Blog
March 13, 2008
I think that I am still missing two of these, but I have been warned that one will be very late; the other is from a student who is usually early. In any event, I will proceed. Congratulations, you have read one of the more difficult texts, at least for a present-day American reader, in the theological and philosophical repertoire. It is a very abstract argument written in a language and a style that was very similar to other German and English Romantics. If you are like me, you love both the style and the argument. But then, I loved (and still love) Coleridge, Keats, and Emerson and find even Wordsworth with his childhood intimations of immortality to be congenial. After all,
Our
birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The
Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath
had elsewhere its setting,
And
cometh from afar:
Not
in entire forgetfulness,
And
not in utter nakedness,
But
trailing clouds of glory do we come
From
God, who is our home:
Heaven
lies about us in our infancy!
Shades
of the prison-house begin to close
Upon
the growing Boy,
But
He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He
sees it in his joy;
The
Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must
travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And
by the vision splendid
Is
on his way attended;
At
length the Man perceives it die away,
And
fade into the light of common day.
Wordsworth
Schleiermacher’s point is there is a fundamental separation
between theology and religion and between religion and morality or ethics and
science. Religion takes its rise from
the intuitive awareness of the All or the Infinite upon the human soul. It is an intuition or feeling (although not
in the English sense of a sentiment) that unites us with that which is
experienced. The more aware that one is
of the Infinite, the one, like the Great mystics, yearns to be one with that
which is not limited by space and time.
Significantly, as Schleiermacher says, this means that Death can be a
release into God and away from the burdens of individuality. From this perspective, Schleiermacher
correctly notes that every event is a miracle and every elevated moment an revelation. That
which is inspiring is inspired. To be a
priest, Schleiermacher knew, was to be a poet (with apologies to Novalis for reversing his epigram.
Schleiermacher knew that many people had suppressed or even
killed off their own religious impulses.
The cultured despisers of religion, the enlightened men and women of his
time, were primary examples of this Their science and even their morality
and legal theory were at the very apex of human achievement; yet, their lives
and works had nothing of the religious about them. They were human, but they had denied part of
their humanity. Perhaps they were right
about much inherited Christian dogma and perhaps they were right about the need
to seek the Good for its own sake, but the starry realm above showed that they were
radically wrong about their own lives. Without
the consciousness of God within, they were but half-human, people drawn to one
side of life.
Theologically, I have grown in different ways from
Schleiermacher and his insight. Like
some others, I became aware of the infinite beauty and depth of the Biblical
God, a God who was not only present in apprehension but also in act, but I
still yearn, with Schleiermacher, for those moments when one recognizes that
one reclines on the bosom of the Universe and that all, all that is, is well. There is an apprehension of the divine in all
that is.
Happy Easter to you all. Every good Friday, I
stand aside from things and listen to J.S. Bach’s great St. Matthew’s Passion, perhaps
one of the most profound interpretations of Scripture ever offered. If you would understand Matthew (and perhaps
also Schleiermacher) get some good phones, crank up the disc player or even a
tape player, and let the sweet sounds lead you into the mystery of Christ’s death
and resurrection. Perhaps no one ever expressed the awe of the
day that the earth wept in sorrow than Bach and his musical retelling of the
story. My version has only the original
sixteen member choir and uses a woman instead of a young boy for the soprano. The rest is, as you might have guesses,
authentic to the time.
Amanda Wagner
Schleiermacher
Reading philosophical works has never been easy for me. With each paragraph I read, I found myself going through a cycle where I would not understand a single thing, then it would become crystal clear for a second before fading back to the fuzzy non-understanding again. Therefore, I never really understood the idea of all things being reduced to the push and pull of two opposite impulses. I can understand his example, but I do not understand how to transfer this to everything in the world.
In religion, Schleiermacher argues, there is a tension between wanting to assert one’s individuality and wanting to fully surrender to God. I understand that a healthy spirituality depends on a balance between these two extremes. Both are dangerous positions to hold. On one end you have blind atheism. Perhaps a better way to put it would be selfishness. Schleiermacher asserts that extreme individuality would cause one to focus all energies on the self, never looking outside of oneself to other people, and certainly not to a deity. On the other end you would have death of your humanity. The only way to fully submit to God is to be absorbed by God until only God is seen rather than the person.
I find it interesting then that Schleiermacher was so quick in his “Defence” to put morality outside of religion. I can only assume that this was in some way due to his audience, since in “the Nature of Religion” Schleiermacher put morality back within the push and pull of individuality and submission. On page 57 he asserts that religion alone cannot cause a person to do anything. Therefore, I believe he is saying that once we see ourselves somewhere in the continuum between self and infinite, our response to our place in the world is our morality. We are not good because God tells us to be. We respond in moral ways because we are not completely selfish nor wholly absorbed in God as to lose ourselves. No. at this point, I think that he is more radical. Religion is the feeling, the awareness of the Infinite in the midst of the finite and of the eternal in the midst of time, it is not the same as morality, although it can join itself to the moral impulse. But Schleiermacher is very clear that we do not need religious faith to be moral, and he would argue, at least at places, that some forms of religion are actually less moral than purely secular life.
