4 A Revelation of the Inward: Schleiermacher's Theology and the ...

etter than a footnote in his system. Speaking
of the Trinity, Schleiermacher
explained, “this doctrine itself, as ecclesiastically
framed, is not an immediate
utterance concerning the Christian selfconsciousness,
but only a combination of
several such utterances.” 61 The reason
for Schleiermacher’s displacement of the
doctrine immediately surfaces: the Trinity
does not arise naturally from the
human consciousness, and therefore must
be regarded as an issue of subordinate
importance.
After recovering from the initial shock
of Schleiermacher’s casual devaluation of
the doctrine which produced seven ecumenical
councils and numerous creeds,
one recognizes that Schleiermacher’s
treatment of the Trinity simply follows his
methodology for the nature and formulation
of Christian doctrine. Schleiermacher
torturously struggles even to discuss the
Trinity, and finally admits that in his view,
one must sacrifice either a unity of Persons
or of essence, despite the witness of
the history of the Church to the contrary:
The ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity
demands that we think of each of
the three Persons as equal to the
Divine Essence, and vice versa, and
each of the three Persons as equal to
the others. Yet we cannot do either
the one or the other, but can only represent
the Persons in a gradation, and
thus either represent the unity of the
Essence as less real than the three
Persons, or vice versa. 62
Dissatisfied with the doctrine of the
Trinity, and frustrated by its unwillingness
to fit into his system, Schleiermacher
expresses hope that the doctrine can be
reordered so as to accommodate the
consciousness of the human being, the universal
principle of doctrinal interpretation.
63 He writes, “We have the less reason
to regard this doctrine as finally settled
since it did not receive any fresh treatment
when the Evangelical (Protestant) Church
was set up; and so there must still be more
in store for it a transformation which will
go back to its very beginnings.” 64
By interiorizing Christian doctrine
within human experience, Schleiermacher
sacrifices God’s transcendence and the
foundation of the biblical metaphysic.
Therefore one might be scandalized, but
not surprised, that Schleiermacher cannot
reconcile the Trinity with his theological
method. God as transcendent Sovereign
does not exist in Schleiermacher’s theology;
he appears only as an abstraction,
“the divine causality” which provides a
cohesive fabric to the Universe. Karl Barth
called Schleiermacher’s God “a neuter,”
not a person, but a “thing.” Barth
remarked regarding Schleiermacher’s
account of God, “God is given to us in
feeling. Not given to us externally, as
Schleiermacher assures us at length. But
surely the neuter that is posited and given
is obviously not Spirit, not God, but, no
matter how abstract, a thing.” 65 Barth
was correct. Despite his emphasis on
relationship, Schleiermacher does not
present God as Father, or even fundamentally
as Person.
Schleiermacher focuses his attention
primarily on the person of Jesus Christ
and the believer’s relationship with
him. But like every doctrine in his system,
his consideration of the person of Christ
undergoes a drastic transformation.
For Schleiermacher, Jesus of Nazareth
achieves his place of high honor not
because he is the second person of the
Godhead, but because he possessed the
highest form of God- or self-consciousness.
Richard R. Niebuhr comments that
Schleiermacher “present[s] the figure of
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