Marshall, Bruce - Hermeneutics and Dogmatics in Schleiermacher's Theology (1987)

Hermeneutics and Dogmatics in Schleiermacher's TheologyAuthor(s): Bruce D. MarshallReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jan., 1987), pp. 14-32Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1203314 .Accessed: 14/03/2012 21:31

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Hermeneutics and Dogmatics in Schleiermacher's Theology

Bruce D. Marshall / Saint Olaf College

Friedrich Schleiermacher was by disposition, interest, and profession a theologian, and it is on the basis of his formative work in virtually every area of theology that he has had lasting influence and importance. His hermeneutical theory has been a curious exception to this generaliza- tion. People who shared little or none of Schleiermacher's overriding theological interest have taken his highly compressed and often crabbed lecture notes on hermeneutics quite seriously. Especially through Wilhelm Dilthey's interpretation of this lecture material, Schleiermacher's hermeneutical theory passed into the mainstream of twentieth-century European philosophy. He has been regarded within this tradition, with some justice, as the originator of hermeneutics as "the philosophy of understanding" since he first suggested that "under-

standing" might be the key to a comprehensive theory of the process by which any and all discourse can make sense to us. A number of attempts have been made to improve upon Schleiermacher's own theory by philosophers of understanding who have shared many of his assumptions about the nature of the project, in regard both to the need for a general theory that establishes the conditions for the possibility of all understanding and to the basic conceptual problems such a project poses. One thinks here particularly of Gadamer and Ricoeur, and par- tially of the later Heidegger.

For Schleiermacher, however, even when the most comprehensive principles of hermeneutics are stated in the form of a general theory, the theological import of this enterprise always lies close at hand.' More significantly, Schleiermacher (unlike some exponents of the philosophy of understanding) actually interpreted texts. And one of his

1 Note, e.g., his repeated discussions of "Application to the New Testament" in the "Compen- dium of 1819," in F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics: The Handwritten Manuscripts (hereafter Hermeneutics), trans. James Duke and Jack Forstman (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977).

c 1987 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/87/6701-0002$01.00

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Hermeneutics and Dogmatics in Schleiermacher

most important projects of interpretation had an exceedingly serious

theological purpose - to read the Gospels as sources for a Life of Jesus. 2

Here, Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is actually at work in the labor of

giving a detailed reading of texts. Moreover, The Life ofJesus is hermeneutics at work at the juncture that was decisive for Schleiermacher: the interpretation of texts that are theologically central. It is, in fact, the primary point in his theology at which Schleiermacher's hermeneutical theory and his dogmatic commitments intersect in practice. The way in which hermeneutics and dogmatics converge in The Life of Jesus, and Schleiermacher's success in uniting the two in a coherent way, are my twin interests here. Each of these issues can be put in the form of a question. (1) What way of reading the texts actually emerges when Schleiermacher applies his hermeneutics to the Gospels? (2) Given his dogmatic commitments, is Schleiermacher able to apply his hermeneutical theory consistently in the interpretation of these texts? Is he able, in other words, to harmonize his hermeneutical and dogmatic assumptions?

I

Several features of Schleiermacher's general hermeneutical theory need to be noted at the outset. As part of his concern to articulate a comprehensive architectonic of the sciences, Schleiermacher attempts to find a suitable location for general hermeneutics. He acknowledges, however, that "the art of understanding" does not fit neatly into the overall organ- ization of the sciences of culture.3 This is not difficult to understand since hermeneutics utilizes the methods and materials of several of the sciences. It shares common ground with grammar and historical criti- cism but is not identical with either of these, or with both together. Hermeneutics as the art of interpretation or understanding is actually necessary, however, because coherent language has the character of "composition." That is, speech (or more generally, spoken and written language) is "only the outer side of thinking"; "artful" language is the result of a process of composition by which inward thought is trans- formed into internal speech, which in turn is "fixed" by being spoken

See, e.g., pp. 103-8, 113-15, 122-27. I will sometimes make use of my own translation from the German: F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik, ed. Heinz Kimmerle (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1959).

2 Friedrich Schleiermacher, Das LebenJesu, ed. K. A. Ritenik (hereafter LebenJesu), in Friedrich Schleiermacher's sammtliche Werke, pt. 1, vol. 6 (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1864). All translations from this work are my own. Page numbers to the translation of The Life of Jesus by S. Maclean Gil- mour, ed. Jack C. Verheyden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975) will also be given, with the designation ET.

3 Hermeneutics, p. 96.

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The Journal of Religion

externally.4 Since hermeneutics deals with the relation between language and thought, Schleiermacher is content to assign it a place in the general domain of "dialectics" (not discounting its other relations), since the latter is the science of thought.5

As even his brief attempt to locate hermeneutics among the sciences indicates, Schleiermacher's basic way of conceiving hermeneutics trades on a distinction that he considers obvious. There is, he assumes, a fundamental distinction in the speaking subject between linguistic expression on the one hand and inner thought on the other, to which a distinction between grammatical and technical methods on the part of the interpreter is the necessary parallel. Expression and thought, language and experience, outer and inner are consistently treated by Schleiermacher as things basically distinct, although not ultimately separable; this assumption is taken for granted throughout his work in the sciences of culture.6 Yet important as the distinction is, it is noto- riously difficult to say exactly what Schleiermacher means by it. The function and meaning of the distinction tend to shift with the context in which it is applied; this is especially true, as we shall see, when Schleier- macher moves from the plane of hermeneutical theory to that of theological exegesis. One can at best indicate the general boundaries within which he conceived the matter. On the one hand, expressions and thoughts are clearly two different things, so that if one does not understand a word, he instructs that "attention should be directed to the identity of thought or sequence of thought, and the relationship of the expression to be explained to the thought."7 On the other hand, there is a real and necessary relation between the two, such that "there is no thought without words."8 Given these boundaries, Schleiermacher typically emphasizes the distinction and the contiguity between language and experience or thought in the same breath: "The inner make- up of a person, as well as the way in which external objects affect him, can only be understood from his speaking."9 While Schleiermacher does not seem to think that the nature of either the distinction or the relation requires much elucidation, the meaning and significance of his

