“CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD” (“GOTTESBEWUSSTSEIN”) IN GUSTAV TEICHMULLER’S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept “Consciousness of God” in the system of personalistic views of German philosopher Gustav Teichmuller (1832-1888). The difference between this concept and the similar concepts of “religious feeling” (“Gefuhl”) and “knowledge of God” («Gotteserkenntniss») is shown. The evolution of representations of individual religious experience in Teichmuller’s thought in the article is traced in two contexts: in early, or “German” period of his work (the question of the immortality of the soul and the concept of “parousia” in Plato’s thought) and late, “Dorpatian” period, which was mainly devoted to the construction of its own original personalistic and Neo-Leibnizian system of views. The important part of that system was the project of “Philosophy of Religion” («Religionsphilosophie», 1886), which was planned as a part of a more general and un-released project of “Theologica”. The specific of Teichmuller’s thought of individual religious experience is disclosed upon the analysis of his system of “ontological epistemology” and also on the basis of methods of projectivism and perspectivism. On the basis of this methodology also Teichmuller’s distinction between “true” (Christianity as a true God-man religion) and “untrue” (pantheism, materialism, atheism, Buddhism, Brahmanism, etc.) religious and philosophical systems are analyzed. The close connection between Teichmuller’s ideas of individual religious experience and the previous tradition (A. Trendelenburg, R.G. Lotze, German liberal theology, F. Schleiermacher, A. Ritschl, D.F. Straus, etc.) is demonstrated. Also is shown Teichmuller’s influence on both western (A. von Harnack, R. Eucken, W. Stern) and Russian (“Yuriev's philosophical school”, Ye.A. Bobrov, V.F. Liutoslavsky, V.S. Scilkarsky, A.A. Kozlov, etc.) philosophical and religious thought.