Schleiermacher, the Via Negativa, and the Gospel of Love
July 1, 2008 DOI: 10.1177/004057360806500202 via CORE
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractSchleiermacher navigated a middle path between rigid religious orthodoxy and critics of religion by characterizing piety as a nondual awareness of God that produces equanimity and love. This essay analyzes his concepts of immediate self-consciousness and contemplation, showing how they articulate the interdependence of divine transcendence and the primacy of love. Schleiermacher's analysis of mind and its implications for religion offers a way to maintain generosity of spirit amid contemporary culture wars.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Schleiermacher's understanding of piety as nondual awareness of God, grounded in immediate self-consciousness and contemplation, reveals the interdependence of divine transcendence and the primacy of love, offering a model for retaining generosity of spirit amid culture wars. |
Abstract
Schleiermacher found himself caught between oppressive orthodoxy and religion's despisers. As a corrective, he described piety as nondual awareness of God that issues in equanimity and love. This essay examines his understanding of immediate self-consciousness and contemplation as they provide him with a way of describing the interdependence between divine transcendence and the primacy of love. The analysis of mind together with what it revealed about religion provided Schleiermacher, and potentially provides our own generation, with one way of retaining a generosity of spirit amid ongoing culture wars.