Schleiermacher topic announcement has already given rise to some compare/contrast speculation re. Kierkegaard, and my quick search on the influence of the former on the latter revealed this overview by Norman Horn at LibertarianChristians.com.
Now, Horn is a bit misleading re. the chronology (both of these figures are post-Kant, not just Kierkegaard, and Kant's influence on S. is much more pronounced; K.'s work was produced really just one generation later despite the difference in their birth years... 1768 vs. 1813, because S. lived longer), and I don't like his characterization of S.'s point as saying we all have "an awareness of absolute reality, of absolute truth," because this makes religion sound like a form of knowledge, which for S. it was not. Still, Horn is right about the difference between S. and K.'s target issues:
Schleiermacher lived in a time and place where Christianity was despised by the culture because of the conflict it supposedly had wrought among them. He writes in a German culture strongly affected by the memory of the Thirty Years War, one of the most destructive conflicts in history during which Protestants and Catholics were convinced to kill each other at the whim of their corrupt political leaders. If religious diversity – a seemingly good thing – could cause so much death and destruction, then why give it any credence at all?
Kierkegaard... however, was primarily interested in people ceasing their indifference to religion and making a choice. He believed that God meets you when you take a leap in faith toward him, because God never enforces himself upon anyone. He wants to tell others that faith is not irrational, but rather not approached in the realm of rational-irrational dichotomies at all.
So neither S. nor K. like unthinking Christians who mouth empty doctrines but don't feel any of it. K's primary audience is those very Christians, trying to raise them from their slumber and own their religion. S's audience (at least in the book we're reading) is a small group of intellectuals (his peers at school) who disdain Christianity altogether as being anachronistic.
While K. is willing to bite the bullet re. Christianity's counter-intuitive aspects and wallow in these as making faith an greater accomplishment, S. thinks that the things scientifically minded people have problems with really aren't part of religion proper at all, but merely its dead manifestations.
It may turn out that as you chase these explanations further, their views converge substantially; I'm still figuring this out.
-Mark Linsenmayer
I’m afraid Mr. Horn’s history is so ill-informed that it’s hard to attack point by point. Yes, S. and K. had different projects and different audiences. But Schleiermacher was thoroughly in and of the Romantic moment. He wasn’t responding to a war that ended 150 years earlier, nor was he responding to any widespread outbreak of atheism within Germany. With “On Religion,” S. was responding to four trends prominent _among the salon-intelligentsia to whom he was addressing himself_:
(1) Deism, as then best represented by Voltaire,
(2) Kant, who reduced religion to moral action (sorry if I’m oversimplifying, Wes),
(3) traditional church dogmatics, and
(4) atheists, who were only recently able to “out” themselves without fear of legal reprisal
I would disagree that S. and K.’s views converge in any meaningful way, but I’m open to hearing the pitch. I do agree that S. and K. both:
(1) disdained the idea of religion acquired through reason, and
(2) scorned church authority (particularly when merged with and backed by the State) as having a corrupting influence on religion
But (early) S. was all about trying to encourage non-believers that they _really could_ acquire religion. K. was all about chiding believers that they weren’t nearly so Christian as they thought they were.
I think this video clip does a good job of summarizing Schleiermacher’s times and context:
Certainly disgust with the religious wars of the previous centuries was a key factor in Enlightenment disillusionment with religion, no?
The parallel being that the ostensible urgency behind the new atheists’ arguments is terrorism, i.e. war. If religion is irrational and causes all these problems, then chuck it out. S. is responding directly to this argument, while K. is really not.
Re. the point of comparison between the two, S. thinks “real” religion doesn’t commit any of the crimes that science-minded people think it does. I think K. would agree with this. Each (science and religion, and also ethics) has its proper sphere, and (according to both S. and K.) the scientist’s mistake is thinking that that scientific inquiry can address humanistic concerns, i.e. really make things add up to a fulfilling life.
OK, I’ll stop and save this for the discussion Sunday…
-Mark
Aw geez, I was gonna keep it corked until Sunday, but I can’t help myself. Hopefully my endless hair-splitting will help focus discussion Sunday, and not simply exhaust our energies.
1. I honestly don’t know if disgust with zealotry was a “key” factor in Enlightenment disillusionment with religion. I have a feeling people were at least as savvy about the 30 Years War’s true causes as they are today. Which is to say, religion was cynically used as a proxy for acting out on pre-existing political rivalries. Besides, the evils of zealotry is not the main critique against religion I get from Enlightenment-era thinkers: it’s the anti-intellectualism.
But in any event, S. and his “cultured despisers” were not of the Enlightenment. They were post-Enlightenment, and perhaps counter-Enlightenment. They were channeling the anti-clericalism of Rousseau and Diderot and Voltaire. By 1799, the French Revolution’s war on the Church was more at the forefront of public discussion than was the 30 Years War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianisation_of_France_during_the_French_Revolution. The 30 Years War was ancient history by then; one might as well have complained about the Inquisition.
2. I don’t see anything in S.’s 1st or 2nd Speeches to indicate atheists blamed religion for the world’s woes. S. thought atheists were atheists because they reject talk of miracles and immortality. So he’s telling atheists that one can chuck miracles and immortality and a personal God, yet still get religion.
But maybe you saw this in another one of S.’s addresses? I’ll admit I’m not that well read on S. beyond this week’s assignment.
3. I agree with you that both S. and K. (perhaps uniquely?) felt science — while not at war with religion — received undue and unearned priority in modern discourse. They both felt that science had a role to play in people’s lives, but neither seemed to think science should play a particularly privileged role. But then, guys like S. and K. _would_ take that position, wouldn’t they?