The richest product of Schleiermacher's life is his dogmatics (Z>e>- christliche Glaube nach den Gi-undsatzen der evam/eliscken Kii-che), which was first published in 1821 (2 vols.), then, in a much enriched and revised edi- tion, in 1831. It is a monument of genius, and has been called the greatest theological product of the 19th cen- tury. Dogmatics is here presented, not as a speculative science, but as the systematized contents of the Prot-
estant Christian consciousness. The essence of this con- sciousness is defined, not as knowledge or action, but as feeling, and as a feeling differing from all others in be- ing a direct consciousness of the absolute. More specif- ically, it is & feeling of absolute dependence. This feel- ing is for the first time clearly realized in Christian monotheism. The principal defect of this definition is that it makes no adequate room for creatural freedom. A second definition is given of the specifically Christian consciousness. Thus, qualitatively it is a transition from the moral condition of unhappiness into that of happiness; historically, it is an effect of the life of Christ. The two elements must stand in perfect union. This union gives the limits within which the healthy Christian life must move, and beyond which lie the shoals of all error and heresy-. Redemption is infringed upon by any view of human ability which overlooks the absolute necessity of redemption. Christ is infringed upon by any view which makes him either too near to or too remote from the ordinary conditions of human life. Accordingly, we find, in fact, two opposite chris- tological and two anthropological heresies — the Ehion- ite and the Docetic, the Pelagian and the Manirhcean. From this starting-point, and within these limits, the dogmatic theologian has free movement. It is his privilege to seize the historical results of the past, to shape them into self-consistency, and to impress upon them in turn the historical coloring of the present. Thus the body of Christian doctrines is at no point de- finitivelj- complete, but is in constant process of matur- ing. The dogmatics of Schleiermacher made an epoch in theology. It superseded old modes of defending Christianity, and inaugurated new and better ones. It did not begin with dry proofs of the existence of God ; it found God already given in the Christian conscious- ness. It did not make Christ simplj' a part of the Christian system; it made him its beginning, its mid- dle, and its end. In the distribution of the subject- matter of his work, Schleiermacher studies (1) man as conscious of God prior to the experience of the antith- esis of sin and grace ; next, after becoming conscious of such an antithesis, as (2) the subject of sin, and (3) as the subject of grace : or the states of innocence, sin, and grace. Each of these divisions is subdivided in a threefold manner, describing respectively the condition of man, the attributes of God, and the constitution of the world, as they relate to the three above-named states. Thus Schleiermacher's method departs from all previous methods. While the schoolmen begin with God and his attributes, and then pass to man; while the reform- ers usually begin with the rule of faith, the Bible, and then, passing to the Deity, proceed in the scholastic manner, Schleiermacher, on the contrarj', begins and ends with the human consciousness and its contents. The development of this scheme showed clearly that the old form of rationalism was shallow and worthless. It emancipated religion from its entanglement with philosophical systems and placed it in the realm of feel- ing. It showed that spiritual insight — an awakened heart — is just as necessary to the appreciation of Chris- tian theology as resthetic insight is to the enjoyment of art. But with these healthfid principles Schleiermacher associated consequences which were of damaging ten- dency. As he made the human intuitions the criterion of absolute appeal in art, and morals, so he made the col- lective Christian consciousness the ultimate test of re- ligious truth. The value of the apostolic testimony in Scripture arises, therefore, not from its being an abso- lute objective standard, but from its being the clearest existing expression of the Christian consciousness in the earliest and purest age. The Church existed before the New Testament. The New Testament appeals to the religious consciousness, but docs not dictate to it. In- spiration is not mere genius : it is the outgoing of the religious consciousness ; it is but a higher degree of what is common to the pious intuitions of saintly men in all ages. The Bible is a record of religious truth, not its
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formal organ. It is a reflection of the Christian con- sciousness of the apostolic age, but not a mechanical criterion for all ages. By such views as these Schleier- machermade himself absolutely dependent upon the ut- terances of the religious consciousness. Hence he is un- able fully to appreciate such points of doctrine as are not clearh' given in this consciousness. Thus sin is under- stood rather as unholiness than as guilt before God; re- demption rather as sanctirtcation than as justification; Christ's death as a simple incident in his life of self-sac- rifice ; atonement as the setting-forth of the union of (Jod with man ; the mode of attaining to salvation as a spiritual realization of this union througii the embrac- ing of Christ in love (see Farrar, Free Thoiu/hl, p. "i-lS- 247). The Holy Ghost is presented as simply the col- lective Spirit of the Church, as resulting from the union of human nature with the divine. With the exception of the doctrines of immortality, eternal life, and retribu- tion, all the other opinions in regard to man's future are questions of mere hope and speculation. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a direct utterance of the religious consciousness, nor was it a separate article of the early Christian faith; hence it does not really possess the character of an independent dogma, which the Church afterwards gave to it. The Trinity is, in fact, not a des- ignation of Deity, but rather of the revelation of Deity. Schleiermacher inclines to an improved Sabellianism. The scholastic idea of a tripersonal (iod is, in his view, an undogmatic philosopheme, while the simpler old Prot- estant conception is a logical self-contradiction (see Theol. ZeitsckriJ't, pt, ii' [transl. in Bible Repos. Ando- ver, vol. v]). The reception which the public gave to Schleiermacher's dogmatics was very varying. Ration- alism was displeased : the first volume was too specula- tive, the second too pietistic. Wegscheider regarded it as a pious representation of essential orthodoxy. The orthodox party warmly welcomed it, though without full approval. Braniss and Delbrilck criticised it sharp- ly. The latter declared it inconsistent with the founda- tions of Protestantism. But it speedily recovered from these shocks; and within a few years it numbered among its disciples such men as Twesten, Llicke, Nitzach, Ull- mann, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schwarz, and Gass. These men studied it, elucidated it, wrote upon it. It came to honor in nearly all the German universities. In some of them it was made the basis of special courses of lect- ures. But it speedily became evident that the body of disciples might be divided into three chief groups. Some held more to the negative, critical elements; oth- ers to the evangelically positive; others to the middle course of the master. Among the more positively evan- gelical of his disciples were Twesten, Nitzsch, Julius MUller, Hagenbach, Tholuck, Sack, Bleek, Usteri, 01s- hausen, Dorner, Erbkam, Martensen, Liebner, Lange, Eberard, Auberlen, Rothe, Schoberlein, Palmer, and a host of others.