Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Reformed Tradition in the Modern Era

Abstract

Friedrich Schleiermacher reformulated the doctrines he inherited from the Reformed and Lutheran dogmatic traditions, in order to demonstrate that the certainty of faith in God, as well as faith in the redeeming power of Christ, could be maintained in an age of scientific and historical criticism of the Christian faith. He located faith in God in the immediate consciousness of being absolutely dependent, which he claimed emerged in the development of every human consciousness. And he located faith in Christ in the way the influence of the sinless perfection of Christ, mediated through the testimony of the Christian community and supported by the picture of Christ, strengthened the consciousness of God so that the inhibition of the God-consciousness by sin could be overcome. His hope was that such a reformulation of doctrine would not only clarify the meaning of faith in the modern world, but would also reunify the Christian traditions that had been divided since the Reformation.