged5 by God just as much as are advancements of life.
Now, in the same way this very claim is true regarding personal feeling as regarding sympathy and feeling held in common.6 Thus, short of some far-reaching misconception, no one can find difficulty in positing even what appears to oneself to be an evil—whether it be one’s own evil, another’s evil or an evil held in common—to be present as a result of actual absolute dependence, and, consequently, to be arranged by God. That is to say, if one were not to make this claim, one would nowhere want or be able to take what is transitory and conditioned to exist by God—that is, one would not at all want or be able to conceive of any world as dependent on God—and thus our main proposition would itself also be denied.
Now, this misconception rests, in the first place, on people’s conceiving actual conditions apart from the way they are naturally combined. This misconception is then also enhanced by people’s erroneously depicting those influences from which enduring restraints on life emerge as if they comprised a special, self-contained sphere, thus could be isolated and eliminated—in short, as if the world could exist without evil. However, the truth of the matter is rather this: that the very same activity or constitution of a thing whereby it might enter into human life as an evil, on the one hand, could also work for good, on the other hand. As a result, if someone wanted to take away that from which restraints on life emerge, conditions for advancements of life would then be missing as well. This is the case even of human wickedness, which does indeed work simply as evil to the extent that it appears in some external deed. Moreover, this is truly the case not only incidentally—that is, because human wickedness sometimes has a beneficent effect on individuals and sometimes produces historical leverage—but also in an entirely general sense, in that human wickedness becomes a specific deed only by virtue of that capacity of human beings to step out with one’s inner being,7 by virtue of which capacity all that is good is actually brought about.
Now, in the second place, however, it is likewise possible to claim in general terms that within the general interconnectedness of nature—even in that from which most advancements of life proceed—evil can, in turn, also be present nevertheless. It can be present in any aspect whatsoever, precisely by means of that factor whereby something can also be helpful—which can be said of all natural forces and of all social circumstances that arise from the exercise of intelligence, though it cannot even approximately be said of intelligence itself. Thus, in another sense, it can be completely correct to say that evil, in and of itself, is not, as such, arranged by God. The reason is that no evil is ever present in pure isolation, and the same thing is true of things that are good. Rather, everything is arranged by God so that it can be either one.8
Now, what is implied above all for our domain9 is this: that when a restraint on life, as such, completely and exclusively fills some element of life, this constitutes a deficiency in self-consciousness, whether it is then a deficiency of immediate self-consciousness or a deficiency belonging to the activities of objective consciousness. Likewise, moreover, when the causality for such restraints is posited as the actual nature of some object or other that stands in dependence on God, this constitutes a faulty mode of reflection. Further, even the latter kind of deficiency disappears as development of what is good increases, just as every evil passes over into what is itself good—that is, into a receptivity of sensory self-consciousness overall for union with God-consciousness.
3. Customary definitions of good and evil that seek to shed light on this subject within the doctrinal loci of divine preservation and cooperation might indeed seem to hold the above fulfillment of our task in mind, but they actually end up far short of the goal. That is, for this purpose some distinguish, in part, a divine cooperation that is helpful from a divine cooperation that is not helpful and, in part, a divine cooperation that is simply of a material nature from one that is also of a formal nature. Now, originally these expressions seem to have been gauged chiefly to the contrast between good and evil. Moreover, for evil, divine cooperation would neither be helpful or of a material nature. Yet, apart from the considerations that “cooperation” and “help” are inseparable notions and that nothing definite can be discerned in a cooperation that is not helpful, we might also observe the following. First, if we are talking about divine cooperation in activity, there is no such thing as an activity that has no form—consequently, there is also no cooperation that is instigated for the purpose of activity that has not cooperated with respect to its form. As a result, a cooperation that is of a purely material nature would amount to nothing other than a divine preservation without divine cooperation, and by this means all activities that are described in this way would thus be set outside the relationship of absolute dependence.