4Ibid., p. 97. 5Ibid. 6 See, e.g., the important treatment of religious and dogmatic language and their relation to

the Christian religious self-consciousness in Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (hereafter CF), sees. 15-19, esp. secs. 15.1, 16.1 (all references in the CF are to section and subsection), trans. H. R. Mackintosh andJ. S. Stewart (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976). I will occasionally make my own translation from the German edition of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube, ed. Martin Redeker, 2 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1960).

7 Hermeneutik, p. 67; cf. Hermeneutics, p. 85. 8 Hermeneutics, p. 193; cf. p. 70: "Grammatical interpretation comes first because in the final

analysis both what is presupposed and what is to be discovered is language." 9 Ibid., p. 100.

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conception of expression and thought emerges clearly from an exami- nation of its hermeneutical counterpart.

Since spoken or written language is the outer expression of inward thoughts distinct from the means of expression, the interpretation of language must involve two distinct procedures. "Understanding a speech always involves two moments: to understand what is said in the context of the language with its possibilities, and to understand it as a fact in the thinking of the speaker."10 The former, "grammatical" moment has as its object simply the linguistic expressions themselves, the meaning of which it attempts to ascertain by comparison with the general linguistic usage of the time and with the more specific contexts appropriate to a given work. 1 Taken by itself, the grammatical task is not unlike the theory of strict explication that occupied eighteenth- century interpreters, a fact attested by its provenance in the writings of Ernesti and Morus.12

The latter, "technical" aspect of hermeneutics has as its object and goal the grasping of an author's individuality and inner thoughts, of which the language being interpreted is the outward expression. Thus it understands a given use of language not in its various intralinguistic relations, nor in relation to the reality it may describe or denote, but in relation to "the thinking of the speaker." Or, as Schleiermacher says elsewhere, the purpose of technical interpretation, in contrast to that of grammatical interpretation, is "to understand the discourse as a presentation of thought. Composed by a human being and so understood in terms of a human being."'3 This does not mean, of course, that technical interpretation proceeds without attention to language. 4 But technical interpretation uses language as a medium and occasion through which one may grasp the inward life and thought of the author, precisely as distinct from the language he or she uses; without this grasp genuine understanding is impossible.15

The technical moment of hermeneutics is itself divided into two com- plementary methods, both of which are necessary if "the distinctiveness of the author" is to be grasped. The "comparative" method seeks to highlight the distinctiveness of the author by relating him or her to

10 Ibid., p. 98. See also p. 190, and Schleiermacher's seriatim elaboration of this distinction on pp. 161-63.

1 See the two "canons" of grammatical interpretation in Hermeneutics, pp. 117, 127. 12 Schleiermacher's treatment of meaning, insofar as it can be distinguished from his notion of

expression, would require separate treatment. This is especially true of his highly univocal view of meaning (cf. Hermeneutics, pp. 43, 60, 74, 76-77, 117, 121) and his separation of word and concept (cf. Hermeneutics, p. 125). 13 Ibid., p. 161.

14 Compare above, n. 9. 15 Compare Hermeneutics (n. 1 above), p. 153.

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other thinkers of the same kind, while the "divinatory" method "seeks to

gain an immediate [unmittelbar] comprehension of the author as an individual."16 While by no means the sum of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, the divinatory method is the most purely technical aspect of the theory. Divination is the aspect least tied to an author's linguistic expressions, being instead concerned to grasp in an immediate, intuitive, noncon-

ceptualizable way the unique individuality and thoughts of an author.17 Understood in this sense, divination is the most significant way in which as interpreter one may and must place oneself "in the position of the author."18 Genuine understanding of a text demands direct access to the inner unity of thought from which the text ultimately originates and also to the unique individuality of the author, from which the inner

unity of thought derives its own uniqueness.19 Thus, to understand "a fact in the thinking of the speaker" one must become directly and

immediately conscious of that fact (and not simply of the language in which it is expressed). To grasp the thinking and individuality of an author is not simply to apprehend an external fact; rather, "the thought that lies at the ground of the speech must come into consciousness."20 Schleiermacher, at the happy, innocent dawn of hermeneutics as "the philosophy of understanding," shows no particular concern over the potential delicacy of this transition from the inwardness or self- consciousness of the author to that of the interpreter. He never sees the self-consciousness of the interpreter as constitutive of a pre-understanding that creates a problematic relation between the subjectivity of the interpreter and that of the author. In his theoretical statements the inner unity of thought that underlies a text is always something at hand, available "to be found."21 Divination is an immediate and intui-

16 Ibid., p. 150; cf. p. 171. Schleiermacher later adds further nuance to the technical side of his hermeneutical theory by distinguishing between "technical" and "psychological" interpretation; the two had earlier been treated as synonymous. Cf. Hermeneutics, pp. 222-25.

17 Compare ibid., p. 166: "This unity [of individual style] cannot be grasped conceptually, but only intuitively." Compare also pp. 164, 172, 185.

