The Theologian and Philosopher:
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher.
A Commemoration 250 Years On
Paper | Mirgorod, Vol. 23/24 (2025) | pp. 179–227
Manfred RICHTER
Abstract: This paper aims to introduce a Protestant theologian who, at the same time, was a translator of Plato and a philosopher in his own right. Being a follower of the Kantian turn in philosophy, he criticised Kant as a participant in the Romantic scene. With his famous essay On Religion (1799), addressing the cultural elites of his time—“those who hold religion in contempt”—he gave a new foundation to religious thinking as such. Religion is not to be found in reason nor by mere tradition but by the presence of the universe in our mind (German: Gemüt). As a co-founder of the new type of university realized in Berlin in 1810, he—parallel to Fichte, first, then Hegel—gave lectures in philosophy. As a professor of theology, he fully transformed the traditional system of dogmatics, concentrating it in Jesus Christ as the presence of God realized as Man, the church being his life in his spirit in history. As a reformer, he overcame confessionalism in the Protestant churches. He fought for synodality in the church and for taming absolutism in the monarchy by demanding a constitution. As an intellectual, he took part in the European struggles for the emancipation of individuals and nations, all of which essentially reflected his Christian convictions.
Keywords: Friedrich Schleiermacher / Protestant theology /
Philosophy of religion / Kantian philosophy / Romanticism /
Christocentric dogmatics / Church reform
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32017/mirgorod-2025-23.24-7
Cite this paper: Richter, M. (2025). Theologe und Philosoph: Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher. Eine Erinnerung
250 Jahre danach. Mirgorod: The Annual of the History and Epistemology of Contemporary Literary Studies, 23/24, pp. 179–227. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32017/mirgorod-2025-23.24-7
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