§162. The intent of the notion of the last judgment, features of which are also met with in Christ’s discourses, is to present the total separation of the church from the world insofar as the consummation of the church excludes all influences of the world upon it.
1. The main feature in the notion of the last judgment—namely, that Christ will completely separate persons of faith and persons not of faith from each other, and in such a way that they are placed in entirely different locales and can no longer have any effect on each other whatsoever—does not in any way already include the consummation of the church within it. This is the case, for, as was already shown above,1 the church’s defects stem far less from influences of persons not of faith mixing with persons of faith in this world than from the “flesh,” which is still to be found within regenerate persons themselves. Hence, if in their souls persons of faith would be the same in their resurrected state as they were at their departure from this present life, then, despite this separation, they would also unexceptionably enter into the new life as people in whom sin is still coposited, even if it is in a process of disappearing. Thus, in this respect, the value that one attributes to that separation simply rests on the improperly conceived distinction between the visible and the invisible church.2 If, on the other hand, this distinction, as we have conceived it, is to cease with the onset of the new life, then with that new life whatever of sin and the flesh still attaches to people would have to disappear from the regenerate themselves. This result, however, would not be caused by that external separation in and of itself. Hence, Origen in his day had already tried to point out an internal separation of this sort, in his mode of interpreting one of the passages that belong to this concern.3 However, quite apart from the fact that this having been suddenly wrenched from all worldly and fleshly notions and stimulations would, in its own way, endanger the constant selfsameness of personal existence4 in turn, this internal separation would still be, unexceptionably, nothing other than the end point of sanctification. Moreover, since the entire process of sanctification is to proceed from community of life with the Redeemer, Christian consciousness cannot recognize itself in any depiction that does not include this community within it. Rather, we would have to find something magical in any such sudden conclusion of sanctification, bereft of any self-initiating activity. In every individual, had this magic but been applied earlier, it would have resulted in making superfluous the entirety of redemption, attached to community of life with Christ as redemption is. In consequence, in every case it appears as though either one of these two features would exclude the other.
John5 does, in fact, seem to offer a middle way for resolving this conflict, for if this internal separation is to be brought about by a full recognition of Christ that is bound to his return, this recognition, then, would itself be a work of redemption. However, observed more closely, this knot—this middle way—does not hold either. The reason is that if Christ’s return is to bring about such a change only in accordance with each individual’s receptivity, such would not be of equal measure in all regenerate persons when they are severed from this life. Hence, the entire purification of the soul through Christ’s appearance would also not be instantly effected for all alike; rather, for some it would go faster, for others slower. Thus, even this separation would not be simultaneous but would arise in each new life only gradually from its very outset onward.
If, on the other hand, it does not matter for knowledge of Christ what the degree of higher or lower receptivity may be, then, to be sure, that internal separation would be brought about all of a sudden. However, this very same effect would also have to be generated within the nonfaithful, to whom Christ would indeed also appear in his return and in whom this receptivity would also indeed be present, even in the worst case, as an infinitesimal factor at the very least. Thus, at that point this event would begin to grow into being a sudden restoration of all souls into the reign of grace, in accordance with which a separation of persons would no longer have any object but which would not itself be entirely free of some admixture of that sudden magical characteristic mentioned just above.
2. Now, let us refer back to the image of a separation of persons depending on whether they have finished their lives in a faithful or nonfaithful state. This notion has come to prevail because Christ’s own discourse appears to be favorable to it. Thus, we can hardly deny that this notion is more suited to the commencement of blessedness belonging to persons of faith in the new life than to their perfection. The reason is as follows. Suppose that influences from persons not of faith who are admixed with persons of faith are received by regenerate persons only as those influences are to be viewed as organs of the Holy Spirit and as they give rise simply to an activity that proceeds from and is determined by the Holy Spirit. Then a number of perfections would thereby appear, perfections of the sort that we also find in the prototypical life of Christ but that could not develop without such influences.
The situation seems to be quite different with respect to blessedness, however. This is the case, for since evil6 that arises from sin always spreads over the entire collective life, even in that future life if persons of faith were combined with persons not of faith in one and the same collective life, they would still have to be subject to evils that these nonfaithful individuals would have brought into it. For all that, however, a proper reference to community of life with Christ is missing here as well. That is to say, we do not also assume of Christ, who while he dwelt here did likewise mingle with sinners in the collective life he shared, that he was subject to sin, except that he did experience compassion and bodily pain in face of that life. Thus, nothing would contribute to the hindrance of the spiritual life of those who were engaged in community of life with him there, nor would they be able to experience any such hindrance as an evil, just as Christ too was not sensible of bodily pain and compassion7 as evils.
As for the rest, even if bodily pain were still quite possible after resurrection, it too would have to be regarded as possible by some means different from its simply being aroused by sin. As a result, the separation would not carry with it any guarantee against bodily pain. Compassion too, moreover, would continue to be tied to the selfsameness of human nature, with the result that blessed persons would have compassion with respect to others even if they were completely divided from these others. Thus, considered from this standpoint as well, the separation that is supposed to occur at the last judgment remains, in part, unsatisfactory, in part, superfluous.
Therefore, the only thing left to say would be this: that the separation would happen for the sake not of blessed persons but for the sake of the others. Now, it would be for their sake whether, first, because they would have missed out even on whatever advantage had accrued from what good people had done to diminish the spread of evil within the communal new world or whether, second, because they had not yet found the means within that community itself to attain to community with Christ for themselves as well. However, taking this position would mean either, in part, ascribing a “jealousy”8 to the Supreme Being, against which ascription a sound Gentile world had already protested, or using it simply to underlie the already familiar and widespread view of divine “righteousness.” This latter notion, given its one-sidedness, has an appearance of arbitrariness to such an extent that, in fact, its origin would have to be much more unambiguous, what is said about it much more decisive, and the usage the apostles make of it much more far-reaching if we were simply to be warranted, to say nothing of being obliged, to take the notion to be one Christ himself envisaged.9
3. Now, if we cannot therefore bring even this notion of the last judgment to a clear conclusion that satisfies both requirements, we do still have to see if we can find some essential content in this notion, on account of its almost universal diffusion throughout Christendom. Before we do that, however, it is important to take note of the following two things. First, the more the notion of a last judgment is traceable to an effort bordering on vindictiveness10—an effort directed to enlarging the lack of blessedness11 among persons not of faith and excluding them from all the salutary influences of good people—all the less refined is the Christian disposition that underlies that notion. Thus, second, the more such an effort is accompanied by a fear that, even in the case of a community of life with Christ that has mounted to its highest peak, a lack of blessedness could nonetheless still arise for us out of being in the company of bad people, all the less can even the essential content of this notion be made evident.
It then follows from this analysis that only what remains when we totally abandon this fear and vindictiveness can serve the task, and that seems to consist of the following two points. First, suppose that a consummation of our community with Christ is posited, then we would also be so completely separated from wickedness that even where wicked people and human wickedness might be present, either one, as such, would be nonexistent for us. Moreover, if what is humanly or otherwise evil is, in this way, totally excluded from the collective consciousness belonging to persons of faith, then nothing other than the undisturbed fullness of divine grace could exist unhampered therein. Furthermore, at that point the church would, in truth, be completely self-contained. In consequence, even the outlook that everywhere throws the contrast into relief, a contrast with which we unavoidably remain constantly burdened in this present life, would, in the afterlife, entirely give way to an outlook by virtue of which human evil is nonexistent, because God could not be the originator12 of it. Second, suppose that we imagine the church to be consummate but, at the same time, assume that a portion of the human race would still exist that would not be affected and permeated by the Spirit of the church. This assumption can be made only on the condition that this portion would be completely secured against all influences of the church, consequently would also be and remain excluded from all contact with it. Indeed, there is also one teaching discourse of Christ13 that is very closely akin to this subject and that quite clearly implies the view that every emanation, however faint it may be, from the seat of those particularly graced by God14 that reaches those who have not turned to God in this earthly life, has already planted good stirrings within them.
3. Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254), Commentary on Matthew (246–248) 10.2, on Matt. 13:36–40. Ed. note: ET Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (1906), 414f.; Latin and Greek: Migne Gr. 13:837–40. Here Origen interprets Jesus’ parable on separation of the “good seed” from the “weeds” at “the close of the age,” to the effect that false teachings that have taken root in human souls are then thrown into the fire.
4. Ed. note: persönlichen Daseins. This phrase is rarely, if ever, used elsewhere in the present work. Literally, it means personal being-there—that is, existence within a specific context and circumstance and with one’s own capacities for interaction. In contrast, Persönlichkeit, also regularly translated “personal existence,” simply means one’s being as a person, one’s person-ness, as it were.
5. See 1 John 3:2. Ed. note: This passage reads: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (RSV).
6. Übel. Ed. note: This term would presumably cover any evil that results from sinful activity, whether human (Böse) or nonhuman. Cf. §§75–76, 82, and 111.