18 Ibid., p. 113; cf. p. 150. 19 Compare ibid., pp. 165, 168-69, 171-72. Recent studies of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics

have devoted particular attention to technical interpretation as the means by which the unique individuality of author and style are realized. Compare Manfred Frank, Das individuelle Allgemeine: Textstruckturierung und -interpretation nach Schleiermacher (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), esp. pp. 313-33. H.-G. Gadamer also draws attention to this; cf. his Truth and Method (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1975), pp. 164-73, esp. pp. 168-69. As Frank suggests, Gadamer seems not to take adequate account of the fact that, for Schleiermacher, language is in some way a necessary element in all thought and all moments of interpretation, even the divinatory. Compare Frank, pp. 314-16.

20 Hermeneutik (n. 1 above), p. 80 (my translation; cf. Hermeneutics, p. 97). Compare also Hermeneutik, p. 128. "Hermeneutics is the art of discovering the thoughts of an author from his presentation with necessary insight" (cf. Hermeneutics, pp. 180, 184).

21 Hermeneutics, p. 147.

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tive apprehension in self-consciousness, but it is a genuine act of knowledge that apprehends something objective, not something sup- plied by the subject.22

While the two interpretative processes that Schleiermacher describes are markedly different in their objects and in their methods, he always insists that hermeneutics necessarily involves the thorough application of both grammatical and technical interpretation: "Understanding takes place only in the coinherence of these two moments."23 An immediate grasp of an author's "inner" thoughts and subjectivity is both possible and necessary if understanding is to take place, but "outer" linguistic expression provides the only avenue of access to the deep subject whose discourse is being interpreted. Moreover, the conditioning relationship between expression and thought is a mutual one. An author's linguistic heritage shapes his inward thought, so that a thorough grasp of the language the author employs is also indispensable to genuine understanding.24 Thus hermeneutics requires a twofold competence in accordance with the dual nature of its object; one must be a capable linguist and have "a talent for knowing people as individuals."25 These two together are sufficient; understanding requires no other procedures besides the grammatical and the technical.26 The asymptotic goal of a hermeneutics that combines these two mutually completing methods is the total understanding of a given discourse. Since each of these tasks is itself "infinite," total understanding is in fact impossible, although it remains significant as a regulative ideal.27 Hermeneutics for Schleier- macher is not so much a science as an art, in which the interpreter moves with practiced facility between two different methods of interpretation, each on the basis of the other, in search of a more complete understanding of discourse. "It is necessary to move back and forth between the grammatical and psychological sides, and no rules can stipulate exactly how to do this."28 The heart of Schleiermacher's hermeneutical theory lies in this artful "oscillation" between grammatical and technical interpretation.29

In outlining his hermeneutical theory at the most general level, Schleiermacher clearly tries to balance the two moments, grammatical

22 As Hans W. Frei points out, this is something like the notion of intellectual intuition, otherwise absent from Schleiermacher's thought. Compare Frei's The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 297-98.

23 Hermeneutics, p. 98; cf. pp. 68, 99, 190-91, 215. 24 Compare ibid., p. 99. 25 Hermeneutik, p. 82 (my translation; cf. Hermeneutics, p. 101). 26 Compare Hermeneutics, p. 103. 27 Compare ibid., p. 100. 28 Ibid. 29 The term "oscillation" comes from Hermeneutik, p. 56; Frei notes this usage and its signifi-

cance (p. 292).

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and technical. What he does not do, however, is offer an explanatory account of how these divergent interpretative methods are actually coherent and compatible, such that they yield mutually completing understandings of the same discourse. The one procedure aims at the explication of language, which is by nature external, publicly acces- sible, and (even if only by painstaking linguistic research) common to the author and the interpreter. The other procedure aims at a complex immediate relation (and therefore one which, even if occasioned by language, is not in its actual realization linguistically mediated) between the subjectivity of the interpreter and that of the author, which "must come into consciousness." Here in his hermeneutics, as at the

cognate point in his conception of expression and thought, Schleier- macher regards "inner" and "outer" as fundamentally distinct yet assumes a coherent relation between the two. In order to be communi- cated, it will be recalled, experience and thought must give rise to inner and outer speech. While of equal valence with thought, speech is a distinct entity of a quite different sort, but one that expresses in a putatively fit and veridical way the thought that "underlies" it. What remains unexplained is how entities of one kind (thoughts or experi- ences) can produce or give rise to entities of a different kind (words) in such a way that the inner is actually expressed by the outer while remaining really distinct from and prior to it. Beginning with outward linguistic expressions, hermeneutics (in the form of grammatical interpretation) inevitably encounters the same gap between "outer" and "inner," which can be bridged only by introducing a qualitatively different sort of interpretative procedure, correlative with the disparate nature of the object being sought. Schleiermacher assumes that ultimately both procedures will always yield the same result, but he leaves this assumed coherence unaccounted for.30

In a sense, it is quite appropriate for Schleiermacher to forgo any explanation of how a mutually illuminating "oscillation" between these two procedures is possible. Hermeneutics is an art theory (Kunstlehre) rather than a science; successful interpretation results from the exercise of acquired skill rather than the application of a comprehensive theory of the relation between "inner" and "outer." However, if the coherence of grammatical and technical interpretation is finally lodged in the art- fulness and skill of the interpreter, Schleiermacher seems to have slight recourse should the two procedures clash or fail to cohere in practice. He would then have little explanation to back up his assumption that such an impasse is only a temporary breakdown in interpretative skill

30 On the assumption that the result of both procedures should always be the same, cf. Hermeneutics (n. 1 above), p. 100.

