Dissertation Fellow 1998-99
Jeffrey Hensley (Religious Studies)
Yale University
Divine agency and reciprocity in
the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher: "Schleiermacher
and the Logic of Christian Piety"
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a growing disparity
between traditional Christian claims and secular high culture characterized
European society. Christianity in modernity was in danger of losing
its ability as a religion to provide its "view of the world"
as the consciousness of humanity's sin and its need for the redemption
wrought by its founder Jesus Christ. My dissertation examines Friedrich
Schleiermacher's theological response to this modern displacement
of Christianity in the West. I argue that through presenting one
of the most coherent, critical, and conceptually rigorous presentations
of the Christian faith, Schleiermacher sought to establish, in his
words, "an eternal covenant between living faith and scientific
research, . . . so that faith does not hinder research and research
does not preclude faith." Specifically I give a reading of
the second edition of his famous Der christliche Glaube,
or Glaubenslehre as it is commonly called, which focuses
on determining what for Schleiermacher constitutes the essential
logic of Christian piety now understood under the conditions of
modernity. While I am ultimately critical of his account, I hope
to demonstrate that we can still learn from his genius and creativity,
his discursive excellence and conceptual rigor, and most importantly
his passion and boldness for the continuation and reform of the
Christian tradition. Thereby I wish to show in some small measure
that his work can continue to intrigue and stimulate the theological
imaginations of contemporary Christian thinkers, who strangely find
themselves in a similar and equally challenging situation, now in
the twilight of modernity.
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