Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
Singular is this whole part of Schleiermacher's construction, with its lapse into abstraction of the familiar sort, of which, in general, the working of his mind had been so free. For surely what we here have is abstraction. It is an undissolved fragment of metaphysical theology. It is impossible of combination with the historical.
Goethe is to be found no more, or no less, in his 'Theory of Colors' or in his 'Metamorphosis of Plants, than in his 'Divan' or his 'Faust'; and lyrism, if I may use this trite expression, "is overflowing" in Schleiermacher's theology and in Schelling's philosophy. Is this not perhaps at least one of the reasons of the inferiority of the German drama?
The concept of individuality became of the highest importance for Schleiermacher's ethics, as well as for his philosophy of religion; and by his high appreciation of it he ranges himself with Leibnitz, Herder, Goethe, and Novalis. Now two sides may be distinguished both in regard to that which the individual is and to that which he ought to accomplish.
The higher law everywhere suffers disturbances, from the resistance of the lower forces, which cannot be entirely conquered. It is Schleiermacher's determinism which leads him, in view of the parallelism of the two legislations, to overlook their essential distinction. Cf. also Dilthey's briefer account in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, and Haym's Romantische Schule, 1870.
We purposely call it a relation of our personality, and not merely a relation of man, because in the religious the ethical moment of self-determination which is included in the idea of personality, is an essential factor; and because we gladly make it conspicuous, partly in opposition to the one-sidedness of Schleiermacher's feeling of absolute dependence, partly to prevent a contrary misunderstanding of our own view, as if we found the seat of religion in the activity of knowledge.
The pantheism of the thought of God in all of Schleiermacher's early work is undeniable. He never wholly put it aside. The personality of God seemed to him a limitation. Language is here only symbolical, a mere expression from an environment which we know, flung out into the depths of that we cannot see. If the language of personal relations helps men in living with their truth well and good.
The thoughts of the audience were with God; to Him their hearts had all turned. But now Schleiermacher's voice grew softer; his eyes, which had hitherto been raised toward heaven, looked upon the wives and mothers, who sat in long lines before him. "Rejoice in the Lord, ye mothers," he said, "blessed are you in having given birth to such sons! blessed your breasts that nourished such children!
An electric shock, as it were, pervaded the whole assembly; not an eye remained dry, not a heart was unmoved; even Schleiermacher's voice was tremulous when he uttered his "Amen!" They departed from the church to the Potsdam gate, and along the road leading to Potsdam, continuing their march on the following day, after being joined by the company which La Motte Fouque had recruited in that city.
The centralness of Jesus Christ he himself was never weary of emphasising. It became in the next generation a favorite phrase of some who followed Schleiermacher's pure and bounteous spirit afar off. Too much of a mystic to assert that it is through Jesus alone that we know God, he yet accords to Jesus an absolutely unique place in revelation.
Of those influences, not the least had been that of Schleiermacher's book. Among the greatest had been Schleiermacher himself. The religion of feeling, as advocated in the Reden, had left much on the ethical side to be desired. This defect the author sought to remedy in his Monologen, published in 1800.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking