Section 62-169d

§73. In all human beings actual sin is continually issuing from original sin.

(1) Philipp Melanchthon (1492–1560), Loci praecipi theologici (1543–1559): “Actual sins are always accompanied by original sin.”¹

(2) Augustine (354–430), Against Julian (427) III.5: “This law … which is in the members … remains in the mortal flesh, … because it produces desires against which the faithful struggle.”²

1. This proposition is to be understood in its broadest generality,⁴ in that in no way do we acquit even Christ of actual sin other than inasmuch as we also extract him from the interconnected process of human beings’ general susceptibility to sin. Within this broadest general range, however, Christ is an expression of our Christian self-consciousness. This is the case, for in oneself everyone knows Christ’s exclusion from the general rule. Each one knows all the more surely the more vivid one’s picturing of the Redeemer to oneself is, that one is not free of sin oneself, not for an instant. Yet, it is not one’s own personal distinctiveness that affords one this view. Rather, one knows this in a general way, insofar as one is a constituent part of humanity as a whole. That is, one knows this general characteristic by way of one’s self-consciousness, itself widened to one’s species-consciousness, consequently knowing this of every other person just as well as of oneself. This consciousness, moreover, refers back to humankind’s general susceptibility to sin, though it is itself simply a view of that susceptibility from another perspective. That is to say, the tendency toward sinning, which we conceive as both internal and lasting, would not be anything real unless it were also constantly occurring and, conversely, unless such appearing were simply something adhering to us from outside us. Thus, the tendency toward sinning would be no sin at all unless it were to be a part of the appearance and temporal emergence of original sin. Furthermore, just as all that has been laid out in defining original sin has to appear somewhere or other after the measure of its varied distribution among human beings, so it has also to have some part in every movement that occurs within every human being in which it exists, and it has to turn something in each movement that occurs into an actually appearing sin. The result is that within the entire domain of sinful humanity⁵ there is no single entirely and perfectly good action, no pure action presenting the force of God-consciousness, and there is no entirely pure element in which something or other would not, nevertheless, stand all the same, in some hidden contradiction to God-consciousness.

2.6 Suppose that someone wanted to restrict actual sin to cases in which our susceptibility to sin breaks forth in deeds issuing from what is human, up to and including outwardly in a manner that is also perceptible. Such an account would not correspond to this general consciousness at all. That is to say, this account would always depend on external conditions that have been quite distinguishable from conditions that occasion a clearly identifiable state of being susceptible to sin. Now, just as these latter states, called external temptations, can also call forth only internal movements within human beings, which are already prepared for within the personal existence of particular individuals,⁷ just so sinfulness in one’s given state cannot depend in any further fashion on whether circumstances might favor or disfavor external emergence of sin.

Now, suppose that we are at once mindful regarding that original sus-ceptibility to sin, from which all actual sin proceeds, as the collective deed and collective fault of the human race, yet not the same and not uniformly among individuals under the conditions of time and space but distributed unequally. Then, what this statement means is only this much: that in one individual one given sin readily comes to the fore, another sin arises less often, whereas in another individual the description would be in the reverse; in each case only a weaker stimulus would be needed for one given sin to arise as compared to others, in conformity with each personal natural tendency. In no way is this stimulus to be understood in such a way that it is as if, apart from the process of redemption, one or another human being would be so secured by one’s personal existence against one or another sin among the various forms of sin that one could not possibly fall into it.¹¹

1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 39; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963) 54; cf. §70n25.

2. Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church. 35 (1957), 61; Latin: Migne Lat. 44:675.

3. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 366; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 332.

4. Ed. note: Here is Schleiermacher’s marginal note for subsection 1, including the explanation that “broadest generality” refers to people’s christliches Gesamtbewußtsein: “1. Dogmatic contents: (a) The entirety of Christian consciousness; (b) Identical [Identisch] with general susceptibility to sin [Sündhaftigkeit]; (c) Throwing out the opinion that one could come to a state of sinlessness [Sündlosigkeit]” (Thönes, 1873).

5. Ed. note: Here Schleiermacher’s rare use of sündig appears in the phrase “sinful humanity” (sündigen Menschheit). In fact, Menschheit is only somewhat more frequently used, for synonyms were available to him. Here it refers to what is constitutive of all humanity thus far in human history, with the one exception of Christ’s sinless perfection.

6. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note at this point instructively begins the outline of subsection 2: “2. Compass [of these Contents]: (a) Nothing [is] strictly Transitive” (Thönes, 1873). A psychologically important point that is partially derived from grammar is embedded in the term “transitive” here. In grammar a verb or construction is transitive where its designated subject or agent moves to an object, which, in turn, is sometimes referred to as (or as it were) “external” (thus, “outer”) or expressive of the force (Kraft) of a subject or agent transitioning toward or onto an object that could be inclusive of the same but not limited to it (e.g., when the subject is “we”). The opposite force of action is called “intransitive”—that is, an action or state of the subject or agent wherein its force makes a transition not to an object but only to itself, thus an internal (“inner”) action (e.g., to exist, to seem, to huddle). This distinction is reflective of a larger category—“inner” and “outer” features—which Schleiermacher had formed by the time he introduced his analysis of religion in his discourses of On Religion (1799) and carried forth in all his subsequent thought.

7. Ed. note: Here the locution is in der Persönlichkeit der Einzelnen. In Schleiermacher’s usage, the first term always refers not to the identification of one’s “personality” but to the totality of one’s “personal existence.” The second term is used, more generally, for any “particular” item within a whole, thus to any such “individual,” or, as in this case, to a “particular individual”(human being) within the human race (species). In other grammatical contexts, he uses the Latin term Individuum within that species, on the earth or in the universe taken as a whole (Universum), and places German endings on that word to indicate dative or plural (-em, -en), apparently not the genitive (-es), where he turns to the word Einzeln, which can take all cases.

8. “An action in conflict with the law of God”—cf. the section by this title [Actio pugnans cum lege Dei] in Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559)—can surely also be termed an entirely internal movement. Ed. note: ET Tice; see this Latin subtitle in CR 21:680.

9. Ed. note: That is, in such cases of inactivity, the active condition would be called laziness or sloth.

10. Therefore, Christian self-consciousness is found to be least satisfied with definitions such as that given by Franz Volkmar Reinhard in his Dogmatik §75: “Sin is whatever causes us to stray from simply possessing true happiness.” Ed. note: ET Tice; Latin: Reinhard, Dogmatik (1818), 271.

11. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note indicates this is the second main idea of this subsection: “(b) everything is possible in each individual. Every human being is acquainted with one’s own price [Preis],” i.e., threshold for giving in to sin (Thönes, 1873).

12. Ed. note: Böse is never translated in this work other than as “human evil” or “wickedness.” In contrast, for Schleiermacher plain “evil” (Übel) is the larger category that refers to every sort of evil or ill that might befall anyone or anything anywhere, naturally including evil that is done by human beings, both to other human beings or themselves and to other things in the world, including the global environment itself. He could scarcely have imagined humans possibly doing harm elsewhere in the universe, but the principles that are involved in these definitions and that one either presented or presupposed in his writings would in no way curb or discount environmental concerns that have currency today.

13. John Calvin, Institutes (1559) 2.3.3: “Every soul is subject to such abominations.” Ed. note: ET Battles, vol. 1 (1960), 292; Latin: CR 30:212, Calvin, Opera selecta 3 (1957), 275. Here Calvin refers to Rom. 3.

§74. Irrespective of sin’s not standing in the same relationship to redemption in everyone, no differentiation of value among human beings exists in relation to sin.¹

1. In consequence of those previous accounts, all actual sins must be viewed as equal, as to both their nature and character, also as to their emergence. This is so, for every actual sin is an appearance² of the general susceptibility to sin,³ and every actual sin is a victory of flesh over spirit, even if it is only a momentary or partial victory.

The same⁷ also obtains when we observe that sinful contents of human activities are all the greater in their amount, the more meager have been those external demands which simply needed to be surmounted. That is to say, even these factors are not the same for everyone. Rather, for someone who is more skilled at coping with them, a particular demand is comparatively meager, whereas for others it is huge and is difficult to handle. Accordingly, there are, to be sure, greater and lesser sins, but for us only in relation to the efficaciousness of redemption. Now, in this domain, moreover, ecclesial doctrine has thus tended to ban any statement affirming the equality of all sins.⁸ Yet, in and of itself, it might be possible to defend such a statement. That is to say, although the most customary classifications of sin, which do not refer to that relationship to redemption, do indeed express a differentiation among sins as to their form and process of emerging, yet they do not establish any inequality in their proper value as sins.

