German theologian best remembered today as the founder of liberal Protestant theology.
If there is any truth in the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the story of Scheiermacher must surely serve a model. Born into a family of Pietistic conviction, he rejected it in his student days as intellectually inadequate, though he claims to have returned to a higher order of it later in life. He studied at the University of Halle and, for a time, taught there, though he is most remembered for his pioneering role in the founding of the Berlin University where he was appointed the first dean of the theological faculty.
Schleiermacher is essentially a romanticist in his philosophy and a pietist in religion. His first major work was On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (German 1799, English 1894). As suggested by the book's subtitle, he did not intend the book for the ordinary man in the street but was rather aimed at the intellectuals of his days who, influenced by the Enlightenment, would rather 'despise' Christianity as out of date. Schleiermacher hoped to make converts of them. Scheiermacher begins with Kant argument that religion has to do with esthetics not the intellect. Christianity, for Schleiermacher, is, therefore, first of all not about metaphysics, dogma and creed but about feeling, a living experience of/with God. Traditionally the Church had insisted that truth in the form of theology determines and tests religious experience. Scheiermacher instead argues that faith as the subjective disposition is more fundamental than what is determined by doctrine. Religion is all about feeling. This is, of course, the essence of all modern liberal Christianity.
Further Reading & Resources>
F. F. Bruce, "The History of New Testament Study," in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, ed. I. Howard Marshall, (Carlisle: The Paternoster Press, revised 1979), pp.21-59. (For Schleiermacher, see esp., pp.40ff.) Pdf N 6-7 (Open on Phone)
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