Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary
Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary
foundations, and was incapable of bearing the superstructure of Christian theology. Schleiermacher tried to steer a middle course between them. He developed what is sometimes called positive theology” (Brown, 1968:110). Brown adds that Schleiermacher’s approach leads to a form of Unitarianism (ibid. 113), and that with “Schleiermacher the dividing-line between Theism and Pantheism is a very fine one” (ibid. 114). Schleiermacher’s contributions are mild compared to postmodern thought. Schleiermacher argued it was impossible to know God through reason, but via feelings, we can experience God. Christianity was more than a set of intellectual propositions to follow; it was also an inner experience, and “the feeling of absolute dependence” (Latourette, 1975:1122). For him, faith was not the experience of individuals, but rather the lived experience of the faith community, something the postmoderns would later agree with. He believed religions brought men into harmony with God -- but of all the religions, Christianity attained this end, best of all. He also believed that theology should be the expression of that same faith community. Schleiermacher believed there was knowing God intellectually and knowing God affectively, that religion was a mingling of the theoretical and practical: Religion is for you at one time a way of thinking, a faith, a particular way of contemplating the world, and of combining what meets us in the world: at another, it is a way of acting, a peculiar desire and love, a special kind of conduct and character. Without this distinction of a theoretical and practical you could hardly think at all, and though both sides belong to religion, you are usually accustomed to give heed chiefly to only one at a time (Schleiermacher, 1958:27). Schleiermacher saw theology as a second-level reflective activity. “He concerned himself with facts and phenomena -- with real, live religion, not simply with ‘God’ as a philosophical construct. He understood Christian theology to be (in his terms) ‘empirical,’ not ‘speculative’” (Gerrish, 1984:21). Schleiermacher’s theology also marries experience with Christology. For him, Christ is the one who supremely embodies ‘God-consciousness,’ and redeems humanity “by drawing men and women into the power 38 University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
39 of his own awareness of God” (Gerrish, 1984:48). Schleiermacher believed that God created the world ‘good,’ but that through mankind’s sin, humanity and creation were corrupted. Mankind is prone to sin because they are born into this predisposition. “Through sin men are alienated from God and therefore fear Him as judge, knowing that they deserve His wrath” (Latourette, 1975:1123). He further maintained that redemption was through Christ, who was a man, “but a man who was entirely unique in that he was dominated by the consciousness of God as no man had been before him and no man has since been” (ibid. 1123). His views were essentially those of historic Christianity, but his starting place was different than most, for he “began, not with the Bible, a creed, or revelation, but with personal experience with what happens to the individual and to the community” (ibid. 1124). This personal subjectivity and relativism would later be fully embraced and developed by the postmodernists, though they had little regard for the God of Bible. Scleiermacher’s attempts to ‘reconfigure’ Christian theology inevitably led to the highly destructive Liberalism that blossomed in the early 20th Century. Schleiermacher really believed he was responding in the only way then possible to the gauntlet Kant had laid. “Kant’s restriction of reason to the world of sense experience presented a serious problem for any religious thought -- whether traditional orthodoxy or its deistic alternative -- that linked belief with reason” (Grenz, 1992:43). Schleiermacher’s response to Kant facilitated fresh thinking about the challenges of modernity, but certainly did not respond in a way that preserved the orthodox foundations of the faith. Pre-eminent theologian, Karl Barth, respected Schleiermacher’s contribution, but was also one of his greatest critics. Barth believed Schleiermacher’s work was radically anthropocentric, “setting the course at the end of which certain theologians of the midtwentieth century proclaimed God to be dead” (Grenz, 1992:50). What Schleiermacher had begun, would eventually culminate in the work of Albrecht Ritschl, often called the father of classical liberal theology. As controversial as Schleiermacher was, and is, he did help to resurrect the Christian faith at a time when rationalist thinking had nearly rendered it impotent, and also did much to unite practical aspects of the faith with the theoretical. University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Page 1 and 2: 1 POSTMODERNITY: IMPACT AND IMPLICA
- Page 3 and 4: 3 Key Terms Postmodern, postmoderni
- Page 5 and 6: 5 An Apologetic Response 115 Compro
- Page 7 and 8: killed massively in the name of goo
- Page 9 and 10: 9 together in an eclectic, rather d
- Page 11 and 12: 11 Postmodernity: Impact and Implic
- Page 13 and 14: 13 heights” (Veith, 1994:30). For
- Page 15 and 16: 15 autonomy proper to human reason
- Page 17 and 18: inviolability and Divine origin, th
- Page 19 and 20: diminished” (Bosch, 2000:6). The
- Page 21 and 22: ‘god’ to keep and to save him.
