Schleiermacher's Anthropology.
6. As the system under consideration is unscriptural in what it teaches concerning the nature of God, and the person of Christ, it is no less contrary to the Scriptures in what it teaches concerning man. Indeed, the theology and anthropology of the system are so related that they cannot be separately held. According to the Bible and the common faith both of the Church and of the world, man is a being created by the word of God's power, consisting of a material body and an immaterial soul. There are, therefore, in the constitution of his person, two distinct subjects or substances, each with its own properties; so that although intimately united in the present state of being, the soul is capable of conscious existence and activity, out of the body, or separated from it. The soul of man is therefore a distinct individual subsistence, and not the form, or modus existendi of a general life. According to Schleiermacher, "Man as such, or in himself, is the knowing (das Erkennen) of the earth in its eternal substance (Seyn) and in its ever changing development. Or the Spirit (der Geist, God) in the way or form in which it comes to self-consciousness in our earth." Der Mensch an sich ist das Erkennen der Erde in Seinem ewigen Seyn und in seinem immer wechselnden Werden: oder der Geist, der nach Art und Weise unserer Erde zum Selbstbewusstseyn sich gestaltet.1 By the Mercersburg writers the idea is set forth in rather different terms but substantially to the same effect.2 Thus it is said, "The world in its lower view is not simply the outward theatre or stage on which man is set to act his part as a candidate for heaven. In the widest of its different forms of existence, it is pervaded throughout with the power of a single life, which comes ultimately to its full sense and force only in the human person." And3 "The world is an organic whole which completes itself in man; and humanity is regarded throughout as a single grand fact which is brought to pass, not at once, but in the way of history, unfolding always more its true interior sense, and reaching on to its final consummation." Again, "It is a universal property of life to unfold itself from within, by a self-organizing power, towards a certain end, which end is its own realization, or in other words, the actual exhibition and actualization in outward form of all the elements, functions, powers, and capacities which potentially it includes. Thus life may be said to be all at its commencement which it can become in the end."
The theory is that there is an infinite, absolute, and universal something, spirit, life, life-power, substance, God, Urwesen, or whatever it may be called, which develops itself by an inward force, in all the forms of actual existence. Of these forms man is the highest. This development is by a necessary process, as much so as the growth of a plant or of an animal. The stem of the tree, its branches, foliage, and fruit, are not formed by sudden, creative acts, accomplishing the effect, by way of miracle. All is regular, a law-work, an uninterrupted force acting according to its internal nature. So in the self-evolution of the spirit, or principle of life, there is no room for special intervention, or creative acts. All goes on in the way of history, and by regular organic development. Here there is a fault in Schleiermacher's doctrine. He admitted a creative, supernatural act at the creation. And as the quantum of life, or spirit, communicated to man at first was insufficient to carry on his development to perfection, i.e., until it realized, or actualized all that is in that life of which he is the manifestation (i.e., in God), there was a necessity for a new creative act, by which in the person of Christ, a perfect man was produced. From Him, and after Him, the process goes on naturally, by regular development.4 The life-power, the spirit, is quantitively increased and henceforth develops itself historically in the form of the Church. The Church, therefore, consists of those to whom this elevated principle of life has been communicated, and in whom it develops itself until it realizes all it includes. That is, until the essential oneness of God and man is in the Church fully realized.
