Schleiermacher and the Christian Pattern​

“God is the answer to the question implied in human finitude. This answer cannot be derived from the analysis of existence.”-- Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol. I, p. 64. 

“Therefore God wills that Christianity should be preached to all men absolutely, therefore the Apostles are very simple men, and the [Christian] Pattern is in the lowly form of a servant, all this in order to indicate that this extraordinary is the ordinary, is accessible to all — but for all that a Christian is a thing even more rare than a genius.”—Soren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom (1854), p. 159.

I want to try and stay focused on Schleiermacher’s social theory, but his theology is so integrated that one can easily drift into a labyrinthine of doctrinal issues. For example, the term “experience” can be interpreted as ontological, scientific, or mystical. One does not have to accept every aspect of Schleiermacher’s theology. He lived in a different age, but his fundamental principles can be adapted to the 21st Century. Soren Kierkegaard uses the term “Christian Pattern” in his famous collection of essays entitled, Attack Upon Christendom (1854). The Christian Pattern means imitating the life of Christ. Kierkegaard wrote, “What Christ, what the Apostles, what every witness to the truth desires as the only thing...is imitation—the only thing humanity has no taste for, takes no pleasure in”(Ibid., p. 264). One principle that can be used to test a theological model is whether it mirrors the Christian Pattern.

I do not want to sound like I am complaining, but imitating the life of Christ...of G-d...is an awfully high ethical standard to meet. However, Schleiermacher is not looking for individual perfection, but for openness. He tells us that “...Christian blessedness is not absolutely perfect; it is blessedness in the process of attaining perfection”(Munro, p. 259). The Christian life never really evolves completely, “...but always in the process of becoming manifests itself in us by means of the alternation of pleasure and pain, and the indifference of both”(Ibid., p. 260). Within the oscillating twin poles of pleasure and pain, spiritual being is forged into a shape that reflects its rude material existence. Religious-consciousness is able to gather the unique historical forms of spiritual knowledge accumulated by other world religions. In the following passage theologian Paul Tillich describes neo-orthodox “theologies of experience” similar to Schleiermacher’s and their belief in the adaptability of the Christian Pattern to modern times.

”The encounter with great non-Christian religions, the evolutionary scheme of thought, the openness for the new which characterized the pragmatic method, have had the consequence that experience has become not only the main source of systematic theology but an inexhaustible source out of which new truths can be taken continually. Being open for new experiences which might even pass beyond the confines of Christian experience is now the proper attitude of the theologian. He is not bound to a circle the center of which is the event of Jesus as the Christ. Of course, as a theologian, he also works in a circle but in a circle whose periphery is extendable and whose center is changeable. “Open experience” is the source of systematic theology“ (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol. I, p. 45).

Schleiermacher is known as the founder of modern theological Ethics according to Munro. He is also known for developing the modern Protestant theology of Christocentrism in which Christ is the center of the one’s religious consciousness. However, this is not the “Magic Jesus” of some biblicistic-evangelical Christian sects.

Tillich has mentioned the “theological circle” before, but in a slightly different sense in that “every understanding of spiritual things is circular”(Ibid., p. 9). Hermeneutics is a Greek word ἑρμηνεύω (hermeneuō) meaning a principle by which to “translate” or “interpret.” For the theologian this hermeneutical circularity is unavoidable. I have used the term “hermeneutics” interchangeably with “paradigm.” Edgar C. Boedeker Jr. has summarized four kinds of hermeneutical circles: 1. Our implicit understanding of being and our ontological interpretations of being seem to align. There is no pure description. 2. Knowing the meaning of ontological terms and the connection made to the phenomenon that appears. For the theologian, he must participate in religious self-consciousness in order to recognize its appearance for observation just as a carpenter must use a tool to understand tool use. 3. The interdependence of construction and deconstruction of a system of concepts. In order to determine if a concept is deconstructed coherently one has to already interpret the phenomenon using constructive concepts. 4. Methodology and result always seem to align since methodology is merely the hermeneutical, or paradigmatic, reconstruction of phenomenon already known. (“Phenomenology,” Edgar C. Boedeker Jr. in “A Companion to Heidegger”/edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathal, 2005, p.169)[Pdf].

“5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”-- Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)​

(∀x)(Lx --> Wx)^[1]

We have already discussed logical circularity and its implications for theology, “Mystic a Priori.” Remember that for Heidegger, the mystic a priori is not irrational, nor fully formulated messages given to an oracle, but re-discovery of “always already” understood structures that allow consciousness to encounter entities. Heidegger calls this ontological readiness and un-thematized foreknowledge “a priori perfect”(Boedeker, p. 166). Bertrand Russell wrote in the preface of the “Tractatus” (Not Copyrighted, Pdf) that Wittgenstein attempted to “draw a limit to thinking, or rather—not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought). The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense”(Ibid., p. 23). I believe when we encounter logical, ethical, or hermeneutic circularity it is a sign that we have reached the limits of language--and the limit of our world. The Absolute is the real that we cannot know. Our fallenness is our finitude; our debt (guilt) is the unknowability of G-d so that we stand at the mysterious barricades separating us from Her.