- Page 23 and 24: Occultism flourished among the Brit
- Page 25 and 26: He was a passionate, powerful chara
- Page 27 and 28: 27 record reveals that the church o
- Page 29 and 30: 29 eliminating poverty, hunger and
- Page 31 and 32: may simply transform the nature and
- Page 33 and 34: Contrary to Christian notions that
- Page 35 and 36: 35 ‘modernize’ the nation. To b
- Page 37: 37 expression. This “first respon
- Page 41 and 42: 41 Existentialism understandably em
- Page 43 and 44: depends upon our decision makes our
- Page 45 and 46: group Socialisme et Liberte. During
- Page 47 and 48: 47 The Mind of Sartre Sartre’s vi
- Page 49 and 50: ethical absolutes (Craig, 1994:67).
- Page 51 and 52: 51 Chapter II Postmodernity: The Es
- Page 53 and 54: 53 Postmoderns promote individualis
- Page 55 and 56: meaning and language. The postmoder
- Page 57 and 58: pointed out that science, far from
- Page 59 and 60: 59 Ferdinand de Saussure at the tur
- Page 61 and 62: considers the Greek logos (i.e., λ
- Page 63 and 64: 63 models and then try not to subve
- Page 65 and 66: marginalized and to the historical
- Page 67 and 68: without essential foundations (Khan
- Page 69 and 70: maximum voluntary community agreeme
- Page 71 and 72: 71 something akin to the virtual re
- Page 73 and 74: 73 During the 1960’s, Foucault wa
- Page 75 and 76: generally agreed that his views wer
- Page 77 and 78: had been trapped. Through Nietzsche
- Page 79 and 80: Foucault also seemed to delight in
- Page 81 and 82: elieve the conventions of modernity
- Page 83 and 84: 83 Will 'Po-Mod' Endure Ernst Gelln
- Page 85 and 86: 85 referentially incoherent. That i
- Page 87 and 88: 87 the second postmodern wave, whic
foundations, and was incapable of bearing the superstructure of Christian theology.<br />
Schleiermacher tried to steer a middle course between them. He developed what is<br />
sometimes called positive theology” (Brown, 1968:110). Brown adds that<br />
Schleiermacher’s approach leads to a form of Unitarianism (ibid. 113), and that with<br />
“Schleiermacher the dividing-line between Theism and Pantheism is a very fine one”<br />
(ibid. 114). Schleiermacher’s contributions are mild compared to postmodern thought.<br />
Schleiermacher argued it was impossible to know God through reason, but via<br />
feelings, we can experience God. Christianity was more than a set of intellectual<br />
propositions to follow; it was also an inner experience, and “the feeling of absolute<br />
dependence” (Latourette, 1975:1122). For him, faith was not the experience of<br />
individuals, but rather the lived experience of the faith community, something the<br />
postmoderns would later agree with. He believed religions brought men into harmony<br />
with God -- but of all the religions, Christianity attained this end, best of all. He also<br />
believed that theology should be the expression of that same faith community.<br />
Schleiermacher believed there was knowing God intellectually and knowing God<br />
affectively, that religion was a mingling of the theoretical and practical:<br />
Religion is for you at one time a way of<br />
thinking, a faith, a particular way of<br />
contemplating the world, and of combining<br />
what meets us in the world: at another, it is a<br />
way of acting, a peculiar desire and love, a<br />
special kind of conduct and character.<br />
Without this distinction of a theoretical and<br />
practical you could hardly think at all, and<br />
though both sides belong to religion, you<br />
are usually accustomed to give heed chiefly<br />
to only one at a time (Schleiermacher,<br />
1958:27).<br />
Schleiermacher saw theology as a second-level reflective activity. “He concerned<br />
himself with facts and phenomena -- with real, live religion, not simply with ‘God’ as a<br />
philosophical construct. He understood Christian theology to be (in his terms)<br />
‘empirical,’ not ‘speculative’” (Gerrish, 1984:21). Schleiermacher’s theology also<br />
marries experience with Christology. For him, Christ is the one who supremely embodies<br />
‘God-consciousness,’ and redeems humanity “by drawing men and women into the power<br />
38<br />
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, <strong>South</strong> Africa
Change language