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rather than symptomatic of a problem with the hermeneutical theory itself.

Three aspects of Schleiermacher's general hermeneutical theory will be especially important factors when the theory is applied theologically. (1) In hermeneutics, as elsewhere, Schleiermacher assumes a basic distinction between "inner" and "outer" aspects of human life and activity; with these are correlated "technical" and "grammatical" interpretation. (2) He also recognizes the need to insist upon the coherence of inner and outer, without which both speech and interpretation would be irre- trievably cast adrift from their presumed source of meaning. (3) This coherence, while assumed, remains unaccounted for. Specifically, technical interpretation is not bound to grammatical interpretation by any explicable tie but only by the skill of the interpreter in honoring the assumed coherence of the two. Thus it is always possible for technical interpretation to manifest a relative methodological autonomy, by virtue of which its object (inward thoughts and subjectivity) can assume a relatively independent value. This last implication of Schleier- macher's hermeneutical theory will have far-reaching theological con- sequences.

II

The particular shape that Schleiermacher's hermeneutical theory assumes in the context of the theological sciences follows directly from his overall definition of theology. "Theology is a positive science, whose parts join into a cohesive whole only through a common relation to a particular mode of faith, i.e., a particular way of being conscious of God [eine bestimmte Gestaltung des Gottesbewusstseins]."31 The specifically Christian form of God-consciousness is related to Christian language (pious and theological) as inward experience and thought are related to outward linguistic expression; the outlines of the general relation and the ambiguities attendant upon it apply here as well.32 While the general hermeneutical theory stipulates attention to both expression and thought, in their independent complexity as well as their mutual rela-

31 Friedrich Schleiermacher, Brief Outline on the Study of Theology (hereafter BO), sec. 1 (all references in the BO are to section), trans. Terrence N. Tice (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1966). The German edition is Friedrich Schleiermacher, Kurze Darstellung des Theologischen Studiums, ed. Heinrich Scholz (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961).

32 Schleiermacher's discussion of the process by which Christian pious affections move to determinate linguistic expression via gesture and inward speech (CF[n. 6 above], 15.1) is parallel to that of the general relation between thought and expression in the Hermeneutics, p. 97. Compare Schleiermacher's remark from his "Zweites Sendschreiben an Dr. Lucke": "The propositions are only derivative; it is the inner state of mind [Gemiitszustand] which is original" (Heinz Bolli, ed., Schleiermacher-Auswahl [Munich and Hamburg: Siebenstern Taschenbuch Verlag, 1968], p. 144).

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tion, hermeneutics will be of theological value only insofar as it uses outward expression as a means to uncover and understand the inward Christian self-consciousness. The specifically theological significance of hermeneutics, as of any other science or art that enters into the orbit of theology, is prescribed and defined by its relation to the Christian form of God-consciousness; the latter is the ultimate subject of the hermeneutical art in the sphere of theology. One of Schleiermacher's few explicit remarks about hermeneutics in The Christian Faith illustrates clearly this tendency to prefer in principle the technical, "inner" side of hermeneutics when the theory is applied in theology. Discussing the concept "revelation," he remarks that there are only two ways of understanding a system of propositions, both of which exclude the super- naturalism he wants to avoid. One way is by grasping the internal and external (or referential) connections of the propositions. The other, which will be necessary where propositions relating to the "original fact" of a specific form of religious consciousness are concerned, must proceed in a different way: "[These propositions] can... only be appre- hended (we need only appeal for confirmation to the first principles of Hermeneutics) as parts of another whole, as a moment of the life of a thinking being who works directly upon us as a distinctive existence by means of his total impression on us; and this working is always a working upon the self-consciousness."33

The province of hermeneutics as a theological discipline is exegetical theology. As an art theory, it supplies the available techniques for the greatest possible understanding of the New Testament.34 Exegetical theology, along with dogmatics and church history, is one part of historical theology, the most basic of the three main divisions of theology as a whole.35 The task of historical theology is "to exhibit every point of time in its true relation to the idea of Christianity."36 That is, every point in the historical development of Christianity must be exhibited in relation to the distinctively Christian form of God-consciousness and tested for the purity with which it expresses that consciousness. There- fore, the three parts of historical theology have the same subject matter (namely, eine bestimmte Gestaltung des Gottesbewusstseins) but treat it with respect to the different temporal periods in which it has been expressed. So, dogmatic theology treats the present state of the Christian religious consciousness, and church history treats its past states, insofar as a grasp of these is necessary to understand the present.37 Exegetical the-

33 CF, 10.postscript. 34 Compare BO, 132, 103-5. 35 On the divisions of theology, cf. esp. BO, 28. 36 Ibid., 27. 37 Ibid., 81-82.

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ology needs to be distinguished from church history, forming a third division, because in its historical development the Christian religious consciousness, in "the inner unity of its life," is necessarily involved in an ever greater and more complex set of external relations. "As a result of this state of affairs, the purest perspective upon its distinctive nature can only come in relation to its earliest expression," namely the New Testament.38 Placed in this way among the theological sciences, hermeneutics as "exegetical theology" is by necessity correlated with dogmatics. While they are independent in method, and each approaches its subject matter through quite different means, the subject matter of both is in essence the same, and so their results cannot differ in kind. If they are irreducibly different in content, one or the other science has

simply failed to grasp its properly theological subject matter. Both the methodological independence and the necessary internal harmony of

exegesis and dogmatics are nicely summarized in a passage from The Christian Faith: "The relating of particular passages of Scripture to particular dogmatic propositions can therefore only be done indirectly [mittelbare], by showing that the former are based on the same religious emotions which are set forth in the latter, and that the differences of expression are only such as are occasioned by the different contexts in which they appear."39 These few remarks on the theological context of Schleiermacher's theory in hand, we can now see how he actually prac- tices that hermeneutics under the rubric of "exegetical theology."

