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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2007
While several commentators have pointed out the supralapsarian nature of Schleiermacher's christology, this article is the first thorough examination of the nature of Schleiermacher's supralapsarian arguments. I show that Schleiermacher's supralapsarianism is directly based on his doctrine of absolute dependence and divine causality. However, the ontology implied by the latter doctrine is in the end inconsistent with Schleiermacher's christology, and Schleiermacher's system does not seem to have the resources to be saved from this inconsistency.
1 Friedrich Beisser, Schleiermachers Lehre von Gott, dargestellt nach seinen Reden und seiner Glaubenslehre (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), pp. 241–3; Eugene, TeSelle, Christ in Context: Divine Purpose and Human Possibility (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), pp. 69–86;Google ScholarRobert James, Sherman, The Shift to Modernity: Christ and the Doctrine of Creation in the Theologies of Schleiermacher and Barth (New York: T and T Clark, 2005), pp. 199, 200Google Scholar.
2 In this, my analysis differs significantly from Eugene TeSelle's work, the most extensive analysis of Schleiermacher's position to date. TeSelle analyses Schleiermacher in terms of the traditional distinction between incarnation as essential completion and accidental redemption.
3 Friedrich, Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. Mackintosh, H. R. and Stewart, J. S. (eds.), (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), §§ 100–1, pp. 425–38Google Scholar. Page references to this translation of Der Christliche Glaube (CF) (1830/1) follow reference to sections (§§).
4 §§ 4.2, 4.3, CF 13–16. Cf. for the identification of ‘that which is co-determined by other things’ as the finite: § 56.1, CF 231.
5 § 4.3, CF 16.
6 § 4.4, CF 16.
7 § 32, thesis, CF 131.
8 § 62.3, CF 261.
9 § 63.2, CF 263.
10 § 62.3, CF 262.
11 Ibid.
12 § 50.3, CF 198.
13 § 50, thesis, CF 194.
14 § 5.1, CF 19.
15 See especially §§ 46 and 49, CF 170–8 and 189–93.
16 § 54, thesis, CF 211.
17 Ibid.
18 § 54.2, CF 212–13.
19 § 54.2, CF 213.
20 § 54.2, CF 214.
21 § 41.1, CF 153–4; § 59, postscript, CF 341.
22 § 4.3, CF 16.
23 § 54.3, CF 214–15.
24 Jacqueline Mariña aims to exonerate Schleiermacher from the charge of determinism by reinterpreting the relationship between God and world by appealing to his notion of freedom of spontaneity (‘Schleiermacher's Christology Revisited: A Reply to his Critics’, Scottish Journal of Theology 49 (1996) pp. 177–200, especially pp. 185–8, 195–8). Julia A. Lamm also qualifies the notion of determinism by expounding Schleiermacher's take on individuality and freedom (The Living God: Schleiermacher's Theological Appropriation of Spinoza (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), pp. 171–85). However, both discussions are concerned with determinism as implied by omnipotence I. This leaves aside the determinism implied by omnipotence II. We might, on omnipotence I, be free to do spontaneously what we desire; given omnipotence II, our spontaneity has nonetheless only one option open to itself. And not even God could change this option, since God too is limited to only one way of acting.
25 For a recent discussion of Cartesian voluntarism: Gijsbert, van den Brink, ‘Descartes, Modalities, and God’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 33 (1993), pp. 1–15;Google Scholar and Alvin, Plantinga, Does God have a Nature (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), pp. 95–126Google Scholar. For a recent defence of theistic activism: Morris, Thomas V. and Menzel, Christopher, ‘Absolute Creation’, American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986), pp. 353–62Google Scholar, reprinted in Morris, Thomas V., Anselmian Explorations (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), pp. 161–78Google Scholar.
26 § 52, CF 203–6.
27 § 55.2, CF 225–6.
28 § 147.2, CF 673.
29 § 81, thesis, CF 330.
30 § 4.3, CF 16.
31 § 81.2, CF 333–4.
32 § 79, thesis, CF 325.
33 § 80, thesis, CF 326.
34 § 80.2, CF 328.
35 § 46, postscript, CF 177.
36 § 166.1, CF 728.
37 Robert Merrihew Adams questions whether a divine decree governed by omnipotence II can be said to have ends and means. If there are no real possible alternatives, is there anything for purposes to explain (‘Schleiermacher on Evil’, Faith and Philosophy 13 (1996), pp. 571–2)? In this article I will leave this question aside.