7. Mitgefühl. Ed. note: In the strictest sense, within Schleiermacher’s usage this term is not restricted to feeling others’ pain or discomfort, as might appear here. It is, literally, a shared feeling or a feeling held in common, whether the feeling is oriented to some negative or to some positive experience. In neither respect would Christ have been sensible of such a feeling as itself an evil.
8. Mißgunst. Ed. note: Or grudging partiality and misfavor. The reference is to the notion of a jealous God in the Old Testament writings. The few allusions to this particular notion in the New Testament appear to be quite unclear. Cf. 1 Cor. 10:22 (“Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?”); 2 Cor. 11:2 (“I feel a divine jealousy for you”); Jas. 4:5 (an ambiguous citation of Prov. 3:34); and Rom. 11:11 (on Israel’s becoming jealous because “salvation has come to the Gentiles”). There, humanly speaking, jealousy is generally taken to be a vice, not a virtue.
9. Ed. note: eine Anschauung Christi. In any case, the question of “origin” arises in that almost all the numerous New Testament uses of the word “righteousness” refer to a human state required or effected by God, not to a distinct attribute of God. The only possible reference to God’s righteousness directly placed in Jesus’ mouth, in John 16:8–10, may seem quite obscure. See the sermon on John 16:4–15, Aug. 13, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 510–23. See also the discussions of God’s holiness and justice in §§79–85, and sermons in §162n13 below.
10. Rachsucht. Ed. note: In such a context, “vengefulness” is often the meaning, even if it is projected on God (“Vengeance is mine”).
11. Unseligkeit. Ed. note: Again, in such a context “misery” (cf. §86) is often the meaning of this word, projecting a desire for punishment even on a God conceived to be “merciful” (cf. §85).
12. Urheber. Ed. note: Cf. §79, where in the sense that God creates the possibility and basic condition for human evil (notably free will) in this life, in that restricted sense God is deemed to be the originator of sin.
13. Luke 16:19–31. Ed. note: This is the story Jesus tells of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus, who end up in different places after death than might have been expected for either man. See sermons on this passage (1) “The Righteousness of God,” from June 21, 1795, first published in 1801, then in SW II.1 (1834), 97–112, and (1843), 93–108; and (2) “On Yearning for Information about the Other World and for Communion with It,” June 4, 1820, first published separately in 1824, then in SW II.4 (1835), 321–37, and (1844), 357–70. See also §§161.2 and 162n8 above.
14. Ed. note: aus dem Sitz der Begnadigten. Conventionally this term would mean those reprieved, pardoned, or forgiven.
§163. Through their vision of God, from the resurrection of the dead onward, those who have died in community with Christ will find themselves in a state of blessedness inalterable and undisturbed.
1. The state of persons of faith after their total restoration into life can be imagined under two different modes: first, as a sudden indwelling of the Highest that remains ever the same or, second, as a gradual progression toward the Highest. Like the development of Christ, the latter mode of this state, however, would have to be imagined as without any relapse or struggle. Yet, each of the two modes presents its own special difficulties as soon as one tries to draw a clearer outline in general and to shape the formulation for a graphic image. As concerns the first mode of this state, we can hardly give an account of how consummation could be obtained by us directly upon our resurrection, or could be planted in us at that time, if all connection with our present life were abolished. This disconnection would not occur if perfection were reached through a gradual process of growth and our present life would then gradually be forgotten, just as our childhood state is forgotten in our present life. Yet, still further, let us imagine a perfect state not capable of any further progression but still occurring in a finite being and, indeed, in a finite being completely separated from all that could somehow still be both capable and needful of some reworking. Then we would be in the predicament of trying to envisage how this being, deprived of any action in any circumstance, is to express one’s perfection. It is not only that we cannot sever life shared in common from the nature of a human being, much less that a Christian can ever imagine existing without such a communal life, since the community of the faithful with one another and that of each Christian with Christ are indeed simply one and the same thing. It is also that we can hardly imagine, as an absolutely perfect state, a life shared in common but lacking in any object of shared activity, which life would thus have to remain restricted simply to a mutual depiction of people’s internal life course. That is to say, certainly we do indeed have a kindred feature within our present life in our conjoint reverence for God1 and in all of our artistic depictions of God-consciousness; however, just as we would not only find it to be reprehensible if pious Christians were thereby to neglect any efficacious activity for which they are responsible but would instead consider such a life to be a paltry substitute, so too we cannot accept that the peak of perfection in our human existence would be reduced to such an exchange of giving and receiving of such a slack and barren depiction as this one. Instead, it strains our imagination to find anything for us to do in that life. Under the given presuppositions, then, nothing remains but some external nature to be worked on or some defective spiritual world to be ruled over, both of such a kind that being occupied with them could not disturb one’s blessed state. Yet, we do not find in Scripture any actual inducement2 to occupy ourselves with such a formulation, nor do we find any capacity for doing so in ourselves.
It goes no more easily, however, when we try to envisage that an endless rise toward perfection would begin at our resurrection. That is to say, we can scarcely imagine this rise toward perfection without irregularities and vacillations, and, even then, still not without such a dissatisfaction with the present as is naturally bound to the anticipatory feeling3 regarding something better yet to come. Moreover, this state would, nevertheless, always include a consciousness of imperfection and thus, in free beings, a consciousness of guilt in some way or another. Indeed, such a rise can hardly be imagined without external relations and external conditions for development. Once this floodgate is opened, however, the dissimilarity belonging to what is of the same kind and the contrast between what is agreeable and disagreeable would then come pouring out too—and as a result of this, so would all that is characteristic of human life on this side. Indeed, based on this presupposition, all that remains, which is perhaps not to be avoided without contradiction, is to include the alternation between life and death as well. Doing this makes it evident that under this form we still have not imagined any consummation of the church at all but only a gradually improving and refining repetition of this present life. Thus, the task is not resolved.
2. Now, suppose that, under whichever of the two forms it may be, we inquire about how life is actually lived in this future state, and suppose that we have already granted that as concerns our own self-initiated activity,4 its content is limited simply to that of presentation.5 Then, in order to obtain a graphic intimation,6 it would be necessary for us to know what we would then have in mind to present—that is, what will influence us and what we will receive within ourselves. The general answer to the question posed lies in the expression that eternal life would consist in beholding God.7 If by this, however, we can but understand the most complete fullness of the most vital consciousness of God, then the next question concerns the means by which this God-consciousness would then be distinguished from our present God-consciousness.
Now, the very next thing to say would very likely be that this God-consciousness we have at present is always mediated, in that we have it only in and with some other consciousness; consequently, in that other state it would be unmediated. However, this concept can hardly be reconciled with the retention of personal existence. That is to say, as self-conscious individual beings we can never have God-consciousness, if it is truly to be our own, except with our self-consciousness. Moreover, if we would then still have to distinguish this self-consciousness from that God-consciousness, this distinction could be envisaged only in one of two ways. One alternative would be simply to distinguish ourselves from our God-consciousness as the subject it indwells and to imagine that our self-consciousness would have no other content than that, and hardly anyone would be able to entertain this notion. The other alternative would have to be that of distinguishing self-consciousness as a variable consciousness, consequently as one constantly subject to being affected, from God-consciousness that is imagined to be constantly self-identical. Hence, if individual life is to continue in human nature—indeed, within finite nature overall—our God-consciousness will always continue to be simply a mediated one, and we will have to search out the distinction between present and future God-consciousness within this domain alone.
Then, however, there remains only what we already strive for in this life, though with the consciousness that we cannot attain it. That is, not only can we not have cognizance of God in all and with all without hindrance, but also, to the extent that finite nature permits this, we cannot unwaveringly have cognizance of all that wherein and wherewith God lets Godself be known without there ever arising within us some conflict—a conflict, that is, between this effort in us to have cognizance of God and some other effort of some kind or one between a steady consciousness of God and some other kind of consciousness. Now, to be sure, this would be a clear and sure beholding,8 and in this way we would be completely at home with God. All this would be so, except that it is no more possible to grasp how we should already stand at this point right at the resurrection, without the continuity and selfsameness of our existence being endangered, than it is possible that we could even come to see, by latching onto the passages we have cited thus far, how we should ever attain to this consummation.
Consequently, we could indeed proceed from either of these two starting points—both from the task of prefiguring a state of blessedness that is inalterably the same and from the task of prefiguring an endless progression—but we cannot really resolve either task. Thus, we will remain forever uncertain as to how that state which comprises the supreme consummation of the church would ever be gained by the personal existence of individuals, viewed as rising into immortal9 life, or would ever be possessed in this form.
[P.S. 1] Addendum [to the Fourth Point of Doctrine]: Regarding Eternal Damnation
Certain figurative discourses of Christ10 have occasioned people’s assuming, in contrast to eternal blessedness, a state of nonblessedness,11 one not to be ameliorated for those who died while living outside community with Christ. Upon closer examination, these discourses will hardly be found to be sufficient for the purpose. Short of using a very arbitrary procedure, in part, these passages are themselves not to be divorced from others that would have to refer to something that is to occur beforehand12 or to something that happened earlier; in part, they are countered by other passages that do not allow any thought of a definitive victory of wickedness over some portion of the human race, from which passages one must rather conclude that wickedness will be entirely wiped out even before the general resurrection.13 Still less, by far, can the notion of eternal damnation itself withstand close examination, whether considered in and of itself or in relation to eternal blessedness.