III

After Schleiermacher's repeated efforts in the Hermeneutics to balance the two moments of interpretation, the opening lectures in The Life of Jesus are truly startling. Certainly, the real congruence of outer expression and inner life and thought, and correlatively between grammatical and technical interpretation, remains an unexplained assertion in the Hermeneutics. But Schleiermacher always insists there that they are somehow fitly related such that they can illuminate one another and so must be treated as matters of equal valence. When it comes to understanding the life ofJesus on the basis of the Gospels, however, the inner unity of that life must be distinguished as sharply as possible from its particular, outwardly perceptible concomitants, and the relative value

38 Ibid., 83; cf. 84, 88. See also CF, 129.2: "The Church could never again reproduce [erreichen] the canonical, for the living intuition of Christ was never again able to ward off all debasing influences in the same direct [unmittelbarl fashion, but only derivatively through the Scriptures and hence in dependence on them."

39 CF, 27.3.

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of each clearly established.40 In order to write a "biography" (Lebens- beschreibung) of Jesus as opposed to a mere "chronicle," "we must bring the inner, the unity of the life, into consciousness in such a way that we can assert: even if the particular [das Einzelne] and the circumstances had been other than they really were, we could nevertheless relate it to the same unity.... The opposition [Gegensatz] between outer and inner has reality only insofar as we can conceive the same outer with a different inner, and the same inner with a different outer."41 In the Hermeneutics, Schleiermacher clearly regards the "outward" and the "inward" aspects of speech and understanding as mutually necessary. Outer expression is the indispensable clue to inner thought and experience, even if the transition from one to the other remains mysterious. As we have seen, this would seem to require that specific inner experi- ences are necessarily correlated with specific outer expressions; without the assumption of this correlation, a transition from the "outer" to the "inner" seems not simply mysterious but impossible. Yet Schleier- macher commences the lectures that make up The Life ofJesus by deny- ing explicitly that such a correlation is available. The distinction between outer and inner is now explicated in such a way that a given inward state of consciousness is taken to be compatible with an indefi- nite variety of linguistic expressions; we must be able to conceive "the same inner with a different outer." Even more problematic for an

attempt to reach Jesus' inward self-consciousness on the basis of the

Gospels, a particular outward expression is now taken to be compatible with different inward states of consciousness. We must be able to conceive "the same outer with a different inner." This means that, whatever inward experience we may claim "underlies" a given linguistic expression, even the best hermeneutical methods and skill can never exclude the significant possibility that we are simply mistaken and that the inner experience or consciousness is in fact a different one.

Thus, from the outset of The Life of Jesus, it is no longer merely mysterious how outward expression can function as a reliable clue to the shape and content of inward self-consciousness. The very possibility of knowing the "inner" veridically on the basis of the "outer" now seems difficult to conceive. To be sure, Schleiermacher intends to continue

treating language in The Life of Jesus the same way he treated it in the Hermeneutics, namely, as though it were the means by which the myster-

40 It should be noted that Schleiermacher regards the canonical Gospels, especially John, as

historically reliable although fragmentary reports of Jesus' words and deeds, and of the circumstances that surrounded him, except where these are abjectly supernatural (cf. LebenJesu [n. 2

above], pp. 37-46; ET [n. 2 above], pp. 36-44). This means that, for Schleiermacher, New Testament hermeneutics also counts as historical-critical analysis (although this latter aspect is not my primary concern here).

41 LebenJesu, pp. 3-4; ET, p. 5.

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ious gulf between the distinct realms of outward and inward is to be crossed. But that gulf between language and experience, expression and thought, has widened immeasurably; Schleiermacher himself now seems compelled to suspend the conditions that would make it possible to cross from one to the other.

Dogmatic necessity forces Schleiermacher's hand. Christian faith, he assumes, ascribes to Jesus a unique "dignity" or status, which he shares with no other person. Jesus' unique "dignity," of course, is his redemptive significance: "Christ is distinguished from [gegeniiberstellt] all others as redeemer alone and for all."42 In other words, Schleiermacher considers it theologically fundamental to maintain that Jesus of Nazareth, as a particular person, has a universal significance that belongs only to him. At the same time, he assumes that the only viable conceptual option for making this fundamental point in a developed way is that provided by the distinction between inner self-consciousness and outer expression. This is not surprising; as we have observed, he takes this distinction to be an indispensable conceptual and explanatory instru- ment for understanding human life and activity in any field. However, Schleiermacher is careful to insist that in christology, the inner/outer distinction will have to take on a shape that is consistent with the assumption that Jesus must be accorded a unique redemptive status or dignity. Therefore, he declines to distribute Jesus' "unique dignity" equally between the "inner" and "outer" aspects of Jesus' life, although his hermeneutical theory might lead one to expect such a distribution. On the contrary, only the "inner" side of Jesus' life and activity is to be correlated with his unique status and significance. "The most inward ground of his knowledge of God is to be sought precisely in that which constitutes his specific dignity."43 That is, the very ascription of unique redeeming significance to Jesus Christ requires that his "inner" being, specifically his perfect God consciousness, be the exclusive locus of that redeeming significance.44

The logic that leads Schleiermacher to this conclusion is most obvious at the point that is hermeneutically decisive, namely, the relation between Jesus' unique dignity, located in his inner God-conscious-

42 CF, 11.4; cf. 88.3: "In the corporate life founded by Christ there is a communication of his sinless perfection . .we attribute this to no single individual in the fellowship except Christ."

