Regarding the Emergence of the Church
[Introduction to Division One]
§115. The Christian church is formed by the joining together of individual regenerate persons to affect one another and to cooperate, both in an orderly fashion.
1. If we look at the procedure of the Evangelical church in its efforts to augment community, both by its reception of instructed young people of the congregation and in its missionary work or in its transferal of individual members from other Christian communities, then our proposition is certainly the right expression of the shared feeling that is prevalent in the Evangelical church and of the way of doing things that has come into use therein. Throughout, such action is always arranged with a view to regeneration, naturally in accordance with the way in which the concept is understood there. The consequence is that even if a person cannot yet be sure of regeneration in most instances, the ruling presupposition is, nonetheless, that it has taken place. At the very least, the freer a congregation is to operate within its own sphere, the more strictly it will hold to the view that those against whose purported regeneration well-founded doubts arise would also not be received into membership. This practice, however, would not be necessary, indeed would be even counterproductive, if those being received were only to be introduced into a community in which the workings of preparatory grace were present.1
Now, a strong desire for the reign of God is also given with regeneration. Thus, those who receive and those who are received must share the conviction that both the receivers and the recipients should exercise the same efficacious action. Moreover, since both of them also share the same sphere of influence for this efficacious action by virtue of their occupying the same space, with every act2 of this kind the task of ordering this working together must, in turn, be created.
Now, in this proposition a mutual affecting of one another is also stipulated, at the same time. This activity is based not simply in the fact that in each person much is still found that belongs to the world, against which the collective working of the others must be directed. Rather, it is also based in the fact that just as no one is conscious of a conception of Christ that is complete and covers every aspect, so each person sees conceptions held by others as complements to one’s own. Out of the ensuing exchange arises a presentation that is reciprocally communicating in nature. Everything that can be presented as a feature in the life of the church must also then permit of being explicated based on this process.
2. To be sure, it would seem more difficult likewise to apply this account to the original emergence of the community that was proceeding from Christ himself. Yet, if we go back to the fact that as the efficacious action of Christ began, there was already a community of people who were awaiting fulfillment of their messianic hopes, it should, indeed, not be claimed that this was already the Christian church before Christ. However, it was a religious community, nonetheless, one containing an exchange of similar stirrings of mind and heart and a process of transaction regarding all things that related to it. When a number of persons in that community then came to honor Christ, for them there was no basis for dissolving their community. However, their community was sustaining a relation to Christ that could not exist, in the sense already set forth above, without some affecting of one another. Thus, at the same time, the relation to Christ had to become a way of working together—for the time being, in relation to those previous companions who were not yet imbued with an honoring of Christ. These companions then became the outer circle, in which they were receiving workings of preparatory grace through those with a closer relation to Christ. These workings of preparatory grace were proceeding from the inner circle of those who had already come to honor Christ, the more powerfully the more pertinently these workings were ordered. Yet, this way of working together actually remained subordinate and fragmentary as long as their shared receptivity for Christ’s immediate influences still remained paramount in their union. Furthermore, in this respect one can say that despite the presence of a sizeable number of regenerate persons within it, the church actually still remained incompletely formed, and, as a consequence, it lagged in importance behind the union of these individuals with Christ as long as the efficacious action of Christ in person continued.
1. Ed. note: That is, in keeping with what was just said above about regeneration, every authentically Christian church would include preparatory grace, but no such church would have only preparatory grace at work in it.
2. Akt. Ed. note: That is, every specific practice of receiving and being received, taken as a whole.
§116. The emergence of the church is made clear through the two doctrines regarding election and regarding the communication of the Holy Spirit.1
1. Outside the context already set forth, it might, perhaps, seem odd to find these two concepts conjoined in such a manner. They might not sound as if they would have any affinity with each other. Even with respect to their meaning, moreover, the concept of election might not seem to cohere with that of the communication of the Spirit any more exactly than it would, as it were, with the concepts of conversion and justification. In the present context, however, this coherence can no longer seem strange. Instead, in accordance with what was said above, the concept of election through the emergence of the church is a matter of the divine government of the world. That is, it has to do with the fact that those who are to fashion the church must be separated from the world. Hence, this is the reflection on the emergence of the church that one has while looking backward to the place out of which its members come. In contrast, the concept of communication of the Spirit has to do with what it is in individuals that is the ground of constancy in their working together and affecting one another. Now, since the very nature of the church continues to exist in this ground, the church’s emergence is observed in this concept, in that one looks forward to the collective life that emerges in this way. Only through the sameness of what moves and stirs in each and every individual can this collective life become and remain a true unity of life—that is, after the manner of an integrated or so-called “moral person.”2 As a result, the whole life and working of the church must be explained on the basis of this principle, which is communicated to each individual as one of the elect.
The two concepts, however, do have in common with each other that originally they are not directly applicable to the circumstance in which the effective power of the new life existed in Christ alone, as yet uncommunicated, barring the sense in which it could also be said of Christ that he would himself be elected and have the Holy Spirit. In actuality, however, therein the contrast between that outer circle which is the locus for the preparatory workings of grace and the inner circle from which these preparatory workings proceed would have to be presupposed. This is the case, for ordinarily those who have been drawn into the outer circle by the preaching of the gospel’s having reached them are not referred to as “the elect” in biblical and ecclesial speech, despite their also being distinguished from others as a result of their connection with the divine government of the world. Rather, they are simply referred to as “those who are called.” In contrast, the designation “of the elect” is reserved for those who by regeneration have been introduced into the inner circle. Likewise, moreover, the Holy Spirit is the bond of this inner circle. By virtue of the Spirit, the effects that individuals have on the outer circle become a unity, and their reciprocal working upon one another likewise forms, as it were, an organic cycle. In contrast, we do not yet ascribe the Holy Spirit to those who are called, as if the Holy Spirit were communicated to them or were dwelling in and moving them.
2. Now, first, as concerns the term “election” in its details, the actual task fulfilled by use of the term is as follows. For us, all human beings also have wholly the same status—being in a state of common sinfulness, wherein everything involved amounts to a shared fault—and no advantage in relation to the new life that is to be communicated by Christ is to be ascribed to any of them. Indeed, initially all are then drawn into the circle of preparatory grace—except that, on the one hand, certain distinctions that also emerge there are not to be ascribed to these persons themselves and, on the other hand, a distinct partiality also already exists therein, in that, at the very same time, some persons are called and other persons are not called. As a result, for purposes of this clarification, we are able to treat the two things in concert: election and the calling that precedes it and refers to it. Thus, at this point, generally when we observe the relative success and miscarriage of proclamation, there exists an advantage of some persons over other persons that is introduced within the divine government of the world—but without there being any preceding basis for this state of affairs in the persons involved. Moreover, it is possible to trace this special advantage from the oldest to the youngest of persons, not only in this particular domain but in other domains as well; but we do not have to treat of these other domains here.
If we think of Christ’s becoming human as the beginning of the regeneration of the entire human race, the establishment of a permanent home for proclamation of the gospel among a people, owing to firstborn persons within its midst, will be the beginning of the regeneration of that people. Furthermore, such a people will have an advantage over contemporaries among whom it was not possible to hear the voice of proclamation with any success. We cannot attribute this advantage to any difference in worthiness, however—just as little for a people as for individuals in the same circumstance and no less for foreign immigrants than for those born into a given community’s outer circle.
Now, just as surely as we push this situation back to a divine ordering, as the Redeemer himself has done,3 so the task is also set before us to assent to this same ordering, because otherwise we would be in contradiction to our God-consciousness—and indeed, we would be in contradiction with our moral consciousness. In this matter, however, we have no ground other than to rest satisfied in the divine will, of which we can only say that it would not have been determined by the worthiness of a given person, with the result that one situation could not be viewed as reward and another situation as punishment. In our shared feeling all else remains indeterminate, in and of itself, as is the case in the concept of election.
3. Consistent with what was indicated above, the term “Holy Spirit” is understood to mean the unity of life that is inherent in Christian community, viewed as a moral person. Moreover, since everything that is actually law-bound is already excluded from it, we would be able to designate this presence in terms of the “common spirit” of that community.4 Thus, it should not actually be necessary expressly to assert that by this latter term we wish to designate the same as what is also called “Holy Spirit” and “the divine Spirit”5 and “Christ’s Spirit” in Scripture and is also adduced as the third person of the Godhead in our ecclesial teaching. That at this point we, as yet, have nothing to do with the latter ascription is self-understood, based on how the entire presentation of doctrine is arranged here. However, based on what has been considered earlier, though subject to more exact explication below, what follows is, likewise, to be understood in a preliminary way. We have seen that once particular influences were no longer proceeding directly from Christ, a divine presence had to be in the Christian church, which we can just as well call the being of God within it,6 provided that communication of Christ’s perfection and blessedness is continually to persist in it. To look at this activity in a preliminary way means the following. First, the communication of Christ’s sinless perfection and blessedness, viewed as the absolute constant intent of God’s reign, is the innermost impulse of the individual. Thus, second, this innermost impulse must be the common spirit of the whole as well; otherwise there would have to be no such common spirit in it. That is to say, if this common spirit were something else, that innermost impulse of individuals would have to be subordinated to it, thus subordinate to something less than perfect, just as in every instance of collective life all that is of a personal nature must be subordinate to its common spirit. If there were no common spirit at all, however, the Christian church, too, would not be a true collective life, as has been the case, nonetheless, from the outset onward, in relation to this divine Spirit that indwells it and as this Spirit has been taken up into the self-consciousness of every invigorated member in this way. Thus, this desire for the reign of God comprises the unity of life that exists in the whole, and in every individual it comprises the common spirit that is one’s own. In the whole, in accordance with its inner nature, however, this desire for the reign of God is an absolutely powerful God-consciousness; consequently it is the being of God within that God-consciousness, yet it is conditioned by the being of God in Christ.
1. Der Mitteilung des heiligen Geistes. Ed. note: In Redeker’s edition the h (for heiligen) is mistakenly made H. This mistake was not in the original manuscript, thus was corrected by Schäfer (KGA I/13.1–2, 2003). In German usage, ordinarily the H is restricted to liturgical contexts and is not used in theology. By itself, this distinction does not represent any difference in doctrine, however, nor does the ordinary placement of the definite article (der, des, dem, den) before heilige Geist, a convention Schleiermacher always follows, as does the present translation (using “the”). Capitalizing nouns was a late convention in German in contrast to the practice in Greek, Latin, and many other languages, but it was also followed by Schleiermacher. Doing so, however, does not imply attributing personhood to the Holy Spirit in any way. It emphatically does not bear this implication for Schleiermacher. For him, moreover, writing “Holy” simply indicated that he was referring to this specific, divine spirit.