Regarding eternal damnation considered in and of itself, the following observations apply. First, suppose that it is understood that eternal damnation cannot mean being condemned to physical pain and suffering, because if human nature is not to have been entirely wiped out, then we indeed cannot imagine it without the mitigating effect of being used to pain and suffering, so that even the consciousness of being able to bear affliction would always carry some satisfaction with it. Consequently, a pure lack of blessedness, capable of no amelioration, would not emerge from this process. On this basis, therefore, we would scarcely find any firm spot left to stand on.
This being said, suppose that the lack of blessedness is to be of a spiritual sort and, further, is to consist above all in torments of conscience. In that case, the damned would be ever so much better off in the state of damnation than they were in this life, and yet they should be more miserable by virtue of their already being better off. We cannot imagine this outcome, for even if it should issue from divine justice, there would still be nothing to keep the self-appraisal of an awakened and sharpened conscience from containing a counterweight to one’s lack of blessedness. Indeed, we cannot imagine that an awakened conscience, viewed as a vital inner movement, should not also yield something good. Suppose, on the other hand, that someone wanted to say that a sharpened feeling for the contrast of good and wickedness is not to be viewed as the basis for eternal torments but only the consciousness of throwing away one’s chance at blessedness. In that case, even this consciousness could have been vitally aroused only inasmuch as at least a facsimile of blessedness were present in one’s consciousness, and it could be tormenting in its effect only inasmuch as some capacity to participate in that blessed state were there. However, this capacity would already presuppose some improvement, and that facsimile would already be a partaking14 that serves to ameliorate the lack of blessedness.
If we now consider eternal damnation in its relation to eternal blessedness, it is easy to see that if eternal damnation exists, eternal blessedness cannot continue to exist. That is to say, even if the two domains were totally separate externally, such an elevated state of the blessed, already regarded in itself, could not be conjoined with complete ignorance of others’ lack of blessedness, even less so if that very separation were to be simply the result of a general judgment at which the two sides were present—that is, in which each side would also be aware of the other. If we accordingly apply to the blessed some knowledge regarding the condition of the damned, this knowledge cannot be imagined to be devoid of any feeling for them.15 This is so, for if the perfecting of our nature is not to have retrogressed, this feeling must embrace the entire human race, and feeling for the damned must needs disturb the state of blessedness, all the more so in that, unlike every similar feeling in this life, it would not be tempered by hope. In this connection, however much we might bear in mind that if eternal damnation really exists, it must also be just and that God’s justice must be included in people’s beholding God, feeling for the plight of others also cannot be removed from that experience. Likewise, then, in this life as well we would rightly require a deeper compassion16 for suffering that is deserved than for that which is not deserved. Further, suppose that remembrance of an earlier state, in which some of us were always united with some of those others in the same collective life, would somehow continue in us beyond death. In that case, our feeling for them would have to be all the stronger if in this earlier period there was a time when we were no more regenerate than they. Then, since in the divine government of the world everything is integrally conditioned by everything else, we also cannot hide from the fact that things worked out well for us that were conditioned by the very same arrangement of the world, by virtue of which such fortune did not fall to them. As a result, a piercing quality must be added to our feeling for them that cannot fail to strike us whenever we sense a definite connection between our advantage and the disadvantage of anyone else.
Thus, viewed from both sides, there are great difficulties in trying to envisage that the eventual outcome of redemption would be such that thereby some would have a share in supreme blessedness but others—and indeed according to the conventional notion the largest portion of the human race—would be irretrievably lost in a state lacking blessedness. In consequence, we should not cling to such a notion without decisive evidence that Christ himself foresaw this outcome in that fashion, and in no way do we have such evidence. Hence, we surely ought, at the very least, to grant equal right to that more moderate outlook of which there are also still some traces in Scripture,17 namely that by the power of redemption a general restoration of all human souls would eventually occur.
[P.S. 2.] Postscript to the Prophetic Points of Doctrine.
What seems to result from these discussions is the following. We have seen that the two features—the consummation of the church and personal continuation beyond death—are of themselves each taken up into Christian consciousness with complete truth. We have also established that the church’s consummation never comes about in this life and that the state of individuals in the afterlife cannot relate to the church’s consummation in the same way as it does in the present life. Nevertheless, the combination of these two features and their relation to each other does not yield a firmly demarcated, genuinely graphic intimation,18 nor can such a graphic intimation of either feature be developed out of allusions found in Scripture. That is to say, if we should want to use the idea19 of the church’s consummation to define the relationship of individual life there to that which exists here and to do so based on the relationship of the church consummate to the church not yet consummate, we would simply not be able to accomplish this task. Further, if we should want to assign a place for the church consummate by means of the notion of a future life wherein the church would no longer be simply productive but would itself be a product, we would not be able to accomplish this task either. The first mode of presentation will always end up dallying with what is mythical—that is, with a historical presentation of something suprahistorical. The second mode of presentation will always come close to being visionary—that is, to an earthly presentation of something supra-earthly. Everywhere these modes of presentation, moreover, have constituted the forms of prophetic utterance, which in its higher meaning has never made any claim to producing knowledge in the proper sense but is meant to give shape in a stimulating fashion only to principles20 already acknowledged.
1. Gottesverehrung. Ed. note: The term for a service of worship is Gottesdienst; here emphasis is placed on peoples’ sheer reverence for or adoration of or looking up to God, side by side.
2. For surely Matt. 19:28 and 2 Tim. 2:12 cannot be viewed in this way.
3. Vorgefühl. Ed. note: Cf. §§114n3, 114.2, and 146, including 146n1 and n5 therein. See also most of the notes that follow just below.
4. Selbsttätigkeit. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s discourse this term is always paired with Empfänglichkeit (receptivity), so that there are always two general elements in every human experience, each in varying degrees relative to each other: a more spontaneous self-initiated activity and an activity of undergoing, taking in, or more or less passively receiving. See §4.1–2.
5. Darstellung. Ed. note: As Schleiermacher proceeds to demonstrate here, one prominent aspect of self-initiated activity is that of presenting what one has experienced and learned, usually to others, by word or deed—this after having processed for oneself whatever one may have received. Hence, a presentation (in some instances a depiction) is ordinarily an outward expression of what is within oneself, not a mere re-presentation (for which activity he uses repräsentieren, but only rarely). Of course, one can also make a presentation quietly to oneself in thought or imagination, as he has done here before writing this presentation down. Cf. §§15–19.
6. Ed. note: anschauliche Vorstellung. This is an apt place to be reminded that in contrast to a Darstellung, which pins down the meaning of an experience, ideally with the greatest care and clarity one can muster, in Schleiermacher’s vocabulary a Vorstellung is a looser image, intimation, or (usually) notion, necessarily more provisional and therefore quite temporary and approximate. Here “graphic” means such as to be perceptible, at least to the mind’s eye. See §158n3.
7. Taken above all from Matt. 5:8 and 2 Cor. 5:7, with what right is debatable. Ed. note: anschauen Gottes. Sermon outline on Matt. 5:8 (from the Beatitudes: “shall see God”), July 24, 1802, Zimmer (1882), 377. And 2 Cor. 5:7 RSV reads: “We walk by faith, not by sight [Schauen].” See sermon on 2 Cor. 5:17–18, regarding “the new creation,” Oct. 24, 1830, “That We Have Nothing to Teach concerning the Wrath of God,” the ninth of ten Augsburg sermons, first published in 1831 then in SW II.2 (1835, 1843), 725–38; ET DeVries (1987), 152–65, and Nicol (1997), 141–54.
8. Schauen. Ed. note: That is, able to see or look upon God. Then the reference is to being “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8 RSV).
9. Ed. note: unsterblich. Ultimately meaning to transcend death, this has been Schleiermacher’s usual term here; it is a literal transcription of the Latinate term “immortality.” Otherwise this state is called “eternal” (vs. temporal) or “everlasting,” unending, infinite (vs. finite), or “resurrected” into an afterlife but involving a life beyond death in any case. The two unresolved tasks just summarized have been to “prefigure” (vorzubilden) personal immortality and thereby the consummation of the church.
10. Matt. 25:46; Mark 9:44; and John 5:29. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Mark 9:41–50, June 16, 1833, SW II.6 (1835), 41–50; and (2) John 5:24–30, June 27, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 347–64.
11. Unseligkeit. Ed. note: Or “lack of blessedness.” By some conventions called “misery” (Elend, Trübsal) or “damnation” (Verdammnis) or “gone to hell” (zur Hölle gefahrt), but Schleiermacher privileges only the term used here, which some convention also uses to mean “not saved,” though he does not. In the sermon cited in note 7 above, he also abjures damning or anathematizing the views and practices of opponents.
12. Cf. Matt. 24:30–34 and John 5:24–25. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Matt. 24:32–42, undated, Festpredigten (1833), SW II.2 (1834, 1843), 478–89; and (2) John 5:24–25, June 27, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 347–64.