2.⁹ Now, suppose that we look at the differentiations among actual sins, so as to separate them into distinct groups. Then, what we encounter, first, are the two main forms that relate to the two main features of original susceptibility to sin,10 in that sometimes actual sin comes to be more of an expression of desire, sometimes more a positive darkening—that is, a defilement and obscuring of God-consciousness. We cannot entirely separate the two, because in every instance one of the two features evokes the other, for within a given whole wherein a distinct form of desire becomes predominate, an alteration or metamorphosis or transformation of Godconsciousness also soon emerges,¹¹ for the purpose of internally concealing one’s resistance to God-consciousness. Paul too sets these two features apart,¹² indicating how each reciprocally enhances the other. Suppose, moreover, that one brings to mind the two processes at their highest peak, a superstitious frenzy that heaps up all the products of idolatrous delusion, on the one hand, and a passionate frenzy of totally unrestrained desires, on the other hand. At that point, moreover, we can certainly imagine an equal measure of condemnation regarding each process. Accordingly, then, the two features would also have to be equal already in their original reciprocal effect on each other.

Even when people distinguish between intentional and unintentional sins, customarily they would hold the first to be generally greater. However, this claim would be incorrect, for insofar as unintentional sins are really still actions and are not merely consequences,¹⁵ they are either sins of incomprehension¹⁶ or of hastiness.

Now, suppose that incomprehension is to be taken as grounded in a lack in one’s prizing the value of moral 17 significance regarding our actions in general and that one’s hastiness is to be taken as grounded in a passionate tendency, of whatever kind it might be. Suppose, on the other hand, that a transient incapacity, in an instant that is especially unfavorable to one’s resisting a given sensory impulse, can be thought to be a completely isolated element, which exercises no influence beyond that instant. In that case, then, intentional sins of the latter type, namely, that of an isolated transient incapacity,¹⁸ would be lesser¹⁹ than unintentional sins of the former type would be. Now, if one of these two sins can be the greater sin in one instance and the other the greater sin in another instance, they are still equal, considered in and of themselves.

Indisputably, the most significant classification of sins among those considered in this respect is that of mortal sins and venial sins. Yet, it is very difficult to determine the meaning of this differentiation, since the expressions do not themselves contain any strict contrast. Some 20 give to them exactly the sense that is set forth in our present proposition as the sole tenable distinction, and so the only option left here would be to discuss to what extent the concept of punishment has or has not to be defined in the process of defining these two sins. Apart from taking this option, it would indeed be established by the definitions given to them that the distinction rests simply on a given agent’s relationship to redemption. Yet, this supposed agreement would, in turn, appear to vanish should it be asserted, at the same time, that those received into the interconnected process of redemption could commit mortal sins, but at the point of committing mortal sin this interconnected process of redemption would cease for them.²¹ The question as to whether this closure is to be assumed to be possible or not cannot yet be dealt with here.

Now, for all that, the possibility of being rejoined to this interconnected process of redemption should not, however, be summarily excluded.²² On the one hand, this understanding refers back to the older stipulation,²³ in accordance with which only those nonvenial sins, between the commission of which and death no rejoining of the interconnected process of redemption would have ensued, would be full-fledged mortal sins. On the other hand, this consideration does make a further distinction among venial sins necessary, in that mortal sins would also become venial sins under certain conditions, whereby the inherent distinction would then entirely disappear.

Now, suppose that we add to this mix a notion advanced by many that is called “the sin against the Holy Spirit,” a sin such that it makes any reattachment to the process of redemption impossible. In that case, instead of the simple contrast of venial and mortal sins, we would obtain the following gradation. In and of themselves, venial sins would come to be those sins of the blessed which can hardly be avoided in this life 24 and which bear their remission with them at all times.²⁵ However, all the sins of those not blessed, in cases where they have converted, as well as all intentional sins of the blessed, in cases where they have reconverted, would also be venial sins. In and of themselves, mortal sins would be those two last-mentioned sins,²⁶ in cases where one’s connection with redemption had not entered in or had not been restored, respectively. Absolute mortal sin would then be restricted to “sin against the Holy Spirit,” presupposing that the usual explanation of that concept is correct.

3. Closely observed, the various gradations of human states in relation to sin lead to the same rejection, in this sense rejection of propositions that have been taken over into presentations of faith-doctrine, in part, directly from passages in Scripture and, in part, indirectly from popular exposition of Scripture. For example, the state of freedom³³ is understood in contrast to bondage. Of itself, freedom is viewed as that state in which, if one is thinking of it in its perfect state, only venial sin, regarded in and of itself, would be held to occur anymore. This would be the case by virtue of such a sturdy and vital interconnection with the process of redemption that unintentional sins would always have lesser impact than any intentional sin would have. In contrast, the designation of bondage for the state wherein sin is predominant would presuppose that by virtue of an internally acknowledged appropriation of God-consciousness,34 a person would not carry out the demands of the flesh with complete acquiescence. Yet, suppose that one were to consider this possibility: that in consequence of its interconnection with redemption, freedom could emerge only out of bondage. Then it would also be conceivable that freedom, only gradually growing as it is exercised, would also still be blended with traces of bondage.

Now, some still do distinguish from the state of bondage the states of false security, hypocrisy, and obduracy, themselves viewed as worse. Suppose, however, that a state even worse than total bondage were introduced. At that point, that internally acknowledged appropriation of God-consciousness just mentioned would have to be silenced altogether. Yet, even in the state of freedom this very recognition of God-consciousness would itself be momentarily silenced by the sins of hastiness. Thus, only if one could regard this stilled, silenced state to be a stable one, and only if the inner voice were to have died away irrevocably, could an entirely distinctive state be grounded by this silencing process. This, moreover, would also surely be the sense of the expression obduracy,³⁵ a state that is most definitely presented in a fixed and conscious will not to effectuate one’s Godconsciousness. Yet, [only approximations] to this state can [take place].³⁶ This is the case, since a tendency toward having God-consciousness forms an integrating constituent aspect of human nature.³⁷ It does so, in that even in a defilement of this consciousness, such that human vices have been attributed to the gods, the soul would not have been entirely without any presentiment of the claim that something exists which is incompatible with God-consciousness. Suppose, however, that God-consciousness were to be regarded as having died away irrevocably,³⁸ consequently that the hardened person were considered to be wholly inaccessible to grace. This state, then, would have placed a particularistic limitation on the domain of redemption itself. Accordingly, consciousness of this law [of God]39 could fail entirely only so long as God-consciousness would not have developed, thus at a time before bondage had appeared. In the individual soul this earlier state could have been one of raw brutal existence, as at a time when the sensory aspect of that existence held sway, blocking the development of God-consciousness. However, this state too belongs to the state of bondage, for what would hold God-consciousness back would be simply the very same thing, whereby even what would already have developed would have been arrested in its capacity for effective activity.

The states of false security and hypocrisy⁴⁰ that lie between these two end points of freedom and bondage, however, do not each stand in distinctly different relationships to freedom and bondage, nor are they mutually exclusive in any sense whatsoever. Rather, they both belong to the state of bondage, and they are compatible with all the various stages of bondage, except for that secondary stage in which bondage comes to be present within some stage of freedom. Accordingly, here too all that is left is simply the contrast between freedom and bondage, which contrast expresses precisely their divergent relation to redemption.

1. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “Equality of all, irrespective of redemption” (Thönes, 1873).

2. Ed. note: Here Erscheinung (appearance) is an appearance of something now made noticeable. It is a manifestation, if only potentially to oneself. That is, it is an expression of one’s susceptibility to sin, even if still held internally, and in that full sense now made actual.

3. Sündhaftigkeit. Ed. note: This term (susceptibility to sin) suggests one’s adhering to such sin as has already come to exist around one’s life, impinging on and attracting a person, so that one can scarcely escape being complicit in some of it (original sin) or adding to it (actual sin).

4. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “1. equality of sins. A. contrasting views of the differences. (a) in accordance with the strength of God-consciousness” (Thönes, 1873).

5. Ed. note: As was explained in §73, geistige Leben (spiritual life) refers to the entire life of the human spirit, to both more passive and more active ingredients and to all parts of it as well. In Schleiermacher’s thinking, the agent of a spiritual life can also be individual or communal. Moreover, each individual is, in part, to be regarded as a representative of the entire human race, an insight that he announced first in ca. 1796, when he was a pastor, aged twenty-seven, at Landsberg an der Warthe.