CH 1502
Christian Movement
Glenn Miller
March 12, 2008
Cathie Kimball
On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers
Friedrich Schleiermacher
I am looking forward to our classroom discussion on this work. I found it to be nearly unintelligible. I kept looking for the unique and life changing theology and proceeded to be eminently confused. However, this quote from the last paragraph of the second speech captivated my interest:
Yet the true nature of religion is neither this idea nor any other, but immediate consciousness of the Deity as He is found in ourselves and the world…It is not the immortality that is outside of time, behind it, or rather after it, and which still is in time. It is the immortality which we can now have in this temporal life; it is the problem in the solution of which we are for ever to be engaged. In the midst of finitude to be one with the Infinite and in every moment to be eternal is the immortality of religion.
I liked the image of God in us and in the world. I also find the discussion of eternal life having broader implications than a simple literal understanding to be compelling.This is a provocative quotation. Step back and ask what is Schleiermacher arguing? Do we have an immediate apprehension of the Infinite and the Eternal, as he suggests, or is this mere vapor? Could all religious expressions be related to that apprehension of a “god beyond god” as he suggests and, thus, as Tillich will later argue, religious statements need to be taken as statements about human life and not about the One who is beyond. It is high cotton
I also found a few lines from early in Speech One also engaging, in particular the part where he is critical of his detractors (friends?) for not granting him some slack for being educated in these matters – they go to learned people in their fields but remained distant from someone such as himself, an expert in his field of religion. The remainder of the Speeches has so far remained elusive for me. I am not clear if it is the language used, or the style of writing that so baffles me. I find his notes at the end of the speeches to be more available to me. It is as though he was writing in some sort of code, and only in his notes does he speak English (I know I know he was writing in German… but I hope you know what I mean.)
Another question I had was about his diatribe early on where he seemed to be very critical of non-German persons. Yes, German was the primary battleground in the wars of the French Revolution with the English hiring Germans to die for them (they controlled the Seas) and the French conducting a war that was close to genocide. Did I read that right? I found my feathers a bit ruffled for a bit there… Or was he just being a bit sarcastic? I didn’t think so. No he was a patriot in a world engaged in a titanic war that lasted from 1789 until Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. During that time, he say his university closed, his city attached, and his friends killed. There was much bitterness and fear in Europe from this time onward and some historians believe that Europe began the road to World War II at this time. I wish that theologians did not respond to crisis the way that other people do, but, alas, that is not the case. He was part of a interesting group of young patriots.
CH 1502 Phyllis Merritt
Christian Movement II
Glenn Miller the week of March13, 2008
Schleiermacher
On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers
I have not read any of Schleiermacher’s work, so this week’s
reading was in uncharted territory for me once more. I am indebted to
Forstman, in the foreword, considers this book “astonishing in at least five respects. First, because he (Schleiermacher) presented an utterly fresh understanding of religion…Second, he set forth a view of religion that was in principal free from reliance on authority. Third, he described religion as belonging to the human sphere and thus essentially limited…Fourth, his approach to religion was descriptive and analytical…Finally, he tried to show that religion is inevitably social and thus always has a definite form.” (ix-x) I found it interesting to know why Schleiermacher wrote the speeches in the first place, and I found the guidance Forstman offers in the foreword to be a helpful map as I navigated my way through the assignment. His first respect, that Schleiermacher would be presenting a fresh understanding of religion, intrigued me. I was ready to begin.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the comments about language Dr. Miller made on my last paper would be even more applicable to this reading. (In short, earlier language systems are often more grammatically complex than later ones. “Present day American English is a very attenuated language. People in an earlier day had a much sharper ear and eye for grammatical nuance.”)
On the whole, I found this to be difficult reading. I longed for Wesley’s numbered paragraphing or an editor’s sections and subsections. Then I thought about those who translate manuscripts from antiquity, and I considered myself lucky. After a while, I got accustomed to Schleiermacher’s way of ordering and was able to re-read with what I hope is some sense of understanding. A technique like the one he uses on page 45 (paragraph 1, sentence 1) sent me back over several pages to see if I had understood his three points. His insertion of a battery of questions (again page 45 as an example, but on many pages throughout) helped me form an idea of what was to come or gave me a summary of what he had said. At times these questions give the speeches a more conversational tone as well. (He is, however, the first author I have read in a while who can make a compound-complex sentence into a question. German is very good at that, and Schleiermacher wrote wonderful German, perhaps some of the best since Luther, at least in theology.) I am afraid that I missed some of his true meaning as I was trying to analyze a sentence or passage.