13. See 1 Cor. 15:25–26. Ed. note: Sermon on 1 Cor. 15:26, April 24, 1791, SW II.7 (1836), 77–90.
14. Genuß. Ed. note: This is the same term used for partaking of the Lord’s Supper, meaning a nurturance and enjoyment.
15. Mitgefühl. Ed. note: Or “compassion.”
16. Mitleid. Ed. note: That is, a Mitgefühl that is specifically directed to another’s suffering (Leiden), a “suffering with.” The reference to “the divine government of the world” that follows presages his use of the concept in §§164–69, which, in turn, directly leads into the “capstone” conclusion of the entire system of doctrine, his consideration of the doctrine of the triune God in §§170–72.
17. See 1 Cor. 15:26, 53, 55. Ed. note: (RSV) “[26] The last enemy to be destroyed is death. … [53] For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. … [55] ‘O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?’” [cf. Hos. 13:14]. See §163n7 just above.
18. Ed. note: See §163n6 above.
19. Idee.
20. Prinzipien. Ed. note: Principles are more or less well-defined statements or convictions. Some principles provide the basis for or serve to motivate activity of some sort. Prophecy in the “higher” sense would not mean giving these principles “shape” by heavily relying on either “mythical” or “visionary” imagination (graphic images or intimations) to project into the future the consequences of what such acknowledged principles imply. Ordinarily, as Schleiermacher has indicated here, these projections include some evaluative judgment regarding future events or actions, hence the tasks that have been defined and pursued in these six prophetic doctrines.
Regarding the Divine Attributes That Relate to Redemption
[Introduction to Section Three]
§164. In tracing to divine causality our consciousness of communion with God as it is restored through the efficaciousness of redemption, we posit the planting and spreading of the Christian church as an object of the divine government of the world.
1. Just as we are able to set forth only the concept of government of the world in this place, no other content is to be attributed to it than is stated here. The reason is that for our Christian self-consciousness, everything else is present only in relation to the efficaciousness of redemption, viewed either as belonging to the organism in which reawakened God-consciousness is expressed or as material at hand that is first to be processed by it. However, above all, governing means setting in motion forces that otherwise are already at hand and controlling them. Thus, even here the expression very easily tempts one to think of a divine control of earthly forces as occurring previously. It also tempts one to separate government of the world from the creation in such a way that it appears to be something that comes afterward or betwixt and between and as if everything could even have happened differently than it did from the creation onward. To the contrary, the Christian belief that everything is created with a view to the Redeemer1 implies that everything is already ordered by means of creation, in both a preparatory and a retrospective way, in relation to the revelation of God in the flesh and for the fullest possible transmission of that revelation to the whole of human nature for the purpose of forming the reign of God. Likewise, we are also not to view the natural world in such a way that it goes its own way by virtue of divine preservation and that the divine government of the world exercises influence on it only through special particular acts designed to bring it into conformity with the reign of grace. Rather, for us the two things are wholly one, and we are certain that even the entire ordering of nature would have been different from the beginning onward if redemption through Christ had not been destined for the human race after sin had occurred.
2. Granted, it does seem that the concept of world government set forth in our proposition belongs to a time when there was no occasion to think of other spiritual life besides that of human beings, except for that of the angels. The early Christians, though, however grandly the life of angels was described, placed that life beneath the life of human nature, lacking as the angels were thought to do, in any sense of union between the divine being and the angels’ nature. The early Christians also related angels’ life to human beings only as in service to them. Still, even if we gladly presuppose in advance that the world is the most abundant revelation of God that we can possibly imagine, and accordingly if we were to have been fully convinced that organic life would be developing in every heavenly body and indeed is rising to the level of possession of reason, this position would nonetheless be an empty one for our self-consciousness. This is so, for suppose that we were able absolutely to broaden our species-consciousness concerning the human domain to consciousness of intelligent life; even then, this nonhuman intelligence would not affect us in such a way that we would have to broaden our notion of divine government of the world to the point that something regarding the temporal course of these nonhuman intelligent beings would be made evident. Since nothing is now available for this purpose, we also know no compass for government of the world other than our world, thus than the domain in which redemption shows its power.
Now, if that element in our self-consciousness which becomes for us the consciousness of sin does not immediately lead us to the divine causality, the concept of preservation gains its full content only in relation to that element which becomes for us consciousness of grace, leading thereby to the concept of divine causality. Hence, we may say that both processes set forth earlier,2 the nature of things in their relation to each other and the ordering of their reciprocal influences on each other, subsist by God, just as they subsist in relation to the redemptive revelation of God in Christ or in relation to that revelation of God in Christ which the Spirit is developing toward its consummation.3 That is to say, everything in our world—human nature above all and then all else the more surely the more closely it interconnects with human nature—would have been differently arranged, and so too the entire course of human occurrences and of natural events would have been different if the union of divine being4 with human nature in the person of Christ, and as a consequence of this union also the community of the faithful through the Holy Spirit, had not been decreed by God.
Moreover, with regard to our judgment concerning the notion of the unity and selfsameness of the church for all time,5 we will divide this divine government of the world into two periods. The first period occurs before that union in time and space actually emerges, in which everything is simply preparatory and introductory. The second period is one of development and fulfillment once that union has actually come to pass.
3. Now, there is no division or contrast in the divine causality anywhere, and we can view the divine government of the world only as one causality, directed toward but one aim. Accordingly, the church, or the reign of God, is in its entire extension and in the entire course of its development the one object of the divine government of the world, but every particular is such an object only in and for this reign of God. Indeed, for our part we cannot help but posit each particular as of itself part of this whole. In contrast, we sharply diverge from the right path when we take a given particular to be a special case of divine causality that is somehow simply divorced from its connection with the whole, consequently viewing that particular as of itself a special goal and outcome of the divine government of the world, to which something else is thus subordinate as its means. Rather, as a necessary correction we must then immediately subordinate this very particular to the rest, with the result that every particular appears as a point of transition, one that is equally very much conditioning in its effect and conditioned. Indeed, this was also true of the Redeemer when he presented his disciples individually, in the particular circumstances of their lives, as objects of divine care, therewith ever holding in view their calling, thus their effective action in the reign of God, as that to which that divine care was actually directed.
In this perspective the customary classification of a general, special, and very special divine providence becomes rather useless for us. If the first category is supposed to refer to everything in general, the second to the whole human race, and the third to religious folk or to the reign of God, for us everything nonetheless comes together only in this third category, because everything else relates to the object of this third category. In general, the term “providence” is of an alien origin, initially transferred from heathen writers into later Jewish writings and subsequently into those of teachers in the Christian church. This crossover was not without numerous impediments to a clear presentation of distinctively Christian faith, impediments that would have been avoided by using the scriptural terms “predetermination” and “foreknowledge.” That is to say, these terms more clearly express the relating of every particular part to the interconnectedness of the whole and present the divine government of the world as an internally harmonious ordering. Moreover, the terms do this in such a way that the term “fate,” which is not Christian in any case, is in no way to be mistaken for the divine government of the world. What is always kept in mind in this connection is a determining of any given particular by the combined action of all the rest, without consideration of what might be thought to derive from any self-positing of an object.6 Quite similarly, however, the term “providence” is thought especially to contain a determination of a particular without consideration of what would naturally ensue from its coexistence with everything else, and this one-sidedness is alien to the concept of predetermination as well. In contrast, Scripture itself is not averse to confessing that sin is also included in the divine foreknowledge, even though it actually contradicts the idea of the reign of God. Instead, Scripture counts sin among the preparatory and preliminary elements of the divine government of the world. Moreover, we can recognize it to be in itself completely in agreement with the divine decree that all human beings should have a part in this earlier condition before the new creation, so as to participate in the powers afforded by the new creation solely under the form of the contrast that determines the entire actual existence of human beings. Out of this recognition, however, the difficulty, already stirred up above,7 of accomplishing the notion of an eternal damnation is made evident once again, for here the trouble has to do with trying to reconcile that notion with the notion of a divine government of the world that is one in itself and that is directed to one aim.
1. Col. 1:16. Ed. note: Sermon on Col. 1:13–18, July 25, 1830, SW II.6 (1835), 232–43. 999
3. Ed. note: The phrase is den Geist zur Vollendung entwickelende Offenbarung Gottes in Christo. In this context, Geist would appear to mean only that aspect of the divine Spirit in which the “common spirit” that is shared in the broadening reign of God is developing, notably in the Christian church.
4. Wesen.
6. Fürsichgesetztsein des Gegenstandes.
§165. Within the divine government of the world the divine causality presents itself as love and as wisdom.1
1. Generally speaking, the one and undivided divine causality cannot be presented within a sphere of divine attributes without anthropomorphizing. Thus, here too, in order to bring the mode and orientation of these attributes to clear consciousness, we must look for distinctions that, since they are human in nature, rest on some contrast.2 Now, in all human causality, we distinguish the underlying disposition therein from the more or less corresponding manner of carrying it out. The first feature mostly presents the inner depths of a self-actively3 causal being viewed in its unity, as a will that is bestirred in some distinct fashion. The second feature originates more in one’s understanding and shows us one’s self-initiated activity, viewed as something manifold in relation to a given object.
