Reinventing the wheel

April 5th, 2010 | 4 Comments

“Just think of the natural sciences as they increasingly develop into a comprehensive knowledge of the world. A short time ago no one could have conceived of this development. What then do you suppose the future holds, not only for our theology, but for our evangelical Christianity? … There are those who can hack away at science with a sword, fence themselves in with weapons at hand to withstand the assaults of sound research and behind this fence establish as binding a church doctrine that appears to everyone outside as an unreal ghost to which they must pay homage if they want to receive a proper burial. Those persons might not allow themselves to be disturbed by the developments in the realm of science. But we cannot do that and do not want that. Therefore, we must make do with history as it develops.”

—Friedrich Schleiermacher, On the Glaubenslehre: Two Letters to Dr Lücke [1829] (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1981), p. 60.

H/T to my friend Matt Raymer for the foregoing and for his observation that although here we are nearing two hundred years since the above quote, Christians like Matt and I have had to rediscover from scratch so many of the lessons Schleiermacher learned so long ago.

April 5th, 2010

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  • jonathanrobinson

    Yes, but,
    “comprehensive knowledge of the world” !!??
    Schleiermacher was both ahead of his time and also manifestly of his time, and his optimism about the ability of humanity to uncover the depths of the universe has proved unfounded, not because he was wrong about human ability, but because he underestimated how deep the universe goes.

    The great irony with him, is as much as he gets condemned by evangelicals for being the grandaddy of the liberals, modern evangelicals are as much his children as anyone. Hermeneutically at least.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Jonathan,
    I laughed when I read “comprehensive knowledge of the world” as well, but it's really somewhat immaterial to his point. He should have said something more like “a burgeoning field of discovery that has already overturned old understandings of the world,” but then again I think this was implied when he said, “as they increasingly develop into a comprehensive knowledge…”

    I daresay that however much hermeneutics among certain evangelicals today resemble Schleiermacher's, they seem to have acquired it independently from his influence, unless I'm much mistaken. In any event, those evangelicals are likely as not to disregard the very observations that brought him to believe the way he did. I think it's a horseshoe effect, in which two tips coming from different directions end up in the same vicinity.

  • jonathanrobinson

    Yes, but,
    “comprehensive knowledge of the world” !!??
    Schleiermacher was both ahead of his time and also manifestly of his time, and his optimism about the ability of humanity to uncover the depths of the universe has proved unfounded, not because he was wrong about human ability, but because he underestimated how deep the universe goes.

    The great irony with him, is as much as he gets condemned by evangelicals for being the grandaddy of the liberals, modern evangelicals are as much his children as anyone. Hermeneutically at least.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Jonathan,
    I laughed when I read “comprehensive knowledge of the world” as well, but it's really somewhat immaterial to his point. He should have said something more like “a burgeoning field of discovery that has already overturned old understandings of the world,” but then again I think this was implied when he said, “as they increasingly develop into a comprehensive knowledge…”

    I daresay that however much hermeneutics among certain evangelicals today resemble Schleiermacher's, they seem to have acquired it independently from his influence, unless I'm much mistaken. In any event, those evangelicals are likely as not to disregard the very observations that brought him to believe the way he did. I think it's a horseshoe effect, in which two tips coming from different directions end up in the same vicinity.