Since Luther, European scholarship has had an immense influence and rich history in regard to Christian theology. This paper aims to compare the theologies of two such influential European scholars - Schleiermacher (1768-1834) and Barth (1886-1968). Both have been influential for differing reasons, and yet at the same time share an affinity of purpose. It is the task of this paper to highlight this affinity and their differences. The task itself holds its own fame initiated by Barth himself with his 1947 essay Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century , in which he is critical of Schleiermacher whilst attempting to seriously consider the context and milieu of his writing (Duke/Streetman,1988:11). The dialogue holds not only historical worth but is also important for us today with many reopening the debate prepared to listen once again objectively and honestly to what these two notable theologians have said .

It would be nescience to treat Schleiermacher’s theology without also speaking of his setting, for to engage his theology is to simultaneously engage the historical setting out which he spoke. In a very real sense it could be said of him that he was a proto-dialectical theologian who seriously wrestled with the idea that God has a place in the now by relating theology to the prevailing worldview . A task that ultimately labelled him both hero and heretic.

Reeling from the influence of the Enlightenment and reacting to the aridness it produced, Europe embarked on a journey within themselves to rediscover the human spirit and a world limited only by what the mind could conjure of beauty, passion and romance (Clements,1987:13). This predominant idea set against the background of his own, which was influenced by his contact with the Moravians, the Reformed church, and Prussian patriotism (Grenz,1992:40), led him to ‘re-think’ theology by suggesting a radical point of departure - feeling (Clements,1987:14). If the Romantic goal was to be fully human by transporting himself within and beyond, then Schleiermacher was convinced that this could only be attained by mans experience of God. It is this that lays the foundation for his theology.

For Schleiermacher the most fundamental aspect of religion was ‘feeling’ and that which follows, namely reflection upon that feeling constituting religious ‘knowledge’, can be called theology (ibid:35, Grenz,1992:46). This approach heralded an era of Protestant theology pre-occupied with the idea that “knowledge of God [is] inward and experiential” (ibid:36). Schleiermacher goes to great pains in defining precisely what he means when referring to ‘feeling’ as a way of understanding religion, this is seen particularly in Speeches and The Christian Faith. The latter speaks of ‘the pious consciousness’ and it is this that is defined as ‘the feeling of absolute dependence’ (ibid:37). The consciousness of which he speaks is one that is acted upon by another coupled with its own inward motivations (ibid). The self is not in isolation but in relation. It cannot, therefore, be accused of being a wholly subjective experience preoccupied with one’s own feelings and emotion, but has at it’s core a definite object of faith (ibid). Self-consciousness of the world becomes the medium through which God acts upon us causing us to be religiously aware (ibid:38). This aspect of relation is important to Schleiermacher, for it is only in relationship that the self can be defined. For this reason he strongly emphasises the necessity of community (ibid:38). Again, this emphasis procures it as one that cannot be labelled ‘personal religion’.

If the feeling of absolute dependence on God pervades Schleiermacher theological method, the centre of it is his Christology upon which a great weight of emphasis is layed (ibid:53).

Christianity is a monotheistic faith belonging to the teleological type of religion, and is essentially distinguished from other such faiths by the fact that in it everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth (Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith:52)

The redemption Christ wrought for the person becomes for them a pathway from which they can be led from evil, or God-unconsciousness, to righteousness which is God-consciousness (ibid:40). Therefore redemption is both inward and experiential. Although this process seems quite miraculous, Schleiermacher distanced himself from acknowledging traditionally accepted miracles and supernatural phenomena . The bible itself was a record of the writers’ experience not necessarily aligning with the experience of the reader, but those experiences that did were considered with more weight (Grenz,1992:47). He was content to concern himself with what he considered the essential matters of faith (Clements,1987:42). Therefore, authority was self-determined rather than a self-authenticating Bible (op cit).

Schleiermacher’s understanding of Christ, as integral as it is, is never seen in isolation from his redemptive work, for his Christology and soteriology are inseparable (ibid:53). The person is dependant on the perfect work of Christ in order for him to become a participant in that perfection. Perfection in Schleiermacher’s understanding was that perfect God-consciousness that Christ displayed as a complete part of his redemptive mission. No-one can attain this level of God-consciousness outside, or independent of the historical Jesus (ibid:54). The new life that emerges is only in the context of continual communion with the historical Christ. (Ibid:55). Schleiermacher was attempting a Christology that incorporated the human and divine in a way that was contemporaneously acceptable and yet avoiding the classical metaphysical categories considered redundant (ibid:56). A new approach introduced by him was Jesus’ Urbildlichkeit and Vorbildlichkeit, which speaks of Christ’s ‘ideality’ (perfect potent God-consciousness) and his ability to reproduce this in others (Grenz,1992:49). In effect he states that redemption is related exclusively to the life of the historical Jesus, as opposed to any substitutionary atoning death and subsequent resurrection. His aversion to seriously address this and other aspects of ‘weakness’ or ‘suffering’ on Christ’s part leaves an echoing chasm in his theology. To deal with it would be an admission that Schleiermacher’s Christ was not continuously and perfectly God-conscious (ibid:57).