Hence, second, in accordance with those two formulations that have been proposed, if what is good is still taken to be accomplishable only with helpful divine cooperation or also with access to formal cooperation, whereas evil is taken to be accomplishable without either one, then what is humanly wicked would appear to be stronger and mightier than what is good.
Apart from all this, I would only say that on these grounds there can be no talk, in this locus of doctrine, of any human wickedness considered, purely internally, to be a disposition identifiable prior to any actual deed. This is so, because, so conceived, this supposed evil could not even bestir one’s own self-consciousness, much less then bestir anyone else’s. However, if we consider evil to be active in nature, then it also follows that not only are all humanly wicked actions done by means of the natural forces of human beings, but they are also done in a manner appropriate to them, just as good actions are. As a result, there remains no basis for making such a distinction.10
Now, if it is posited that all social evils would be interconnected with human wickedness in some way or other, the distinction just indicated would not be applicable to social evil in any way. Yet, how would the distinction relate to natural evils? Since destructive events are precisely the strongest expressions of natural forces, they would thus have less capacity to occur without helpful cooperation than would other events. Moreover, they would have no more capacity to occur without cooperation of a formal sort than would any other events, in that no distinctive form can be attributed to them.
Thus, suppose that the intention moves right on to the claim that inasmuch as some cooperation would already be assumed, evil too is to be placed under dependence on God, but that inasmuch as the cooperation involved would not be helpful or would be only of a material sort, God is not to be taken to be the author of evil. Then, strictly speaking, this intention would not be achieved at all.
Accordingly, it would appear to be more properly informative if it were said that, without exception, all that is real occurs by means of divine cooperation and that this cooperation can suffer no diminution, but also that all evil—including human wickedness, as such—is based in some sheer lack11 and that no divine cooperation can extend to such a thing as a partial nonbeing. That is, suppose that every finite thing is of such and such a size, arranged by God with its own dimensions at the same time. It would not be posited thereby that a given thing would exercise activities that lie beyond what its dimensions could accommodate. Rather, divine cooperation would be missing as regards any such activities, and, consequently, against external influences this thing could also mount no resistance that would extend beyond the thing’s dimensions. However, restraints would not arise from the fact that resistance could not be mounted, against which divine cooperation would be missing in any case. Rather, they would arise from the fact that the thing is attacked in a manner that surmounts its capacity to resist, for which situation of attack, divine cooperation would, nevertheless, be at hand.12
Thus, nothing remains except, on the one hand, to relate divine cooperation in proper proportion13 to everything that occurs and, on the other hand, to assert that, in and of themselves, evils are not arranged by God but are arranged only as a co-condition of what is good and only in relation to what is good.
1. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “The same placement of what is pleasurable and what is unpleasurable. This proposition actually has more within the ethical aspect [of dogmatics]. Because God is love, which is taken to be what is good, some believe that God’s activity could not be the same [in relation to each of the two aspects]” (Thönes, 1873).
2. §46.
3. Übel.
4. Böse. Ed. note: Alternatively, Böse (“wickedness”) is sometimes translated “human evil,” in contexts where other supposed entities (the devil, nonhuman spirits) are not entertained as possible agents of wickedness. Human wickedness is not restricted to a domain of experience that some thinkers identify as “moral.” Rather, it covers the entire scope of more or less “bad” (vs. more or less “good”) behavior in human life, both individual and collective, moral, intellectual, and all that can be termed “spiritual.” In Schleiermacher’s view, all of this behavior is examined by “ethics.” Below see esp. §§66–77.
5. Ed. note: geordnet. Schleiermacher tends to use other words for a direct order, arrangement, or determination by God; this ordering is of the general scheme of things. The closest theological concept is göttliche Weltregierung (“divine government”—or governance—“of the world”). The word “ordered” could be used but is suggestive of distinct command (Befehl); “ordained” also suggests a separately special act.