6. Ed. note: Cf. §63 as well.

7. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “(b) in accordance with the strength of external demands” (Thönes, 1873).

8. (1) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 8: “We also confess that sins are not equal; although they arise from the same fountain of corruption and unbelief, some are more serious than others.” (2) Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559): “And those Stoic arguments should be detested to which some disputants pay heed, that all sins are alike.” Ed. note: (1) ET Cochrane (1972), 236; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 248. Cf. note at §37n3. (2) ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 21:680. See §32n16.

9. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “2. Critique of the formulations for differentiating of sins” (Thönes, 1873).

10. Apology Augsburg (1531) 2, from Hugo of St. Victor: “Original sin is ignorance in the mind and concupiscence in the flesh.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 116; Latin: Bek. Luth. (1930), 152.

11. Ed. note: It takes three words here to display the range of meanings obviously intended for Umgestaltung, ranging from a slight change to a major disruption or “transformation.”

12. Rom. 1:21–26.

13. §73.2. Ed. note: Clemen (1905) rightly identified “above” as this cited location in the previous proposition, not §74.1.

14. Ed. note: Proposing “an incidental” (ein zufälliger) distinction versus “an essential” (ein wesentlicher) distinction seems to apply more to what adheres to human nature as it relates only to one individual member of the human race than to what incidentally or accidentally occurs in relation to an individual’s own nature, even if the movements foreign to someone’s nature happen to be registered internally. Hence, the more or less influence on sin from what Schleiermacher calls “original sin” is not compromised by his emphasis on “actual sin” in the present context. The two kinds are themselves each more or less present in any given element of life, also at any given period of time as the process of sinning occurs. Thus, each too has a different degree of value assignable to it, respectively, both as sin and in relation to God-consciousness.

This passage can be difficult to grasp, chiefly because so many variables are being entertained, some rejected, and so many factors remain at the end of any process of sinning that it may well be difficult to disentangle them all. In accordance with Schleiermacher’s account of sin, it is possible that somewhere before or just after the process in which sin arises out of human beings’ susceptibility to sin into actual sin, God-consciousness may have weighed in heavily, or in a given element of life God-consciousness may even have ended up winning the victory. As will be seen, in the case of Jesus the Redeemer, the result of a total win, despite temptation, is called “sinlessness,” hence also “blessedness.”

More intellectual puzzles like these remain to be solved before his entire account of sin and redemption is accomplished within the whole of Part Two. Schleiermacher clearly expects that some real problems and quandaries might remain. Hopefully, none remain that cannot be left for further investigation and debate and none that would greatly affect unity in the united Evangelical Church in the German territories of his time.

15. In the latter case, they would not be sins at all, hence the rule that Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) mentioned in Loci principui theologici (1543–1559) is, accordingly, to be restricted. The rule was “Nothing is sin if it is not done voluntarily. This statement is one handed down,” he then states, “regarding civil officers. … However, this dictum is not to be transferred to evangelical doctrine on sin.” Ed. note: ET Tice; cf. the very different translation from the 1559 edition by Manschreck (1965), 81; Latin: CR 21:675. See §32n16.

16. Unwissenheit. Ed. note: This term is to be distinguished from sheer ignorance (Unkenntnis), in that these terms denote some lack in knowing something (wissen) or in having some acquaintance with something (kennen), respectively. If both terms describe general states, sinful or not, then two examples of sin could be: (a) willful refusal to be open to grasp elements of redemptive process where some element or other is plain to see, and (b) rash misappropriation of an element of the redemptive process. In contrast, sheer nonwillful ignorance would mean having no opportunity to sin either way—that is, a simple lack of knowing or being acquainted with something, whether intentionally or not.

17. Ed. note: Here “moral” means “customary conduct” in all areas of life, not in some separable “moral” part of it, as is made clear throughout his Christliche Sittenlehre (1826–1827). See Hermann Peiter’s first German edition of these lectures (2011), and see the German text and the Tice/Lawler ET of Peiter’s essay “Why Does Schleiermacher Take the Term ‘Sittenlehre’ Not to Be ‘Wholly Accurate’? Against the Confusion of Theological Ethics with Church Statistics” (1968, 1975, 2006), in Peiter’s collected essays on Christliche Ethik bei Schleiermacher / Christian Ethics according to Schleiermacher (2010), 51–99.

18. Ed. note: Here vorsätzliche Sünden (“intentional sins”) might seem to be a strange relation to “hastiness” or “hastiness” to be in a strange relation to “incomprehension.” However, the more nearly literal use of “premeditated” for vorsätzlich could more clearly identify what is meant in this context, among the many meanings for this word, and what is still used for various purposeful activities. This would be true especially if a sinful purposeful activity is unintentional and is stopped in midstream, as in the case Schleiermacher suggests here. The implicit question is How quickly could these activities be halted or sped up before they would become full-blown actions, conduct, or behaviors, all of which would bear an unavoidable “influence” either on one’s own self, internally or externally speaking, or elsewhere. Thus, the case imagined offers an instantaneous sin in one’s capacity for knowing (Wissen) that is so minimally exercised that it is minuscule compared with any example of intentional “hasty action,” which presumably has to be directed outward, even if it involves only one’s own self. The hastier one’s activity is within, the greater is the pertinent, intentional, and sinfully rash impact on recipients, potentially including one’s own self. Thus, insofar as that hastiness is intentional, as in this case, it would be greater than an unintended sin of incomprehension, or unpremeditated sin, would be on the moral/immoral scale. Finally, if, in another case, an act of internal rashness were highly impetuous but had no effect but on oneself, presumably it would still be greater in the same way, for the effect on oneself would also have moral/immoral value.

19. Ed. note: That is, presumably lesser with respect to the value of “moral significance” indicated just above.

20. (1) Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci principui theologici (1543–1559): “These evils exist in the reborn, … but because a person has been received, … these evils occur with respect to this person as venial sins,” and “actual sins that are in those who have not been reborn are all mortal sins.” (2) In his Untersuchung theologischer Streitigkeiten (1762–1764) Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (1706–1757) expresses this point most precisely: “However, since we cannot concede such a point, namely, that mortalia and venialia (mortal and venial sins) would have to be distinguished by a discrimen objectivum (objective criterion) but assume instead that the relationship of the person performing the given act to Christ’s atonement is the ground for deciding,” etc. Ed. note: (1) ET Kienzles/ Tice; Latin: CR 21:818, 680. See §32n16. (2) ET Tice.

21. Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci principui theologici (1543–1559): “It is necessary to differentiate sins that in this life remain in the reborn from those sins on account of which grace … and faith are lost.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 21:681. See §32n16, and cf. §111n5.

22. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “This distinction can be an essential one if it openly manifests the tie mentioned earlier [being rooted in redemption]” (Thönes, 1873).

23. Augustine, “Admonition and Grace” (427) 12.35: “I say that sin consists in forsaking faith, which works through love [dilectionem], even unto death.” Ed. note: Also quoted in §111n6. ET Kienzles/Tice, cf. also Fathers of the Church 2 (1947), 288; Latin: Migne Lat. 44:938.

24. Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter (412) 48: “The righteous man [justum] is not held back from eternal life by those venial sins by which some in this life there must be.” Ed. note: ET Library of Christian Classics, vol. 8 (1955), 232; Latin: Migne Lat. 44:230.

25. Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten (1706–1757), Untersuchung theologischer Streitigkeiten, (1762–1764): “For … we say that they are called venialia because remission always accompanies them.”

26. Melanchthon, Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559): “Therefore, actual mortal sin in one’s falling after reconciliation is an inner or an outer action conflicting with God’s law and done against conscience. … It is not possible to counter the conscience of faith with an evil design.” Ed. note: ET Kinzle/Tice; Latin: CR 21:681, 780; cf. note 15 above, and cf. the identical reference in §111n5. See also §32n16.

27. Ed. note: Here “appreciable” translates merklich, i.e., noticeable along the graded scale of how sins would relate to the status accorded to sins of the blessed (Begnadigten) and those not blessed (Unbegnadigten). Here “blessed” means those forgiven and thus in the state of grace (their Gnadenstand) along that same scale of value (Wert).

28. Gewissen. Ed. note: Note the cognitive features in Schleiermacher’s appropriation of “knowing,” “conscience,” and “incomprehension” or “lack in a knowing of something” (in order: Wissen, Gewissen, Ungewissenheit) versus “being acquainted with” or “obtaining information about,” “learning” (either kennen or kennen lernen), and having “knowledge” (Erkenntniß). Between the two sets, for him (cf. his Dialektik notes and lectures) “knowing” (Wissen) is a process admitting of several kinds and gradations, one of which is “science” (Wissenschaft), which aims at “knowledge” (Erkenntniß), albeit always provisional, if relatively reliable. The various sciences themselves also have many parts and gradations. The other set, about “learning,” etc., is also a process ending in some provisional bit of knowledge, more or less reliable but never totally objective, though one is then knowing with respect to some object more or less ascertainable. For him, redemption is naturally beheld and felt, which requires some process of knowing and of expressions that are learned and actionable for able agents (in both cases, via cognitive registration and some degree of knowledgeable expression).

Thus, the process of redemption itself grounds the possibility of doing theology as well. However, for Schleiermacher, God can be “known” only insofar as God’s supernatural activity is registered naturally within and among human beings, whereas God in se cannot be known. In this context, then, one’s process of knowing also registers sins, but it does so only in relation to one’s being personally attached to God’s redemptive activity. Outside this relationship, or communion, with God’s grace, one can have sin but not know of it in this specific way or even learn of it in either a purely subjective or a purely objective manner. The more subjective registration involved in beholding and feeling the stimulus of God’s grace has a cognitive frame to it, in that, for him, the various functions of mind (or spirit) never operate altogether separately, as if they were “faculties.” However, having knowledge or acting aright are distinguishable from the roots of religious, or pious, experience, as was already made clear in the first edition of On Religion (1799), though the same subject of grace cannot faithfully divide the functions of one’s spirit (or “mind and heart”) by splitting them into obtaining knowledge, action, and even a combination of beholding and feeling that is then bereft of any expression. For him, even Christian theology, which he takes to be a complete and legitimate science, is not to feature a splitting off of cognitive functions from the full experience of faith, which rationalism tends to do. No part of this work on “Christian faith” is wholly separable from this understanding of what is going on in redemption, not even sin. Cf. §62.

29. Ed. note: The relationship is simply “to nature” (zur Natur). In Schleiermacher’s discussions, under this proposition and elsewhere, this is a general term that both subsumes human nature within it and also distinguishes the individual distinctiveness of any kind of individual or particular from the overall characteristics that a given kind or species, such as all human nature/humankind/human beings as a whole, possesses. In contrast, he never uses Natur for God, for he does not take God to be a natural being. God exists, has being itself (Sein), but is not a being as anything in nature is. Thus, when the “nature” of God is spoken of in the present translation, it has a different meaning, because it renders the word Wesen. This second term suggests an overall nature of being, a process which can also be assigned attributes as a whole, without any distinction of those attributes from the so-called essence of a being-in-itself. Humans try to ascribe attributes to individual things or kinds, scientifically as accurately as possible. Throughout his writings, Schleiermacher thus allows himself to offer only approximations to God’s Wesen, all of them based on what can be gleamed from God’s activity within nature, religiously rooted in what is registered of “divine activity” within immediate self-consciousness. That activity is partly indicated with reference to humans’ susceptibility to sin and humans’ sinning—that is, with reference to humans’ need for redemption.

Similarly, by his account, within nature one can speak of the Wesen (nature) of religion or of Christianity, as he does, but insofar as each bears within it a relationship or communion with God, or the divine, the result can have attributes, but they all help only to offer an approximate definition of what each of these subjects consists of. In a complete account, all the attributes designated would define what is taken to be essential (wesentlich). Hence, the story regarding the process of human redemption in this world (= Part Two) is to be essentially defined by both sin and grace and by what that process is taken to presuppose (= Part One). The genuine action of Christians is to be defined in the same terms, and their elements should reflect the same basic presuppositions. His “Christian Ethics” material aims to do precisely that.

30. Matt. 12:31; Luke 12:10.

31. Ed. note: As here, for Schleiermacher Auslegungskunst refers to a general art of interpretation, the tasks of which are not restricted to what he means by “hermeneutics” but include “philological criticism” and might fold in the other critical arts as well. Especially in theology, Exegese (exegesis) is a more literal synonym. Neither term refers to sheer exposition of Bible verses, without benefit from these arts.

32. Ed. note: Seelsorge, which in Schleiermacher’s practical theology chiefly defines the roles of church leadership. Today special roles in this respect are often assigned mainly to pastors or lay specialists. In principle, Schleiermacher did not strictly distinguish clergy from laity in exercise of such roles. See Brief Outline, esp. §§263 and 290.

33. Rom. 6:18–22 and 8:2.

34. Ed. note: See §74n28. Here acknowledgment (Anerkennung) is taken to presuppose one’s having appropriated God-consciousness internally and recognizably, hence the qualifying word “appropriation” is added in the translation.

35. See Franz Volkmar Reinhard’s (1755–1812) definition [of obduracy] in his Dogmatik (1818) §88: “The condition of the human being who sins a long while and finally is influenced by a proposing of incentives for virtue.” This definition needs, first, to be referred more to the standpoint of piety; at that point, however, it would yield the same result. Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice; Latin: Dogmatik (1818), 327. In Scripture “obduracy” is also called “hardness of heart.” Further, to the definitions of “false security” and “obduracy,” see also note 40 below.

36. Ed. note: In this sentence the bracketed words were added by Clemen (1905) to fill a caesura, in accordance with the first edition at this place, §96.2. Cf. §80.2.

37. Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter (412) 48: “At the least, there remained the essential rationality of the human soul—so even here what is undoubtedly that law of God which was never quite effaced by unrighteousness.” Ed. note: ET Library of Christian Classics, vol. 8 (1955), 231; Latin: Migne Lat. 44:230.

38. This consequence is implicit neither in Heb. 3:8, 13, in reference to Exod. 17:7, nor in 2 Cor. 3:14. Ed. note: These passages speak of being “hardened” by sin.

39. Ed. note: Further regarding this citation of the lex dei from Augustine, Redeker refers to the first edition (1821) §96.2. Here see also §74n32 just above.

40. Among other sources, cf. Reinhard, Dogmatik, loc. cit. Redeker (1960) note: “Page 326f. reads: ‘The situation of security [securitatis] is the condition of the human being in which one has been so given to sin that one perceives neither its foulness nor the need for correction.’ The situation of hypocrisy is of a different sort. By that situation people understand: ‘the condition of a human being who has only an external appearance of virtue.”’ Ed. note: ET of the Latin portion in quotes: Kienzle. Schleiermacher accepts these definitions. Thus, he renders securitatis with Sicherheit, here translated “false security.” These translated definitions also display the rather different meanings of the German word Zustand, which, in accordance with Schleiermacher’s usage, is also variously translated “state,” “situation,” or “condition” throughout the present work. Sometimes it could easily mean “condition,” which carries a more inclusively external reference, or “state,” which refers more to internal processes. Usually the “situation” addressed is a combination of both—for example, as in cases of freedom and bondage.

41. Ed. note: Mostly images of a physical nature are used here, in a way that highlights biblical images of a redeeming “light” that shines in the darkness, through Jesus, the selfidentified “light of the world,” bringing “light” to those who are reborn (regenerate) in “the light that cometh” from on high, itself set upon a hill, where all can see it, etc. Hence, the neutralizing force of redeeming grace that breaks to pieces, thus interrupts (gebrochen), the force of sin, is manifested in a person’s God-consciousness by a spontaneous (selbsttätig, i.e., self-initiating), divine kindling force of light. In contrast, the force of sin itself no longer bears such a force. Instead, it can be seen only as a factor that is gradually disappearing (im Verschwinden), dimming, even when it does show up, i.e., come to light (ans Licht tritt). Although, like all languages, the German language itself constantly utilizes images in the forming of words, including more abstract technical words, this is a rare instance in the present work of his using ordinary parlance to help make an important point. Even here, however, what could then be said in terms of physical analysis is used for a scientific purpose in theology. He seems to be saying, by analogy: God’s redemptive process enters into human beings as a force (Kraft) somewhat like this.