That Schleiermacher presented an utterly fresh understanding of religion was the first point Forstman made. Forstman mentions “dogmatic orthodoxy, speculative Neology, enlightened ‘natural religion’ and Pietism” (x) as being the views that were prevalent at the time Schleiermacher writes. To be fresh, then, Schleiermacher’s views would have to oppose these. Schleiermacher begins his discussion of the nature of religion by stating that religion “in its own characteristic form, is not accustomed to appear openly, but is only seen in secret by those who love it.” (27) I would suspect that many of the views above do have characteristic forms. Because a system of creeds and doctrines would be the basis for the forms, and because the creeds and doctrines would have been agreed upon by an ecclesiastical body, those views would also “appear openly.” The very nature of writing a creed or a doctrine would involve cooperation and give and take of ideas. Practitioners of a particular view may not “love” the view at all, but feel they must abide by their doctrine.
In the first speech, “Defence,” Schleiermacher discusses the human soul as having two opposing impulses: a drawing in, an attempt to “establish itself as an individual” (4), and the longing to be absorbed in the greater, the Whole. Every soul has these two tendencies, but not all souls have them in the same degree. Our lives are lived in this place of tension between the two. A few souls are at one extreme or the other; they will have a difficult time gaining a knowledge of the whole. Those in a toned-down equilibrium are a dull mediocrity with all fresh life wanting. (5) There are a few who have both impulses, and Schleiermacher considers those to be the interpreters of God, the mediators between God and man, the members of the true priesthood. It seems as though his hope is that one day, there would be no need of mediators, that all are taught of God and that there be an almost holy communication. The hope is also in Jeremiah where he talks about God writing his Law on all human hearts. I think that most of the views Forstman mentions would not encourage such thinking.
In humility, Schleiermacher will speak of religion to the
“sons of
The second speech, “The Nature of Religion,” is lengthy. A few quotes (I have marked dozens) from this section stand out to me as proof of Forstman’s five respects:
· “Religion never appears quite pure. Its outward form is ever determined by something else.” (33)
· “Quantity of knowledge is not quantity of piety.” This is a key idea of Schleiermachers and one of the most true; the learned theologian is not necessarily the best Christian or the most experienced one. (35)
· “As for those who parade religion and make a boast of it, I always characterize them as unholy and removed from all divine life.” (47)
· “Each religious person fashions his own asceticism according to his need, and looks for no rule outside of himself, while the superstitious person and the hypocrite adhere strictly to the accepted and traditional, and are zealous for it, as for something universal and holy.” (62)
·
“In order to receive the life of the
World-Spirit, and have religion, man must first, in love, and through love,
have found humanity.” (72)
Some very good quote here. All of them are on target. It may have been hard reading, but you seem to have understood it very well. This is not easy material. If you can fish in these waters, you can cast your net anywhere.
Barbara Chodkowski
Email Seminar Schleiermacher
Sounds like you enjoyed Schleiermacher’s work. It is interesting that he can be read from a modern social scientific standpoint as well as from the history of German philosophy. Looking forward to this discussion.
I have never specifically read Schleiermacher’s work before. I have seen it referenced and read about him, but never read him personally until now. I knew that his writings are compared to those of Kant: arguments of supernaturalism verses naturalism compared to rationalism verses empiricism. In reading just the two speeches for this week’s assignment, I can see why. It is quite clear that Schleiermacher is much more interested in what a person has going on inside, rather than what dogma says is going on around that same person. But what intrigued me the most was various discourse in the second speech – that which smacks of Systems Theory.
Religion is certainly a system, if you mean that it is formed according to an inward and
necessary connection. That the religious sense of one person is moved in one way, and
and that of another in another is not pure accident, as if the emotions formed no whole,
as if any emotions might be caused in the same individual by the same object. Whatever
occurs anywhere, whether among many or few as a particular and distinct kind of feeling
is in itself complete, and by its nature necessary. . . Christianity, for example, is a whole in
itself, but so is any of the divisions that may have at anytime appeared in it . . .the piety of
each individual, whereby he is rooted in the greater unity, is a whole by itself. It is a
rounded whole, based on his peculiarity, on what you call his character, of which it forms
one side. Religion thus fashions itself with endless variety, down to even a certain personality.
(Schleiermacher, 50-51). There is an easier way to make this format with Word that does not require a return at the end of each line. This makes editing much easier.
What is inside of one person therefore shapes the theology of a person along with the influences around them. It is clear from this why Schleiermacher is considered the father of modern theology. His views create the premise for a personal faith grounded within an external system of choice of denomination (begun by the Reformation for Christians), within the greater system of Christianity (if you are a Christian). As each of the greater systems is also human interpretation, personal interpretation and discernment must be possible within the whole.