6. Ed. note: The three terms are persönliche Gefühl, Mitgefühl, and Gemeingefühl.
7. Ed. note: The phrase is mit seinem Inneren hervorzutreten. This literally means to “exist,” really to “be” precisely “there” (Dasein), above all to have “an existential relationship” (ein Existentialverhältnis) with what is outside oneself. Cf., notably, the inner-outer dialectic expressed in the second discourse of On Religion. To see how this schema works in Schleiermacher’s Christian Ethics, see Hermann Peiter’s 2000 essay “Hinaus! On Going Out, Getting Out, Moving Out: What Does Schleiermacher Mean by ‘an Immediate Existential Relationship’?” in Peiter (2010), 350–433. See also Peiter’s edition of Schleiermacher’s 1826/27 lectures, Christliche Sittenlehre (2011).
8. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note here states: “Nota bene: This is a canon for ethics” (Thönes, 1873). That is, this entire paragraph, especially after “correct to say,” is a basic principle for the sake of the other aspect of dogmatics: his Christian Ethics. This is a key instance of ways in which the first aspect provides understandings of use for the second aspect. In this respect, his Christian Ethics is likewise designed to provide canons that illuminate Christian Faith-Doctrine (this work.) These two works are thus meant to be largely complementary.
9. Ed. note: That is, dogmatics.
10. Ed. note: Here the unnecessary distinction seems to be that between natural and active human wickedness (Böse).
11. Mangel. Ed. note: Hence the traditional term “shortcoming” and the earlier translation of Unvollkommenheit as “deficiency.” Here occasionally the adjectival form unvollkommen is translated (more literally) “incomplete” or “uncompleted” to render the same meaning. “Deficient” would also work, “defective” less so, because it suggests something organically permanent or a pattern so deep-seated that it cannot be altered or improved but can be only overlooked or forgiven or substituted for by divine fiat.
12. Ed. note: That is, divine cooperation would be at hand, based on this analysis. To what extent it would actually be present and on what grounds it would be active and efficacious remain to be specified.
13. Ed. note: Here gleichmäßig (“in proper proportion”) does not mean exactly the same in every instance but commensurate to each situation, equally applied, and not so as to disturb the natural order that God has arranged and continues to preserve. All these characteristics are yet to be laid out in full, as is the task of distinguishing, as far as may be possible without improper speculation, between God’s flexibility and constancy in relation to the natural processes of development and in the “supernatural becoming natural” in the process of redemption.
§49. Whether that which stirs our self-consciousness and, as a consequence, influences us is to be traced back to some aspect of the so-called “mechanism of nature” or to the activity of free causes, either one is completely arranged for by God, each no less than the other.
1. In and of itself, this proposition is simply an expression of a fact that is surely generally granted: that we feel ourselves to be absolutely dependent on God no less when something happens to us by virtue of the actions of other human beings than in any other case. Thus, this proposition is likewise already fully contained in the main proposition of this second point of doctrine.1 It is set forth in particular, moreover, only as an elucidation for the purpose of guarding against a not infrequent mistake—namely, that consciousness of our free will is taken to be incompatible with the feeling of absolute dependence. Furthermore, consciousness of our free will2 chiefly concerns only the effect of free actions, above all in the lives of others but then, to be sure, in our own life as well.
Now, suppose that however much freedom might consist in determination of one’s will and in one’s resolve, then, nevertheless, action will always arise directly by means of whatever is already given from outside oneself. Thus, action would be codetermined in such a way that it comes to be what it becomes only as it belongs to that same general interconnectedness which is the actually indivisible object of the feeling of absolute dependence. Moreover, this feeling would lose its significance within the entire domain of history if we wanted to think of free causes as excluded from that interconnected whole. Instead, we have now reached the very place to set forth in its full value what was already stated on this matter more incidentally earlier.3 Here, however, we notice that precisely because free causes join in forming the interconnectedness of everything, we also have to be able to say the same thing regarding the element called “action” itself and regarding the self-consciousness that accompanies it. In this sense, moreover, already in our initial explanations,4 the basic feeling was also discussed in terms of how the feeling of relative freedom and the feeling of absolute dependence exist interwoven within and alongside each other, with the result that the latter feeling could not endure at all if the former feeling were not present.