The aforementioned divine attributes are represented in accordance with this distinction in human beings, and in this way they correspond to the contents of the divine government of the world specified above. That is to say, first, love is the orientation of wanting to unite with others and wanting to be in the other. Hence, if the pivotal point of the divine government of the world is redemption and the establishment of God’s reign, whereby union of divine being with human nature is what is occurring, the underlying disposition in that process can be represented only as love. Second, wisdom is understood to be the proper outlining of designs, these designs being conceived in their manifold determinability and in the totality of their relationships to each other. Hence, if the divine government of the world manifests itself in the harmonious ordering of the entire domain of redemption, alongside divine love, we rightly term wisdom as the art, so to speak, of bringing the divine love to its complete realization.
2. Naturally, the two attributes are the more readily separated in human life in that, on account of the distinction between understanding and will that is essential in human beings, disposition and the formation of design do sometimes merge with each other, but only among a few, and even among those few never completely. Instead, proficiency of understanding more or less lags behind purity of will, or vice versa. Now, such a split in divine being is unthinkable; hence, even these two attributes are not divorced, not in any way whatsoever, but are so totally one that one can also view each attribute as already contained in the other one. The consequence is that, without positing any limitation in God in terms of them, we are able to assert that divine wisdom is not suited to determine any arrangement of things and any other ordering of their course than that wherein divine love is realized most fully; no more is divine love suited to self-communications in which it would not satisfy itself completely and thus would not appear as wisdom absolutely. This harmony must be illuminated still more clearly in the following two points of doctrine.
1. This fundamental, if complex, contrast between love and wisdom is highlighted in three 1831 sermons: (1) “How We Must Marvel at Divine Wisdom in the Ordering of Salvation,” on Rom. 11:32–33, Trinity Sunday, May 29, 1831, first published in 1831, then revised in Festpredigten (1833), also in SW II.2 (1834), 562–73, and (1843), 561–72; (2) “How Every Individual Soul Recognizes in the Peace of the Redeemer an Infinite Fullness of Divine Wisdom,” on John 14:27, Third Sunday in Trinity, June 12, 1831, first published in 1831, then in SW II.3 (1835), 1–10, and (1843), 1–11; ET Wilson (1890), 314–25; (3) “How the Redeemer Is the One for Whose Sake We Too Are Loved by God,” on John 16:27, Third Sunday in Advent, Dec. 11, 1831, first published in 1832, also in SW II.2 (1835), 121–31, and (1843), 126–36; ET Wilson (1890), 343–54. In these sermons, “grace” and “mercy” are close affiliates of divine love; “knowledge,” “measure,” and “order” relate similarly to divine wisdom. The two correlated activities by God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in human life, in accordance with the one eternal divine decree of creation and redemption, lead to Christian faith and action and to community, freedom, peace, love, justice, and truth. In the May 29 sermon, Schleiermacher summarizes (571): “God’s love and wisdom, God’s might and glory, can be revealed to us in its full radiance only when we move out of the night of sin into the light of the Redeemer.”
These themes were already presaged in the 1824 New Year’s sermon, using Job 38:11 as its metaphorical text but also featuring John 1:14; 14:23; and 15:15, as well as related New Testament allusions, so as to flesh out its Christian contents: “God, Who Determines the Measure of All Things,” Thursday, Jan. 1, 1824, published first in Festpredigten (1826), then in SW II.2 (1834, 1843), 85–103; ET Wilson (1890), 212–34, and Lawler (2003), 142–68. There God fosters out of sorrow “a more intimate love” in human beings through God’s own “kindly and tender measure” (147), and “a salvific order” is produced by “the Spirit of love” (162f.). Also, based on God’s decree and out of God’s corresponding love and wisdom, this Spirit of love is found especially in community with God in Christ and among one another, through the various gifts noted above.
Signs of the love-wisdom awareness systematically represented in these four later sermons were already in evidence as early as 1797, in an outline for a sermon on 1 Cor. 14:33 titled “Implications of God’s Being a God of Order and of Peace,” preached at Charité Hospital, Aug. 27, 1797, and first published in Bauer (1908), 334–35.
Significant links in this process of concept formation appear in the correlated pair “love and sensibility” in his Soliloquies (1800, 1810, 1822) and in his Brouillon, notes on ethics and the theory of virtue (1804–1806), ET Wallhausser and Tice (2003); see also Schleiermacher’s ethics notes from 1814–1816. In the 1804–1806 notes he distinguishes within the work of reason between the correlate pair “formative (or creative) love” and “knowing love.” This distinction is summarized there as follows. In the moral life: “wisdom and love now form a unity. There is no genuine creating without love; there is no contemplation without love” (Brouillon, 237; see also 152f., 156–58, 162, 207, and 212).
2. Gegensatz. Ed. note: As in the example just given, this concept almost never refers to sheer opposites in Schleiermacher’s usage. Rather, it points to two or more differentiated items in nature, and some of these are correlated to such an extent that they cannot be conceived without each other. The entire process of nature, in turn, is viewed as one organic, interconnected whole, absolutely dependent on God.
3. Selbsttätig. Ed. note: “Self-active” in its contrast with receptivity. In Schleiermacher’s usage this term refers to an individual’s spontaneous, self-initiated activity (Selbsttätigkeit).
[Introduction to First Point of Doctrine]
§166. As the attribute by virtue of which the divine being1 communicates2 itself, divine love is recognized in the work of redemption.
Basel Confession (1536) V: “The concern of the entire canon of scripture is to show God’s goodness to humanity and to proclaim God’s goodwill through Christ the Lord. … This message … is received by faith alone.”3
1. Even in our own sphere the two attributes are not infrequently contested. Many reject the claim that Supreme Being communicates itself and that the essence of divine love consists therein, considering it to be mystical. The other statement, that insofar as a divine communication exists overall, this takes place only by means of redemption, is rejected for being exclusive and for limiting demonstrations of divine perfection over too narrow a range. Some people also diverge from us in this respect, especially those who generally place what is distinctive about Christianity into the shadows rather than emphasize it. As concerns the first statement, these people do recognize the divine love in all the arrangements of nature and orderings of things human, protecting and advancing life, but apart from redemption and taken only in this sense, divine love remains something ever dubious. If we want to view the life of individuals as the object of divine love, nevertheless, we cannot infer the divine love from advancements of life that are made at the expense of others, not if we do not want to sink back into the most grievous particularism, because then every time love would have appeared, its opposite would have done so as well.4 Indeed, this goes not only for the advancements of and restraints against sensory well-being; rather, it is the same for the spiritual development of individual life, where in a great many respects promotion of one life is conditioned by negligence of others’ lives.
In contrast, suppose that we want to put individual life to the side and pay more attention to humanity, thus to our species-consciousness. In that case, since here the advancements and restraints of individuals reciprocally cancel each other out whenever they reciprocally condition each other, we will all the sooner come back to the fact that the divine goodwill cannot be observed in an unambiguous fashion if it does not prove to be protective and caring of what is most distinctive and supreme in human beings viewed generally, namely, God-consciousness. Overall, however, our Christian eyes see God-consciousness to be in a suppressed condition outside the domain of redemption, and in that respect as Christians we find ourselves, once again, within the domain of divine self-communication. The consequence is that, as Christians, even if we want to present divine love only as a benevolent and protective love, we are able to stop short of nothing less than the communication of God in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, a communication that renews and perfects our God-consciousness. This is so, for even though every formation of God-consciousness—however incomplete it may be, indeed even the latent possession of it as something merely sought after—counts even for us Christians as a communication God makes to human nature; it is not something in which we can stand still. Rather, God-consciousness is something that from every side shows itself to exist only as a point of transition, one through which preliminary and unsatisfactory human conditions pass.
2. On the other hand, objections are raised against our proposition, first, that it has not been necessary to await redemption in order to recognize divine love, even as God’s self-communication, and, second, that it is ungenerous to the highest degree and unthinkable to find that love solely and exclusively in redemption. As regards the first objection, some claim that the communication of God exists in everything that can be at all reckoned to be the image of God in human beings, thus in all the functions of reason, indeed in everything on which the original perfection of human nature rests and in every seed of spiritual development that is inherent within our nature. To be sure, the God-consciousness that underlies piety would then also belong to all this except that if, on that account, we should want to afix knowledge of divine love only to redemption, we would be assigning the greatest value to what is less significant. This is so, for the difference between God’s relating to creatures who have no capacity for God-consciousness whatsoever and to those who are developing it, even if only in the most incomplete and unpowerful way, is far greater than that between God’s relating to the latter and to the regenerate in our midst. This is so, because obviously the difference between what the God-consciousness of the last two groups contains is far lesser than what obtains between the first two groups.