Karl Barth’s writings are relatively recent (one hundred years can easily be considered such in the history of theology) yet they have gained immense influence. So much so that almost any serious theologian has been compelled to respond in some way to him (Grenz,1992:65). And like Schleiermacher, Barth was a trailblazer and theological pioneer, although it’s fair to say they were so in diametrical manner.

Barth’s theology did not surface from within a vacuum, but from a life and influence of both vex and value. Two significant factor’s that contributed to this were firstly the inadequacies of his liberal background to meet the needs of his pastorate in Safenwil . Secondly, he was saddened by support from the intellectual community to the German war policy at the outbreak of the first world war (Grenz,1992:66). This led him into a vocation that sought to revolutionise the view of the God’s Word and in the process oppose that which even hinted at liberalism (ibid:67).

Barth’s revolution was one of method and one that saw him lay a whole new foundation in terms of approaching theology “from above” being set polar to the anthropologically-centred approaches that dominated (ibid:67). It began following the war when all the bombs had ceased that Barth dropped his own theological bomb into the theological world - Der Romerbrief (1919). In it he ignored biblical criticism and treated the text as being of divine origin (certainly in terms of its authority) and allowed the text to speak to his generation.

The underpinning thought to Barth’s whole method was that the only possible manner in which man could know anything about what God has spoken of was to look to the Word of God alone (ibid:70). This encapsulated his approach from beginning to end. Consequently, his theology begins with no prolegomena , no discussion that aims to engage human cognition but simply faith statements with no intent to clarify. His is a theology, that like the God he talks of, appears with little or no introduction. Barth seemed convinced that the faith precedence was legitimate as the God who discloses himself to man was a self-authenticating God (ibid:70) - he ‘is’ without clarification, merely acknowledgment or recognition.

Barth describes God’s word as something that happens to man, that is, God comes to us in his Word and in his Word becomes his Word for us, and within this event shows himself to be God by this Word (ibid:71). In this act God personally repeats the miracle of the gift of faith to the recipient, this being exclusive to any human initiative, and in grace shows himself in and as Christ in a salvific manner. It is important to make reference to Barth’s ‘trinitarian word’, that includes the Word made flesh, the written word and the spoken word (Bromiley,1979:7). The reason it is important to mention is that Barth could quite easily be accused of being exclusivist in the sense that an individual needs the basic literacy skills to be confronted by God, whereas this is not the case at all. God comes to man in revelation, attestation and proclamation, that is, the Word, the written Word and the spoken Word.

Like Schleiermacher Barth is completely christocentric, and all that is spoken of begins and ends with Christ (ibid:72). Christ, for Barth, is the very self-disclosure of God and the sum of God’s Word communicated to man. His Word is not propositional but personal, living and life-giving. He is God speaking to man as God, Jesus does not merely represent the God who sent Him - He is God’s very Word to man (ibid). To speak of Jesus Christ as God’s self-revelational was for Barth to make a trinitarian statement of God, in particular is his phrase; God reveals Himself as Lord . Indicating that to initiate reasonable talk of God was to speak of Him, from the beginning, as the God who discloses Himself as Trinity.

God is described succinctly as “the One who loves in freedom” (ibid:73) a phrase that has been defined by God’s identification with mans sinful plight through the cross of Christ and His joyful journey into the “far country ” (ibid). Barth reaffirmed God’s Sovereignty and thus his transcendence over humanity, yet does this by affirming that God is closer to us even than we are to ourselves in Christ . He showed this by eternally committing himself to his creation through the divine redemptive initiative expressed in Christ’s action on the cross, so that in this act God has the world, and although we perceive that as ‘cost’ to God, it is for Him a free possessing of the world from the beginning, for as Bromiley (1979:181) says ,referring to Barth, “he shows that in this freedom he can be God as man”. God truly discloses Himself as the God who freely loves what is His and it is done wholly and solely in the person of Christ, who is His Elect One (ibid:74). Barth is poignant when says that God does not will to be God without us, and this He expresses in , through and by His Elect One (ibid).

As already mentioned both Schleiermacher and Barth have had immense impact in regards Christian theology . Barth a one point conceded that it was near impossible to avoid Schleiermacher, simply because he heralded a whole era in theology . There is no doubt that the two were serious and responsible in articulating a church dogmatic. A task that each shared, and yet who could have conceived of more diametrical approaches? Tillich (in Duke,1988:4), in describing this, suggested the analogy of “overcoming estrangement and ... meeting a stranger”. For Schleiermacher the discovery of God is essentially a discovery of one’s self; it is that from which he was estranged and can now never abandon. The experiencing of God “reminds” himself of something that has been forgotten, but has now been “awakened”. Barth’s encounter is more accidental and tenuous. The God he meets is both surprising and a stranger to himself and it can never be ascertained that what we say about this stranger is wholly correct. We can only ever know ‘something’ in ‘vagueness’. These polar approaches have sometimes been called theology “from below” verses theology “from above”, discontinuity verses continuity or immanence verses transcendence. Whatever label the methods are given it seems there is an irreconcilable impasse before dialogue has even been initiated! I remain somewhat unconvinced that there is any real convergence in their respective theologies. By “real” I am referring to theological convergence; those doctrines that seek to explicate God’s Words. To find a point of contact it must be sought outside the realm of direct speech about God. Frei (in ibid) gives one example:

.. Schleiermacher and Barth are agreed that theology is the critical self-examination by the church of its own specific language under a norm furnished within that pious linguistic community.

