God’s Conscious Dependence on Man in Schleiermacher
To gather a Trinitarian theology from Friedrich Schleiermacher is either to strain for lack of development or to wait patiently on it as one ploughs through The Christian Faith. Even then his concluding thoughts on the doctrine of the Trinity is better understood, not on its own (as a mere appendix) but in light of the larger portions concerning Christ and the Spirit. One must read it developmentally rather than deductively or centrally. Though it is clear in his discussion what is centrally believed.
Simply stated, the classical doctrine of the Trinity, according to Schleiermacher, was useless for Christian theology or Christian living since it is not what one would immediately conclude (738). While he will say it is the “coping-stone” of the Christian faith, he is viewing the doctrine in light of how the commonality of the Spirit relates to the God-consciousness that Jesus had. In that sense, it is the cornerstone of what we are to be: like Christ in our God-consciousness. Any other conclusion is either wrought by very general conclusions or conditioned (a prior) thoughts from church history (741). In history, each doctrine, though fraught with their own irrationalities (e.g. the two natures of Christ), were treated distinctly and separately from the others. Schleiermacher seems sneakily suspicious about traditional orthodoxy’s presentation of equal essence between the Father, Son, and Spirit; rather, seeing inconsistencies, he concludes that the Father is equated with the Divine Essence (747). What he has left to say in the Christian Faith is that old, irrational constructions should be put away in favor of fresh formulations.
Schleiermacher’s method, which is typically viewed in light of his Pietist background, creatively presupposes that Christianity is about absolute dependence or God-consciousness. Christ as a historical figure is not both God and man but an ideal (potent) man through his constant God-consciousness. Lest one deals with contradictions, the best way to deal with Christ’s sinlessness is to explain that it wasn’t much to begin with and that his achievement was accomplished internally through awareness of God (385-386). This is his “divinity” and his “redemption” is his communication to others his own God-consciousness. Therefore, the Christology of Schleiermacher is anthropological in nature. The manhood of Christ is exalted rather than his divine qualities and he is the example for what the rest of mankind should strive.
For Schleiermacher, the doctrine of the Trinity is complete when there is an explanation of the shared communion with Christ, which he calls the Holy Spirit. In the church, the Spirit unifies the man with the divine essence, “animating the life in common of believers” (569). One thinks of Augustine’s unifying love of the Spirit between the Father and the Son. This understanding, which is that of the union of man and divinity, was the consistent or self-identical element. Schleiermacher’s cultural apologetic, however, was fluid or (more contemporary) contextual. The “mutable element” was the way that church expressed these beliefs. The conformity was not from human to divine but the divine accommodation to human experience (583-584). His doctrine of the Holy Spirit, then, is anthropological as well. Because the world was and is changing, the Christian Church must adapt accordingly and bring the unified essence to the world. In this way, there is no doubt that there is for Schleiermacher a close relationship with God and the world, whether he intended it or not. Later theologies would have strains of panentheism as God was seen as immutably connected to the world he created. Schleiermacher marked a path by which others would take in other creative directions.