38 § 6.1, CF 26.
39 § 66, CF 271–3.
40 § 66.3, CF 272–3; § 86.2, CF 356.
41 § 68, CF 275–9; § 94.1, CF 385.
42 § 93.2, CF 378.
43 Kelsey, Catherine L., Thinking About Christ with Schleiermacher (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), p. 9Google Scholar.
44 § 93.2, CF 378.
45 § 93.3, CF 382.
46 § 93.3, CF 381–2.
47 § 89.4, CF 365.
48 § 93.3, CF 381; § 95.3, CF 389; § 89.4, CF 365.
49 § 120.1, CF 552.
50 § 95.3, CF 389.
51 Ibid.
52 § 94.2, CF 387.
53 § 96.2, CF 396.
54 § 96.3, CF 397.
55 § 94.2, CF 387.
56 § 100, thesis, CF 425.
57 ‘pervasive influence’, § 100.2, CF 427; ‘impulse active in us’, § 104.3, CF 455.
58 § 100.2, CF 427. Cf. § 100.1, CF 425: ‘But his act in us can never be anything but the act of his sinlessness and perfection as conditioned by the being of God in him. And so these too in addition must become ours’.
59 § 106.1, CF 476.
60 § 106.1, CF 477; § 100.1, CF 427; § 94.2, CF 387–8.
61 § 88.3, CF 365.
62 § 89, CF 365–9.
63 § 95.3, CF 389.
64 § 100.1, CF 426.
65 § 93.2, CF 378–9.
66 Contra Eugene TeSelle, Christ in Context, p. 84.
67 § 164.1, CF 723.
68 For instance: ‘from the beginning everything had been set in relation to his appearing’ (§ 80.2, CF 328).
69 § 164, thesis, CF 723.
70 § 164.2, CF 724.
71 Schleiermacher gives four reasons why not to apply ‘means’ terminology for God's dealing with creation. Means are external to the goal, but the whole of finite existence is included in the goal of God's action. Means are employed when the agent has to take recourse to something not originating in herself, which in the relation between God and the world is excluded by the world's absolute dependence on God. It is difficult to use means terminology without suggesting a form of choice on the part of the agent, whereas God's acts are not based on choice and deliberation. Finally, a work is esthetically more pleasing when all its parts are an integrated whole than when some parts are identifiable as means used for other parts as their goals (§ 168.1, CF 733–4). I think in the end we can take all these caveats into account and still use the means and ends language. Schleiermacher's preference for the terminology of parts and wholes fits again in my notion of a causal pyramid, in which the perfect divine impartation to Christ functions as a crucial part of the larger whole, the divine impartation to humankind.
72 Other texts that support my reading are the references to an unqualified humanity as the address of divine impartation: ‘if then the pivot of the divine government is redemption and the foundation of the Kingdom of God, involving the union of the Divine Essence with human nature’ (§ 165.1, CF 726/7); ‘it is only through him that the human God-consciousness becomes an existence of God in human nature, and only through the rational nature that the totality of finite powers can become an existence of God in the world’ (§ 94.2, CF 388). See also the affirmation that ‘every form of the God-consciousness, however imperfect.. ranks for us as a divine impartation to human nature’ (§ 166.1, CF 728).
73 § 65.2, CF 270; § 80.2, CF 328; § 81.3, CF 335–7; § 89.3, CF 368; § 164.3, CF 726.
74 On the election of Christ: § 120.2,4, CF 553–7.
75 § 89.1, CF 366.
76 § 165.1, CF 726.
77 § 51.1, CF 203.
78 ‘We must therefore think of nothing in God as necessary without at the same time positing it as free, nor as free unless at the same time it is necessary. Just as little, however, can we think of God's willing himself, and God's willing the world, as separated the one from the other. For if he wills himself, he wills himself as Creator and Sustainer, so that in willing himself, willing the world is already included; and if he wills the world, in it he wills his eternal and ever-present omnipotence, wherein willing himself is included; that is to say, the necessary will is included in the free, and the free in the necessary’. (§ 54.4, CF 217.)
79 § 120.3, CF 556.
80 § 164.1, CF 723.
81 § 94.1, CF 385; § 89.2, CF 367.
82 § 94.1, CF 385; § 13.1, CF 64.
83 § 120.2, CF 553.
84 § 120.3, CF 555–6.
85 § 50.2, CF 195/6.
86 § 54.3, CF 214–15; § 41, postscript, CF 156.