§116.2–3 refers to the Holy Spirit as the “common spirit” that indwells the community of the faithful. Thus, throughout this work, as elsewhere, Schleiermacher conceives the “Holy Spirit” not as a third person (prosōpon) in a divine “Trinity” (cf. previous references here in §§55, 65.1, 74.2, 97.2, 105.P.S., and 108.5) but as the “common spirit” (Gemeingeist; e.g., cf. §§133.1 and 170.1) that God has “sent” for the continuation of Christ’s work (cf. §99.P.S.).
This common spirit is the divine Spirit that, through its gifts, is constitutive of the church over its entire existence, development, and consummation. It, like Christ, represents “the supernatural becoming natural” (e.g., cf. §§99 and 123) and, for that reason, is called “holy.” So, the actual nomenclature “Holy Spirit” is not a name or title but the designation of a continuing redemptive, sanctifying process, which, in turn, stems from God’s “one eternal divine decree” (cf. §§90.2, 109.3, 117.4, 120.4, and 164.2). Temporally, it succeeds Christ.
As such, the Holy Spirit as the common spirit of the church is the same process as “Christ in us” (e.g., cf. §122.3), namely, in the regenerate, wholly active and efficacious as the spirit of “the invisible church” (cf. §149). God’s presence in history is always “of a spiritual nature” (cf. §55), and this same “holy” God is manifest only in and through the world, notably through the human nature of Christ and the human nature of the “visible” church (§§148–56). Accordingly, Schleiermacher’s version of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is more specifically set forth, in detail, from §121 on out. However, the doctrine is actually laid out as a whole from §113 to §172 and is, in effect, presupposed within the system of doctrine as a whole.
2. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s ethics a community can be referred to as if it were a person, a moralischen Person.
3. John 6:44. Ed. note: Sermon on John 6:36–44, Nov. 14, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 430–32.
4. Gemeingeist. Ed. note: With quite different meanings, this term was also occasionally used by Schleiermacher for other social entities, as he does near the end of this paragraph.
5. Geist Gottes. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s usage this expression ordinarily reads der göttlichen Geist.
6. Ed. note: The phrase “the being of God within it,” or God’s being within it, translates das Sein Gottes in ihr. Elsewhere here Schleiermacher uses the same expression for God’s being in, or the being of God in, Jesus (e.g., in §93, noting there the same connection with the church).
[Introduction to First Point of Doctrine]
§117. In consequence of the laws inherent in the divine government of the world, as long as the human race continues to exist on the earth it can never be the case that all persons living at any given time can be uniformly taken up into the reign of God founded by Christ.1
1. Here “uniformly” is not perchance to be understood as an equality in strength of faith or an equality in the degree to which all natural powers are assimilated to the common willing2 to which we have just referred, for in this case the proposition would be quite clear, in that it could not occur to anyone to desire3 such an equality. Rather, the reference is supposed to be to the distinct difference between the inner circle and the outer circle of Christian community. The reason is that if all other communities of faith are destined to pass over into Christianity, and if it is assumed that all who are born into this community would eventually come under the influence of preparatory grace, then a time can be imagined when everyone whose consciousness is but scantily developed to this end would also belong to that outer circle. However, since partaking of Christ’s perfection and blessedness is not yet tied into this condition, these people are decidedly different from self-initiating, active members of the Christian community, a fact that also fully harmonizes with the distinction between calling and election indicated above.
For the rest, two different points are indicated here, of which one point is indeed more a law of the divine ordering of the world, while the other point is also such a law but only to a certain degree.4 That is, patently this second law is such that what proceeds from the one point is only gradually spread out over the entirety of space. This second law is already less obvious, in that accordingly the state of grace could never be inborn; rather, at birth even Christian children would be essentially like all others that stem from Adam. Instead, any actual deviation from that heritage would, in part, be an exception that is inconceivable based on the fundamental fact of Christianity; consequently, it would be a new miracle independent of Christianity. Moreover, it would also demolish the concept of species.
2.5 Let us suppose that even as Christ began to proclaim the reign of God with reference to himself, he would have detected the same feeling of need for redemption everywhere. In that case, in part, in relation to his person, some would have been prepared by John and others not, whereas, in part, in relation to his forming the reign of God, some would have been bound in a particular fashion to what already existed, thus rejecting the very idea of Christ, while others would not have done so. Consequently, wherever he went he could show himself to be efficacious only in the most varied gradations imaginable. This was so, just as he could also establish the range of his proclamation, spatially speaking, only within distinct limits,6 but at one spot broadening it by changing location and at another spot staying longer where he was. Indeed, even where he might have been enjoined to leave,7 for many who would have come to the point of following him, this act would, of course, have served their undeserved disadvantage.
Yet, all of this activity has its basis in the divine government of the world. Moreover, we also find this same inequality in proclamation pursued from apostolic times right up to the present day. This continuing situation is to be explained as follows. The inclination to expand the church outward—an inclination that indwells the whole community of faith but that is particularly prominent in certain individuals—is indeed completely homogeneous in itself. It is so, in that it proceeds from the equality of all in their sinful status. In practice, however, this inclination to expand the church is, in part, subject to societal circumstances that have to provide points of connection with the church’s proclamation, and is, in part, subject to the mysterious activity of being attracted or repelled.8 The latter activity stands under the divine government of the world no less than the former activity does. Moreover, it also could not have been otherwise—not if what was supernatural in Christ was to become natural and the church was to be formed as a natural, historical phenomenon.
3. Suppose that we likewise observe the continuing growth of the church over the succession of generations. Here too, there arises a similar inequality in that the regeneration of individuals is bound to this natural form of living together by every two generations that follow one after the other, which is likewise rooted in the divine ordering of the world. This inequality occurs in that, sooner or later, every individual would arrive in this inner circle among social surroundings and influences that are more or less fitting for that individual. Two things always arise in this way. First, among persons who are living within the compass of the church at any given time, many will not belong to it. Second, it will be possible to say about those persons that they could already have been members of the church if their life path had been guided differently. Then, suppose too that a long succession of generations of a people, viewed in its entirety, had been living in a state of sanctification and that each of them would have borne an influence on later generations, while impulsive natural tendencies9 would have been tempered more and more. However, this process would still always be simply a better form of general sinfulness. Moreover, at some point, self-knowledge and repentance would still have to enter in.
Suppose, though, that recognition of the Redeemer would also have resulted early in this same relationship, enabling one to imagine a time—though physical birth and spiritual birth never could fall within the same moment in time—in which nature and grace would also not be distinguishable at all, but, nevertheless, a time in which the development of living faith would occur as closely as possible to the initial development of moral10 notions and sensations. This whole development would be the nearest possible approximation of the human development of Christ. Moreover, by that moment of recognition every individual would surely have attained much earlier to the possession of and gratification in one’s partaking of the higher life in a way that befits each one.11 Even given those suppositions, however, differences would persist, nevertheless, differences such that some persons would not yet have attained to this gratification whereas others of their age group would have been enjoying it long since.12
4. Now, if we designate this ordering by the term “divine election” because thereby we would stick with an act of divine good pleasure as the ultimate ground for all this ordering, then our not being allowed to seek that whereby this divine good pleasure is itself to be determined does not obviate against our choosing the term “divine election.” In particular, we also cannot say that with God everything would be the same toward everyone but that the will of some persons places obstacles in the way. In that case, that very will would, in fact, develop only gradually, to a greater or lesser degree of one’s readiness to be stirred,13 and likewise not without influence from external circumstances. Paul has led the way in this investigation.14 He did so, moreover, by trying to articulate the law under which the apostolic church filled itself at first with Gentiles of that time, given that the larger portion of the Jewish people still remained outside it. Moreover, the call to do this became all the more pressing once whole peoples were adopting Christianity, among whom many did also at least attain regeneration, while many members of peoples long designated as Christian still remained, for the time being, outside the interconnected life of the church’s inner circle.15
Suppose that one adds to this observation how differently the end of life is set among human beings. For many who are born into the Christian church and who have already experienced many workings of preparatory grace, the end nevertheless comes before these impressions could be combined and intensified for the purpose of beginning a spiritual process of life in a state of regeneration. Furthermore, many who live in places where the voice of the gospel has only just begun to penetrate are called away, in accordance with the divine ordinance concerning duration of life. Thus, it is clearly grounded in the divine ordering of the world that many die unregenerate because the time to reach their life’s goal has elapsed. Whether this happens to many or few is actually a matter of indifference here, as is the fact that one person responds no differently than others do to the offerings of divine grace.
Hence, we cannot say that God would definitely not have willed all this, since it all has its ground in the relationship between the natural order, which is dependent on God, and God’s decree of redemption through Christ, which decree bears just as profound a surety for us. As a result, we are not able to resist the conclusion that if God had not definitely and unconditionally willed this, God would have arranged either a different natural order16 for human life or a different order of salvation for the human spirit. If God has somehow ordered matters in this way, the task naturally arises for us also to consent to this divine will in the most conscious manner possible and without internal contradiction.17
1. Ed. note: Here §§117–118 are taken to be introductory to the two doctrinal propositions that follow (§§119–120).
2. Gemeinwillen. Ed. note: This shared process of willing the reign of God is identical with what in §116 was termed “desire” (wollen) for it.
3. Ed. note: Here the verb “desire” translates begehren.
4. Ed. note: Continuing the two-part analysis begun in §§113–116, here the two “points” (Punkte) refer again, first, to that point from which “the divine government of the world” begins and “the one eternal divine decree” is made “law” by God, and second, to the point at which Christ comes into the world and the “reign of God” is made manifest through the church—this representing a law only gradually to be fulfilled from that point on. This first law is emphasized in the doctrine of election, the second in the doctrine of the communication of the Holy Spirit. Each of these doctrines is literally a “piece” of the doctrinal system, in English usage called a “point of doctrine” (Lehrstück).
