This article was originally published in Carl Henry, ed., Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics (1973), 603-04. Used by permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker
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Friedrich
D.E. Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is sometimes called the “father of modern
theology.” Perhaps the most important of
his influential innovations is his view that the final authority in religious
matters is not Scripture (as in orthodox Protestantism), nor natural reason (as
in pre-Kantian rationalism), nor a combination of these plus tradition (as in
Roman Catholicism), but intuitive religious feeling. For Schleiermacher, “Christian doctrines are
accounts of the Christian religious affections set forth in speech.”[1] The influence of this principle upon modern
liberal Protestantism, and not least upon modern liberal Protestant ethics, is
incalculable. Schleiermacher’s
specifically ethical writings, however (Grundlinien
einer Kuitik der Bisherigen Sittenlehre, Grundriss der Philosophischen Ethik),
have had comparatively little impact on recent thought. This fact would have disappointed
Schleiermacher, for he regarded his ethical works as in one sense the capstone
of his theological labors and even regarded dogmatics itself as a kind of
subdivision of ethics.[2]
Schleiermacher
virtually identifies ethics with what we would ordinarily call “history” –
i.e., a descriptive account of the ways in which man’s reason acts upon nature
to accomplish its purposes. Specifically
Christian ethics then, describes the ways in which the Christian’s communion
with God through Christ influences his actions.
In line with this conception, Schleiermacher presents detailed
“descriptions” of various goods, virtues and duties and the relations between
them. Essentially he sees the ethical
life as a struggle to attain “unity” or “peace” between apparently (but in his
view not actually) conflicting realities – spirit and flesh, ideal and real,
reason and nature, individual and universal, production and appropriate,
etc. In this spirit he supports the development
of “unity” in the political and social realms – the developing Prussian state
and the Lutheran-Reformed ecclesiastical union – at least insofar as he feels
that these unions had a firm basis in the popular cultural consciousness. He advocates broad social reforms,
particularly improvements in the condition of the poor.
Schleiermacher
contrasts this “descriptive” approach most often with what we might call a
“normative” approach – i.e. the exposition of an eternal, authoritative
standard which demands man’s obedience.[3] Like the modern “situationist,”
Schleiermacher belittles the value of “law” to exalt that of “love.” In his view, law “does not pierce behind the
outward act” and thus cannot deal with inward motives. This view leads him to the paradoxical
position that the two great commandments of the law (Matt. 22:36-40) are not
commandments at all. Such a view has a
substantial weakness: if consistent it has no basis for declaring anything to be right or wrong. Mere description cannot yield such
evaluations, which require a Biblical appreciation of the law of God (Deut.
6:1-9; Matt. 5:17-19; John 14:15).
Schleiermacher and Protestant Ethics