Still, to this point it is to be replied that surely all human beings, regarded as having the capacity for God-consciousness, are also objects of divine love. However, divine love is not automatically realized in them. Rather, those who have lived under the law have been hard-pressed by fear before God, which was then the prevailing religious frame of mind and heart, rising at best to the negative consciousness that Supreme Being is not jealous,5 which is far remote from being an acknowledgment of divine love. This acknowledgment first arises with the efficaciousness of redemption and from Christ. Now, however, God is not able in any direct way to love those who still move precariously between idolatry and godlessness—which, rightly understood, one can say of the entire territory outside Christianity—inasmuch as they do not themselves love God.6 Hence, even here we come back to the fact that God loves them only insofar as God sees them in Christ, just as they too do not come to a knowledge of divine love before they are themselves in Christ.
As regards the second objection, it is said that even if it is true that in the domain of God-consciousness, which is coposited in self-consciousness, the love of God first comes to the fore only with redemption, it nonetheless does show up in many domains, both outside Christianity as within it, especially in all successful pursuit of human knowledge and in human dominion over the earth. Yet, since all that is human is to be permeated by the power of redemption and is to attain its perfection only in this connection, so too no human good, no matter of what kind it may be, actually conforms to the corresponding divine will if it is not brought into this interconnection with the dominion of God-consciousness in our souls through Christ. However, the divine love also cannot be recognized on the basis of anything that does not present the divine will. Thus, to be completely justified, our proposition can be understood only within the compass already vouchsafed to it above.7
1. Wesen.
2. Mitteilt. Ed. note: “Imparts” only in the sense of “communicates,” not in the sense of “giving some part of what one possesses over to” another.
3. Ed. note: ET Tice, cf. Cochrane (1972), 101; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 116. This statement is from the second Basel Confession (= the First Helvetic Confession). The Niemeyer text reads “God’s Son,” instead of “the Lord.”
5. Ed. note: This conception of God as “jealous” appears only in the Old Testament (e.g., Exod. 20:5; Deut. 5:9). In the only two passages where this conception is referred to in the New Testament (1 Cor. 10:22 and 13:4), it is abjured.
6. Ed. note: That is, in community with Christ, they come to love God, thus in this relationship they come to experience this exchange of love as not only a relational phenomenon but as one that is reciprocal as well.
7. In §164.
§167. Doctrinal Proposition. God is love.1
1 John 4:16. “So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”2
1. Repeatedly it has been asserted that in God no distinction can exist between essence3 and attributes, and precisely on this account the concept “attribute” is not really suitable for presentation of the divine being.4 Thus, at the same time, it is implied in that assertion that insofar as something true is said of God in what we posit as a divine attribute, the same must also be an expression for the divine nature5 itself. Indeed, for the same reason, it would have to be possible then to form similar statements regarding all other divine attributes, if they too are not to be posited as such erroneously. Yet, such statements do not appear in Scripture, nor has it ever been set forth in ecclesial doctrine that God would be “eternity” or “omnipotence” or the like. Moreover, if we could at least venture to say that God is loving omnipotence or omnipotent love, we would still grant that in the one form no less than in the other, only love is being equated with the being or nature of God.6 Therefore, our proposition must be established and justified in this exclusive form, meaning that only love and no other divine attribute can be equated with God in this fashion. Given this understanding, however, here too we do not intend to refer to any concept of God that is in any way established along a speculative path. Rather, we have only to show how it is that this attribute, “love,” is distinguished in such a manner from the others that we have set forth on the path we have taken.
2. Now, first of all, as regards the attributes ascertained in Part One of our presentation, already in that place these attributes laid no claim to be7 expressions regarding the divine being that could be substituted for the name “God” itself. That is to say, even if we declare “omnipotent”8 to be the attribute by virtue of which all that is finite exists by God’s agency, precisely as it does exist, we have posited this entire divine act, to be sure, but without assigning a motive. Thus, we have posited it as an action that is absolutely undetermined. Further, this formulation can lead to people’s calling God “omnipotent” only mistakenly, with reference to what has occurred viewed in a quantitative fashion. That is to say, since what is finite not only is, as such, a manifold but is also something changing and always exists for us only in transient conditions, thus at points of transition; so, that declaration contains nothing at all other than what the finite actually is by God’s agency and what God wills and puts in place. Moreover, unless we move beyond that domain, we will always remain unsure as to what the will of God coposited in the concept “omnipotent” is, as such. Obviously, the same is also true of the remaining divine attributes treated there. Indeed, as a whole set they have been derived in abstraction from the distinct feeling content of our God-consciousness. Thus, if we do not think of them in connection with the attributes of God that do derive from our reflection on this feeling content—as is the case in the formulations “God is almighty love” and “God is eternal love”—but hold to them by themselves, faith in God as “almighty” and “eternal” is but a shadow of faith, such as the devils too can have.9
The two attributes treated in the first Aspect of our Part Two10 are also not such that they could originally be expressions of the divine being. That is, we cannot say that in Godself God is justice and holiness, because neither concept can be thought of without reference to human evil11 and to the contrast between good and human evil.12 Justice and holiness, however, both in their contrast and in their resolution, altogether fail to apply to God, if God is viewed in and of Godself alone. Hence, separated from the other attributes, the workableness of these attributes too is limited to a certain area. They come properly to be recognized as divine attributes, moreover, only once we have brought their separation to an end and have resolved them into those attributes which are treated here as a result of this second Aspect of our presentation in Part Two.13 As a consequence, what we have taken to be the work of divine holiness and justice is actually reckoned to the work of redemption, though in a way that is more preparatory than fulfilling. For us, those two attributes then come to be divine love, in turn, but viewed only in its preparatory expressions; and divine love is holy and just love only inasmuch as it essentially begins with these preparations, just as it is also omnipotent and eternal love.
Now, if only love and wisdom thus retain the claim of being, at the same time, expressions for the very being of God, we are not able to say that God is wisdom in the same way as we say that God is love. Even so, the following particulars do admit of being adduced even before the concept of wisdom is likewise elaborated. If we look at the way in which we have consciousness of the two attributes, we find that we have that of divine love directly in the consciousness of redemption. Moreover, in that this consciousness is the fundament on which we lay all other God-consciousness, for us it naturally represents14 the very nature of God. In contrast, for us divine wisdom does not come into consciousness in such a direct fashion but does so only when we extend our self-consciousness, definitely our personal consciousness but even more our species-consciousness, to the point of relating every element of experience to each other.15 Indeed, the two attributes cannot be thought to be divorced from each other. Then, however, just as love is not the completion of wisdom, but wisdom is the completion of love, so too, if we think of God as wisdom, love would not also be so completely contained in it as wisdom would be if we think of God as love, for where omnipotent love is present, there absolute wisdom must be as well.
1. Ed. note: Cf. Thönes note (1873) under §48.
2. Ed. note: Sermon on 1 John 4:16–18, Trinity Sunday, June 16, 1822, first published in 1825, also in SW II.4 (1835), 289–302, and (1844), 535–46; ET in The Triune God (trans. Tice, forthcoming). Also on this theme see sermons on (1) John 16:21, Dec. 11, 1831, SW II.2 (1833), 121–31, and (1843), 126–36, ET Wilson (1890), 343–54; and (2) Rom. 5:7–8, April 20, 1832, SW II.3 (1835), 242–52, and (1843), 252–63, ET Wilson (1890), 372–84.
3. Wesen. Ed. note: As applied to God this word is almost always translated either “being” (as in “Supreme Being”) or “nature” (as in “nature of God”). The statement itself explains why “essence” is almost never used in this translation.
4. Wesen. Ed. note: See §167n3.
5. Wesen. Ed. note: See §167n3.
6. Sein oder Wesen Gottes.
8. Ed. note: The corresponding conventional title would be “the Almighty” (das Allmächtige) or “Almighty God.” The other attributes in Part One, there described as being “presupposed” in Christian religious self-consciousness, were all in the same category as that being discussed here. They present God as “eternity,” “omnipresent,” and “omniscient” (Ewigheit, Allgegenwart, Allwissenheit, as well as Allmacht).
9. Jas. 2:19.
10. Ed. note: Those two are “holiness” (Heiligkeit) and “justice” (Gerechtigkeit), both especially related to Christian self-consciousness regarding sin in its relation to redemption.
11. Auf das Böse.
12. Guten und Bösen.
13. Ed. note: That is, they are to be conjoined and resolved in relation to God’s love and corresponding wisdom in the light of divine grace.
14. Ed. note: repräsentiert.
15. Zur Beziehung aller Momente aufeinander erweitern. Ed. note: That is, reference is then to the entire interconnectedness of nature, beginning with and thereby including human nature.
[Introduction to Second Point of Doctrine]
§168. Divine wisdom is the principle that orders and determines the world for the divine self-communication that is carried out in redemption.