5. Ed. note: See also §108.6 on the collective whole of the church being united with Christ in his high-priestly role, otherwise referred to as a “ministry” that variously belongs to the whole people ([g]γαóς[/g]) of God in the the church, not to clergy alone. See his writings on practical theology, also index on “laity” in BO and pp. 137f. there.
6. Matt. 15:24.
7. Matt. 8:34. Ed. note: Sermon on Matt. 8:28–34, Feb. 2, 1812, SW II.1 (1834), 414–24.
8. Acts 16:6–10. Ed. note: These verses describe Paul and companions being repelled in their attempts to preach to some cities and attracted through a dream to preach in other regions.
9. Ed. note: Here “impulsive natural tendencies” translates leidenschaftlichen Naturanlagen. Carried within this usage by Schleiermacher is the connotation of being passive, and not in a state of active receptivity, in relation to those influences, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, being impelled by one’s own natural tendencies, not necessarily by passionate ones only. This adjective can also mean “passionate.”
10. Ed. note: Here “moral” translates sittlicher, which in Schleiermacher’s usage always covers the entire range of human conduct, not simply what is often meant by “moral,” as if it could refer only to one portion of human action.
11. Ed. note: What “befits” each person thus points not simply to a certain age level, for any given person’s readiness for or sustained experience of “the higher life” could occur at any time within one’s life after one has reached a sufficient level of discretion with regard to “moral notions and sensations”—usually not attained, according to Schleiermacher’s psychology and educational thought, until late in one’s childhood, or one’s early teens.
12. Ed. note: This language suggests an analogy to the subsequent experience of partaking of, being gratified by, and enjoying the Lord’s Supper and to the experience of not being ready for it. See §§139–42.
13. Erregbarkeit. Ed. note: Here “readiness to be stirred” is in parallel to the translation of Erregung as “stirring.”
14. Rom. 10 and 11. Ed. note: Only one sermon on Rom 11:32–33, May 29, 1831, Festpredigten (1833), also SW II.2 (1834), 562–73.
15. Ed. note: By “inner connection” (innern Zusammenhang).
16. Naturordnung … Heilsordnung. Ed. note: All along, Schleiermacher has been referring to God’s Weltordnung, translated “ordering of the world.”
17. Ed. note: Widerspruch has connotations both of inconsistency and of dissent. Both are to be avoided in consent to the divine will.
§118. The shared feeling of Christians is at ease with one or another person’s being taken up into the community of redemption earlier or later; however, an irresolvable dissonance does remain if, on the presupposition that there is a continuing existence after death, we were to think of a portion of the human race as entirely excluded from this community.1
1. If we consider ourselves, with both features of our self-consciousness, that of sin and that of grace, to be members of the church over against the world, by virtue of the latter feature, wherein the complete surety of the divine decree of our blessedness is given to us, we find ourselves to be in contrast to all those in whom this consciousness has not yet developed. On the other hand, by virtue of the consciousness of sin we find ourselves completely equal2 to them, for the consciousness of forgiveness belongs to the other feature, grace, but ever makes us mindful of that original feature, sin, which inheres in the consciousness of that nature which all human beings have in common. Thus, the equally natural incapacity from which consciousness of the need for redemption can develop in each person is supported in one place and is left to its own devices in another place. Further, consciousness of the need for redemption is received in revelation of the divine decree, which makes for blessedness3 in one place but not in another place. As a consequence, then, this inequality within this selfsame human race is one in which no portion of the rest would be definitely excluded in relation to the divine efficacious action of Christ. This inequality, moreover, would be such that in order to accept it we would either have to reduce our God-consciousness to a particularistic attitude or have to estimate the difference between those who are blessed and the rest to be lower and to be a matter of an almost accidental more or less. Otherwise, the blessedness that is posited in the consciousness of grace would, of necessity, be nullified by the shared feeling of having a lack of blessedness, which would be bound up with a sense of abasement.
Yet, all this gains a whole other perspective, as soon as we hold ourselves to be justified in assuming that this contrast is simply in process of vanishing at every particular point, with the result that everyone who is now still outside this blessed community would at some time or other be within it, deeply touched by the workings of divine grace. This would be the case, for at that point there would be no bifurcation in our species-consciousness anymore, and for that consciousness the merely gradual transition of individuals into the full enjoyment of redemption would be entirely the same as the gradual progress of sanctification is for our personally oriented self-consciousness. That is, it would simply be the natural form that divine activity would of necessity take on in its historical appearance, and, as was stated above,4 it would be the indispensable condition of all temporal efficacious action of the Word-become-flesh.
What could be objected to this view is cleared up in the following two reflections. The first reflection is about an application we make of the proposition already set forth earlier,5 that Christ’s becoming human occurs in the same way as does the regeneration of the whole human race, viewed as a unity. If this is the case, then no one can say that it would have been better for the whole human race if Christ had been born earlier and, consequently, if the new spiritual collective life had begun earlier. That is to say, this earlier birth would indeed have been better, but this would have been the case only if this new life could have been taken up with the same purity and power. In contrast, when it is said that Christ was born in the fullness of time,6 this means that the divine anticipatory provision7 concerning the whole human race and the particular determination concerning the point in time when the Redeemer would appear are one undivided revelation of divine omnipotence. They are to such an extent that the spiritual life, which is conditioned by this determination as to time, is surely also the absolutely largest one, and it articulates the whole idea of the nature of humanity.
Now, the same thing can also be said of the individual, that when one’s fullness of time is reached, each one will be regenerated. As a result, one’s new life too, in its being conditioned by this determination of time, is an absolutely largest event, however late it may come, and completely articulates the whole idea of one’s person, as this person is likewise bound to the collectivity that exists in a given place. Hence, in agreement with that belief, we cannot think, even regarding the individual, that it would have been better for him or her to have been regenerated earlier. Moreover, there is no basis for fearing that thereby some sluggishness of witness to Christ would be founded or that a decline in discipline and teaching would occur. There is no basis for this fear, simply because it would not help to bring the gospel to people’s hearts before their time is fulfilled. Augustine already clearly expounded this point,8 and this objection would also not easily be seriously made by anyone who is truly affected by the process of sanctification, that is, by anyone who is ready to bear witness or to apply teaching and discipline. This is so, for such a person, on the one hand, is driven from within,9 without a view to any definite result and, on the other hand, also knows that the workings of grace by the Spirit, which workings proceed from every regenerate person, fit with the fact that each person would also actually be regenerated whenever the fullness of time would have been reached for that person.
The second reflection is about the application we make of the proposition that in regeneration each person becomes a new creature. That is to say, in accordance with this proposition, a shared feeling concerning the lateness of such a rebirth would be empty in any case, because there would be no origin for this feeling in the given subject. It would be just as empty as if one had assumed a temporal creation of the world and felt distressed that the world had not been created earlier. Furthermore, if someone would also want to say that the previous period of one’s life was not altogether pointless to oneself but was a disagreeable one, this disagreeable quality would indeed disappear in the surety that one’s sin is forgiven just as fully whether that period had been longer or shorter. Indeed, if such a regret were intimated from time to time, because the new life would not have lasted so long as it would have lasted had it developed earlier, even this regret would be but an illusion that still gives evidence of a lack of familiarity with the new life. This would be so, for this new life is eternal and requires no increase over some length of time. In like manner, then, no one who has come to be mature in sanctification has any such awareness, unless it were to happen in a diseased state of mind. Rather, such after-pains could befall only those who are starting out, but in a state of composure10 these afterpains would disappear of themselves. Hence, in no way are these afterpains suitable for consideration within the sphere of a doctrinal concept. Instead, from the earliest to the latest comer among the regenerate, each must be of equal worth11 to oneself and for others. Moreover, this is true even if the earliest comer is a very young child and the latest is of an age reached only after a long series of developments in life. This is so, for the first is better placed to be a likeness of the original unity of the divine with the personal existence of a human being, whereas the latter is better placed to be a likeness of the eventual suffusion of human nature in its entirety by Christ’s redemptive power, wherewith the collective efficacious action of all previously regenerated persons is presupposed. Yet, even the semblance of a differentiation must disappear, all the more so the more the shared feeling and common spirit win the upper hand in them, whereby each person takes to oneself all that is present in the others. So, there is no basis for fearing12 that indifference to the workings of preparatory divine grace or deferral of repentance and conversion to an undetermined future would be occasioned thereby. This would be the case, for anyone who would offer this outlook would defer conversion, not because Christian teaching forbids one to have it but because, at present, one would still prefer to take part in the collective life of sin than to take part in God’s reign. Such a person also cannot be helped by someone withholding this teaching but can be helped only by someone who knows how to stimulate longing for the reign of God in that person.
Taken together, then, what all this yields is that once anyone who lags behind us is received into a living community with Christ, our shared feeling can be fully at peace, without any contradiction arising between that shared feeling and our God-consciousness.
2. It is plain to see, however, that all that has been adduced thus far is useless the moment we feel obliged to think that a portion of our human race is to be entirely excluded from this community with Christ and from the higher state that is dependent on it. Indeed, this point is so self-evident that one would be disinclined to make a distinction, whether one assumes a continuing existence after death or not, and certainly would be disinclined to make a distinction if one agrees with what has been stated here. That is to say, if this life is in itself eternal, then the possession and deprival of eternal life can also not diverge more widely, as long as only one person has come into possession of blessedness, which alone confers value to life, and another person has not. This would be the case whether eternal life refers to an unending duration or to an insignificant duration.
Now, let us assume this dichotomy for the moment. Accordingly, the discordance is then to be resolved in only one of the following two ways. Either we would justify the coexistence of such equality and inequality between ourselves and others and would try to trace it back to a law, in which case the proposed contradiction would be recognized to be a mere illusion; or we would declare one of the two itself to be an illusion, whether it is the original equality that would have come about by divine apportionment, or it is the inequality that would have come about in this way.
The first option can be attempted in two ways. That is to say, just as equality among human beings would be the original arrangement of human nature, so too the stipulated inequality would also be grounded in that very same nature. Thus, a contradiction between the two could take place only by finding fault with the arrangement of human nature, which would then no longer make any sense because we would not exist if we were not human beings. However, the inequality, which would have arisen only through the intervention of Christ, could not be located in human nature as it underlies the collective life of sinfulness. Against our assumption, and reverting to Pelagian principles,13 we would then have to assume receptive powers in the one person or repelling powers in the other. Moreover, despite all this, one would revert to an inequality in the dispensation of individual impulses, which was supposed to be grounded only in the divine good pleasure. The other way around, if equality were to be grounded in the same source as inequality, namely, in the divine order of salvation, this grounding would have to mean that with respect to redemption, God would have placed all human beings under sin, even though only some were to enjoy the benefit of redemption. Then, however, the reception of one person and exclusion of another would be grounded in such an arbitrariness on God’s part that we would rightly have to call this order an absolute, willful decision.
Yet, even if the coexistence of equality and inequality could be thought of in this manner, those who would be left behind for our sakes would, nonetheless, be and irretrievably remain an object of our shared feeling,14 which, the more species-consciousness is put on the same footing as personal consciousness, would thus cancel out the blessedness attached to personal consciousness, because it would be a shared feeling of not being blessed. Some have sought to remedy this impasse and have believed that they had done so by hypothesizing that the order of salvation, in which they take the equality of incapacity and the inequality of assistance to be grounded, would have its motivation in the fact that the divine mercy would have to be made manifest in the one and the divine justice in the other.15 Therewith, they think, there would be a full divine manifestation of the two aspects in human nature: of justice in those who are lost and of mercy in those who are saved.16 It could be objected against this position, however, that, as a special case, divine justice would also be fully revealed if all that is made possible overall through redemption would also come to be realized, for it would then be rendered as reward in Christ and as punishment in all those who continue to belong to the collective life of sin. In general, however, it is not to be conceded that there is such a thing as a divided revelation of divine attributes, in that they would then be restricted17 and God would be an unrestricted being with restricted attributes. Instead, justice and mercy must not be exclusive of each other, the result being that mercy would have to be shown to the same subjects as is justice, which would itself be unthinkable if conceived as a permanent exclusion of some persons from the blessedness communicated by Christ.
Thus, only the second way remains, namely, that of declaring one of the two, the equality or the inequality of the two portions of humankind, to be an illusion. Inequality between those who are taken up into a living community with Christ and those who are excluded from it cannot possibly be held to be an illusion without giving up an essential component of our Christian consciousness. The case is different with equality, which we find in the consciousness of sin. This equality would be an illusion if there had actually been an original inequality among human beings, thus a split in human nature from the very outset. The reason is that as we would become aware of this split, the contradiction would disappear, because those whom we had taken to be originally not equal to us also could not be an object of our shared feeling. Rather, the oneness of human nature, as previously apprehended by us, would be a deception. However, if one may then imagine that there would be an arousable receptivity for divine grace in one person but none in another, or that there would be an insurmountable resistance to divine grace in one person but none in another, one would in every instance arrive at Manichean presuppositions18 that inveigh against our conception, just as we saw the Pelagian presuppositions do above. Indeed, even redemption would obtain an entirely different form, for in that perspective Christ would then actually have come only to unfold the inequality that was already present and to bring it into the light, and his actual function would be that of judgment, and what could then be called redemption would simply be the form taken by one aspect of this function.
Thus, there is no way to overcome this discordance if, proceeding from our Christian consciousness, we are supposed to consent to assume that a portion of our human race would remain entirely excluded. However, why our proposition admits of being understood in such a way that the discordance would be greater, given the generally predominant presupposition within the Christian church of a personal existence after death, than if we could adopt the opposite view is to be explained only as follows. In our present life, even if we do acknowledge the state of grace as a communication of the perfection and blessedness of Christ, this communication would occur, nevertheless, only within the innermost ground of our consciousness. In contrast, if we reflect on the collective self-consciousness of the blessed, the consciousness of sin would always be contained within it as well. Thus, for the others the sense of inequality would not be present, because in the only consciousness that would be present in them, namely, temporal consciousness, they would recognize only the difference of a more and a less, and they would find this difference to be all the more meager the less they would be touched by preparatory grace. On the other hand, when we consider present life, eventually we have also to imagine a final development of both blessedness and lack of blessedness: that is, a contrast between the two that would have stretched to its greatest extent. Moreover, the more we would already be suffused with the anticipatory feeling19 regarding a future life even now, the stronger would the shared feeling of a future lack of blessedness also have to be and thus the sterner the discordance.
3. A couple of other attempts to resolve this problem have a certain affinity with this last reflection. The one attempt would concede a continuing existence after death to those who have reached the point of receiving communication of Christ’s blessedness, but it would have those who are excluded perish in death, with the result that they are simply to be viewed, in a physical fashion, as like children who die before they have grown to enjoy the light of day. In this view, the inequality would indeed be diminished on both sides, because a brief lack of blessedness would present a lesser contrast than one that would extend indefinitely. However—quite apart from the fact that only in this way would redemption become the cause of immortality, and it would thus exercise a physical effect that would exist not at all in its nature and destiny, but in this case too a splitting of human nature into two entirely different parts would otherwise underlie its functioning—a particularistic element would still remain in redemption, which could assure blessedness and immortality only to some, not all.
The other attempt would want to reduce the inequality from a different direction: namely, in holding that after this life the unregenerate too could attain to a certain fulfillment and happiness by faithfully utilizing the natural light given to them, even if this fulfillment and happiness were only of a subordinate status, and they would remain excluded only from a higher stage of life.20 At that point, however, it would not be possible to see why they should not also remain within the sphere of preparatory grace or be transported into it and why preparatory grace should not have reached its end sooner or later. Otherwise, redemption would remain particularistic here as well, and we would also arrive again at a divine arbitrariness that would cancel out any full harmony, in this case simply in a different form.
The following doctrinal propositions are now to be more exactly defined and evaluated in accordance with these considerations.
1. Once and for all, for this point of doctrine I make reference to my essay on the doctrine of election. Ed. note: On the Doctrine of Election, 1819, SW I.2, 393–484; KGA I/10 (1990), 145–222; ET Nicol and Jorgenson (2012).
2. Ed. note: Throughout this section gleich, Gleichheit, ungleich, and Ungleichheit are used to compare groups of persons. The German simultaneously indicates both “equality” and “similarity.” In these propositions this translation consistently renders versions of gleich with versions of “equal.”
3. Offenbarung des begnadigenden göttlichen Ratschlusses. Ed. note: Elsewhere in the work Schleiermacher refers to this as the one eternal divine decree of redemption (e.g., cf. §§90.3 and 109.3). In German, begnadigen (from Gnade, grace) means to bless. In much theology of his day and since, begnadigen means to pardon; but it does not mean this in his usage, hence the translation “that makes for blessedness” here. Further, the term “blessedness” just below, and frequent in his discourse, translates Seligkeit. The Luther Bible translates the Greek word swthri/a with Seligkeit (e.g., Eph. 1:13; Phil. 1:28; Heb. 2:3; 1 Pet. 1:1). Intermittently Luther translates swthri/a with Heil (e.g., Rom. 11:11 and 12:10; Titus 2:11; and Rev. 17:1). Whereas in English “salvation” translates the Greek in such passages, “blessing” also translates other Hebrew and Greek words in the English Bible. For the most part, Schleiermacher chose the words begnadigten (blessed by grace) and Seligkeit to refer to the state of blessedness (vs. “salvation”) or righteousness (vs. “justification,” cf. Rom. 4:6, 9—“blessing is reckoned as righteousness”) or sanctification (Heiligung). All of these states stand for what is given and achieved by grace. (He reserved Heil for “salvation.”) Such divine action always includes God’s forgiveness of sin, but Schleiermacher tends to find serious lacks in strictly transactional, judicial, or penitential interpretations of what God is said to do or to require, either with respect to Christ or with respect to the Christian life.
4. Ed. note: For example, see §96.3 and §108.5.
6. Gal. 4:4. Ed. note: See §12n5.
7. Vorherversehung. Ed. note: This rare usage seems intended to avoid the simpler term “providence” (Vorsehung), which Schleiermacher took to be too easily misunderstood to be useful (§164.3).
8. In Augustine’s book Admonition and Grace (427), throughout. Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 2 (1947), 245–304; Latin: Migne Lat. 44:915–59.
9. As in 2 Cor. 5:14 and 20.
10. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s usage, to be in a beruhigten Zustand is to be at peace or calmed down, hence “in a state of composure.”
11. Ed. note: The theme of equality (gleichwert here) often appears in Schleiermacher’s sermons. For example, see that on Gal. 3:27–28, Dec. 26, 1832, first published in 1832, then in his Festpredigten (1833), also in SW II.2 (1835, 1843), 343–56.
12. Ed. note: See §8.P.S.2 and the citation there of his sermon on the theme “Perfect love casts out fear” from 1 John 4:16–18.
14. Mitgefühl. Ed. note: This is one instance where perhaps the word returns, in part, to the ordinary nontechnical meaning of “sympathy.” Yet, here too, it is a feeling in which the observer is not disjoined from the other, thus is rendered as a “shared feeling.”
15. (1) Gallican Confession (1559) 12: “We believe that from this corruption … God, according to his eternal and immutable counsel, calleth those whom he hath chosen by his goodness and mercy alone in our lord Jesus Christ … to display in them the riches of his mercy, leaving the rest in the same corruption and condemnation to show in them his justice.” (2) Belgic Confession (1561) 16: “We believe that God did then manifest himself … merciful and just, merciful since he delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom he … hath elected in Christ Jesus … just in leaving others in the fall and perdition where they have involved themselves.” Ed. note: For these two items, ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 366 and 401; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 332 and 370.
16. Ed. note: See §§84–85 on these two proposed attributes of God.
17. Begrenzt. Ed. note: That is, they would be limited to certain boundaries in themselves.
18. Ed. note: See §22 for Schleiermacher’s description of the presuppositions he calls “Manichean” among the four heresies “natural” to Christianity.
19. Vorgefühl. Ed. note: Cf. §108n64 and §146n1.
20. Franz Volkmar Reinhard (1753–1812), Dogmatik (1818), §116.3. Redeker note: Cf. page 440: “It is illuminating … that when people speak of the blessedness of the next life, they have to make an important distinction between the blessedness [Seligkeit] that God would offer through Christ and happiness [Glückseligkeit] in general. To a certain extent, in his general love God has intended the latter for all and has also made the necessary arrangements for that. On the other hand, by virtue of the nature of things, only some could take part in blessedness.” [ET Tice]
§119. First Doctrinal Proposition: Regarding Predestination: The election of those who have been justified1 is a divine predestination to blessedness in Christ.
