Some thoughts on Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
By Billy Foley
Fredrick Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German theologian, philosopher, preacher, and philologist, who was renowned for his contribution to theology. However, when we look more closely at Schleiermacher’s teaching, we find why he is often called the father of modern theology or the father of liberal theology.
First error – ”feelings”
Schleiermacher emphasised the importance of “feeling” and subjectivity in experiencing God. He completely rejected the two essential doctrines of the Christian faith: namely, the Virgin Birth of Christ, and His substitutionary atonement. We will see that there are other evangelical doctrines that he denied. He is best recognised for his pioneering systematic theology, The Christian Faith. (The first edition appeared in 1821-1822; and the second edition in 1830-1831.)
He also is called the founder of modern hermeneutics, which is the science of modern Biblical interpretation. He made history in the scientific study of Scriptures.
Second error – the Bible is the same as any other book.
One of the most serious errors which Schleiermacher taught was that the Old Testament should find its place in Christian Bibles as an appendix rather than as the first part of the Scriptures. This gave license to devaluing as divine revelation. Schleiermacher shared the Enlightenment view that the Bible must be read as any other book. He did not see the Bible as unique, needing to be interpreted by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. He asserted that dogmatic appeals to divine authorship could never settle questions of about the meaning of the text.
This surely revealed his solemn position before God, and the blindness of his heart. He did not appreciate that spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. The Apostle Paul writes, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Schleiermacher was an unregenerate man who was reasoning in the flesh, with carnal wisdom.
Schleiermacher first manifested his skills in the field of exegesis in On the so-called First Letter of Paul to Timothy: A Critical Open Letter to J. C. Gass (1807). He made history in the scientific study of Scriptures. Also, Schleiermacher took Romans and Galatians as the theological benchmarks of the Pauline corpus in their argument for the universality of Christianity. Also, he viewed 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians as the epistles that agreed most closely with what we know from other sources (Acts) about the life of the apostle Paul. Thankfully, many of the details of Schleiermacher’s work on the Pauline epistles have not stood the test of time.
Third error – the unreliability of the Gospels
Schleiermacher is noted as the champion of the Gospel of John. In time, he viewed Luke as the most valuable source for the historical details about the life of Jesus that were of primary importance for the Church’s faith. He thought the author of Luke tended to insert documents without altering them much, even at the risk of interfering with the unity of his Gospel. This seems to imply that Luke borrowed material from other sources. Thus Luke, in his view, could be used as an “addition” to the account of John. Matthew, he considered less dependable and Mark the least reliable of all in terms of providing historical details.
This is a dangerous way of looking at the Gospels, and infers that God’s Word is unreliable in parts. In other words, Schleiermacher does not believe in the plenary inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures.
Fourth error – the quest for the historical Jesus
Many of the aspects of Schleiermacher’s Gospel criticism seem not to have survived. However, while his methods, with some further development, seem to have become commonplace in many seminaries. His perspective on understanding the point of view of the author or editor of a text leads directly to “redaction criticism,” that is, regarding the author of the text more as an editor (redactor) of the source materials.
As in so many other fields, he was a pioneer in what has been called “the quest for the historical Jesus.” He did not believe in the biblical and historical accounts of Jesus’ birth. Among all his speculations, he even questioned whether the Lord physically rose from the dead.
Schleiermacher’s lectures on the life of Jesus were published only after his death, and they caused great furore. For orthodox Bible students they argued away essential details of the biblical accounts. He believed that Jesus was “absolutely distinguished from all other men through his essential sinlessness and his absolute perfection”, yet Christ was no more than a man. He, like many other liberals, saw Jesus as having made a brilliant contribution to human knowledge and understanding. Yet closer scrutiny reveals that He did not believe in Jesus as the incarnate God. He saw Jesus as a religious teacher, divine only in the sense that Jesus had a unique “consciousness of God”. Jesus was a perfect example to imitate. This is far removed from the biblical revelation that Jesus was the Son of God manifest in the flesh.
Uninitiated Christians who read Schleiermacher’s books will find his theology far removed from biblical truth. He believed that scriptural language must be transformed into language that is more precise and scientific for the sake of sound presentations of the Scriptures from the pulpit. He does acknowledge that this must be done in such a way as to preserve the essential content of scriptural witness. In my opinion, he wants to be ahead of the Holy Ghost’s use of language in the Bible. It seems God’s Word needs to be improved – almost the forerunner of modern English Bible translations and paraphrases.
The apostle Paul says, “Preach the word … ” (2 Timothy 4:2). Ministers have a duty to expound the meaning of the Holy Spirit’s words. We are on dangerous ground if we think we can say it better than the Holy Ghost. Our duty is to bow to the Spirit’s meaning, rather than being given over to foolish and idle speculations. The Scriptures say: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid from them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
Fifth error – early Christianity the standard to judge truth by
To learn about Schleiermacher’s peculiar heretical views, one must consult his lectures on Introduction to the New Testament and other exegetical works. According to Schleiermacher, the witness of the primitive Christian community is normative, and all later representations of the Christian faith, even old and revered dogmas, must be measured by it.
This is like Rome’s teaching, and even the cults. Schleiermacher’s real motive was to reject the doctrines of the church and go back to the New Testament, which allowed him to produce his own fanciful interpretations. This was a suspect method, because he was saying in effect that the church had complicated the doctrines about Christ. He was on a “quest for the historical Jesus”, but in the process not only rejected the teachings of the church, but denied all that the New Testament claimed about the Lord. His eyes were veiled in the reading of the Word of God, and this resulted in his imagination being sinfully prominent.
Acclaimed
It is strange that Schleiermacher was almost universally acclaimed in his own day as a great preacher. He filled the pulpit weekly for most of his life, and perhaps there we learn most about his view of the Bible. He believes that it still speaks. However, he was a sceptic at heart, thus revealing his true condition before God.
But as he undermined the foundation of the Scriptures – the Gospels’ accounts of the Lord Jesus, His divinity, the resurrection, and relegated the Old Testament to being an appendage to the New Testament – he limited himself in God’s inexhaustible treasury. The fact is that if you do not believe the entire Bible, then you are defeated in your efforts to convince others of its teaching. He showed that he was an erudite heretic and a destroyer of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Heresy is heresy in whatever shape it comes, and “a man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject” (Titus 3:10). Liberalism is the scourge of many seminaries and Bible colleges, and we must refute its teachings and its advocates at every opportunity.
Schleiermacher was not a Christian, and was the product of an age that sought to distinguish between religion and reason. His first love was philosophy, and its relevance to the Christian faith. God was whatever “people felt him to be”, and that idea is all too pervasive in some so-called churches, where the Bible is falling into disuse, or is used as a mystical device rather than as the supreme authority in faith and practice.
Much of today’s theology and corruption of Biblical doctrine can be traced to Schleiermacher’s thinking and reasoning. Oh how we need to repent, and bow to the God of Truth, and believe and practice in worship and walk what is Biblical and historic Christianity. We need deliverance from the counterfeit gospel, which is not a gospel, and the terrible errors in liberal theology that have afflicted the modern church for centuries.
Humble prayer for revival must be made to the True Triune God of Heaven, through Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that multitudes might be saved and added to the church. May the Lord answer us in accordance with His Eternal Councils through His Magnificent Sovereign Grace, and for His own glory!