McCall Initial Post Schleiermacher
I was repelled by this book in no small measure. I dislike, fundamentally, Schleiermacher’s entire theological methodology, based as it is upon ‘feeling’. Some times I feel like a nut. Some times I don’t. Feelings are fickle, and thus I would like to know if FDES’s feelings remained somewhat consistent over his life. FDES was a universalist, based also presumably upon his feeling that a loving God could condemn one of his children in perpetuity.
FDES clearly adopts his methodology prior to adopting beliefs/doctrines (ref. Intro, chapter 2, pg 94). I am waffling when it comes to this question, I must admit. I can value on both sides of the issue, and I likewise see negatives on both sides of the issue. As aforementioned, I ardently disagree with FDES’s methodology b/c it is based upon feeling. And thus, I am also in general disagreement with most of his doctrines (if one starts off going the wrong way, he invariably ends up at the wrong destination).
I noticed throughout that FDES equated Evangelical with Protestant (or perhaps the translator did???), which was a little disturbing to me, for there are numerous people that I would like to hope are “protestant”, but nonetheless I know them not be evangelicals (said heretics shall remain nameless). FDES has an interesting understanding of “dogmatics”, one which may well need to be recovered today, esp. in the Renewal circles. He notes the importance of dogmatics early within the introduction, and then expounds on its descriptively didactic nature in IV, 16, pg 78. Perhaps (and I would agree) Renewal theology should be definitely descriptively didactic. Dogmatics systemizes doctrine (ref. 88), and therefore should be a strong part of Renewal theology. In fact, FDEs later states that every dogmatic should contain distinct and particular elements (I, 25, pg. 108), presumably because it is only be distinctions that difference is noted. Applying this notion to Renewal theology, it could only be distinguished from other movements by its own distinctive theological formulations.
As an aside, FDES in speaking of dogmatics counters the propositions of Rick D. Moore, Canon and Charisma in the Book of Deuteronomy, JPT 1 (1992): 75-97 and Rick D. Moore, Deuteronomy and the Fire of God, JPT 7 (1995): 11-33, who in both articles makes the assertion that someone outside of the tradition cannot adequately communicate the tenets of a belief system without adhering to it himself/herself. However, FDES makes a forthright declaration that one CAN communicate the theology of a system of beliefs without adhering to that faith himself/herself. I think I actually agree with FDES here, because I have encountered numerous individuals who could rightly describe the faith of Christianity, and even preach well and fervently, but in truth did not adhere to what they said (perhaps I am indicting myself here?). Also related to FDES’s discussion re: dogmatics, I must take issue with his dualism as advocated in I, 28, pg. 118, re: the spiritual and sensible qualities within mankind. I am a monist in this regard (as in most in fact!), and posit that the spiritual is reducible to sensible qualities of mankind.
As another aside, I wish I knew more what FDES meant by Christianity being a “teleological religion”. I understand his thrust, but I think I may be reading into it things that are not intended, as well as perhaps missing nuances of meaning by what he wrote, as I may not have an adequate understanding of the particulars of a “teleological religion” (pg. 52, III, II; versus, say, a non-teleological religion?)
In FDES’s discussion of the communication of the Holy Spirit, I found much value in his emphasis upon Christian fellowship. I ask for suggestions on how to reconcile FDES’s notion that every regenerate person partakes of the Spirit insomuch as there is no life with Christ unless there is life in the Spirit (and vice versa, he notes on pg. 574) with the Renewal significance of subsequence and 2nd (if not 3rd) blessing emphases (?). After all, if one possesses the Spirit, one is in Christ. If one is in Christ, one possesses the Spirit, according to FDES. What then of auxiliary fillings? I would think from my reading that FDES would REJECT the notion of subsequent infillings of the Spirit post conversion.
McCall questions re Schleiermacher:
- TF Torrance encountered Schleiermacher in his undergraduate studies, and was “capitavated by the architectonic form and beauty of Schleiermacher’s method and his arrangement of dogmatics into a proto-scientific system of Christian doctrine”.[1] However, Torrance was unconvinced that Schleiermacher got it right, and instead thought that FDES was flat wrong because FDES’s fundamental presuppositions were incompatible with the nature and content of the Gospel. Moreover, TFT thought that the categorical structure that FDES placed upon Christian consciousness to have no basis in a realist scientific objectivity.[2] To TFT, in order for The Christian Faith to be a truly scientific work, there must be additional ways of fulfilling FDES’s intentions, and thus he spent the remainder of his academic career attempting to do just that. TFT’s intention in his endeavors was to produce a methodologically and architectonically rigourous scientific theology true to the Gospel. He claimed that science, and thus a scientific theology, did not require a conceptioning of a universally applicable science. Rather, theological science, to TFT, has its own particular scientific requirements and material procedures determined by the unique nature of its object or subject matter.[3] He asserted that theology can be scientific if God is knowable and when theology proceeds in accordance with the nature of its object, that is, when it allows knowledge of God to determine the apropos mode of knowing, to determine the relations within that knowledge, and to generate the conceptual framework to identify their interrelations. For TFT, a scientific theology is one governed from beginning to end by the known nature of a knowable God. TFT writes that “any rigorous scientific approach to Christian theology must allow actual knowledge of God, reached through his self-revelation to in Christ and in his Spirit, to call into question all alien presuppositions and antecedently reached conceptual frameworks, for form and subject matter, structure and material content, must not be separated from each other”[4] Thus, TFT required a rigorous epistemology, a rigorous conceptuality, and a rigorous architectonic governed by God’s self-revelation.
| Author: Amos Yong Posted date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 12:56:05 PM EST What does FDES mean by “feeling”? What is his agenda? WHo is his polemic directed to? What function/role does this play in his overall project? (Think here of wider theological & philosophical background at the beginning of the 19th century.) In other words, before we dismiss this “feeling” theology, let’s try to see why it was designed that way in the first (FDES’) place…. |
| Author: Amos Yong Posted date: Saturday, January 26, 2008 7:49:43 AM EST More than just being “within” a religious experience, does not FDES’ system require that being “within” such means being sustained & shaped by the religious community & practices through which such experiences are mediated? Is not the Christian feeling of absolute dependence, for example, that of Christ, which is available only through the Christian church? This is an important point that the traditional liberal reading of FDES has overlooked, & which postliberal interpreters of FDES are recovering… |
[1] Torrance, “My Interaction with Karl Barth”, in How Karl Bath Changed My Life, ed. Donald McKim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 52.
[2] Ibid.
[3] TFT, Theological Science, 106-140.
[4] TFT, “My Interaction,” 53.