There would be no doubt that the form and presentation of theological language is shaped contemporaneously which is embedded within the framework of historical theological ways of speaking about God. Barth here made conscious attempts to construct a theology “without correlation” to the other sciences, and whereas Schleiermacher recognised this importance and yet because of his approach could not avoid correlation (ibid:84,85).

Divergence is easily recognised and the reason why Barth seriously opposed, on fundamental issues, Schleiermacher’s theological legacy. According to Barth, Schleiermacher “confused culture with Christian Faith” (Clements,1987:63) and this, in essence, placed him on the ‘wrong footing’ in regard to reasonable and relevant talk about God. Yes, it was reasonable and relevant to the prevailing culture, but in ecclesiastical terms it was disparate. The “anthropological horizon” of which Barth spoke tainted all that Schleiermacher said. It could well be said that Schleiermacher’s words were genuine in intent and ‘pioneering’ in principle, yet the juggernaut set in motion may have left a bad taste even in his own mouth, let alone a formidable figure such as Barth.

To an extent Barth is indebted to Schleiermacher — indeed respect for the man is not in question — for it was his ‘vendetta’ against the liberal approach that is largely responsible for the shaping of his own. His consequent strength therefore lay in his absolute dependence on revelation and aversion to justify in any manner God’s Word. Some would say this becomes a weakness as it leaves theology in isolation, but as mentioned Barth was not interested in correlation, the Word for him is self-authenticating and does not require our assistance to make it ‘convincing’ (Grenz,1992:75). He has also been accused of christomonism that sees an “extreme concentration” on the person of Christ in doctrinal exposition, and for this reason it would be anomalous for Barth to consider any concept of natural theology. What Barth suggests in regard to the ‘nature psalms’ and Romans 1 therefore is provocative, but somewhat strained . Alternatively, Schleiermacher’s theological interaction with creation has him being accused of panentheism, a term that refers to indistinguishing between God and the world. This notion causes other difficulties, particularly in relation to grace where there seems to be an unavoidable synergism (Grenz,1992:50).

Schleiermacher’s christology is not without its problems. In light of the idea of ‘pious consciousness’ the question could be asked whether Jesus is merely “another man who is conscious of God to a higher degree than other men are?” (Clements,1987:56). Indeed, Barth does not find any present experience of Jesus as Schleiermacher claims, for a resurrected Christ is a very absence in this christology (Lane,1984:185). Although, Barth (Clements,1987: 65) does point to Schleiermacher’s possible inadvertent pneumatology in the place of the pious-consciousness,

What about, ..., a theology predominantly and decisively of the Holy Spirit? — A theology of which Schleiermacher was scarcely conscious, but which might actually have been the legitimate concern dominating even his theological activity .

This point alone seems to be the sum of this issue, an issue that is ultimately one of source, and the theologians task in the process of theology. Firstly, had Schleiermacher identified Barth’s point with the feeling of absolute dependence, then it is possible that he would have taken the doctrine of the trinity more seriously, rather than a mere appendix. As opposed to Barth who begins with the trinity. Secondly, what Schleiermacher has heralded in terms of experience as a legitimate source in theology is evidenced in the charismatic/Pentecostal groups of today, who emphasis the present presence of God the Holy Spirit.

Both these theologians have left a lasting theological legacy, a legacy that continues to inspire and challenge current theological investigation to be ever vigilant in it’s quest to talk reasonably and relevantly to the world. For Barth, Scripture is the source superlative, and for Schleiermacher it was ‘experience’. Both voices still echo the need to talk about God, although Barth may well say it is rather that God is about (present around) our talk

Barth,K., Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation - Pt IV Vol.1,(T&T Clark,1956).

Bromiley,G.W., Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth , (T&T Clark: Edinburgh,1979).

Clements,K.W.(Ed), Friedrich Schleiermacher: Pioneer of Modern Theology , (Fortress Press: Minneapolis,1987).

Duke,J.O. & Streetman,R.F. (Eds), Barth and Schleiermacher: Beyond the Impasse? , (Fortress Press: Philadelpia,1988).

Grenz,S.J. & Olsen,R.E., 20th Century Theology: God and World in a Transitional Age , (InterVarsity Press: Illinios,1992).

Jüngel,E., God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism , (T&T Clark: Edinburgh,1983).

Lane,T. The Lion Concise Book of Christian Thought , (Lion: Oxford,1984,96).

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