There is another mode of representation current with the disciples of Schleiermacher, especially in this country. its advocates speak of humanity as a generic life. They define man to be the manifestation of this generic life in connection with a special corporeal organization, by which it is individualized and becomes personal. It was this generic humanity which sinned in Adam, and thenceforth was corrupt in all the individual men in whom it was manifested. It was this generic humanity that Christ assumed into personal union with his divinity, not as two distinct substances, but so united as to become one generic human life. This purified humanity now develops itself, by an inward force in the Church, just as from Adam generic humanity was developed in his posterity. All this, however, differs only in words from Schleiermacher's simpler and more philosophic statement. For it is still assumed as the fundamental idea of the gospel, that God and man are one. This generic humanity is only a form of the life of God. And as to its sinning in Adam, and being thenceforth corrupt, sin and corruption are only imperfect development. God, the universal life principle, as Dr. Nevin calls it, so variously manifested in the different existences in this world, is imperfectly or insufficiently manifested in man generally, but perfectly in Christ, and through Hun ultimately in like perfection in his people. Christ, therefore, according to Dorner, is a universal person. He comprises in Himself the whole of humanity. All that is separately revealed in others is summed up in Him. In this system "Der Mittelpunkt," says Schwarz, "christlicher Wahrheit, der christologische Kern der ganzen Dogmatik ist die Göschel-Dorner'sche monströse Vorstellung von der Allpersönlichkeit Christi, die ihm als dem Urmenschen zukommt. Es ist die Zusammenfassung des ganzen gegliederten Systems der natürlichen Gaben der Menschheit."5 "The middle point of Christian truth, the kernel of dogmatic theology is Goschel's and Dorner's monstrous idea of the All-personality of Christ which belongs to Him as the Urmensch or archetypal man. He comprehends within Himself all the diversified forms or systems of the natural gifts of mankind." Göschel and Dorner, adds Schwarz, were driven to this view because they conceded to their opponent Strauss, that the Absolute could only reveal itself in the totality of individuals; and therefore as the Absolute was in Christ, he must embrace all individuals, because (the Gattungsbegriff) the true and total idea of humanity, the ideal man, or Urmensch, was revealed in Christ. The objection is constantly urged by his German critics, as Baur, Strauss, and Schwarz, that Schleiermacher admits that the Absolute is revealed in perfection in the totality of individuals, and yet is revealed perfectly in Christ, which according to Schleiermacher's own philosophy they pronounce to be a contradiction or impossibility.6
The design of the preceding paragraphs is simply to show the unscriptural character of Schleiermacher's Christology in all its modifications, because it is founded on a view of the nature of man entirely at variance with the Word of God. It assumes the oneness of God and man. It takes for granted that fully developed humanity is divine; that Christ in being the ideal, or perfect man, is God.
Schleiermacher's Theory perverts the Plan of Salvation.
7. It need hardly be remarked that the plan of salvation according to Schleiermacher's doctrine is entirely different from that revealed in the Bible and cherished by the Church in all ages. It is, in Germany at least, regarded as a rejection of the Church system, and as a substitute for it, and only in some of its forms as a reconciliation of the two, as to what is deemed absolutely essential. The system in all its forms rejects the doctrines of atonement or satisfaction to the justice of God; of regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit; of justification as a judicial or forensic act; of faith in Christ, as a trusting to what He has done for us, as distinguished from what He does in us; in short, of all the great distinctive doctrines not merely of the Reformation but of the Catholic faith. By many of the followers of Schleiermacher these doctrines are rejected in so many words; by others the terms are more or less retained, but not in their received and established meaning. For the Scriptural system of salvation, another is substituted. Christ saves us not by what He teaches, or by what He does, but by what He is. He infuses a new principle of life into the Church and into the world. The universal life as communicated to, or revealed in Adam, has been struggling on, imperfectly developed in all his descendants. In Christ a new influx of this life is communicated to, or infused into the veins of humanity. From this as a new starting point, humanity enters on another stage of development, which is to issue in the full actualization of the divine life in the form of humanity. As from Adam human nature was developed from within by an inward force in a regular historical process; so from Christ, there is the same historical development from within. All is natural. There is nothing supernatural but the initial point; the first impulse, or the first infusion of the divine life. There is no place in the system for the work of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the very existence of the Holy Spirit as a personal being is by Schleiermacher expressly denied. By the Spirit he means the common life of the Church, that is, the divine life, or God as revealed in the Church. As we derive from Adam a quantitively deficient, and in that sense corrupt, nature, and have nothing more to do with him; so from Christ we receive a larger measure of life, spirit, or divine nature, and have nothing more to do with Him. His whole redeeming work is in the new leaven he has introduced into humanity, which diffuses itself in the way of natural development. This, as Baur says, comes after all to little more than the impression which his character has made on the world. He draws a parallel between Schleiermacher and Kant, between the "Glaubenslehre" of the former, and "Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft" of the latter; the clear rationalism of the one and the mystical obscurity of the other. Both admit that there is a good and a bad principle. Both say that man's redemption consists in the triumph of the good principle. Both say that the deliverance from evil or the work of redemption, is a purely natural process. Both refer the success of the struggle to the influence of Christ. The one says that He imparts to men a new life, the other says that He awakens the dormant good that is already in man's nature. Everything admits of a simple and of a mystical explanation.7 In every great epoch some one man not only impresses his character and infuses his spirit into the men of his generation, but also transmits his influence from age to age. The whole body of Lutherans are what they are because Luther was what he was. The spirit of Ignatius Loyola is just as active in the Jesuits of our day as it was in his own person. The Scotch are what they are because of John Knox; and the Wesleyans owe not only their doctrines and discipline but their whole animus and character to John Wesley. To this category do the merciless German critics of Schleiermacher reduce his theory of the redemption of man by Jesus Christ. It is a matter of personal influence like that of other great men. This will be regarded by his disciples as a most degrading and unjust view of his doctrine. And it doubtless is unjust. For whatever may be true of his mere speculative system, he unquestionably in his heart regarded Christ as infinitely exalted above other men, and as the proper object of adoration and trust.