(1) Saxon Confession (= Melanchthon, Repetitio Confessionis Augustanae, 1551): “and whether it is very certain that a person doing penance on account of God’s Son freely, because of faith, receives forgiveness for sins and justification and that this person is an inheritor of eternal life.”—“God wants it understood that the human species was created by God … not for eternal destruction but that he might gather a church for himself in humankind with which he might share for all eternity his wisdom, goodness and joy (laetitia).”2
(2) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) X: “From eternity God has freely … predestinated or elected the saints whom he wills to save in Christ. … God has elected us, not directly but in Christ … in order that those who are now ingrafted into Christ by faith might also be elected. But those who were outside Christ were rejected.”3
(3) Anglican Articles of Religion (1571) XVII: “Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, who … hath constantly decreed … those whom he hath chosen in Christ to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation.”4
(4) Solid Declaration (1577) XI: “Predestination (predestinatio) … applies (pertinet) only to the children of God, who are chosen and predestined (electi et ordinate) to eternal life.”5
(5) Confessiones Marchicae (= Confessio Fidei Ioannis Sigismundi Electoris Brandenburgici, 1613): “That Almighty God has ordained and elected to eternal life all who have steadfast faith in Christ. … thus, in accordance with his firm justice, from eternity God has also overlooked all those who do not have faith in Christ and has prepared the everlasting fire of hell for them.”6
1. Let us now reflect on our self-consciousness as regenerate persons. Let us observe how it operates during our advances in sanctification, from the very onset on. Further, let us do so under two conditions: first, not only inasmuch as we are aware of our activity within the reign of God as something divinely effected by means of Christ’s being sent to us but also, second, inasmuch as the unfolding of these advances in each person is at one with the place given to each person within the general interconnected process of human circumstances. Accordingly, this would be the natural way to speak concerning the matter: that the ordering within which redemption is realized in each person is the same thing as the carrying out of the divine ordering of the world in relation to that person. Moreover, this assertion would apply not only to the period since regeneration would have emerged. Rather, because it also applies to that earlier period, which also belongs to the realization of redemption within that person at a time when that same person would have stood under the influences of preparatory grace, it applies, as well, to the element of rebirth, which unites these two periods with each other. Yet, the self-consciousness that is expressed in this way is not the merely personal one of an individual. Rather, this self-consciousness is comprised of the shared feeling of all who find themselves within the circle of Christ’s working, and therefore it is rightly transmitted to all for whom being drawn into that circle might yet be near at hand. Thus, if this very process counts for them as the instant of their rebirth, this very process of the individual’s being drawn, each in one’s own time, into community with Christ is simply the result of the fact that the divine activity of justification is made distinct in its manifestation7 through the general ordering of the world and is a part of that. This view of the matter would then be contrary to that held by someone wishing to claim that one’s own conversion and sanctification would have started at the same time and in the same fashion even if the course of one’s own life were disposed within an entirely different set of circumstances.
Now, how our proposition is in conformity with the consciousness of freedom has already been discussed above.8 Moreover, in this respect we could also express our proposition in such a way that the manner in which any given individual would obtain rebirth, and the time when this would occur, would, in every instance, be determined by the distinctiveness of one’s inner life, or one’s freedom, and by one’s relationships to the natural, historical unfolding of the justifying divine activity, or by one’s place in the world. Accordingly, the reign of grace, or of the Son, would arise, first of all, only in absolute unity with the reign of the omniscient Almighty One, or of the Father,9 and there the overall world order, together with the world, would exist eternally in God. Therefore, within the reign of grace nothing would happen without divine predestination. Thus, all this would be present, first of all, in the self-consciousness of those blessed by grace and would be posited by means of it. Moreover, whether they might then say that their condition is a work of divine grace in Christ or that it is a result of divine predestination, in each of the two expressions the other would be implied.
2. However, as concerns those whom we find to be outside Christ’s community, they cannot stir us in such a manner that this outside status would give us a well-grounded occasion to declare something about them in this context. The reason is that we are conscious of proclamation regarding Christ that is ever proceeding from the church, as a vital efficacious action, consequently as one that is not without its results. Moreover, we experience how the workings of preparatory grace first arise for individuals from this proclamation and how these very individuals later on become church members, in whose progress in sanctification the surety of their being right with God10 is made manifest; consequently, we also experience how this very same divine predestination comes to be revealed in them as well. In contrast, of those who do not evidence these workings we have no basis for declaring anything else but precisely this negation, and indeed only in their relation to the reign of God at a given time and the workings of grace that proceed from it.11 Thus, with respect to divine predestination, there lies herein only what has been explained above,12 that there are always some people in whom divine predestination has not yet reached its goal, namely, the beginning of blessedness in Christ. However, by taking this route we can never arrive at the notion that there would be a counterposed predestination for these people or for certain ones among them. That many are called but few are chosen13 is true at every particular point wherein the reign of God is proclaimed and for every time—that is, for the present time—and it is always proper for one to say that most people are not yet to be thought of as among the elect—that is, at the present time. This is the case, for it is natural that in every moment most people are held in trust for some later moment, for this provision is commensurate with the ordering of the divine decree, in that in every temporal development there is necessarily a succession, even among things that were originally contemporaneous. Thus, only in this limited sense—that is, at every time when we are able to compare with each other those who are in the process of sanctification and those who are not yet there—are we permitted to say that God passes over or overlooks some and that God also rejects those whom God overlooks, consequently that election always manifests itself in opposition to this rejection.14 From our standpoint, the term “passing over”15 is the most suitable one, because it says “no” to only a distinct action. It is not as if no divine activity, or no divine decree for that matter, would have been implicated in relation to them. Rather, only as a consequence of the overall divine ordering of things is this divine activity so completely bound up in remote internal and external preparations that they merely seem to us to be passed over. That is to say, for us, those who are not yet taken up are simply this indeterminate element. Lacking in personal existence of a spiritual kind, they are still sunk within the mass of sinful collective life, and as long as divine predestination has not yet come to light in them, they are, purely and simply, where the whole church also was at one time. On account of this fact, we too can never cease to view them as objects of that divine activity by which the church is gathered and as included with us all under the same divine predestination.
Now, since we have also denied and declared as mere appearance every return from community with Christ into the collective life of sin,16 such that this community with Christ would have been entirely surrendered, so too no divine predestination can be assumed whereby that community with Christ would be lost to an individual. Thus, we also reasonably stick with this one divine predestination to blessedness, in accordance with which the emergence of the church is ordered.
3. Hence we also can deal with the other kind of notion, which holds to a bifurcated predestination of some to blessedness and of others to damnation, only, as it were, by way of an appendage yet, strictly speaking, not as something belonging here at all.17 For that purpose, however, we have no point of connection with the reflection carried out above other than in our thinking of death’s intervening before predestination is fulfilled in a given individual. Now, suppose that there were an individual in whom significant influences of preparatory grace could be detected but also that it could just as surely be assumed that this individual is not yet in a state of sanctification. At that point, the thought would easily arise that this individual’s having come into community with Christ and having attained to enjoyment of blessedness is not to be, and must not be, by virtue of some divine arrangement. Suppose that instead we proceed based on the presupposition that all who belong to the human race would, sometime or other, be taken up into community of life with Christ. Thus, this one divine predestination would remain. In no way would we conclude from the claim that this predestination would not yet have been accomplished during a given individual’s lifetime that some other destination would be accomplished through that individual’s death. Rather, even the condition one would have at death would at that point be simply an intermediate one.
This is faith in Christ: one that ascribes to him a jurisdiction and power over the entire human race and, at the same time, does not have to assume any blind18 preference among persons on God’s part. In that faith, moreover, no contradiction would arise for us between the prospect implicit in the divine order of salvation that we have embraced and any outcome encountered through the divine order of the world.
In contrast, as soon as one were to proceed from the opposite assumption, as is clearly the case in our confessions19—that is, that death would bring the workings of divine grace to an end– the above proposition would cease to be a suitable expression. Moreover, if everything is to remain logical and straightforward, one would then have to assume a predestination whereby some would be ordained to damnation just as others are ordained to blessedness. Suppose, however, that someone would want also to say that predestination would apply only to those who have become blessed and that the rest would simply be overlooked or left where they are. This position would not do any longer, at least not without artificial distortion, if by predestination one can understand only a divine decree that would lead a human being to one’s end.20 Similarly, this position would not hold for someone who would identify predestination with election and would then claim that with respect to persons who are evil there would be no predestination but only foreknowledge,21 for an overlooking that is foreknowledge is, in any case, a predestining. The reason is that if one claims that individual persons who are elected are predestined,22 it follows that if there is to be only a mere foreknowledge for the others, then there would also be no divine will with respect to them. Moreover, if one were then to state, however emphatically and prefatory to that claim, that predestination to election would have to be viewed in Christ and not as something absolutely in and of itself, it would also follow that if in Christ some could not be elected but could only be overlooked, the general nature of redemption would also have to be restricted accordingly. Taken together, these considerations can only yield the following result. Proceeding from the presupposition that for those who die outside Christ’s community there is no further access to it at all, if someone would still want to claim that these excluded persons would be overlooked, then it would follow that they must likewise be regarded as nonexistent.
Now, this conclusion would also be entirely correct if one were simply to shift our proposition in its entirety to the domain of new creation, for those who would be excluded would not be found in that domain, but, viewed in this way, neither would the elect be there in advance. Instead, each could be in that domain only in one’s own time, in accordance with predestination, and thereupon the term “predestination” would also not be applicable to individuals in their present actuality. Rather, the proposition would then have to read in this way: “There is a divine predestination according to which the totality of the new creation is called forth out of the total mass of the human race.”23 In and of itself, this formulation equally fits all three presuppositions: that which has those not elected perish at death, that which is contained in our own proposition, and that which we are now considering. Our proposition would then simply add to it that the totality of the new creation is simply equivalent to the total mass of humanity; the first presupposition would add that the total mass of humanity simply becomes the totality of the new creation; in contrast, the last presupposition would have the total mass of humanity remain the larger category.
This is all true, except that, accordingly, one must also say of the redemptive power of Christ that it is sufficient to save the totality of the new creation contained within the human race from shared perdition. Furthermore, the composite formulation that would assign a larger compass to providence than to predestination would always continue to be false, because such a disparity cannot occur. The reason is as follows. First, suppose that, as a general matter, God predestines whatever it is that conditions just as effectively as God foresees whatever is conditioned. It follows that if God foresees being lost after death as something conditioned and does not alter what conditions it, namely—to speak in the most human way possible—the distinctive makeup of an individual as it relates to where one is located in the course of proclamation, God will also have predestined what is conditioned in this case. Instead, if one refers either of these concepts to individuals of either party, then one has to use the other concept too. Thus, the one party is comprised of those who are foreseen and predestined to be features of the total mass of humanity from which the children of God’s reign are to be formed; those who comprise the other party are both foreseen and predestined to be these same new creatures, who are in the process of being formed out of the total mass of humanity. Hence, this formulation, which was crafted as an expedient, would then always be a deviation from the confessions of both Evangelical parties, for both agree in their exclusion of a part of the human race as definitely as they agree in their referring the term predestination to the individual viewed in one’s entire actuality. Moreover, if the term is to be used in this way, Calvin’s formulation indisputably carries the advantage of consistency. The extent to which this presupposition, which has come to be more generally held in the church, would be necessary or admissible, however, can first be considered only where the consummation of the church is treated,24 not here, where we have to do with the church’s emergence.
1. Gerechtfertigt. Ed. note: Or “made righteous.” See §§107–9. Note too that in the present context “rebirth” and “regeneration” translate the same word (Wiedergeburt).
2. Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin CR 28:403, 407; Schleiermacher here refers to the edition in Symbole (1816), 157, 162.
3. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 240; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 252; cf. §37n3.
4. Ed. note: The quote is from the 1562 Latin edition. ET Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 497. See §37n5.
5. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 641; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 1065.
6. Ed. note: ET Tice, from the German text in Niemeyer (1840), 650.
7. Manifestation.
8. In §§4, 46, and 49.
9. Solid Declaration (1577) 11: “According to his normal arrangement (gemeinen Ordnung, ordinem a se decretum et institutem), the Father draws people by the power of his Holy Spirit.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 652; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 1085.
10. Rechtfertigung.
11. Likewise, certainly Acts 2:41 and 13:48 should not go on to say [after mass conversions] that at some later time no one among those who did not yet become persons of faith would have been able to become so. Ed. note: Confirmation discourse on Acts 2:41, Thursday, Mar. 31, 1831, its sole separate publication first in 1895. The 16-year-old Count Otto von Bismarck was among the confirmands. Cf. Tice, Schleiermacher’s Sermons (1997), 101.
13. Matt. 22:14.
14. John Calvin (1509–1564), Institutes (1559) 3.23.1: “Election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation.” However, Calvin does not use the word in our limited sense. Rather, he goes on to say that this limitation, the ground for which is supposed to be indicated in the above quotation, is brought forth “very ignorantly and childishly.” Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 947; Latin: Opera selecta 4 (1959), 394, and CR 30:698.
15. Übergehen.
16. Ed. note: Cf. §111. There Schleiermacher contends that once sanctification is underway, no backsliding into sin can overcome the effects of regenerating grace or cancel the state of blessedness.
17. Calvin, Institutes (1559) 3.21.5: “No one who wishes to be thought religious dares simply deny predestination by which God adopts some to hope of life and sentences others to eternal death. … For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death.” Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 926; Latin: Opera selecta 4 (1959), 375f., and CR 30:682f.
18. Ed. note: Here the word “blind” (blinde) suggests the images of “blind fate” and “blind justice.” In contrast, what God has in view, as it were, for human beings is taken to be neither unintentional nor simply impartial. Thus, just below, with Redeker the term Ansicht (prospect) present in the first printing is accepted here, in contrast to Clemen’s conjecture, Absicht (aim), present in the original draft and chosen by Schäfer.
19. In the section on predestination, Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) in Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559) also says this: “God, wanting the whole human race not to perish, always on account of his Son … calls … and receives those who assent … before the last day.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles; cf. the different translations by Manschreck (1995) from the 1555 German edition; Latin: CR 21:920. See §32n16.
20. Calvin, Institutes (1559) 3.21.5: “We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he determined with himself what he willed to become of each man.” Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 926; Latin: Opera selecta 4 (1959), 374, and CR 30:683.
21. Solid Declaration (1577) 11: “The eternal election of God, however, or predestination (that is, God’s preordination to salvation) does not apply to both the godly [Frommen, bonos] and the evil [Bösen, malos],” and all that follows. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 641; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 1065. Cf. §119n5.
22. Solid Declaration 11: “In his counsel, intention and preordination God did not only prepare salvation in general, but he also graciously considered each and every one of the elect … and chose them for salvation.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 644; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 1070.
23. Quite properly, the following formulation in Augustine’s Enchiridion (421), 99, cited earlier, belongs here as well: “Grace alone … separates the redeemed from the lost, all having been mingled together in one mass of perdition from a common cause.” To suit our purpose, we need only change it slightly in this way: “Predestination separates the redeemed from the common mass of perdition.” Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 2 (1947), 452; Latin: Migne Lat. 40:278.
24. Ed. note: See the “prophetic doctrines” treated under the heading “The Consummation of the Church” in §§157–63.
§120. Second Doctrinal Proposition: Regarding the Grounds for Defining Election. Considered from the aspect of how it influences the divine government of the world, election is grounded in the faith of the elect, foreseen by God; considered from the aspect of how it is founded on the divine government of the world, election is determined solely by the divine good pleasure.
(1) Canons of Dort (1618–1619) IX: “This same election is not accomplished based on faith that God forsees.”—X: “The true cause of this election by grace is solely the divine good pleasure.”1
(2) Confessiones Marchicae (= Confessio Fidei Ioannis Sigismundi Electoris Brandenburgici, 1613) III: “Namely, that God … out of pure, unalloyed grace … has ordained and elected to eternal life all who have steadfast faith in Christ, his own also know and recognize right well.”—Note (thanks to Prince Sigismund): “It is Pelagian to think that God … has selected out some on account of their faith, which God has foreseen.”2
(3) Leipzig Colloquium (1631) (theologians from Brandenburg and Hesse): “That in Jesus Christ God … has chosen certain human beings whom God … inspires and restores to faith in Christ, also sustaining them in this faith until the end.”—(theologians from Saxony): “That from eternity God has chosen those of whom he has seen that they … would have faith in Christ and would then persevere in this faith to the end of their lives. … that God has found no cause or occasion … for such a choice in the chosen themselves.”3
1. Quite generally, the contrast set forth here in relation to election is applicable to all free actions. That is, each such action contributes something toward the further development of the divine government of the world, because whatever belongs to that sphere would have become more or less different if the action had been different, but in its specifically determined spatial and temporal characteristics, every action is also a product of the unfolding of the divine government of the world up to then. However, reflection on election from this point of view also rests on the fact that someone represents the reign of God, consequently also the divine way of proceeding in gathering and preparing4 it, as a particular divine activity in and of itself, apart from the divine government of the world conceived in general. Moreover, it also rests on the fact that since, on account of sin, all human beings are originally equal in relation to redemption, the question then arises as to why one would be elected and another not. The question arises, for entirely the same warrant and ground would be present for raising this question if one were to assume that all people are either elected or not, except that in the first case the more exact way to put the question would be Why would one person already be regenerate but another not?
Now, with reference to what was already said here about the supernatural’s becoming natural,5 we would then have to answer that this matter could be judged only after the manner of nature. Thereby it would be possible to say only that if someone has become regenerate, the conclusion to be drawn from this fact would be that in this person proclamation would have encountered the greatest receptivity at the same instant with its greatest force. This answer is not satisfactory, however, because this very instant would, in turn, be dependent on conditions that are under divine control. Moreover, if, at this point, one were to phrase the question once more, asking why circumstances would have been ordered in such a way that one person would be regenerated and another not, one would have to seek the basis for determination either absolutely at the beginning, before anything existed, and that would mean sticking with divine good pleasure, or one would have to seek it at the end, in the final result, and that would mean sticking with a divine foreknowledge.
Patently, however, these two proposals cannot be separated from each other, because there is no foreknowledge in God that would not stand in union with a divine good pleasure,6 and just as little is there a divine good pleasure in anything other than in its entire interconnectedness, which, as this encompasses everything temporal, thus necessarily includes a divine foreknowledge within it. In the passages cited above, however, and in other similar passages, a notable vacillation predominates in this matter. Therein a divine good pleasure and a divine foreknowledge are set over against each other; yet, in almost every instance, what is to be excluded in these passages is also taken into them, nevertheless, using carefully crafted formulations. Now, the wording of our proposition has the aim of overcoming this unstable entanglement.
2. If the elements of rebirth are chiefly to be viewed as the expansion of the uniting of the divine with human nature, and if the justifying divine activity is to be viewed as the temporal and particular advance of the general act of uniting begun with Christ’s becoming human, then one must also grant that the divine mode of proceeding with respect to these elements of rebirth would follow the same pattern7 as occurred in that act begun in Christ.
Thus, suppose that someone wants to venture the question as to why, then, precisely Jesus of Nazareth was chosen for this uniting with human nature, or rather—since he would have become who he was only by this uniting—why precisely this person-forming action of human nature and no other was chosen and why precisely at this particular time. It would then have to be possible to answer the question in a wholly analogous fashion. Now, if we consider how this act would have been a becoming natural of the supernatural from the outset and consider what effects were to proceed from that act, the only possible answer would be that the time and place for this event would have been chosen absolutely for the best—that is, the time and place that could yield the greatest efficacy.
Now, this answer to that question clearly postulates faith that is foreseen, viewed as the ground for determining the election of individuals. That is to say, in accordance with the same pattern, those persons must be elected as their participation in the ongoing work of redemption is able to reach to greatest peak, and the time of their conversion must be determined to occur at that point. Likewise, if we consider election on a large scale, not only as the determination8 of a succession of reborn individuals but also as the election of people so that a firmer foundation for the gospel would be established in them, this election would be determined in such a way that in the entire context of their historical existence the extensive and intensive maximum can be reached.
Now, in contrast, it is possible to combine under the term “proclamation” or “preaching” everything that an individual or even a community can do by word and deed toward spreading the reign of God, belonging as it does to Christ’s prophetic activity, viewed as its continuation.9 Moreover, preaching, in this sense and scope, comes from faith,10 and it is faith’s natural expression. Thus, it is entirely the same thing to say that divine election would be determined by the foreseen efficacious action of preaching or by the foreseen, most vigorous power of faith.
Still, in the ordinary use of this formulation this latter element, to be sure, comes least to the fore. Rather, the constancy and soundness of faith is presented more than is the vigorous power of faith. The unsatisfactory nature of this formulation, if one sticks with it, must be evident to anyone, however, and for two reasons. For one thing, when the formulation is stated in this way, it fails to refer to the idea of the reign of God at all, or to the emergence of the church, even though God’s reign is the natural locus of the question under consideration, on the strength of the very scriptural passage11 that most underlies all discussions on this subject. Instead, at that point a completely atomistic view of the work of redemption always underlies any attempt to focus on the individual as such, and a proper view of the matter cannot possibly arise from such a restriction. This consequence also becomes very clear if one adds to this formulation two others that are meant to illuminate and support it. That is to say, first of all, it follows from the formulation that if some individuals are not chosen at all, they would be the ones in whom grace in its effects would not as yet have had a firm hold. Regarding these latter individuals, however, it is also said that God would then have decided to harden and reject12 those who had become hardened in their resistance to the word. Now, if the combination in this formulation is to lead to anything, it would have to be possible to demonstrate a distinction between a person’s aversion,13 which is the basis for not being elected, and an aversion effected by God, which is supposed to be the result of it. The impossibility of forming this distinction then makes the formulation useless, either for being a canon to be utilized in research on Christian history or even for giving a fruitful direction to self-observation. Suppose, on the other hand, it is then said that God would elect those whom God sees to be persons who are steadfast in faith, and it is also said, in turn, that God would also have decided to strengthen and establish14 those whom God had elected. Then it would likewise be impossible to ascertain a distinction and boundary between their prior establishment in faith, which would simply be foreseen, and their later establishment in faith, which would be directly communicated by God.
Suppose, however, that the formulation intends entirely to avoid the reproach of being Pelagian and thus also intends to regard the prior, foreseen establishment of the elect, viewed as something brought about by God, since there would indeed be no foreknowledge in God other than one that bears effect. Then the final event would still be that God would have elected only those whom God would also have decided to strengthen in faith. Moreover, this formulation would be completely empty if one were not to bring faith into consideration at the same time as one thinks of the efficacious action that belongs to faith. The same is also true of the simpler formulation that taking faith into account cannot be excluded from the decree of election.15
Surely no one would want to extend use of the first formulation so far that we must undertake to demonstrate that the maximum fruits of redemption could have been reached, just as the church would actually be built up precisely and solely in this process of election. That is to say, such proof would not be possible since the alternative formulation could not be assigned even for comparison’s sake. Therefore, in this alternative formulation faith too speaks to provision of a foundation for the historical conception and for self-observation regarding election.
3. In any case, the answer that is given in relation to what can be viewed as divine election in Christ’s becoming human likewise permits of being referred to the second formulation stated in our proposition. This is the case, for the following reasons. Suppose that we say that the point from which the greatest measure of efficacious action could be developed would be chosen. Then someone could say, in turn, that the given point would have had this attribute only because and insofar as the overall situation had also become just as it was. However, that situation too could have been different, depending on how God had directed it, and in that case a different point could have had this attribute. Thus, Christ had come to be determined16 in the way he was only because and insofar as the whole given interconnection of things was also determined in a certain fashion, and, in reverse, the whole given interconnection of things would have been determined in the way it was only because and insofar as Christ too would have been determined in a certain fashion. Furthermore, if we stick with the concept “the divine good pleasure,” clearly this is to say that, taken together, Christ and the interconnectedness of things would have been determined as they were solely by the divine good pleasure. Indeed, wherever we conceive an aggregate17 of natural causality as complete in itself and refer to its foundation in divine causality18 we would be able to assign no basis of determination for the latter other than the divine good pleasure.
Now, just as the entire world is ordered by God in such a way that God could say “it is all good,” that is, in accordance with God’s good pleasure, but in this respect no particular is to be divorced from its interconnection19 with all the rest, so too if we consider the reign of God as a whole that is complete in itself, we can say only that it is determined as it is solely by the divine good pleasure. That being the case, everything that belongs to Christ’s being as he is, on the one hand, and the entire internal multiplicity of the human race in time and space, from which multiplicity the reign of God is formed through Christ, being as it is, on the other hand, are both determined by the divine good pleasure.
To be sure, there is no obstacle to one’s also being able to say that the ordering by which the relation to Christ is realized in an individual would result from that multiplicity and would be determined by it, except that, in reverse, one would also have to be able to say that the multiplicity of the human race would result from that ordering and would be determined in relation to it, so that redemption through Christ would be developed therein precisely in this measure and ordering. Now, if the two statements are equally correct, and if, in consequence, they are also equally false because they are opposite to each other, in summary one can rightly say only that what the two statements indicate is, in the above sense, ordered in accordance with the divine good pleasure—both in relation to each other and, in consequence, each in and of itself as well. Thus, suppose that it would be God’s good pleasure that human nature would manifest itself within this determinate multitude of individual beings so determined. No other basis for this claim should then be assigned, moreover, for any other explanation would require contingent presuppositions that would themselves, in turn, still always be conditioned by this original all-encompassing divine good pleasure. Likewise, it would have been God’s good pleasure to bring the arrangement of things human to fulfillment through Christ. This would be the case, for God could otherwise have laid down the entire course of the human race differently from the very outset, but from that point onward the human race would also have been differently disposed, since as soon as one thing were posited everything else would also be coposited in only that one way.
Any attempt to deduce the necessity of redemption in this form always presupposes something the necessity of which would require a like deduction. For pious folk, moreover, there is no way out of this cycle of a conditioned necessity, wherein each part is being strictly referred to other parts, other than this one divine good pleasure, which encompasses everything within itself.
Accordingly, only one task remains to us: in every instance both to unite this good pleasure of God, necessarily coposited within our consciousness, with what we perceive with our senses regarding the course of redemptive work and, in the process of our also being stimulated by what happens, to rest in this good pleasure. Yes, faith in Christ is itself nothing other than the shared sentiment20 regarding this divine good pleasure in Christ and the holiness21 grounded in him. Moreover, the consciousness of divine grace, or the peace of God, in the redeemed person is also nothing other than precisely this resting in the divine good pleasure, with respect to the ordering by which the redeemed person has actually been taken up into the domain of redemption.
Now, in the world in general we encounter the most manifold gradation of life, from the lowest and most incomplete forms to the most advanced and accomplished forms. Moreover, there can be no doubt that precisely this multiplicity, viewed as the most abundant possible fulfillment in time and space, is the object of divine good pleasure. Furthermore, such gradations do also arise within the domain of human nature. Accordingly, we would likewise reasonably expect within the spiritual domain of life that would have emerged through redemption to find everything that lies between the most meager level and the most advanced level, and we would also view this whole profusion of all that is bound to vital community as the object of the divine good pleasure and would desire to rest in it.22
4. Now, considerations up to this point have shown us how one would have arrived at these grounds for a definition of election and how they appear to be opposed in relation to each other, since they refer back to contrasting starting points. Yet, here the follow-up treatment of this apparent opposition thus far is supposed to have resolved it, as our proposition demands, in presenting them as formulations, bearing the same content, formulations that are simply construed from different starting points, with the result that no one who confesses either formulation is at all obliged to reject the other one. However, the two formulations could be presented in this agreement with each other only in that they were freed, at the same time, from untenable positions that they have, in large part, attracted as a result of this contrast. That is to say, the first formulation is then freed from the divine decree’s appearing to be dependent on a foreknowledge in God that is patently altogether human, the object of which foreknowledge would be posited to be independent of the divine decree, which would itself have to be guided only by that foreknowledge. The reason is that if faith that is foreseen were to determine the divine decree, in contrast to its being determined by the divine good pleasure, the conclusion would be almost unavoidable that faith too would be grounded in a way that is independent of any divine influence on the free will of human beings. Moreover, this semblance of a Pelagian position has not become so remote by means of artful stipulations that the formulation still has retained any definite contents. To the contrary, we say that foreseen faith would determine the divine decree inasmuch as it would have been God’s good pleasure to permit such efficacious action for the sake of God’s reign to proceed from this point, as this very efficacious action is being conditioned by this strength and ripening of faith.
The other formulation claims that a divine good pleasure would attract some and leave others behind. When this formulation is set forth in opposition to the other one, it appears all too easily as an outright encouragement of some persons and a slighting of others, and indeed as if the end of this process would have to follow from its beginning, whatever might happen in between. Moreover, this appearance of a divine arbitrariness in an unconditioned divine decree concerning individuals—viewed, so to speak, as an urgent support of some persons with irresistible succor and as a foreclosed abandonment of others—does little to prevent the formulation’s being the slickest stratagem for winning straightforward assent but without resolving its difficulties. To the contrary, our presentation knows of no unconditioned decree concerning any individual as such, in that all that is of an individual nature is mutually conditioned. Instead, it recognizes only one unconditioned decree—that is, one by which the whole, viewed in its undivided interconnectedness, exists in the way it does by virtue of the divine good pleasure. Thus, in no way is it as if the individual already existed somehow or other and would be something irrespective of this divine decree, and in no way is it as if the individual would be simply blessed or not by this divine decree. Rather, each individual would first come to be in any such state only because and inasmuch as this sort of feature, and thus an effective feature within the whole, is put in place in accordance with the divine good pleasure. In this light, each individual would be prepared to be a member of the Christian community because each one is foreseen to be a person of faith.
