To feel with and for Friedrich Schleiermacher: On religious experience

Daniël P Veldsman

doi:10.4102/hts.v75i4.5537

Daniël P Veldsman

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v75i4.5537

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Abstract

The German systematic theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher has shaped Western Christian theological thinking in many ways. One such influential way has been his formulation and exposition of religious experience, and specifically the concept of the ‘feeling of absolute dependence’ (Gefühl der schlechthinnigen Abhängigkeit). From a brief account of his understanding of the ‘feeling of absolute independence’, a few critical remarks are made from the broader context of contemporary hermeneutical discourses, focusing on the constitutive role of affectivity and narrative identity in religious experiences of embodied personhood. It is argued that these two themes in revisiting Schleiermacher’s understanding of the ‘feeling of absolute dependence’ can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of religious experience.

Highlights

There are very good reasons why the German philosopher, theologian and biblical scholar Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is one of the scholars who is included in the well-known series Makers of the modern theological mind
The editor Bob Patterson writes on the back cover: Who are the thinkers that have shaped Christian theology in our time? This series tries to answer that question by providing a reliable guide to the ideas of the men who have significantly charted the theological seas of our century
Leaving the unquestioned sexist note on ‘the thinkers that have shaped Western Christian theology ... ... the ideas of men’ by Patterson aside for the moment, I turn to Schleiermacher who has shaped Western Christian theological reflection in our time in many ways

Summary

Introduction

There are very good reasons why the German philosopher, theologian and biblical scholar Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is one of the scholars who is included in the well-known series Makers of the modern theological mind. Of this series, the editor Bob Patterson writes on the back cover: Who are the thinkers that have shaped Christian theology in our time? This series tries to answer that question by providing a reliable guide to the ideas of the men who have significantly charted the theological seas of our century. This feeling of absolute dependence, in which our selfconsciousness in general represents the finitude of our being, is not an accidental element, nor a thing which varies from person to person, but is a universal element of life; and the recognition of this fact entirely takes the place, for the system of doctrine, of all so-called proofs of the existence of God. Limiting myself to Schleiermacher’s concept of ‘absolute dependence’ but broadening its significance to a number of related contemporary discourses, I tentatively would like to pose the following critical comments. Formulated in religious terms: our various witnesses to transcendence tell the stories from where we are configuratively and re-figuratively giving content (i.e. conceptualising within a given linguistic tradition) and making sense of the ‘whence’ of our religious experiences Another problematic development which, in my opinion, does not do justice to Schleiermacher’s concept of feeling is the numerous engagements (especially psychological discourses) with feeling as if we have to primarily understand it from theories on religious emotions. From here flows a strong impetus for the subsequent broadening of our understandings of human rationality with the inevitable inclusion of affectivity

Conclusion

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