This Vermittelungstheologie (the mediating-theology), as it is called in Germany, is confessedly an attempt to combine the conclusions of modern speculation with Christian doctrine, or rather with Christianity. It is an attempt to mix incongruous elements which refuse to enter into combination. The modern speculative philosophy in all its forms insists on the denial of all real dualism; God and the world are correlata, the one supposes the other; without the world there is no God; creation is the self-evolution or self-manifestation of God: and is therefore necessary and eternal. God can no more be without the world, than mind without thought. The preservation, progress, and consummation of the world is by a necessary process of development, as in all the forms of life. There is no possibility of special intervention, on the part of God. Miracles whether spiritual or physical are an absurdity and an impossibility.8 So is any agency of God in time, or otherwise than as a general life-power. This precludes the efficacy of prayer except as to its subjective influence. Schleiermacher shared in this horror of the supernatural, and this rejection of all miracles. In the case of Christ, he was forced to admit "a new creative act." But he apologized for this admission by representing it as only the completion of the original act of creation, and by saying that it was only for a moment, and that all thenceforth was natural.
Schwarz, himself a great admirer, although not a disciple of Schleiermacher, characterizes this "mediating theology" as an utter failure. It is neither one thing nor the other. It is neither true to its speculative principles, nor true to Christianity. It virtually rejects the Church system, yet endeavours to save Christianity by adopting at least its phraseology. Schwarz says it is a system of "phrases;" which endeavours to heal the wounds of orthodoxy by words which seem to mean much, but which may be made to mean much or little as the reader pleases. It speaks constantly of Christianity as a life, as the life of God, as developing itself organically and naturally, not by supernatural assistance, but by an inward life-power, as in other cases of organic development. It assumes to rise to the conception of the whole world as an organism, in which God is one of the factors; the world and God differing not in substance or life, but simply in functions. It concedes to "speculation" that the fundamental truth of philosophy and of Christianity is the oneness of God and man. Man is God living in a certain form, or state of development. While "the mediating theology" concedes all this, it nevertheless admits of a miraculous or supernatural beginning of the world and of the person of Christ, and thus gives up its whole philosophical system. At least the members of one wing of Schleiermacher's school are thus inconsistent; those of the other are more true to their principles.
As Christian theology is simply the exhibition and illustration of the facts and truths of the Bible in their due relations and proportions, it has nothing to do with these speculations. The "mediating theology" does not pretend to be founded on the Bible. It does not, at least in Germany, profess allegiance to the Church doctrine. It avowedly gives up Christianity as a doctrine to save it as a life. It is founded on "speculation" and not upon authority, whether of the Scriptures or of the Church. It affords therefore no other and no firmer foundation for our faith and hope, than any other philosophical system; and that, as all history proves, is a foundation of quick-sand, shifting and sinking from month to month and even from day to day. Schleiermacher has been dead little more than thirty years, and already there are eight or ten different classes of his general disciples who differ from each other almost as much as from the doctrines of the Reformation. Twesten and Ullmann, Liebner and Thomasius, Lange and Alexander, Schweizer, are wide apart, each having his own philosophical solvent of the doctrines of the Bible, and each producing a different residuum.
The simple, sublime, and saving Christology of the Bible and of the Church universal is: "That the eternal Son of God became man by taking to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever."