Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 53:212 (Oct 1896)
Article: Schleiermacher And The Christian Consciousness
Author: Edwin Stutely Carr

BSac 53:212 (Oct 1896) p. 668

Schleiermacher And The Christian Consciousness

Edwin Stutely Carr

Every man, however forceful in personality, is to a degree the son of his age and people. In considering Schleiermacher, it will be advantageous to trace the movement of religious thought down to his day.

With the growth of culture in modern Europe, appeared in each country the inevitable attempt of liberated reason to reckon with revealed religion. In each country the liberal movement took a characteristic form; in England deism, in France materialism, in Germany rationalism.

The rationalistic movement originates with Leibnitz. We find in Leibnitz an emphasis of the intellectual, the supremacy of reason, as strong as in any English sensationalist or French materialist; and at the same time Leibnitz is a devout Christian. He indignantly repudiates the insinuation that faith and reason are irreconcilable, and it is his purpose to show that Christianity contains nothing which may not be reasonably believed. Following out this tendency, Wolff developed his famous criteria for testing an alleged revelation,—little thinking that these tests would soon be used not to substantiate, but to destroy, the Christian miracles. Reimarus first applied Wolff’s criteria rigidly to traditional Christianity. As his result, the Old Testament history is declared to be “a tissue of utter follies, infamies, deceptions, and cruelties, of which selfishness and ambition were mainly the motives. What is said about supernatural

BSac 53:212 (Oct 1896) p. 669

inspiration, revelation, prophecy, and miracles, is mere delusion, deception, and abuse of the divine name.” The books of the New Testament were written by Christ’s disciples in a natural way, with no original claim to inspiration. Christ’s teaching must be distinguished from the additions made to it by his disciples. Jesus looked for an earthly Messianic kingdom; but when his plan was frustrated by death, his followers stole his body and invented the story of the resurrection. In conclusion, revelation in general is discarded as impossible; and it is also superfluous, for the truths of natural religion are a sufficient guide and support in life, are known alike by all men, and should be regarded as sufficient for salvation. Reimarus therefore abandons Christianity, and would substitute for it the natural religion of his time.

It is commonly said that Lessing’s great service to the philosophy of religion is that he distinguished the religion from the book,—Christianity from the Bible. It might be more accurate, or at least more helpful for the understanding of the real principle of this whole movement, to say that he accomplished the astonishing feat of metamorphosing the natural religion ...