43 LebenJesu, p. 13; ET, p. 14. 44 Compare CF (n. 6 above), 94.2: "For this peculiar dignity [Wirde] of Christ. .we have

already referred the ideality [Urbildlichkeitl of His person to this spiritual function of the God- consciousness implanted [mitgesetzt] in self-consciousness." Compare also LebenJesu, p. 136; ET, p. 128. Our relative ignorance of the social nexus of Jesus' life, Schleiermacher notes, is theologically innocuous precisely because "for the inner development it is no real loss. What has an effect [wirksam ist] on us is only his influence [wirksamkeit]" rather than anything "historically empirical."

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ness, and the common language ofJesus' own day. Schleiermacher not only acknowledges but also insists that Jesus is subject in manifold ways to the shared life and language of his place and time. Since no person "can be cut loose from the general condition of his individual existence," Jesus also "in his receptivity [was] under the power (of the common life), because otherwise he could have neither developed in a human way nor had his effect in a human way."45 However, Jesus' redemptive God-consciousness, which Schleiermacher calls in The Life ofJesus his "absolutely directing influence," cannot similarly be subject to the power and conditions of the common life in which he partici- pates. "If we consider Christ's knowledge and if someone wanted to say that it depended entirely upon his people and his age, then the domi- nating influence of Christ, which we have already posited, would actually be abrogated."46 There seems to be at least two reasons why Schleiermacher makes such a point of separating Jesus' redeeming God- consciousness from the influence of his language and culture. (1) Jesus shares his language and culture with many others. But Christian faith ascribes to Jesus a status and significance that belong to him alone. This means for Schleiermacher that Jesus' unique status cannot be bound up with his shared language and culture but must, rather, lie in what is utterly distinctive about him (or, on Schleiermacher's account, any individual), namely, his inner self-consciousness. The exclusive dignity of Jesus would be forfeit, he writes, "if his influence indeed belonged exclusively to him, but had its ground less in an inner constitution proper to him than merely in a peculiar position in which he had been placed."47 (2) Jesus "can only be what he is in our faith," Schleiermacher maintains, "insofar as he establishes a type of knowledge of God which can spread over everything human and over all space and time."48 For Schleiermacher, the universality ofJesus' saving influence means, once again, that his unique status cannot be bound up with his determinate language and culture. Indeed, in order to be universal, Jesus' redemptive God-consciousness must be able to be expressed in any language and culture. Jesus' influence and exemplary significance "would be something entirely impotent and completely empty, if we could not conceive Christ as acting in other situations, than those individual appearances which are actually given in his history."49

'5 LebenJesu, pp. 10, 7; ET, pp. 11, 8. 46 LebenJesu, p. 13; ET, p. 14. 47 CF, 92.1 (my translation). 48 LebenJesu, p. 13; ET, p. 14. 49 LebenJesu, p. 13; ET, p. 14.

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On both counts, Schleiermacher not only maintains that Jesus' inwardness is the exclusive location of his unique status but also that it is so in radical distinction from all that is outward, including Jesus' lan-

guage and culture. In this particular case, whatever Schleiermacher's general hermeneutical theory might lead us to expect, "inner" and "outer" cannot be intrinsically and necessarily related. They must, as he insists from the beginning of The Life ofJesus, vary independently of one another. This follows, we can now see, from the intersection of two

assumptions: Schleiermacher takes it for granted that the unique and universal significance of Jesus is an utterly fundamental theological point, and he assumes that the best way to explain that point is by employing the same basic distinction between self-consciousness and expression that structures his hermeneutics.

The autonomy of technical interpretation, correlated with the sys- tematic preference for ascribing irreducible and independent value to all that is "inner" over against the "outer," thus emerges full-blown in The Life of Jesus. Schleiermacher's entire theological project leans toward this result, and the Hermeneutics protects against it only by unexplained assertion, but it takes the juxtaposition of an actual interpretative project with an independently established dogmatic interest for the separation of inner and outer to become most sharply defined. It is this dogmatically rooted preference for the "inner," and correlatively for technical interpretation, that most decisively shapes the way Schleier- macher reads the Gospels. Indeed, the phrase "he could only be what he is in our faith," repeated often in various permutations, reverberates with telling effect throughout The Life ofJesus. 50 By this interpolation of his dogmatic interest, Schleiermacher specifies a formal requirement that any theologically meaningful interpretation of the Gospel stories of Jesus' life and teaching must meet: it must understand them solely by reference to his inward self-consciousness, of which they are the derivative expression. This stipulation, which logically precedes any actual exegesis of the Gospels, does not, strictly speaking, decide what the texts mean. It does, however, decide the way in which the texts can have meaning and therefore excludes in principle a whole range of meanings, even if it prescribes none in particular. In other words, Schleier- macher deploys the dogmatic assumption about Jesus' "specific dignity"

50 See, e.g., LebenJesu, pp. 9-10, 27, 85, 100, 136, 280-81. D. F. Strauss's remark on these passages is very much to the point. "Statements that this or that 'is not harmonizable with our presupposition about Christ,' or that 'he would be what he is in our faith only if. ..' and so on- these and similar phrases are repeated endlessly as reasons why this or that passage is to be interpreted in a certain way, or why this relation or action of Jesus is to be understood in this way" (The Christ of Faith and theJesus of History, trans. Leander K. Keck [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 19771, pp. 35-36).

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in such a way that it formally limits theologically significant hermeneutics, by confining the latter solely to technical interpretation (i.e., the understanding of language "in terms of a human being"). More- over, he uses this assumption to specify the theological meanings that constitute the goal of hermeneutics. Biblical exegesis must attempt to uncover and isolate, in the inward self-consciousness ofJesus, both his unique dignity and his real humanity.5' Coupled with the formal requirement about the way in which the Gospel texts mean, this amounts to a general formula that prescribes the possible sense of the New Testament accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus. They must be read as outward expressions of an inward urge to found the kingdom of God by self-communication of a unique inward consciousness.52

IV

Schleiermacher's dogmatic interests have sharply delimited the interpretative task, but they have not in principle foreclosed it completely. While the possible theologically significant senses of the Gospel texts have already been marked off, it still must be established whether these texts actually give us warranted access to an inner, redemptive God- consciousness in Jesus. Thus Schleiermacher can still maintain that hermeneutics is independent of dogmatics and capable of altering dogmatic propositions in a critical way. "We have in the content [of Christ's speech] a twofold interest, that is, whether our assumption of a specific dignity [of Christ] holds true, and whether our task of a purely human manner of treatment can be maintained. What does not hold true, we must discard."53 Indeed, Schleiermacher insists that the most exacting standards of general hermeneutics must be met in the theological interpretation of the New Testament. He does not seem at all concerned that an interpretation that operates under a dogmatic "presupposition" of Jesus' inward "specific dignity" might compromise these standards. "We refuse to be perverted from the purest hermeneutical methods, as would be the case if we knowingly preferred to put an arti- ficial interpretation on a passage rather than construe it in a way sug- gestive of a less pure view of Christian faith."54 In reading the Gospels, as everywhere, Schleiermacher works under the assumption that theology and rational thought (Wissenschaft, or, in this case a general Kunst- lehre) are genuinely independent in method but harmonious in result.

51 Compare LebenJesu (n. 2 above), pp. 13-14, 280-82. 52 Compare ibid., pp. 129-33, 261-62. 53 Ibid., p. 280; ET (n. 2 above), pp. 262-63. 54 CF, 131.1.

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Schleiermacher's discussion of the story of Jesus in the temple in Luke 2 furnishes a particularly useful example of his typical procedure in attempting to give exegetical support, in accord with the rules of general hermeneutics, to dogmatic statements. This brief Lukan passage is quite important to Schleiermacher, as the space he devotes to it shows, because it raises for the first time in the Gospels the crucial issue upon which faith and rational science need to be harmonized, namely, the reality of both Jesus' unique God-consciousness and his natural human development. He begins by asking whetherJesus' statement "'I must be in my Father's temple'. . can be explained on the basis of the pious consciousness of the nation and time, or was it a peculiar [besondrer] one?"55 Schleiermacher notes that Jesus was later charged with blasphemy for calling God his Father, and then he devotes some attention to maintaining that the only Messianic concept current in Jesus' place and time was a political one. These considerations indicate that this concept was not derived from Jesus' linguistic and cultural context; rather, "there must have been a ground for this expression in Christ's own consciousness."56 However, not even this abbreviated interpretative effort is really necessary; access to Jesus' inward God- consciousness can be guaranteed in a more direct way. Let us grant that the Messianic concept of someone with a perfect inward relation to God was current in the consciousness of the day and could thus be acquired through language rather than being produced originally by an individual consciousness. Even so, we must note that Jesus expressed such a consciousness in the first person as a boy in the temple and con- tinued to do so throughout his public ministry. The conclusion follows perforce: "If there had been nothing within him [in seinem Innern] which bore out the idea [ Vorstellung] of such an inner relationship, it could not have been maintained."57

Similar sets of steps recur frequently throughout The Life of Jesus. What is repeatedly surprising is not so much that Schleiermacher reads the texts in ways that verify his dogmatically rooted christology but, rather, that the hermeneutical moves involved are so negligible. To move, for example, from the sentence in Luke, "I must be in my Father's temple," to hermeneutical verification of his dogmatic assumption regarding Jesus' "unique dignity," a verification putatively based on "necessary insight" into Jesus' inner God-consciousness, all Schleier- macher does is insist that Jesus uttered the words and that he did so repeatedly.58 Once three essential presuppositions are logically fixed,

55 Lebenjesu, p. 94; ET, p. 88. 56 LebenJesu, p. 96; ET, p. 91. 57 LebenJesu, p. 97; ET, p. 91. 58 On "necessary insight," cf. n. 20 above.

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the actual execution of the hermeneutical task can hardly involve more, but then, as far as Schleiermacher is concerned, it need not. (1) Lan- guage is the outer expression of inner states of consciousness. (2) The theologically significant meaning of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life lies exclusively in their reference to his inward self-consciousness. (3) Statements in the Gospels bearing on Jesus' "specific dignity" or on his relation to God, especially Jesus' own expressions, are statements about the unique character of that self-consciousness.

v

There is something incongruous about this whole procedure, even within the limits Schleiermacher sets on the possible meaning of the Gospel texts. His project in The Life ofJesus, following what he takes to be the aim of any interpretative exercise, is to enable the "inner unity" ofJesus' life to "come into consciousness" through the medium ofJesus' linguistic expressions. Yet from the very first lecture of The Life ofJesus, Schleiermacher maintains that Jesus' outward expressions cannot, in fact, be intrinsically and necessarily related to his unique redemptive self-consciousness, that is, to the "inner unity" of his life; at least where Jesus is concerned, "outer" and "inner" must vary independently of one another.59 To be sure, this separation of inner and outer in theological hermeneutics is not arbitrary or careless but seems to be a matter of dogmatic necessity. But given the theological need to separate Jesus' unique God-consciousness from his language and culture, it is hard to see how Jesus' words can continue to function as a reliable clue to his inner constitution. Despite repeated descriptions of Jesus' putative inner states, no attempt is made in The Life of Jesus to explain how the distinctively christological gap between outer and inner can be bridged. On the contrary: in his more candid moments, Schleiermacher virtually concedes that it cannot be crossed.