42. Ed. note: This key term “communication” (Mitteilung) is adeptly placed near the analogy to a transmission of light. To his Enlightenment-imbued colleagues he seems to be saying: Not all transmission or impartation of light is to one’s intellect (Aufklärung) or by one’s capacity for action. By analogy, some light is communicated inwardly, and in faith all subsequent communications have their base in such light. Elsewhere Schleiermacher uses this same key term to speak of how regenerate persons are brought to an intimate relationship with God, with Christ, and with one another in community (Holy Spirit). God’s activity thus commingles with their own inner being in these tri-unitarian ways, one God in three mixtures or facets, as it were. Similarly, each regenerate person is placed by God in a position to stimulate, or stir (aufregen), others in their likeness (Gleichheit, both similarity and equality) and to band with others in relationship. Accordingly, another key term that indicates how those relationships serve to communicate Godconsciousness is this same concept in all its forms: the verb aufregen, noun Aufregung (a stirring or stimulus), and gerund aufregend (stirring). Closely associated is the term Impuls, which means “impetus” when it is introduced by an agent and “impulse” when it is carried by a recipient. In each case, members of the conjoint (co-, con-, or com-) process, each being distinctively different, do not become wholly merged. That is, God remains God, and the spirits of humans are stirred by God’s activity, but they do not become divine by being recipients of divine impetus, nor do humans become identical by joining in that same divinely stirred movement (Bewegung, another key term used for this stirring interchange) which occurs through one another. At the same time, they are “one in Christ,” through this dynamic process, itself coming to function both inwardly and, in turn, outwardly. At base, then, the point of contact lies in this continual, internally registered movement.

43. Ed. note: See, first, the context in which this contrast was first mentioned here, in the initial paragraph of §74.1.

44. Ed. note: The primary word for “habit” in German is Gewöhnheit, literally, “custom” or “customary behavior.” In Schleiermacher’s ethics, both philosophical and theological, “custom,” which stretches across the entire sphere of human life, is the subject of that field of inquiry. The main questions, therefore, could be these: In any given domain within that entire sphere, what behavioral habits have been formed, how are particular habits/ customary behaviors to be attended to, and on what grounds are they to be added to, excised or otherwise changed? Within the Christian domain, the questions pertain only to, or chiefly dwell within, wider-ranging aspects of comparative or contextual studies, to a given Christian domain. This is also true of the rest of dogmatics, namely, investigation into Christian doctrine. In both, Schleiermacher chose to focus on the immediate context of the various German Evangelical churches, especially on those facing possible union of the traditionally Lutheran and Reformed churches. At the same time, he kept his eye out for participation in similar inquiries by a broader array, including the Roman Catholic Church and other churches that are gospel-centered in varying aspects and to varying degrees. “Custom” and “habit” across the entire spectrum of human customary behaviors, actions, and contexts are, for him, embraced within the all-inclusive subject of ethics, wherever that discipline might be pursued. Accordingly, to some extent ethics also belongs and pertains to every discipline among the arts and sciences as well. An allied discipline that he long pursued was “Church Geography and Statistics,” itself global in its orientation. Thus far, no university in the world is anywhere close to covering all the branches of customary behavior that would be quite worthwhile to investigate. Thus, in accordance with Schleiermacher’s Christian approach to recognizing sin, this understanding of habit and of the overcoming of bad habits might well be another way of saying the following: In some ways and to some extent, sin and the susceptibility to sin are present in every habitation of the human species, though not everything that humans do is absolutely sinful.

§75. Given that sin is present in human beings, one also finds in the world, as the locus of one’s existence, causes that hinder one’s life to be persistently at work—that is, one finds evil. Hence, this section forms the point of doctrine regarding evil.

1. It is self-understood that in a presentation of faith-doctrine the world cannot be a subject for discussion except insofar as the world is related to human beings. Thus, even if the world were altered by sin outside this relation to human beings, with the result that new component parts of it would have emerged or old ones would have been altered in their very nature, these features still could not belong to a presentation of faith-doctrine in any way whatsoever. Hence, only incidentally, and only because this matter has frequently been mixed into religious communications, can it also be mentioned here that this is an entirely untenable notion, derived along with other features from a few Mosaic passages² and without sufficient reason. However, even in relation to human beings, the world can take on other constituent features only in the manner stated by our proposition—that is, only in two ways: insofar as the world seems different to them and insofar as what results from sin destroys the original harmony between the world and human beings. That is, in the concept of an original perfection of the world,³ if we relate it to an original perfection of humankind, this would not include the notion that the world is the locus of evil. The reason is that there must always have been a relative contrast, to be sure, between the overall being that is given to us as humankind and the bodily being of each individual entity,4 a contrast that comes forth relatively stronger in one place and weaker in another. This contrast exists, because otherwise these individual lives could not have been mortal.⁵ Yet, as long as every instant of human self-initiated activity would have been simply a product within humankind’s original perfection, and consequently every instant would have been determined by God-consciousness and all that is sensory and bodily would simply have been referred to that source, that contrast could not be admitted into the collective consciousness of human beings as a hindrance to life. This would have been the situation, because the activity of God-consciousness could in no way be hindered by that contrast. Rather, results of the activity could simply be formed in a different manner. This situation would obtain even regarding natural death and any bodily hindrances to life in the form of illness or disability that preceded death, in that whatever could no longer serve the guiding and determining functions of one’s higher consciousness could not be intentional either. Similarly, even according to Scripture,⁶ we are in bondage not on account of death but from a fear of death.

On the other hand, suppose that flesh were to gain dominion within a human being instead of God-consciousness. Then, every bit of influence that the world would exert on a human being that includes a hindrance of bodily and temporal influence⁷ in it would also have to operate as follows. The more a given element of human life would tend to be contained by the dominion of flesh alone, without higher self-consciousness, the more that element would be categorized as an evil. This would happen, because this tendency would repress the very principle that alone could have established harmony between flesh and higher self-consciousness even in the particular case being examined.

Now, the relative contrast between that mode of being which is external to a given human, on the one side, and one’s human temporal existence,⁸ on the other side, persists in general and necessarily so. Accordingly, evil is placed at the same time that sin is placed in the first of these two forms, that is, the world with sin appears to be different to human beings than it would have seemed without it. As concerns the second form, however, a form that has to be grounded, first of all, in human activity that bears some affinity with sin, obviously an activity that would be nothing but a pure product 9 of a human being’s original perfection, would never be able to burst forth bringing any restraint to spiritual life.¹⁰ This point is to be explained as follows. In a first case, suppose that, against one’s own intention, the activity that bears affinity with sin had burst forth through some error and that even this same error would, nevertheless, be simply a hindrance to the sensory aspect of one’s life. Thus, on account of a stimulus to correct the error that would necessarily be built into this mistake, it would in no way be viewed as an evil. In a second case, then, the activity of one individual toward another could no more amount to a hindrance to life than it did in the first case, in that by virtue of a shared supremacy of God-consciousness in all, each individual could only want to share each activity with another.¹¹ However, suppose a third case, in which the prevalence of God-consciousness is then suspended in some instance. Then, a contrast between individual modes of existence¹² would be introduced, and what benefits one individual would thereby already have turned out to be a hindrance to another, even often so. As a result, here too evil is first introduced with the advent of sin, but once sin has appeared it arises inevitably.

2. Now, inasmuch as it is independent of human activity, all of that from which hindered states of life emerge among us we call natural evil. In contrast, all that has come about among us as a result of human activity and that becomes the basis for hindrances to life we call social evil. This last expression is to be preferred to so-called moral evil, because by this usage wickedness,13 as such, is also customarily designated as subsumed under the concept “evil.”¹⁴

Now, all social evils likewise presuppose sin, to be sure, with the result that what proceeds from sin for one individual does become evil for another individual—or might well become evil for the first individual as well. Yet, it simply seems to be all the more necessary also to retain by name the essential difference in what these activities refer to. Now, suppose that this classification were not to seem wholly to suffice—that is, inasmuch as in many cases—illness, for example—something can be a natural evil, whereas in other cases it can be a social evil, for this ambiguity simply adheres to some general term’s being assigned to each of them. Indeed, even in a given particular case we must often regard as one and the same evil what is partly to be traced to one source, partly to another source, and perhaps it would thus be more correct to say that all evil consists of these two features together or from one or the other of them. Nonetheless, nothing would be altered regarding the matter itself—that is, the difference of the two features in relation to sin. However, if we return to the concept of original perfection,¹⁵ both features of evil would be evil only in these two ways: either by their diminishing the fullness of stimuli through which the development of a human being would be advanced or in that they would limit the world’s adaptiveness by means of human activity. Natural evil issues in the evils of being in more or less dire need and deficiency, and social evil issues in the evils of being in more or less dire hardship and adversity.¹⁶ Moreover, everything that can be regarded to be evil from our point of view must be traceable to these two types, including all the blunting and derangement of spiritual forces that stem from sin.17

3. Thus, to summarize the account thus far, lying in our proposition is the assertion that nothing in this world could rightly be deemed to be evil without sin, but whatever immediately correlates with the transitory nature of individual human life would at most be conceived as an unavoidable imperfection. In addition, manifestations of natural forces confronting human efforts would be conceived simply as stimuli toward subjecting these manifestations more fully to human control. Still further, our proposition also contains the assertion that evil is to be placed at the same level and proportion as sin is placed. In consequence, just as humankind is the locus of sin and sin is the collective act of this species, so, in the exact same sense, in its being related to humankind the entire world is indeed the locus of evil and the overall effects of evil amount to an affliction of the whole human race. Finally, our proposition asserts that nothing beyond evil, thus defined, follows from sin with regard to the relationship of the world to a human being, and also that our Christian religious self-consciousness cannot make any claim to show that in its initial origin sin would have to have brought forth evil on the entire world by any somehow magical effect.¹⁸

1. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “§75. Evil in its connection with sin. §76. Evil viewed as punishment for sin. §77. But not for the individual. §78. Ethical postscript” (Thönes, 1873).

