very poor creatures.1 The objection, however, to this system now in hand is not so much that it deifies man, as that it makes Christ nothing more than an ideal man. It is therefore utterly at variance with the teachings of Scripture, the faith of the Church, and the intimate convictions of the people of God. 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.2 By the Mercersburg writers the idea is set forth in rather different terms but substantially to the same effect.3 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.' And "The world is an organic whole which completes itself in 1 At a session of the Academic Senate of the University of Berlin, Marheinecke called Neander a blockhead, and asked him, What right had he to an opinion on any philosophical question? Neander, on the other hand, said that Marheinecke's doctrine, Hegelianism, was to him ein Greuel, a disgusting horror. And no wonder, for a doctrine which makes men the highest existence form of God, is enough to shock even Satan. 2 Dorner, first edition, p. 488. 8 In the Mercersburg Review, 1850, p. 550. 4 Page 7 of same volume. 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. The life-power, the spirit, is quantitively increased, 1 Schleiermacher (Zweites Sendschreiben zu Lücke; Works, edit. Berlin, 1836, first part, vol. ii. p. 653), says: "Where the supernatural occurs with me, it is always a first; it becomes natural as a second. Thus the creation is supernatural, but afterwards it is a natural process (Naturzusammenhang). So Christ is supernatural as to his beginning, but He becomes natural as a simple or pure human person. The same is true of the Holy Spirit and of the Christian Church." In like manner Dr. Nevin repeatedly says, "The supernatural has become natural." This inconsistency in Schleiermacher's system, this collision between his philosophy and his theology is dwelt upon by all his German critics. Thus Schwarz (Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, p. 254), says, "Schleiermacher steht in seiner Ontologie und Kosmologie, in Dem, was er über das Verhältniss Gottes zur Welt in seiner Dialektik feststellt, ganz und gar auf dem Boden einer einheitlichen und zusammenhängenden Weltanschauung. Ebenso in der Lehre von der Schopfung und Erhaltung der Welt, wie sie die Dogmatik ausführt. Gott und die Welt sind untrennbare Correlata; das Verhältniss Gottes zur Welt ist ein nothwendiges, stetiges, zusammenhängendes. Für ausserordentliche Actionen, fur ein vereinzeltes Handeln Gottes auf die Welt ausserhalb des 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 Him 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 geglieNaturgesetzes oder gegen dasselbe ist nirgends ein Ort. es ist zuzugeben, – diese die philosophische Grundanschauung bildende Immanenz wird von dem Theologen Schleiermacher nicht streng innegehalten, das aus der Ontologie und Kosmologie verbannte Wunder dringt durch die Christologie wieder ein. Die Person Christi in ihrer religiös sittlichen Absolutheit ist ein Wunder, eine Ausnahme vom Naturgesetz, sie stehet einzig da. Ihr Eintreten in die Menschheit erfodert trotz aller Anschliessungen nach rückwärtz wie nach vorwärtz einen besondern göttlichen Anstoss, sie ist aus der geschichtlichen Entwickelung nicht hervorgegangen und nicht zu begreifen. Und dieser übernatürliche Anstoss ist es, welcher, so sehr er auch wieder in die Natürlichkeit einlenkt, doch mit dem religios moralischen Wunder auch die Möglichkeit der damit zusammenhängenden physischen Wunder offen lässt und so den ganzen Weltzusammenhang durchbricht." 29 VOL. II. .... Aber derten Systems der natürlichen Gaben der Menschheit." "The middle point of Christian truth, the kernel of dogmatic theology is Göschel'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." 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 1 Schwarz, Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, p. 260. 2 Baur's Christliche Lehre von der Versöhnung, p. 621–624. 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.1 In every great epoch some one 1 The writer was once sitting with Tholuck in a public garden, when the latter said, "I turn my eyes in the opposite direction, and still I am conscious of your presence. How is that?" The reply was, "You know the fact that I am here; and that knowledge produces the state of mind, you call a consciousness of my presence." Tholuck good naturedly |