As a social scientist, I studied organizational theory from an organic vantage. In this view, organizations, systems, groups, denominations, religions – whatever you chose - can be seen as akin to living organisms, developing, changing and even splitting like cells divide and them growing and forming new life forms. Within each of these systems, there is development that is affected, but not controlled wholly, by the greater system around it. Religion, like the individual, is therefore natural or organic. Its development is chronicled and legacy left by the marks it leaves on the larger system of the world historically. If every individual is part of a whole, personal faith as guidance for action and behavior within the system (religious or social) has moral ramifications on the society as a whole. Schleiermacher presents a view that shifts the process of communication and effectual religious application through the individual, rather than through some sort of blanket supernatural force controlled by the religious elite or the governing body of the church as an overall governing system That was his goal. The individual faith, then, is the determinant for the moral development of the religious body, and that faith is determined by the individual person and that person’s relationship and communication with God.
I could not help my mind moving forward to another vein. In a society where there is lack or personal faith or no understanding of it, the driving forces or morality, then, would be left to the superficial structures that personal faith first created. The exterior systems or both religion and society as a whole become rudderless boats that continue on, but make turns and twists without rhyme or reason as to what is a path toward its demise or safety. The humanistic element ? (not sure that I follow here) must be present in religion in order for it to remain moral and applicable to humans. Individuals must be the internal engine driving religious systems, or the systems lose their humanity.
So
Schleiermacher’s message is as much applicable today as it was in his own. While persons of his time had to be made
aware of the power and importance of the personal faith that came from the
relationship that they personally held with God within, persons of our time do
also. The task is different, as faith
was central to most everyone in the 18th and 19th
centuries. We cannot say that now,
sadly. This need, however, can be seen
in the people who have come back in search of a faith, developing new systems,
religious bases, denominations (in Christianity and
elsewhere) that answer needs that they have found have not been met by the
traditional denominations. This is most
obvious in the growth of Pentecostal churches, the Born Again religious
movements, and mega churches of Christianity in the
Michael Kasevich
Christian Movement
March 13, 2008
Schleiermacher
Defence
For this weeks blog I will address both reading independently. In reading the first speech, I realized that Schleiermacher was defending his position among other theologians? or to the world at large? His style of writing was hard to follow. He would ask a question and as I read I had to dig deep to find any kind of answer with out going around the bush two times. Towards the end of his first speech, he does get to his point more clearly. I think he was running out of time and needed to finish. He has a way with words that could make the worst things in life sound great. Alas, he was considered a great stylist in his time and his translation of Plato is a German classic. Romantic literature is, to be sure, an acquired task. Notice that he is addressed the enlightened elite of his time and that they have almost no interest in clergy or in religion. At best. Religion is about immortality and morality, as he says, a dismal picture.
On page 11 in our translated text, we read that Schleiermacher wants to hide religion from the “course barbarism.” I interpret this as he feels those people who are at the grassroots level of society look at religion as something from history or as he writes “an old fashion garment.” He goes on to talk about how it is this lower class that takes on religion as the only ones who can see through the bureaucrats and the pomp of live.
He then opens the world to those who are below the main stream of society and lets them or encourages them to allow what is hidden inside come to life through the “high consciousness of human will.” This sound liberating and inclusive for all humans.
Schleiermacher next questions whether or not one should go to this class of people when there is a need to look into the "inmost connection and highest ground of human powers.” It seems to me as a contradiction of words. Maybe I am misunderstanding what Schleiermacher is trying to say here. I think the latter. I am not sure where you are going.
In the closing paragraph, we read that Schleiermacher himself questions his authority and his objectionable look at religion as he challenges the readers to look at them selves before they read him in contempt. Therefore he knows what he is writing offends the readers and the church theologians of the time. Very much. Real religion is the response of the soul to the infinite.
The Nature of Religion
Through this long speech Schleiermacher, repeats himself, and uses criticism to gain a perspective of his thoughts that people would try to understand. I think that at times he writes clearer and more understandable than the first speech. Example: On page 31 of our translated text, Schleiermacher writes how “belief must be different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two.” Here he is making a point that is understandable. It may not be agreeable but one can understand what he is saying.
The speech included explanations of what Schleiermacher is writing. He himself quotes himself and reiterates his thoughts, as he must know that importance of what he is writing. Therefore, he makes sure the reader understands what he is saying.
Along these lines on page 94, Schleiermacher tells the reader that if you do not understand God and be conscious of Him in a way preconceived, than Schleiermacher can neither teach nor direct you farther.
Schleiermacher’s arrogance comes out in different sections of the text. His frustration with the common people also shows his short temperedness. Some people may have acquainted this as “genius” but I read it through 2008 eyes, as rude and demoralizing. (My opinion only) Mike: I think that you are judging Schleiermacher, not by what he says, but by a criteria that you have not expressed clearly.