On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers

by Friedrich Schleiermacher

Publisher:

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

, 1893

Overview

Schleiermacher wrote On Religion as a defense of the Christian faith against the challenges of Enlightenment philosophy. The book consists of five speeches in which Schleiermacher advances three ideas. He argues that humans are evolving and changing, that God’s work must be universal, and that piety is the emotional response of the finite’s dependence on the infinite.

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Key Features

• Examines the three main points of Shleiermacher’s philosophy
• Offers a reflection of the literary, philosophical and religious movements of the time in which it was written
• Includes a thorough introduction to the life of Schleiermacher

Contents

• Defense
• The Nature of Religion
• The Cultivation of Religion
• Association in Religion, or Church and Priesthood
• The Religions
• Epilogue

Top Highlights

“two opposing impulses. Following the one impulse, it strives to establish itself as an individual.” (Page 4)

“The whole religious life consists of two elements, that man surrender himself to the Universe and allow himself to be influenced by the side of it that is turned towards him is one part, and that he transplant this contact which is one definite feeling, within, and take it up into the inner unity of his life and being, is the other. The religious life is nothing else than the constant renewal of this proceeding.” (Page 58)

“Let us call the one division physics or metaphysics, applying both names indifferently, or indicating sections of the same thing. Let the other be ethics or the doctrine of duties or practical philosophy.” (Page 30)

“Religion then, as a kind of activity, is a mixture of elements that oppose and neutralize each other” (Page 29)

“Religion thus fashions itself with endless variety, down even to the single personality.” (Page 51)

Praise for the Print Edition

If a book can signal the beginning of an era, then Schleiermacher’s On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers marks the beginning of the era of Protestant Liberal Theology.

—Jack Forstman, former dean emeritus, Vanderbilt Divinity School

Product Details

• Title: On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers
• Author: Friedrich Schleiermacher
• Translator: John Oman
• Publisher: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
• Publication Date: 1893
• Pages: 287
• Christian Group: Evangelicals
• Resource Type: Lectures
• Topic: Philosophy

About Friedrich Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), often called the father of modern theology, was a German philosopher and one of the greatest Protestant theologians of the 19th century. He is often regarded as the father of modern hermeneutics, i.e. the science of interpreting the Bible, and known for his many other works in the area of systematic theology. Otto Weber states that, “Retrospectively, the dogmatics of the 19th century can be understood essentially as the direct, indirect, or negatively received influence of the theology of Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher, one of the most powerful personalities in all of church history, in some ways comparable with Augustine.”