2. Gen. 3:14, 16–18. Ed. note: In these verses God is depicted as changing the original nature of the serpent, women’s experience of childbirth, and the effort required to gather food from the earth.

3. See §59.

4. Einzelwesen. Ed. note: In this context, Sein is “being” in careful distinction from the bodily aspect of an individual member of the human species. Thus, whereas “entity” (Wesen) is used here just to designate each distinctive member of the race, all bodies are different in some respects, but we human beings are also spiritually different, i.e., different in various aspects of our overall mental functioning.

5. On this point, see §§59–60.

6. Heb. 2:15. Ed. note: In this verse the role of Christ is to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.”

7. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s usage, the categories “bodily” and “temporal” denote the natural limitations of living in conditions of space and time (thus, finite existence, not infinite, and temporal existence, not eternal), and here the term for existence is Dasein, one’s being precisely here and now, there and then (da-sein).

8. Ed. note: Here “being” (Sein) that is external to an individual comprises any or all things and not necessarily a singular being, whereas “temporal existence” (zeitlichen Dasein) refers to an individual, i.e., a singular being.

9. Produkt. Ed. note: Clemen (1905) conjectures Ausdruck (expression) to be consistent with the first edition §97.1. The second edition, however, has Produkt (product).

10. Ed. note: In the context of this doctrine of sin, such expressions are clearly intended to provide the negative aspects of what will become an account of the Redeemer’s “sinless perfection” and “blessedness” alongside the chief ends of human life later on. See esp. §§86–90.

11. Ed. note: Here the expression nur mitwollen könnte (“could only want to share”) is taken to match the reference to Absicht (“intention,” or aim) in the first case. Hence, the two cases would still bear the same desire to have any given error corrected.

12. Ed. note: “Individual modes of existence” translates den einzelnen Existenzen, literally, “individual existences.”

13. Ed. note: Here das Böse is translated “wickedness,” elsewhere sometimes “human evil,” though in the latter instance calling it “evil” at all might seem to abrogate its distinctive character as compared with all else that is called evil, but in §48.1 this was done intentionally, in a context where sin, viewed as a “human condition” and as “an inexhaustible source” of evil, is “subsumed” under the category of evil. In contrast, the present context focuses on sin, or wickedness, in relation to evils either caused by humans or experienced by them but having nonhuman causes. Thus, the center of attention is “in reverse.” In the earlier context, moreover, “restraints to life” translates Lebenshemmungen, in the present context “hindrances to life” to mark the nuanced difference, though either word could be used in both places.

14. Cf. §48.l. Ed. note: In this important passage, intentionally paired by Schleiermacher with the present one, he does the following: he considers both evil and good to be absolutely dependent on God; and he characterizes good and evil more as states than as activities in comparison to the present account. States include the collective state of humankind. Moreover, in distinguishing between hindrances to life and advancements of life, he also introduces the contrast between natural and social evil, both of which can bring “troubles,” some not from sin, as contrasted with those brought about by sin. Both accounts seem to imply that some troubles wrought by human beings might not be from sin but are simply natural evils, since human beings are also natural beings, able to make errors unintentionally.

15. Cf. §59.

16. Ed. note: Since, like all of Schleiermacher’s general descriptions, his terms for these human conditions exist along a scale presenting “more or less,” hence in this rare instance these words, plus “dire,” have been added in translation. The general concepts are also difficult to render for all cases, respectively, Dürftigkeit (need, e.g., poverty) and Mangel (deficiency, want, e.g., lacking in necessities), then Druck (hardship, e.g., political oppression) and Widerstand (adversity, resistance, e.g., mutually damaging conflict).

17. Ed. note: As is immediately to be explained, this final feature would exclude, by definition, natural forces that do not negatively affect spiritual (geistige) functions. Hence, viewed in and of themselves, not all natural forces are to be deemed evil, and hence the world is not evil in itself.

18. Ed. note: Hence, historically it has taken only one quick association with Christ’s passion (his ailing and suffering on the cross) to suppose that this single one among his acts accomplished “atonement” for all the sins committed by all humans and perhaps all the evil suffered by humankind. In Schleiermacher’s view, this step, however, was not sufficient to explain what Jesus’ mission of redemption was or how it was accomplished, though he did regard the actual correlation between sin and redemption to be exact. The question remains as to whether any or all evils are to be included in this understanding as well.

For a structural reminder of how he is proceeding, cf. §§11, 57–61, 64–66, 70, all preparatory for his account of relations between evil and sin vis-à-vis redemption in §§75–85. Then the rest of Part Two and the summary, climaxing Conclusion, are framed in terms of the doctrine of the triune God. His doctrine of atonement is relayed especially in §§100–112 and 118–20. It is also worth noting here that under “Grace” the section “Regarding the Constitution of the World in Relation to Redemption” also handles relations between sin and redemption, covering 50 propositions (§§113–63) of the 172 total, including introductory points of doctrine on election and “Regarding Communication of the Holy Spirit,” then chiefly a general depiction of the doctrinally significant characteristics of the church from its origins to its then-present operations as an institution to its consummation (the latter offered via “prophetic” doctrine, the expected events being beyond current empirical scrutiny). This entire story leaves the details to other disciplines in “historical theology” that treat of ever-changing varieties and details of the church’s history, but its structure too is historical, as is the directly complementary structure of Schleiermacher’s Christian ethics.

Over against this entire perspective, we now express the consciousness that in the interconnectedness between sin and evil agreed to, sin is, above all and overall, the first and original feature, but evil is the derived and secondary feature. This assertion is to be explained in that the term “punishment” contained in our proposition implies, first of all, that some evil does exist in relation to some previous wickedness. To be sure, this is not the whole meaning of the term “punishment,” however. Rather, in accordance with ordinary usage, we refer this interconnectedness between sin and evil back to an originator⁶ and posit its origin in a free action of this originator. Further, we tend to use the term punishment when some evil befalls a person, but not on account of one’s perpetrating wickedness. We do this either simply in a figurative sense or in that we refer the interconnection between sin and evil back to divine causality. Thus, the proposition set forth here is an expression of our religious self-consciousness inasmuch as we refer this interconnected process back to absolutely living divine causality, as this causality has been described above.7 We also make this reference without intending to implicate divine causality, perchance in some special fashion, in the contrast between what is free and what is necessary in regard to causality. Precisely in that way, moreover, this consciousness, which probably none among us can evade, must be distinguished from the partly one-sided and partly perverted way in which it has already occurred in Judaism and even more among heathens. This is so, for since this ordering of evil in relation to sin, quite apart from the general world order and from the entire interconnected process of nature, would be presented in these precincts as something particular or disparate or presented as something that Supreme Being⁸ could regard to be contrary to itself; hence, underlying such notions a contaminated God-consciousness would also then be present that would itself partake in sin.

Yet, on the occasion of the man born blind 9 Christ himself taught that, both in and of themselves and regarded solely from the standpoint of human natural perfection,¹⁰ even the most strongly disparate inadequacies of this sort are not punishments. Rather, they are stimuli toward an unfolding of the human spirit. That is to say, what Christ states above all on that occasion, and only in relation to the distinctive miraculous force he could exercise, allows, at the same time, for an entirely general application, nevertheless.

Yet, suppose that someone wants to say in addition, rising over and above this consideration, that the hindrances of our lives, already in and of themselves and before they become evils through sin, are indeed grounded in the same factors that sin is also grounded in, this in accordance with an account given above,¹¹ namely, in the temporal shape and spatial isolation of existence¹² to which all the beginnings of sin are attached. In that case, for us—even in their holding in common this same interconnectedness in their being grounded—sin would continue to come first and evil second. This is just as certainly the case as, for us, human beings are originally agents, and their actions are not absolutely conditioned by their passive states.

Now, the Pauline presentation¹⁵ regarding the relationship of death to sin, consequently also of all subordinate natural evils to sin, entirely comports with that figurative tale, and his presentation can be interpreted only in conformity with it. Thus, exactly on an analogy with how sin is treated, his account also presents to us the evil which touched the first human beings after their fall into sin, as the originating primal evil. This account can then be applied to every contribution that every individual makes to a deterioration of the world by one’s sin.

1. Ed. note: As before, the preferred translation of Böse, though, somewhat contrarily, the term “human evil” can be used. The latter is rather off the mark, however, for two reasons. First, there is no such thing as evil not related to human beings, either directly or indirectly. The created world is good, and its sustaining or preserving activity by God is also good. See §§32–61. For Schleiermacher, all that is evil is commensurate with human sin, thus with any consequences of sin as well. Second, to use “human” as a modifier of “evil” can be misleading for another reason as well. That is, it could be assumed that the sin which humans do directly is the only sin, whereas consequences for the world’s functioning would not be. Actually, for Schleiermacher, ill that is done to the world can come back into human experience secondhand from the world. In current language, the environing world too can be damaged, by virtue of our exercise of free will. Hence, sinful actions from within the human race can produce what humans properly experience as “evil” from whatever within the rest of nature has been harmed or distorted, thereby coming as its secondary source. This process runs alongside purely natural challenges to human activity that are independent of sin (e.g., wild animals and some storms), which he has above called “natural evil” versus “social evil.” Thus, serious damage to the environment that causes it to be dysfunctional in itself is, emphatically, a social evil for him.

2. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s psychology lectures, the subject of that field is defined as comprised of two interlocking and mutually dependent elements: mind (Geist) and body. The two together comprise the functioning psyche. Here he distinguishes between them with the terms “body” and “psyche” per se (leibliche, psychische).

3. Ed. note: Here “divine fate” (göttliche Schickung), not “providence” (Vorsehung), which Schleiermacher does not consider useful in any case, in part because he deems many views of it to be at least magical, representing an absolutely supernatural perspective in which instances of divine activity could be interpreted as sudden interventions absolutely intervening against God’s own natural order. See index under “providence,” “foreseeing,” “magic,” “miracle,” and “supernatural, absolute.”

4. Ed. note: Cf. §4, §11, and contexts.

5. Ed. note: glücklich. Contained in ordinary usage is the connotation of being “lucky,” or “fortunate,” which, in turn, suggests the hedonic non-Aristotelian, noneudaemonistic conception of happiness (Glücklichkeit). For Schleiermacher, to the degree that such a view comports with the notion of ethics as reflecting on customary social behavior, it too is ethical (sittliche) to a certain degree, and in some respects it may be monotheistic (most notably to him, within much Islamic faith). However, it would not be a highly teleological piety such as that of the typically Judaic faith and Christianity. See §§5–11, some introductory propositions “borrowed from ethics,” as a way of defining the distinctive nature of Christianity.

6. Ed. note: Here “originator” translates Urheber, not “author.” Within Christian tradition the actual author was sometimes taken to be the devil/Satan, not God, even to the point of falling into the Manichean heresy. This heresy was borrowed from a gnostic bifurcation of reality into light versus darkness, good versus evil, by Manes (ca. 216–270), whose Christian sect was based on his elaborate teaching, from about 240 CE on. Reared as a Christian, Manes was also deeply influenced by writings of the apostle Paul, which he and members of the Manichean sect thought were congruent with Manes’s teachings. Augustine (354–430) was a member of that sect for nine years before his radical shift to a more Roman orthodoxy in 386, and he seemed always to have honored its seeking to achieve moral perfection. Other sects subsequently held similar metaphysical twofold splits in doctrine, eventually charged with Manicheanism (as if his name had been Manicheaus), and Augustine himself contributed to critiques of that extremely heterodox heresy. Here Schleiermacher is contributing to a critique of remnants that had remained and still do remain.

7. Ed. note: In Part One this absolute divine causality is explicated, especially in §§51–54, as from “the living God” revealed in Christ. Thus, its operation is a vital reality for Christians, not an independently philosophical concept. It is introduced in contrast to finite causality, with which it cannot be either identified or confused, whether it be free causality (as in humans) or necessarily in accordance with the interconnected processes of world order that God creates and preserves. Hence, he applies the term “absolute” to it. There he states that for Christians this divine causality, “expressed in our feeling of absolute dependence, is completely presented in the totality of finite being, and, in consequence, everything for which there is a causality in God also comes to be realized and does occur” (§54). In Part Two, the corresponding summative statements regarding humans’ restored communion with God in redemption are these: Christians can express Jesus’ fulfillment of God’s eternal divine decree of redemption (cf. §§90.2, 109.3, 117.4, 120.4, and 164.2) in that they “posit the planning and spreading of the Christian church as an object of the divine government of the world,” and this divine causality herein “presents itself as divine wisdom and as divine love” (§§164 and 165).

8. Ed. note: Schleiermacher thus regards the idea of a devil countering God to be “unstable,” also to be without scriptural warrant and to lie outside the confines of a genuine presentation of Christian faith-doctrine. Cf. §72.2 and §§44–45.

9. John 9:3. Ed. note: Sermon on John 9:1–7, July 17, 1825, SW II.9 (1847), 138–52.

10. Ed. note: Schleiermacher later designates Christ’s own sinless perfection, or completeness of human development, as a stimulus toward this unfolding and an enablement for seeing that sin, or wickedness, can be overcome and for experiencing this promise in the process of redemption (§§93–94).

11. Cf. §69.

12. in der zeitlichen Gestalt und räumlichen Vereinzelung des Daseins.

13. Ed. note: In this passage Zustand is translated both “situation,” in which people are placed, and “condition,” pointing to one or more aspects of the situation, internal or external, of which the word can also point to inner “states.” In general usage, only context can indicate which meaning is intended. In Schleiermacher’s usage, his occasional use of a cognate term Gemützustand is translated “state of mind and heart,” in which he takes intellect, on the one hand, and sensations, feelings, and certain associated perceptions, on the other hand, to be both interactive and combined.

14. Ed. note: “Payment” translates Lohn here, elsewhere Belohnung stands for “recompense,” also a punishment thought to be exacted for sin. Compare this account especially with those in §§77 and 84. It is to be recognized, at the same time, that apart from Schleiermacher’s entire highly complex account of the connections between types of sin and types of evil in their relation to each other, by itself the statement in §76 is almost sure to be misunderstood. Cf. OR (1821), II supplemental note 20 and IV supplemental note 20. There he argues that the notion of divine recompense (Belohnung) for sinning threatens both human freedom and morality.

15. Rom. 5:12ff.

This parity of evil with sin, moreover, extends perchance not only to social evils. Rather, it extends to how great masses of human beings not infrequently also affect each other totally, after the mode of natural forces, and also, in turn, to how external nature hinders their common endeavors. Likewise, in every sizeable association in human life, it extends to how all of this is sensed the more strongly as evil the more sin is found within a given association. Indeed, not infrequently even collective evils obtain their distinctive tone and character by means of how the predominant sin of a given collectivity is constituted. All these characteristics are to be observed with surety only when we remain for a time within a circle of homogeneous life that is not too small for a fraction of the whole.

Suppose, moreover, that we go back to the point at which susceptibility to sin and natural imperfections are grounded in the same source. Then, an individual’s part in either sin or evil would seem to be independent of the individual’s part in the other of the two. Likewise, only in this manner can our presupposition then also be insisted on without destroying the completeness and steadiness of the interconnected process of nature. As to what thereupon concerns social evils, in a magical fashion people would often have to seek out justice in injustice itself if such evil is to be allocated to each individual according to one’s part in collective fault.⁶ Indeed, Christ does predict persecution and suffering of his disciples as a consequence of their work on behalf of the reign of God, but not in proportion to their sin. How could such an assumption even coexist with the notion—one that runs through the entire New Testament and, only if correctly understood, that is essential to Christianity itself—that in a shared domain of sin one individual can suffer for others, with the result that all the evil that is grounded in the sin of many would often converge on one individual and, what is more, that penal evils can primarily afflict an individual who is the most free of shared fault and who has most vigorously labored against the sin in question.⁷

Now, on the one hand, it might appear that this position is simply a continuation of what is stated in our proposition. This is so, for if in a communal setting an individual can have to suffer for the many, evil cannot possibly be the same in a solitary state as in a social setting.⁹ It is obvious, moreover, that the less activity a human being choses to execute and, on account of this attitude, the less one puts oneself in contact with the rest of humankind and with external nature, all the less can evils also develop in one’s life out of such contact. On the other hand, however, suppose that this situation is not only a matter of observation but is also a counsel and warning that a human being would do well to engage in less action so as to suffer less also. In that case, in contradiction to the spirit of Christianity, it recommends the maxim regarding the lazy, slothful servant¹⁰ and elevates passive states over self-initiated states as one’s purpose.

1. Ed. note: “Experiential” (Erfahrungsmäßig) is not a major term in Schleiermacher’s vocabulary, since he ordinarily breaks down “experience” into its components instead, so as to gain greater precision. Here, however, it quite fittingly represents his view that the elements that go into a Christian life, including sin and evil, must be experienced if they are to be rightly understood and that, as Anselm famously declared, theology is about “faith seeking understanding.” Schleiermacher chose this phrase as the epigram fronting the entire present work.

2. Exod. 20:5.

3. Matt. 5:45.

4. John 9:3. Ed. note: See §76n9.

5. Luke 13:5.

6. Cf. Luke 13:1–3.

7. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “To repeat once more how the moral connection stands in relation to what is physical. Essentially, social evils have a physical connection with sin. Precisely on that account, however, they have a moral connection as well. Naturally, there is a physical connection with one half of sin, namely, inertia, a lack of activity [Trägheit]” (Thönes, 1873).

8. Ed. note: Here “sociality” translates Geselligkeit. In his ethical writings, Schleiermacher has lifted this term up in a very positive way by referring it especially to the freer, more intimate domain of social interchange, modeled in the salons for conversation and for musical and literary enjoyment. Hence, he ordinarily used the concept “free sociality” for this kind of engagement. In general terms, however, the word could also be translated “modes of forming social relations in their entirety.” From the onset of his long residence in Berlin in 1796, Schleiermacher joined in these Berlin salons at the invitation into their homes especially by two highly educated and cultured Jewish hostesses, Rachel von Varnhagen and Henriette Herz, the latter among his closest lifelong friends from then on. See his “Toward a Theory of Sociable Conduct” (1799). In Christmas Eve Celebration (1806, 1826) he offered a version of this special model within a Christian household. In this postscript, however, he examines a much broader philosophical conception of engagement (or rather, disengagement) within social contexts, dating from a Hellenic school of thought among people called “Cynics” that gained notoriety within the period of early Christianity alongside Stoic and gnostic schools.

9. Ed. note: As usual, “society” or “social setting” translates Gesellschaft, whereas “community” translates Gemeinschaft. In Schleiermacher’s usage, “community” has either a general provenance or an ideal, teleological connotation within a process of becoming, whereas “society” refers either to peoples’ societal relations in general, whether the participants are in community or not, or to a specific social setting in some specific time and place.

10. Ed. note: In German, this idiom refers to “the ready reckoner,” from a series of folktales stemming from Jesus’ parable telling of a master who was to go on a journey variously entrusting a very valuable coin called a “talent” (5, 2, and 1) to each of three servants (Matt. 25:14–30; cf. Luke 19:21). There the only reference to a faulen Knecht (“idle, sluggish servant”) in the Luther Bible (“wicked” and “slothful” servant in the RSV) appears. This is what the master calls the one-talent servant who, knowing of his master’s wasteful ways and out of fear, hid and returned his coin, whereas the other two had gained, respectively, double the amount with theirs. The master wished one of the most memorable punishments on him ever uttered in Scripture: being “cast into the outer darkness,” where he would live endlessly in agony, weeping and gnashing his teeth. Over time, this scene was transported into popular tales and eventually into an idiom focusing on this one servant. At least two hundred tales eventually emerged from this source, occasionally introducing the additional descriptor of the servant’s being “clever.” A degree of such irony seems to have become attached to these tales, so that today German/English dictionaries translate the biblical and traditional German phrase der faule Knecht into “the ready reckoner,” pointing to the lies and artful reasons for idleness given in the various imaginative stories regarding various numbers of such servants. The growing Wikipedia account highlights a charmingly artful tale presenting twelve idle servants added in the seventh edition of the Grimm brothers’ Kinderund Hausmärchen (1857), Stelle 151. In turn, they cite a three-volume collection of fifteenth-century Fastnachtspiele (1853) by Adelbert von Keller, which includes the tale of Die drei Faulen. Already in Schleiermacher’s time, however, the idiomatic reference was in common usage, bearing an ironic twist for English readers as well. This is a rare, though apt, use of such idiomatic expressions in his sermons and scientific works despite his occasionally more frequent allusions to more popular language in early essays and reviews from 1789 to 1806.

§78. Consciousness of this connection between evil and sin does not require a passive endurance of evil on account of sin; nor, however, does an effort either to call forth evil because of sin or, in reverse, to get rid of evil, viewed in and of itself, follow from such consciousness.¹

1.² This proposition makes no further provision regarding origination of the consciousness elucidated thus far, nor more precisely defines or further enlarges on its content. Thus, if viewed as nonessential, it could be treated only as a postscript. However, since the proposition has to do with the aim of this consciousness, inasmuch as such consciousness can issue in an impetus to repercussive actions, this proposition actually comprises a boundary before crossing over into Christian ethics, but only this and not a proposition borrowing from Christian ethics. This is the case, for an independently fashioned Christian ethics—that is, one not simply related to a distinct system of faith-doctrine already at hand and in the form of practical corollaries based on that system—would hardly be able immediately to connect the points summarized in this postscript with each other. Rather, the following questions would probably arise at entirely different spots in Christian ethics: (a) whether a passive submission is enjoined by Christian religious consciousness in all cases of evil; (b) or whether, on the contrary, every other assigned activity ought to be set aside until an evil under which we suffer is eliminated and (c) those other questions as to whether any arbitrary penal code would have an immediately religious source; and then (d) whether consciousness of one’s own sin would lead to inflicting evil upon oneself. However, this proposition rightly finds its place here for the sake of the distinctively dogmatic connection afforded it.3

2. In every instant of suffering, consciousness of the connection evil has with sin accompanies us and is indeed combined, along with our God-consciousness, into one united element. This being so, precisely this relatedness of the feeling of absolute dependence to the state of suffering is thus seen to comprise religious submission, which accordingly is, to be sure, an essential aspect of piety. This suffering, submissive aspect of piety goes away when one imagines away the connection of evil with sin or subsumes hindrances to life already experienced, in deference to corresponding advancements of life expected in the future. Likewise, however, suppose that this submission were to assume a positive character, by one’s desire that the given evil continue or one’s not desiring that it cease—say, on the pretext of not infringing on what God has disposed or not wanting to be found in resistance to it. In that case, submission would also no longer be grounded in the connection of evil with sin set forth here. Such delusion, stemming from misunderstanding as it does, has always been repudiated by the Christian church, setting itself against any superstition and fanaticism that might appear at this point. It has done so, for a continuation of evil cannot be desired when it is viewed as a hindrance to life, in that, in every instance any activity that proceeds from God-consciousness is also restricted by every such hindrance to life in whatever aspect that activity may be pursued. Still less, however, can a continuation of suffering within the domain of redemption⁴ be desired on account of the connection set forth between evil and sin, for we believe in sin’s disappearance in the domain of redemption. We cannot want this continuation of suffering, in that if we did we would indeed either want the continuation of sin itself or we would, in any case, not want confirmation of that faith as a result of sin’s disappearance.

1. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal note: “The direction [of our striving] must go against sin, not against evil” (Thönes, 1873).

2. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s marginal notes head the first two subsections as follows: “1. Placement of the proposition in relation to ethics and dogmatics. As to content, ethical, as to form … 2. Discussion of a material nature: (a) Submission, (b) Resistance, (c) Evil as cause of formative activity. 3. Not participation in any evoking [of evil]” (Thönes, 1873).

3. Ed. note: According to Schleiermacher, Christian ethics and Christian faith-doctrine are always presented as the two halves of dogmatics. However, although the two halves share basic presuppositions that bear on both conduct and doctrine, some matters legitimately brought up in one of the two, like those in §78 here, would be neither warranted nor appropriate in the other, because the questions that lead to them, like those just listed, do not arise in the same way, if at all, in the two halves. See indexes in Brief Outline and in his notes and lectures on Christian Ethics for further discussions on how the two halves of dogmatics can and cannot or had best not relate directly to each other.

4. Ed. note: Here Schleiermacher’s marginal note adds: “or at least a [form of ] Christianity” (Thönes, 1873).