Friedrich Schleiermacher
German Reformed preacher and theologian, born at Breslau in 1768. His Speeches on Religion of 1799 and his dogmatics, The Christian Faith, ground religion in feeling and Christian doctrine in the description of it.
Schleiermacher’s own account of his life begins with his birth at Breslau on 21 November 1768, the son of a Reformed army chaplain (Schleiermacher, Life in Letters, vol. 1, p. 1 (autobiography)). The editors of his letters record that in 1796 he was appointed chaplain to the Charité in Berlin, that he went to Stolpe as court preacher in 1802, and that in 1804 he became professor and university preacher at Halle (Schleiermacher, Life in Letters, vol. 1, p. 133). He finished the Speeches on Religion on 15 April 1799 (Schleiermacher, Life in Letters, vol. 1, p. 207 (letter of 14–15 April 1799)). They define true religion as “sense and taste for the Infinite” (Schleiermacher, On Religion, Second Speech), and his later dogmatics defines piety as the consciousness of absolute dependence (Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §§3–4 (second edition)). See Schleiermacher and Modern Theology.
In the timeline
- 1799, firm dateSchleiermacher and Modern Theology
In 1799 Friedrich Schleiermacher, a hospital preacher in Berlin, publishes Speeches on Religion for its cultured despisers: religion is neither knowledge nor morals but feeling, a sense and taste for the Infinite. His later dogmatics builds Christian doctrine on that ground.