1. The particular relationship1 to be used for positing divine wisdom as an attribute distinguished from divine omniscience, a relationship lacking to us above,2 is found in this connection between divine wisdom and divine love. It remains true, however, that divine omniscience, defined in the way we did there, simply posits the same character in God that divine wisdom does, except that for us the nontemporal relationship, of course, becomes a twofold one: wisdom serving as the foregoing term and omniscience serving as the succeeding one. Consequently, the second attribute is in the same relationship to divine love as is the first one, and all being in God is simply posited as that which is mediated by God’s love. Moreover, what I have said elsewhere3 in another context concerning the relationship between love and wisdom is hereby augmented, namely, by the claim that the foregoing term is also the term that directly generates the second. Yet, what results, first of all, from our positing divine love to be wisdom as well is that we cannot possibly regard the totality of finite being in its relation to our God-consciousness other than as comprising the absolutely harmonious divine work of art—something that we also always imply in the expression “world.” This is explained as follows. The proper and complete design belonging to the idea of a work of art is thought to be the originative work of wisdom in the human domain as well. As a consequence, actual human actions are also taken to have their origin in wisdom only to the extent that they can be viewed at the same time to be works of art and parts of a life, both in connection with the whole of that life and in and of themselves. The most complete human being, however, would be one in whom the totality of one’s plans for works and deeds would have formed an integrated whole of communicative self-presentation. In the same way, divine wisdom too is thought to be nothing other than Supreme Being in its absolute, not compound but simple, and originally complete self-presentation and communication.4 On our part, however, we must not imagine any division here. Just as there is no distinction between divine works and divine deeds, so too—unlike our situation—divine communication is not more predominant in divine deeds and presentation more predominant in divine works. Rather, it is only in our perspective that one thing could originally have been divine communication and then have come to be divine presentation, or the other way around. The reason why this expression is prominently used lies precisely in the fact that God’s sending Christ to us is originally divine communication. The unfolding of our consciousness of God’s wisdom consists in the fact that, for us, in its temporal progressions God’s communication moves more and more toward a complete presentation of God’s omnipotent love.
Our next task is to be watchful that we do no damage to our concept “wisdom” by bringing our contrast between end and means into it. The reason for this caution has already been given above. That is, it is already clear that every human work of art is the more complete the more it accords with this concept in such a way that nothing within it falls into the contrast between end and means, but everything relates only as part to whole, and means lie only outside it. Moreover, this principle concerning a work of art is also manifested as it applies to an entire human life, viewed as a still higher completion. Thus, how should divine wisdom not exclude this contrast even more? Further, how should it not do so in such a way that since nothing that could be used as a means exists outside the world, everything within the world would be arranged in such a way that it relates only as part to whole, when viewed in its connection with all else? However, in and of itself every particular would be both means and end, so much so that in every instance each of the two modes of looking at things always ceases, in turn, and transfers into the other mode. Now, this is indeed generally acknowledged, in that wisdom would be placed exclusively in the correctness of the purpose God had in mind, to such an extent that no one assumes a cleverness in God, conceived as perfection that is separate from wisdom in the choice and use of means. In contrast, frequently enough and no less confusedly, people do sometimes take cleverness to be a component in the concept of divine wisdom itself and explain divine wisdom as divine perfection in terms both of establishment of ends and determination of means. The reason this happens is that means are always employed only where the producer has to rely on what has not been engendered by oneself. Further, one can hardly think of a determination of means otherwise than under the form of a choice, that is, in one’s reverting, in turn, to intermediate knowledge that had earlier been set aside by us. So, this consideration too agrees with the point that both divine wisdom and omniscience are the same in relation to each other and are the same as divine generativity, also that one cannot remove this equivalence without despoiling the concepts themselves, and vice versa.
2. Now that we recognize redemption to be the actual key to understanding divine wisdom, this comprises the distinctively Christian conception of the subject. The reason is that even in its greatest extension our Christian self-consciousness cannot rise beyond what stands in relation to us, and we are also able to make the entire divine ordering of the world within this domain intelligible only in reference to God’s revelation in Christ and in the Holy Spirit if we want truly to appropriate that divine ordering of the world for ourselves. However, in no way will this appropriation degenerate into a search, contrary to investigation of the things of nature, to find in particular happenings particular purposes that pertain only to the reign of God. Indeed, if this were attempted, we would constantly be operating with reference to points of transition5 the value of which for the whole is completely unknown to us. Surely, in contrast we will guard against ascribing the divine ordering of external and physical nature, or institutions for development of the human spirit in any quarter, to divine wisdom in such a way that we are at the same time divorcing them from the domain of redemption. That is to say, anything that would have no connection whatsoever with this domain and would not, at the same time, be totally divorced from human life as well—as we cannot rightly say of any part of external nature—could likewise also do injury just as well to the progress of redemption and so would not have been prefigured in divine wisdom. Alternatively, how could we believe that we have fathomed divine wisdom if we have conceived its expressions only in such a way that they could even occasionally be in contradiction with the supreme interest of humanity? Therefore, everything in the world, precisely insofar as it is ascribed to divine wisdom, must also be referred to God’s redemptive or newly creating revelation. Hence, without reservation the proper work of divine wisdom is the spreading of redemption. Differently put, on the one hand, it is the manner and arrangement in which election is accomplished, and the rebirth both of individuals and of the human race, taken in its entirety, is effected; on the other hand, it is the ever-changing transformation of Christian community in each instance when Christian piety that has been called into life has entered into or is to enter into union with other communities and other human circumstances. Hence, it is also in this light that any effort in which we strive to penetrate into depths of divine wisdom that are still hidden to us is always to be apprised, in and of itself. Furthermore, this effort can cease to be praiseworthy, not in its wanting to venture too far into the details—for whatever can be viewed as a detail in the domain of divine grace is also not too tiny to be contemplated as an object of divine wisdom—but only in our doing damage to the absolute unity of divine wisdom by using the contrast between end and means.
1. Verhältnis. Ed. note: This term is used to denote relationships of proportionality or comparison, not an interpersonal relationship.
3. In my essay “Über die wissenschaftliche Behandlung des Tugendbegriffes,” Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1819. Ed. note: March 4, 1819, SW III.2 (1838). Cf. SW III.2, 377, and KGA I/11 (2002), 335: “Generally, wisdom and love are set forth as the most essential attributes of God, indeed love as the expression of God’s entire being, which is also totally correct to the extent that it is inconceivable to make a distinction between wisdom and love in God in that there the very thought of love directly brings it forth.”
4. Acts 17:24–28. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Acts 17:24–27, Nov. 2, 1800, SW II.1 (1834), 154–69, and (2) Acts 17:22–31, Nov. 18, 1810, SW II.7 (1836), 528–37.
5. Durchgangspunkte. Ed. note: Here Schleiermacher borrows from geometry in conceiving every point along a line, just as every point in time, to be in transition from one point to another.
§169. Doctrinal Proposition. Divine wisdom is the ground by virtue of which the world, viewed as the theater of redemption, is also the absolute revelation of Supreme Being, and, consequently, the world is good.1
1. We have already initiated this proposition earlier2 but can fully elaborate it only at this point. Moreover, it combines more precisely what was already stated there rather than containing anything new. It essentially demands that we are not to look for any divine communication greater than that effected in the human race by means of redemption through Christ. Further, in this sense the proposition must, above all, stand the test of two kinds of statements that we find in the two Aspects3 in this Second Part of our presentation. That is, in the first statement sin generally brings with it a diminishment of God-consciousness and thus of divine communication. So, if one assumes that before sin arose there was an actual state of purity or even of moral and spiritual perfection that either could or could not be interrupted by sin, then to be consistent with our proposition, one would also have to assume that if no fall into sin had resulted, and consequently if there had been no need for redemption, thereupon communication of divine being4 would have been less plentiful than is now the case given the presence of sin, but also given the presence of redemption. The second statement is that as long as unregenerate folk live here in community with religious folk, undertones of blessedness will come to the unregenerate too. This phenomenon will occur through the God-consciousness that ever dwells within them, and these undertones are also powerfully manifest in them as workings of preparatory grace.
Now, suppose that one were to assume for all who walk on this path with regenerate people, but who would not eventually have attained to rebirth, an eternity of punishment in hell, viewed as an undiminished lack of blessedness. Then, in accepting our proposition one would have to grant that, under the arrangement wherein some go to hell, the sum total of divine communication would still have been greater in its effect up to the point of death than if one were to suppose, instead, that the rebirth of those who had not advanced so far as that of the regenerate would also have remained possible after death.5
2. We must reflect on the same demand of our proposition from another side. Suppose that we put Christ at the top, as we do, viewing him as the one individual who is totally permeated6 with God-consciousness and who, on that account, is received into full unity with the Highest. This being the case, all else is but incompletely and unequally permeated. If this permeation takes place within intelligent nature, then in increasing degrees it falls away from the top by means of various communal and preparatory circles until it might wholly disappear into unintelligent and inanimate nature, if one simply takes these aspects of nature as such.7 Moreover, suppose that in accordance with our proposition this limited and diffuse communication of Supreme Being were indeed to be the total outcome. In that case, divine wisdom would be wholly devoted to this outcome just as divine love would find its total satisfaction therein. We would then have to become entirely doubtful as to whether those who were without reason and consciousness8 are also to be objects of divine love, because we do find them to be included within what is ordered by divine wisdom. Alternatively, we would then have to be entirely doubtful as to whether they are to be shut out even from that love, because they are unable to have any part in what is ordered by divine wisdom. That is to say, information that reason in effect requires regarding this entire range of gradations in subordinate existence as a footing for its own operation always remains unsatisfactory, because therein lies the presupposition that divine wisdom would be conditioned. Hence, we must add to this consideration the observation that everything that is not in and of itself9 capable of receiving divine communication would have to be brought into vital connection with that wherein such communication has its seat. It would then follow that as long as this connection were not operative in every possible way, and as long as spirit does not yet express and present itself in some fashion in everything that has no reason, divine wisdom too could not appear to us in every respect. However, it would also follow that if one supposes that it is through us that the world would come to be completely ready for us,10 it would also become manifestly clear that everything would exist only insofar as it could be an object of divine love.
