Schleiermacher's Treatise on Grace

Abstract

The title of this essay is meant to be perplexing. Schleiermacher is not known for his treatment of grace, much less for a treatise on grace. Few scholars of Schleiermacher's theology have devoted attention to his doctrine of grace, with two notable exceptions. Karl Barth, in his lectures on Schleiermacher, did not hesitate to thrash his nemesis on this point, although to him it was so obvious that Schleiermacher's understanding of grace was not a Christian doctrine of grace, at least not in the Reformation sense, that he barely felt the need to argue the case. “What kind of God is this,” he asked, “What kind of grace?” Richard R. Niebuhr, in his apologia for Schleiermacher, which inspired a new age of scholarship on Schleiermacher in America, included a section entitled “Grace and Nature,” but its focus was on the Christmas Eve Dialogue, not Schleiermacher's dogmatic theology. Neither Barth nor Niebuhr took note of Schleiermacher's more formal, dogmatic treatment of grace—what I am calling Schleiermacher's “treatise on grace”; in the several decades since their influential works, very few have attempted to correct this oversight. Such neglect by specialists has no doubt contributed to a wider sense that, despite the importance of his The Christian Faith (Glaubenslehre), Schleiermacher does not merit a place alongside other theologians when it comes to the history of the Christian doctrine of grace. None of the major scholarly books on the history and development of the doctrine of grace include a chapter or section (or even reference) to Schleiermacher's treatment of grace. Schleiermacher himself almost seems to have anticipated this oversight—worse, really, than any criticism—when he asked, “Does my Glaubenslehre in any way fail to give due honor to divine grace?”