If we distinguish the innermost ground [ofJesus' knowledge of God] from its nearest temporal and spatial appearance, then Christ could not express himself other than in the language into which he had been born and was brought up, and on which is his communion [Gemeinschaft] with other people depended. But if we ask, did this [language] bear the absolute knowledge of God within itself, or the capacity, adequately to bring this in detail to consciousness? then we say, no! For otherwise Christ would not have been necessary at all, but the knowledge of God would have spread on its own, by means of the language.60

59 Compare Sec. III above. 60 LebenJesu, p. 13; ET, p. 14.

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This remarkable passage comes as the climax of an extended discussion in which Schleiermacher, well aware of the importance of the

problem, strives to harmonize his dogmatic interest in Jesus' unique dignity with his hermeneutical interest in keeping Jesus' inward self- consciousness viably tied to his outward expressions. In light of the

tendency we have traced toward a truly radical separation between outer and inner in christology, his decision about how to handle the

problem seems especially clear from this text. IfJesus' perfect God-consciousness ("the absolute knowledge of God") is exclusive to him, derived from no outside source, and genuinely universal in scope, then that consciousness can in no way be derived from or dependent upon the language he in fact uses. Jesus' unique self-consciousness must be cut loose from his language and culture, even if he is subject to the latter in other respects (as Schleiermacher always insists he is). Otherwise the "unique dignity" of Jesus would be abrogated; a heightened God- consciousness would be available simply through the use of resources

already present in one's language and would not depend upon Jesus himself. Therefore, Schleiermacher boldly insists, we must deny to the

language of Jesus' day (and, presumably, of any other) the capacity to

bring an inner, redemptive knowledge of God "adequately... in detail to consciousness." This means, on the one hand, that Jesus' unique God-consciousness, including his own awareness of the latter, must exist and develop in complete independence of his language and culture. But it also means, on the other hand, that the language of Jesus' day is intrinsically incapable of bringing his presumed inward constitution into our consciousness. It is not simply the case that, since a given outer expression is compatible with different kinds of inward consciousness, the interpreter of the Gospels can never be sure whether he or she has actually uncovered Jesus' true inner states. Precisely in order to maintain his basic christological assumptions, Schleiermacher goes even further. He openly acknowledges that Jesus' own words cannot

possibly enable us to reach his unique God-consciousness; we are compelled on dogmatic grounds to deny that they can carry us that far. "Did this [language] bear the absolute knowledge of God within itself, or the capacity, adequately to bring this in detail to consciousness?... no!" The aim of interpretation is always to have the subjectivity of the author or speaker "come into the consciousness" of the interpreter. But a perfect God-consciousness, if it is to exist at all, simply does not seem to be the sort of thing which one can "bring into consciousness" by lin-

guistic means, no matter how much interpretative skill and effort go into the attempt.

Schleiermacher would clearly like to claim at this point that Jesus' language fitly expresses his self-consciousness, even though the latter is

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not at all derived from that language. But there seems to be no way to do this. The language thatJesus used obviously came to him from without and was common to everyone of his place and time. On Schleier- macher's account, the language of Jesus and his contemporaries, like all language, is expressive of states of consciousness that are at least potentially present among its users. So, for example, if a specific com- bination of words present in the language and the self-ascription of those words by Jesus are taken to constitute the uniqueness of Jesus' expressions, it remains the case that both the combinations and their self-ascription by someone are logical possibilities within the language itself. If all language is at root expressive, this logical possibility is merely the outer side of a state of consciousness already present (although perhaps only in latent form) in everyone who uses the language. This is precisely what Schleiermacher's dogmatic assumption of Jesus' "unique dignity," understood specifically in terms of a unique "God-consciousness," cannot allow. Thus it seems impossible for Schleiermacher to say both that Jesus' language adequately expresses his unique God-consciousness, and so can serve as the hermeneutical clue by which the gap between outer and inner may be crossed, and that this same language is incapable of bringing that very inner constitution "into consciousness," and so is not a threat to Jesus' exclusive redemptive "dignity." In the final analysis, Schleiermacher appears to have no way of effecting by hermeneutical means the transition upon which his christology depends, namely, that between the outward speech and action of Jesus of Nazareth and a universally redemptive God-consciousness, presumed to be present exclusively in him. When Schleiermacher's reading of the Gospels repeatedly moves from Jesus' language to the putative state of Jesus' self-consciousness, he is in fact claiming to cross a bridge that he previously had to demolish.

To be sure, Schleiermacher does not intend this result. His hermeneutics, structured by the distinction between outer linguistic expression and inner, prelinguistic experience and thought, seems plausible (if not unproblematic) when articulated at the level of a general theory. In practice, however, Schleiermacher seems unable to harmonize that hermeneutical approach with some of his basic dogmatic assumptions. A hermeneutics and a christology governed by the inner/outer distinction turn out to be deeply flawed instruments for a reading of the Gospels that aims, as Schleiermacher's does, to support the conviction that Jesus is "redeemer alone and for all."

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Documents

Marshall, Bruce - Hermeneutics and Dogmatics in Schleiermacher's Theology (1987)