As concerns the element “action,” let us then proceed from the fact that every other free agent would have taken action somewhat differently in the same given locale than does any free agent who is actually found to be there, just as surely as the latter free agent would act differently in some other locale, and proceed from the fact that in no matter what locale any given free agent might exist, this process would still be grounded in the interconnectedness of everything. Thus, no one can doubt that even the effects of free actions occur by virtue of one’s absolute dependence. Further, as concerns one’s accompanying self-consciousness, it is surely to be said that we are capable of having the feeling of absolute dependence only as we freely initiate our own activity. This implies, moreover, that we are conscious of our freedom as something received and gradually developed within the interconnectedness of everything. Thus, even in every religious element of freely self-initiated activity, self-consciousness must combine both features: the feeling of absolute dependence and the feeling of relative freedom.
Now, in our proposition the term “free causes” obviously involves a distinction between freedom, on the one hand, and causality in general, on the other hand, and it presupposes causes that are not free. Yet, free actions are still taken to be causes. In contrast, within the usual notion of a general mechanism of nature, there would be, strictly speaking, no causality whatsoever, except that of free causes. This is so, for people imagine thereby a coexistence and interaction among such things that only to the extent that they themselves are moved do they move in turn. On this basis, moreover, in its operation5 each of these things could then be regarded only as a point of transition. As a result, the term “causality” would then apply only to an initial moving force outside this domain. That is, in terms of this notion, with the exception of free causes, there could be no causality at all within the finite domain, but besides these free causes there would be only a free, infinite cause—namely, divine causality, which is depicted as originally placing that entire domain in motion by an initial push.
Now, suppose that someone were to corral all subordinate life, that of animal and vegetative life, within this mechanism of nature. Then, according to this notion, apart from this subordinate life there could be no talk of a life generally shared among various world bodies. As a consequence, based on this notion, free causes—which, for us who actually live in this world, would be those of human beings—would comprise the sole finite causality. It would take only one further step to restrict causality to divine causality alone—namely, to hold that human beings would also regard themselves to be only a part of this mechanism of nature, and they would treat consciousness of self-initiated activity simply as an irremediable illusion. As has already been shown, this move, however, would annihilate the feeling of absolute dependence and all piety along with it.
Fortunately, however, only a few persons have ever been ready to perform this self-annihilating renunciation, also sacrificing themselves to the integrity of this mode of forming notions after they have killed off the rest of the living world. That is to say, by this mode all finite causality would be reduced to mere illusion, thus no reason would be left even for regarding any particular finite being as enduring in and of itself at all, thus to remain more at some given points than at other points within this general process of change from being moved to moving, in turn. Rather, everything would be regarded either as indivisibly one or as an unquantifiable mass of isolated points of transition, namely, atoms.
Now, suppose that, at the same time, we do attribute to ourselves free causality along with absolute dependence but also, nonetheless, attribute some causality to all living things, just as surely as we posit each living thing as something that endures in and of itself. Suppose, moreover, that a total lack of freedom exists only where each thing, without moving itself, moves, in turn, only to the extent that it is moved. Then we would be able to regard the causality of living things simply as a diminished freedom. Moreover, we would have to say that true causality exists only where there is life, but that a total lack of freedom exists only where there is also a total lack of causality. This would be so, in that the impetus that would set what is lifeless into motion, so that it could move, in turn, would always proceed from what is alive.
Now, our proposition also does not use the term “mechanism of nature” as its own, because we would simply not be right to trace anything that stirs our self-consciousness, and thus bears an influence on us, back to some mechanical force—that is, to anything that works only as a point of transition. However, to inquire as to how far the domain of true causality extends, thus also that of life, and to get into how the true cause is to be discovered in each case—these are investigations that lie outside our area of inquiry. Our self-consciousness, however, is a different matter. Insofar as our self-consciousness is that of finite being—and insofar as we are able to distinguish within it between the feeling of partial freedom and the feeling of partial dependence, on the one hand, viewing the two as belonging together, and, on the other hand, between those two feelings and the feeling of absolute dependence, itself viewed as embracing both—every stirring of our self-consciousness requires some finite causality within the domain defined by the general interconnectedness of nature. This causality, viewed as an event within that domain, is likewise included within the state of absolute dependence.
That is to say, the feeling of absolute dependence would not remain ever the same under the following condition. Suppose that there would indeed be a domain, namely, that of “natural causes,” in which finite and divine causality would be compatible but there would also be two other domains: on the one hand, a domain of “mechanical”—or, rather, that of seeming—“causes,” where only divine causality would hold sway but finite causality would not occur, but, on the other hand, also a domain of “free causes,” where only finite causality would hold sway but divine causality would not occur. To be sure, a correlative of this situation, however, would be that in relation to absolute dependence no strict contrast would be assumed between freedom and natural necessity within finite being as a whole. This would be the case, for the following reason: Suppose that something that endures only in and of itself really exists, even if it were to have no part in mental life, yet, in some sense or other it would move itself. Even then, the range of its freest causation would be arranged by God.
2. Now, in the dogmatic language that prevails today, precisely this position is expressed, in part, by the concept “preservation” and, in part, by the concept “cooperation.” The most used formulation of the first sort is that God would preserve every single thing just as it is, thus also preserve free causes, as such. We can rediscover in this formulation everything that has been established here—namely, that without prejudice to absolute dependence, itself designated by means of the term “preservation,” the activities of free beings are, nevertheless, determined from within themselves. If considered only in and of itself, however, this last formulation might well be open to the complaint that it seems, in a superficial manner, more to obscure than really to resolve the inherent difficulty that has been identified.
In a similar manner, in using the concept “cooperation” people distinguish between a cooperation after the manner of free causes and another cooperation after the manner of natural causes.6 At the very least, however, this term “cooperation” needs to be employed with great caution, lest the differences that exist within finite being be transferred over to Supreme Being itself, with the result that God is actually made to be the embodiment of these differences. This result might be difficult for one to be able to distinguish from the pantheistic view. What is meant, however, could be simply that in each case God cooperates in activities that are proper to the nature of the caused thing, yet only in accordance with God’s own causality, which is entirely different from that which lies within the domain wherein reciprocal activity occurs.
Postscript to this Point of Doctrine. It was granted that these two additional propositions are actually contained already in the main proposition of this point of doctrine. It was advisable to set them forth separately, nonetheless, for two reasons.
First, it was advisable to do so, because it is quite easy to set forth definitions concerning these subjects that blur the proper relationship between creation and preservation. This happens with what is miraculous when people depict it as purely supernatural, since in this manner an act of creation is taken to arise after the original creation, which creation would partially suspend the process of preservation and would thus partially stand in opposition to it. The same thing happens when people think that evils have been less arranged for by God than other things, because then among things that God has actually created just as much as God has created other things, God would indeed be leaving some things in the lurch more than other things. Finally, the same thing happens when people contrast free causes with natural causes so much that in their efficacy free causes would appear to be less dependent on God. That is to say, then, in part, they would have their efficacy from elsewhere, since likewise they do, nevertheless, have their existence from God. Consequently, here too a disparity is put in place between creation and preservation.
Second, here, above all, it was important to show what harmony exists between moral interest, on the one hand, and the interest of piety and scientific interest, on the other hand. That is, moral interest would always have to be endangered or, on its part, would have to endanger religious interest if absolute dependence were conceived in such a way that free self-determination could not continue to exist along with it and vice versa. In contrast, scientific interest is twofold: that of research into nature and that of historical study. By any assumption regarding absolutely supernatural events amid the course of nature, inquiry into nature would find itself to be so constrained that it could not be referred back to anything. Historical study has to do, above all, with the contrast between good and evil, so that, given the way in which the two would show themselves to be intertwined, it would have necessarily to become fatalistic. That is, it would have to relinquish reference to the idea of what is good if evil were not taken to be arranged for by God at all, or were taken to be only less so than good, viewed as the opposite of evil.
Our two propositions, however, preserve their purely dogmatic contents chiefly by the fact that they are entirely contained in the main proposition. For the same reason, moreover, they do not slide over into the domain of speculation in any way, despite the various relations that we have discussed. The relationship to the main proposition that they hold in common, which does not everywhere lie on the surface in equal measure, is the following. In the area it covers, each of the two propositions sets forth things of greatest and least magnitude, and, in showing that the feeling of absolute dependence relates equally to both extremes, then establishes this equivalence as the rule governing religious expression.7
The contrast between what is usual and what is miraculous has been traced back to what is greatest and least in the course of nature, based on which each of them, respectively, has had to be explained.8 Then the contrast between good and evil was traced back to what is greatest and least, respectively, within the harmony of general reciprocal activity in its relation to the enduring-in-and-of-itself of each particular. Further, the contrast between freedom and mechanism was traced back to what is greatest and least, respectively, within individualized life. Hence, it has had to be shown that if the equivalence would be invalidated at any of these points of comparison, then the main proposition regarding this point of doctrine would itself also be invalidated, and neither the conditioned feeling of dependence nor the conditioned feeling of freedom could then ever be compatible with the feeling of absolute dependence. No difficult cases are to be detected besides these.9
1. Ed. note: Throughout §§46–49 (regarding divine preservation), the “main proposition” referred to is §46.
2. Ed. note: Whether there would, in fact or indeed, be some degree of free will in nonhuman animals or other living species is a question that Schleiermacher tends to refer to physical science and the philosophy of physical science. His focus is on human phenomena that are a matter of the human psyche and, at base, comprise a subject for psychology and other studies of a relatively nonphysical, “ethical” sort. The psyche, or body-mind, of human beings is, for him, always a combination of mental functioning (not by wholly separable faculties, counter to faculty psychologists of his time) and of generally physical plus specifically bodily functioning.
Thus, on this earth the sensory consciousness and self-consciousness of human beings are always components in one’s mental functioning to some degree. The more developed one’s religious consciousness, moreover, the less impact of merely sensory factors would be and the more nearly completely would spirit (Geist, also the word for “mind”) function of itself, including the “common spirit” (Gemeingeist) of a community of faith. Thus, someone might suppose that other animals might possess a feeling of partial freedom and of partial dependence. In Schleiermacher’s reasoning, however, it would seem to be impossible for any nonhuman animal to have the feeling of absolute dependence, applied, as it can come to be in monotheistic faith and especially in Christianity, to the entire interconnected process of nature (Naturzusammenhang).
All of these considerations have already been presented in the Introduction to this work and further elaborated in Part One, though not in the closely interrelated fashion that consideration of “the original perfection of humanity” requires in the present proposition.
5. Wirksamkeit. Ed. note: Or in its “efficient” causation, as distinguished from a “first” or “final” cause.
6. Concursus ad modum causae liberae and ad modum causae naturalis. Ed. note: These Latin phrases are equivalent to the distinction between two kinds of cooperation that Schleiermacher makes here. Cf. the quotation from Storr in §47n4.
7. Ed. note: Here “religious expression” translates religiösen Ausdruck.
8. Ed. note: This first treatment is presented in §47. The next two are presented in §48 and §49, respectively. Just below, the “main proposition” is §46.
9. Ed. note: That is, three equivalences, equations, are present just above, each naming comparative concepts on a sliding scale between two end points (greatest and least). If these equations, as it were, hold firm and are not invalidated, Schleiermacher holds that no other serious problems should arise. In each case, all items for the entire scale are taken by him to be compatible with one’s being absolutely dependent in relation to God and with one’s feeling so.