3. Now, only here, with reference to divine love, do the divine attributes presented in Part One obtain their full meaning. Thus, here our understanding of divine wisdom, viewed as the unfolding of divine love, leads us to the domain of Christian ethics, in that for us the task arises of increasingly bringing into recognition the world conceived as good.11 The task also arises of attaching everything conformable to the divine idea that originally underlies the world order to the divine Spirit as its organ12 and in this way to bring it all into connection with the system of redemption.13 In this way, in both respects we will attain to complete community of life with Christ, both insofar as the Father has given him power “over all things” and insofar as the Father shows him works “ever greater” than those he has already known.14 In this perspective, then, the world can be conceived as a complete revelation of divine wisdom only insofar as the Holy Spirit gains recognition as the ultimate world-forming power from the Christian church outward.
1. Ed. note: See sermon, “How We Must Marvel at Divine Wisdom in the Ordering of Salvation,” on Rom. 11:32–33, Sunday, May 29, 1831, in SW II.2 (1834), 562–73, and (1843), 561–72, also published in Festpredigten (1833), 489–509; ET Wilson (1890), 314–25. This sermon is particularly helpful in that the explanation of this proposition is unusually brief, adding little more than clarifications in relation to views that Schleiermacher regarded to be untenable.
Imagine that Schleiermacher is a shopkeeper. In this proposition he is doing three things as he nears the end of long, hard years of work on this project. (1) He is sweeping up and clearing out the last ideas that have proved to be useless. (2) He is about to close up shop, knowing that there is no room left to offer straggling last thoughts, for what he has produced is a systematic presentation, one that is to be understood not in bits and pieces but only as a whole. (3) Finally, having done what he set out to do and thus undistracted by lingering possibilities, he is moving readers toward a real conclusion in §§170–72. This conclusion is itself to be largely a summary of the system, presenting a grand vision of the whole, albeit in a rather open-ended fashion. As in §169, moreover, this vision is to be offered in a rather condensed form. He conceives it in terms of one of the most abstract, difficult, highly contested doctrines of all: the doctrine that conceives God as a trinity-in-one (triune).
Schleiermacher has been very careful throughout to provide only doctrinal conceptions that can reflect the immediate Christian religious consciousness of individuals experiencing genuine community of faith with Christ. Herein the God he presents is seen both to create and to redeem by eventually enacting one eternal decree to perfection. Thus, in speaking of divine wisdom and of the triune God, he does not wish suddenly to lapse into philosophical speculation, even at a juncture where the range of reference encompasses everything. Since theologians often do, perhaps unwittingly, speculate, readers are left with the task of carefully attending to what Schleiermacher does and does not say here.
2. See §59.P.S. Ed. note: Proposition §59 concerns “the original perfection of the world.” Since it is in Part One, it deals with a matter that is “presupposed” in the religious consciousness of a Christian. It focuses on the manifold ways and levels in which the world presents both conditions and means for the realization and presentation of God-consciousness.
The postscript of §59 distinguishes this account from two types of position: (1) talk about “the best possible world,” which is composed of both good and evil, talk that arose in response to the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s (1646–1716) conception of a perfect God who has created “the best possible world” but not a “perfect” world, and (2) talk about a world that was once “perfect” and was then changed into an “imperfect” one, namely, the one in which we now live. As Schleiermacher indicates, the first language which had entered into the supposedly “natural” or “rational” doctrine of some German theologians, in particular, is purely “speculative” and is lacking in historical sensibility. The second language, likewise continuing those two characteristics, also attempts to transcend immediate religious consciousness, arguing, in effect, that this present world is “the best” one possible. Instead of either position, in §59.P.S. Schleiermacher proposes stopping at the ascertainable position, sufficient for religious consciousness, that the world is “good.”
The second position, also taken up by some theologians, goes back to ancient fables regarding a “golden age” and to the Old Testament notion of an original “paradise,” which human beings could have enjoyed without contributing any effort of their own, purely passively. The rest of the world would then have had to conform to this condition, contrary to the very history of nature itself (of humanity and possibly of the entire universe). This history, in turn, contributes to the very conditions that have turned out to be necessary for the need for redemption to occur among human beings, including their own development as they strove to deal with the rest of the world and faced their own mortality. Finally, he argues, nothing in the Old or New Testament narratives obviates against the account of the world’s “original perfection” presupposed in §59 and throughout this book. It does not claim a natural “immortality” for human beings, nor does it regard any alteration of the world to be necessary, or even desirable, to achieve God’s redemptive purpose.
3. Enden. Ed. note: This word refers to the two aspects, ends, or results of Part Two, on sin and grace. For the first kind of statement, indicated just below, see esp. the discussion under §§66–67. For the second kind of statement, see esp. §110.2.
4. Mitteilung des göttlichen Wesens. Ed. note: To think of such communication as being less or more in quantity, the German word Mitteilung is of greater help than our English word, for it suggests that communication comes in “parts” (Teilen). Thus, sin can limit how many parts of what God communicates one can register and truly receive.
5. Ed. note: Schleiermacher refers here to one of the prophetic doctrines, namely §§157–63, “Regarding the Consummation of the Church.”
6. Ed. note: The word durchdrungene (“permeated,” or more or less saturated or imbued) suggests degrees of being filled with God-consciousness—that is, with the effects of divine communication, just referred to. The unstated assumption that makes this line of thought work seems to be either that divine communication would resume in some different form after death or that rebirth would be granted without divine communication, because the earlier form and amount of it would not count at all. In either case, those who assume damnation for some at the point of death are left with a quandary in trying to account for effects divine communication would have had on the unregenerate before death.
7. Ed. note: During part of his six years as chaplain at Charité Hospital in Berlin (1796–1802), the mental hospital burned down and its patients were transferred to Charité Hospital. He therefore had ample opportunity to observe persons who could seem to be in such dire conditions.
8. Ed. note: das Vernunftlose und Bewußtlose an und für sich would seem to include at least human beings, and yet if it meant only human beings, the grammatical construction could easily have been different.
9. Ed. note: The same is to be said of this phrase, alles, was an und für sich selbst, as was stated of that in §169n8 just above.
10. Ed. note: The phrase is wenn die Welt durch uns wird für uns fertig sein. So brief as to be cryptic and thus aphoristic, it continues a supposition shared by many devotees of reason, that the world does exist for the use of humans and that we can also master it by reason. It is clear here, in §59, and elsewhere that Schleiermacher does not wish entirely to deny these suppositions but, in a theological context at least, would certainly qualify the claim in some fashion and has repeatedly done so. As he has explained, the world’s existence surely does include the redemption of humanity and is entirely consistent with that purpose and process. Thus, at least in that one major respect, God does love the world (cf. John 3:16), unreservedly, even if it might as yet be unclear to some as to whether, how, or why God does this beyond that specific purpose. In his philosophical writings (especially those on dialectic) he even holds that there could come to be a point when the overall products of reason and those of theology might cohere, though that possibility too is a matter of speculation, thus one of no consequence for theology at this point in history. Since love, by definition, both intends and reveals that the world’s creation and preservation is “good,” as it is taken to be in this proposition, even devotees of reason might come to accept the claim that this sentence ends with, namely, “that everything would exist only insofar as it could be an object of divine love.”
11. Ed. note: Christian ethics is fully the second half of the theological task of dogmatics (cf. §61.3 and Brief Outline §223). It considers not just moral behavior but also the entire range of behavior to which human sciences would point. See also Tice, Schleiermacher (2006), 43–47, for a detailed formal characterization and summary of its basic content, all with references to points made about Christian ethics in Christian Faith. The two halves of dogmatics are not deductively related, and they are meant consistently to hold to the same path (cf. esp. §§111.4, 112, 126.2, and 133.2; in relation to the present proposition see §§84.3 and 163.P.S.).
12. Organ. Ed. note: Here God as the wise divine “idea” and the divine Spirit as active “organ” represents the repeated theme that God’s will and act are always inseparably one.
13. Ed. note: Cf. §169n1 to this proposition.
14. Ed. note: Cf. Matt. 11:27//Luke 10:21–22 and John 14:12 on these two points, respectively. Sermon on John 14:7–17, Trinity Sunday, May 21, 1826, in SW II.9 (1847), 443–56.