”Of this absolute unity, from which every kind of contrast is excluded, we can know nothing. It transcends the limits of experience. It is timeless and spaceless. It cannot be apprehended either by thought or by will. Even feeling, or the immediate self-consciousness, fails to give adequate expression to this transcendent ground of all. Nevertheless, though it is, from its nature, unknowable, it is the necessary presupposition of knowledge and of action...Without it, matter and mind would be forever incommensurable, lying outside each other's range; and knowledge and certainty would alike be impossible. Without it, in short, there would be, on the one hand, mere chaos; and, on the other, empty abstractions”(Munro, p. 135).

For Schleiermacher to base systematic theology on the ontological experience of religious self-consciousness “is simply a matter of the interpretation, definition, and classification of the facts of consciousness, as we find them in the evolution of man's nature” (Ibid., p. 21 ). This appeal to an ontological pre-thematic understanding of being to formulate theological interpretations is not as original as it first seems. The first modern schools of ethical theory were moral sentiment theories based on human "sympathy" and "empathy." The study of ethics during the 17th and 18th century was called "Moral Sense Theory" and describes the views of 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), proto-Libertarian Ryandian philosopher Bernard Mandeville (1670—1733), Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), David Hume (1711–1776), and Adam Smith (1723–1790). For British economist Adam Smith, sympathy by one human for another is the foundation of all moral philosophy. Tillich believes that phenomenological analysis of material existence only raises the question of being, but is inadequate for providing a resolution. Also, Tillich rejects that the whole of systematic theology can be derived from religious self-consciousness alone.

Well, I didn’t want to enter that labyrinth of onto-theological issues, but these subjects are irresistible. So I will examine Schleiermacher’s “four ethical relations” of right, sociability, faith, and revelation out of which emerges four moral organisms, or "the perfect ethical forms," which are the State, Society, School, and the Church. 

^{[1] Definitions of categorical proposition symbols:}
x = constant
(∀x)  = Given any x
L = Limits of language
W = Limits of the World
--> = If, then conditional

I want to be thankful for everything we got...

Where you live?

Help me not to tell lies...

Are you watching me?

I want to know what you are... 

I want to see what you see....​

"For an objective reflection the truth becomes an object, something objective, and thought must be pointed away from the subject. For a subjective reflection the truth becomes a matter of appropriation, of inwardness, of subjectivity...."—Soren Kierkegaard, “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” in Part II: Truth is Subjectivity (1848 ).

I hope you took the time to view that “The Mysterious Barricades” video clip of the film “The Tree of Life” which I only discovered the other day. The movie reviewers were unkind to the film, I think, because of its religious theme. This annoys me.

The little boy in the movie, Jack, gives an amazing prayer. Well, actually he gives two different kinds of intertwined prayers.

Jack’s first prayer is,

“I want to be thankful for everything we got...
Help me not to tell lies...”​

The first prayer is based on the following familiar theological prescriptive proposition:

“Go upstairs and thank the Lord for everything you got, and while you’re at it, ask Him to help you stop lying!”

I name this first prayer the “Doctrinal Prayer.”

However, the second prayer is the authentic prayer because of the spontaneous sincere openness which it is said. Soren Kierkegaard once wrote, “Truth is Subjectivity.” This means that for the Christian it is not just what is believed, but how it is believed that matters. In the Widow’s Mite Parable Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood” (NAB Mark 12: 41-44). Objectively, this parable is absurd; however, the “intentionality” of any action within the religious sphere is more important than the act itself. The objective is the “what” of what is said, or done. The subjective is the “how” of what is said or done. This is the essence of Christianity according to Kierkegaard.

Jack’s second prayer is,

Where you live?
Are you watching me?

I want to know what you are...
I want to see what you see....​

The second prayer is the spiritual prayer:

“Where you live?” can be theologically translated as, “Are you omnipresent?”

“Are you watching me?” Jack is asking, “Are you omniscient?

“I want to know what you are...” is saying, “Are you an object, an entity, or a force?”

“I want to see what you see...” means, “I want to know the mind of G-d.”

From giving thanks for “...what I got” to “I want to see what you see” is a very impressive spiritual evolution indeed!

Consequently, be careful teaching your children to be Christian--they might become one.