Now, if we consider our two formulations in their combination, they are seen to contain two rules under which those detrimental conclusions which we have reviewed cannot arise at all. The first rule is that no one person, of oneself and apart from one’s place within the whole, can become anything as a consequence of a single, special divine decree with reference to that person. The second rule, however, is that, considered in its general interconnectedness, everything, even the way in which redemption is realized, is, at the same time, no less the complete presentation of the divine good pleasure than the complete presentation of the divine omnipotence.23
Postscript to This Point of Doctrine24
Based on what is indicated here, let us now return once more to the presupposition that a portion of the human race would ever remain excluded from the domain of redemption. Alternatively—to express the presupposition in a manner that comes closest to the immediate content of our point of doctrine—the presupposition is that the Christian church would emerge out of the human race only in such a way that another portion of humanity would always be lost to it. Accordingly, on the one hand, it is not to be denied that, in this light, it would be difficult to arrive at a complete state of rest in the divine good pleasure. This is so, in that species-consciousness would be adversely affected by the situation, as personal consciousness would be, and that tugging sadness and longing,25 which would unavoidably be renewed repeatedly therefrom, would itself permit no pure communication of Christ’s blessedness. Therein emerges the task of thinking about the matter itself in such a way that the selfsameness of human nature therewith persists in everyone, for, to be sure, if someone should want to divine human nature in a Manichean fashion, that tugging sadness and longing would drop away, since the others would no longer be like us in the same way. On the other hand, if our Christian self-consciousness is not supposed to be modified so as to be essentially different, the task emerges—almost as little to be fulfilled as the previous task—of thinking about all this in such a way that Christ would, nevertheless, still be sent not only to the entire human race but also for it. That is to say, this would be the case only if it is assumed that a trace of his efficacious action would also at some point be truly perceived in everyone. One readily sees, however, that the difficulty faced is very different if the treatment concerns those who have already experienced the workings of the Christian church as compared with its concerning those who have remained outside any association with the Christian church. Consistent with this account, it can be advisable to divide the presupposition itself.
As concerns the first part, in no way should an unreadiness for redemption be ascribed to these people. Rather, whenever an operation of preparatory grace would have prospered in them to the point of actual communication, they would have to have become organs for spreading the reign of God. This is so, for a witness to the grace of God in Christ would have come to be rendered through every such communication. However, the less we would be in a position to perceive a transition into the state of sanctification right away but, instead, would have to recognize it likewise as a sudden, albeit unappreciable entry of regeneration, the more we would have to acknowledge, with respect to all those persons who already belong externally to Christian community, the correctness of a certain reservation, namely, that one must not flippantly count someone as among the lost.26 As a result, here any case in which we could apply the presupposition with confidence is unthinkable.
As regards others, it is an essential ingredient of our faith to recognize that sooner or later every people27 will become Christian, just as Paul hoped regarding those even among his own people who had repeatedly resisted divine grace in their hardness of hearts.28 Thus, to the extent that we consider a given person in one’s existence within a people and admit that one’s sharing in a common spirit is an essential component of one’s personal existence, to that extent we would also be able to say that every person would bear in oneself precisely this predestination to blessedness. We would be able to say this all the more, the more the individual would oneself possess those attributes of that common spirit to which adoption of faith is attached among one’s people. We would also be able to say this less, the more an individual would possess attributes on which protracted resistance of the whole is grounded. To be sure, for us this more and less—obviously analogous to faith that is foreseen—has only the sense that these same human beings, if they were living at a time when the gospel was appearing among their people, would have been seized by it, some already at the very beginning of the process and others only at later stages.
However, it does not follow from our being able to construct, based on this circumstance, only a formulation that indicates nothing actual, that it cannot have a different meaning with respect to divine predestination without our being obliged, on this account, to resort to scientia media,29 for these attributes are indeed actual in the individuals mentioned. Rather, if, in this fashion, everyone is taken to be included in the divine predestination to blessedness, the high-priestly dignity of Christ30 also first gives evidence of the overall efficaciousness of this predestination, and, indeed it belongs to this efficaciousness that God sees all human beings only in Christ. Precisely this connection can also be applied to the case previously considered. In consequence, at least the following is clearly shown: in the first place, that if the general scope of redemption, which cannot really be imagined at all without this high-priestly dignity of Christ and its success, is taken in its entire compass, then predestination to blessedness must also be posited in an entirely general way, also, in the second place, that neither one can be restricted without the other being diminished as well.31
1. Ed. note: ET from the Latin, in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 553f., and Niemeyer (1840), 695; cf. Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions (1988), 124f.
2. Ed. note: ET Tice, from the German text in Niemeyer (1840), 650f.
3. Ed. note: ET Tice from the German, Niemeyer (1840), 664f., 666.
4. Ed. note: Here Schäfer chooses Verbreitung (expanding) from the original manuscript, whereas Redeker retains Vorbereitung (preparing) from the first edition (1822), as here. Although either option could easily be correct, an allusion to preparatory grace in forming the reign of God would seem to be more fitting in this context.
5. Ed. note: E.g., see §113.2, §120.2, and the index.
7. Regel. Ed. note: That is, literally this divine mode of proceeding follows the same “rule.” In Schleiermacher’s usage, every technical action or procedure follows a set of rules, here interpreted in their production of regular, established “patterns.” The same term is repeated just below.
8. Bestimmung. Ed. note: Here “determination” means a “destining,” but the prefix necessary to make the act one that is a “predestination” (Vorherbestimmung) is not applied.
10. Rom. 10:17 and 2 Cor. 4:13.
11. Rom. 10 and 11. Ed. note: See §117.4, on the early spreading of the gospel, and §117n14, on a sermon regarding Rom. 11:32–33.
12. Solid Declaration (1577) 11: “He (God) concluded in his counsel that he would harden, reject and condemn all those whom he called through the word when they spurn the word and resist and persist in resisting.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 647; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 1075.
13. Abneigung.
14. Ed. note: The words “strengthen” and “establish” translate zu stärken und zu befestigen. See 1 Pet. 5:10, where both concepts appear. These concepts frequently appear separately in the Hebrew Bible, often in contexts of election, as here, and they are combined in liturgical discourse there.
15. “We say that an understanding [intuitum] concerning faith must be included in the decree [decreto] of election.” Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), Loci (1610–1622, ed. 1764) 4, 207. Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice.
16. Ed. note: The noun Bestimmung and the verb bestimmen always bear the root meaning of “determination” and “to determine.” However, we have already noted that in cases of divine “pre-destination” they can also denote, respectively, a specific “destinating” or “destining” and “destiny” that God has determined. Here this fuller meaning is applied to Christ.
17. Ed. note: Inbegriff (“aggregate”). In Schleiermacher’s usage this term usually refers to some organized whole, where the parts can be at least roughly sorted out, as in a “body of doctrine.” Wherever “body” cannot be confused with a human body or a social entity such as “the body politic,” this word is chosen. Here, however well they are thought to be interconnected, Christ himself is a body, a somebody in fact, surrounded by such else to form an “aggregate.”
18. Ed. note: Regarding “divine causality,” see esp. §§50.3–55.1, 81–84, and 164–65. For further explanation, see also closely related concepts in §§5, 63, and 91.
19. Zusammenhang (“interconnection,” or “interconnectedness”). Ed. note: Elsewhere, this same word is occasionally translated “context.” In Schleiermacher’s usage, it always refers either to specific context or some complex set of relations, or to the whole interconnectedness of nature (Naturzusammenhang).
20. Mitempfindung. Ed. note: Just above, wahrnehmen is the word translated “perceive with our senses.” Both terms refer especially to the sensory aspect of religious experience.
21. Heil. Ed. note: As in Heiligung (sanctification); the allied meanings are “salvation” and “well-being.”
22. Ed. note: The verb for “rest” is beruhen. In accordance with images already mentioned in this immediate context, it would also mean “be at peace” or even “rest ourselves.” The full range of meanings apply in each instance of the “multiplicity” of phenomena, that is, in the difference and diversity inevitably to be found within the spiritual domain, individually and socially expressed. The verb can also mean “to be rooted in” as in “being rooted in faith.”
23. Ed. note: As an attribute of God that is presupposed in Christian religious immediate self-consciousness, “omnipotence” (Allmacht) can be fruitfully laid out, in connection with the present discussion, by tracing its use esp. in §§47, 50–52, 53.P.S., 54–55, 56.P.S., 57, 61.5, 62.3, 63.2, 64.2, 65.1, 79, 80.4, 81.3, and 83.3, then thought out further in connection with §§164–65, 167.2, and 168–69.
24. Ed. note: This postscript anticipates the further considerations contained in Schleiermacher’s treatment of prophetic doctrine in §§157–63.
25. Wehmut. Ed. note: The entire phrase translates this key term in Schleiermacher’s Christian discourse, a term that he always takes to be compounded with joy. See the beginning of Karoline’s speech in Christmas Eve (1806, 1827), also OR (1821) II, supplementary note 14, and V, supplemental note 14. See as well his sermon on the subject: Jan. 21, 1821, on Luke 2:28–35, published separately, also in SW II.4 (1835), 432–41, and (1844), 484–93.
26. Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 10: “Yet we must hope well of all and not rashly judge any man to be a reprobate.” Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 241; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 252; cf. §37n3.
27. Volk.
28. Ed. note: The reference is probably to Phil. 2:1–16; cf. also Eph. 4:18, Peter’s declaration in Acts 2:40, and Stephen’s defense in Acts 7:51. Being stiff-necked and having hardness of heart are the same concept. Among related later sermons see (1) regarding “Condemnation,” Oct. 10, 1830, on John 6:37, SW II.2 (1834, 1843), 710–24; (2) “Against Judging,” July 24, 1821, Matt. 7:1, SW II.3 (1835), 32–43 and (1843), 34–45; (3) “Restoration of True Equality,” Dec. 26, 1832, Gal. 3:27–28, SW II.2 (1835, 1843), 343–56; (4) “Humility and Self-Exaltation,” Oct. 13, 1833, Matt. 23:12, SW II.3 (1835), 665–76, and (1843), 687–99; (5) “Love of God and Neighbor,” Jan. 12, 1834, Mark 12:28–34, SW II.3 (1835) 765–78, and (1843), 790–804. In other writings, including his Christian Ethics, he indicates that such attitudes do not inveigh against strong witness and even gentle admonishment, but they do betoken “speaking the truth in love” and in hopeful “openness” to a future that God is bringing forth for all.
29. Ed. note: “Mediating knowledge.”
30. Ed. note: Among the three offices of Christ, borrowed in part from Calvin so as to present the work of Christ, the high-priestly office is treated in §104.
31. Ed. note: Accordingly, what Schleiermacher claims here regarding Christ’s dignity in his being a rough counterpart to the high priest and actually superseding that role—by an intentional implication also assuming that same dignity with respect to Christ’s prophetic and kingly offices (§§100–105)—he has also extended to communication and reception of Christ’s blessedness in regeneration and sanctification (§§106–12). For him, the above-mentioned alternative practice introduces inherently questionable “knowledge” (scientia) into an argument with the aim of trying to make the argument more convincing. Elsewhere Schleiermacher especially identifies this alternative procedure with scholastic method.