An examination of the Christology of Friedrich SchleiermacherFriedrich Schleiermacher is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the field of Christology. He is generally considered the father of modern liberal Christology and even Karl Barth, one of his harshest critics, admitted that "the first place in the history of modern theology belongs and always will belong to Schleiermacher , and he has no rival.” ". Another admirer of Schleiermacher, the elder Gass wrote to him one day: "No one can make me hesitate in my conviction that your dogmatics heralds a new era... in the whole study of theology in general" after having read his Doctrine of Faith.Say No to Plagiarism.Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayHis Christology has been described as “humanist Christology” because he rejected rationalist Christology. of Kant and tried to incorporate more elements of experience and feeling ( gefuhl) into his ideas about human thought, especially in the area of ​​religion He had read Kant from an early age and came to. believe that Kant's Christology did not do justice to humans. He believed that we are more than just "rational" beings. In many ways, Schleiermacher's Christology is satisfactory. His idea of ​​Christ's perfect humanity is consistent. , logical and credible. However, his attempt to better explain the "doctrine of the two natures" is in my opinion slightly less than satisfactory due to his inability to properly explain Jesus' lack of sin. I will examine several different aspects of his Christology, particularly why he believed that Christ's "divine consciousness" was the fulfillment of human nature and not a contradiction of it. I will then examine his interpretation of the doctrine of the two natures and show why his idea is not entirely satisfactory. One of the reasons why Schleiermacher's Christology has been called humanist is that his argument is based on his belief that Jesus Christ was "fully" human! If Jesus Christ was not human, but a supernatural being, then the entire meaning of his life and his death and resurrection are lost. If only a supernatural being is capable of living the sinless life of Jesus, then we can all give up hope of ever achieving what he did. Schleiermacher's argument, however, is intended to encourage us. According to him, Jesus Christ was the perfect embodiment of being human and something we can all aspire to. This is where his interpretation of the doctrine of the two natures becomes essential. Schleiermacher believed that Christ was not a contradiction of human nature, but its perfection. Therefore, to become like Jesus is to become like God. Jesus Christ himself, according to Schleiermacher, in fact embodied this perfection of human nature and, therefore, was indeed both God and man as Christianity would have us believe. "The Redeemer therefore is like all men by virtue of the identity of human nature, but distinguished from them all by the constant power of his divine consciousness, which was a true existence of God in him." This brings us to the idea of ​​divine consciousness. This is how Schleiermacher describes to us how he understands an individual's awareness of God. This can be described in the same way as an individual's other talents. da Vinci or Albert Einstein had talents far beyond those of most humans, they were nonetheless as human as anyone else “So in every business life there are those. Whoare more or less gifted." Jesus' talent lay in his divine consciousness, which was perfect. "His divine consciousness, preponderant and powerful, is linked to collective life." But what is the key difference between us and Christ who makes it divine? In order to adequately explain this, I must turn my attention to the way Schleiermacher depicted God. "In the photo" is undoubtedly the wrong word to use here to describe Schleiermacher's perception. of God was that of a being of “pure activity”. To make sense of this idea, we must think about what constitutes a being of “pure activity”. never be acted on itself. It is universal and infinite and constantly acts on us. Our consciousness of this force or spirit acting on us is what Schleiermacher calls the consciousness of God. consciousness of God, he was like a perfect receptacle for the activity of God and acts totally on his consciousness of God or on the activity which is God. This means that although Jesus was completely human, he was also completely God, thus meeting the requirements of the doctrine of the two natures. For me, Schleiermacher's theory of the dual nature of Christ is acceptable so far. In my opinion, Schleiermacher more than adequately explains how Jesus could be both man and God. That is of course if you accept that Jesus was God as the New Testament describes him and believe in God in the first place. As a non-believer, I have always been perplexed by the following question. If Jesus was in fact fully human like you or me and yet at the same time he was the Son of God. Then surely we are all the Son of God in exactly the same way. If in fact God created us all, then we are, by some loose definition, all his children, just Jesus was. So what was so special about Jesus Christ that made him a true God? I have thought for many hours about this and have never found a satisfactory explanation. Schleiermacher doesn't offer an explanation that would convert me but does offer one that seems perfectly plausible. After all, he set out to explain the nature of Jesus Christ, not to prove his existence or his piety. Perhaps Schleiermacher's biggest problem came from the doctrine of the virgin birth, which he did not highly value. How did Jesus achieve this perfect consciousness of God? According to Schleiermacher, there are two Christological heresies, both of which would make Jesus Christ and thus Christianity irrelevant. The first, the docetic heresy, considers Jesus as redeemer. If Jesus was sent to Earth with this perfect consciousness of God, then he is a purely supernatural figure who has no comparison to the human species except for his physical appearance. The second, the Nazarene heresy, states that Jesus was only a man and that he too needed to be redeemed. This is where the virgin birth is concerned, as some claimed that since Jesus was born of a virgin, he was born without the sin that corrupts the divine consciousness of other humans. However, this is simply not a sufficient explanation and Schleiermacher understands this. This idea clearly presents a huge contradiction, as a virgin surely could not give birth without supernatural interference, which would take us straight back to the Docetic heresy. Schleiermacher attempts to get around this problem with the idea of ​​a new "implantation" of the god. -consciousness in Jesus, which had not been corrupted like the original divine consciousness (that of Adam) which had existed throughout the course of history..