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It is simply a device for subtle winning of the hearer, but it has overstepped the mark when the shell conceals the kernel. But religion is like the diamond in the clay, enclosed not to remain hidden, but to be all the more surely found. All these are found together even in the sacred books, unavoidably and also of high design.
#Schleiermacher cosmic view in order to understand religion code#
They import the idea of the good into metaphysics as the natural law of a Being without limits and without wants, and they import the idea of an Original Being from metaphysics into morals that the great work should not be anonymous, but that such a glorious code might be prefaced by a picture of the law-giver.” Were this mixture anything more than a selection for beginners, and had a principle of union of its own, religion must be the highest in philosophy, and metaphysics and ethics only sub-divisions. “The theorists in religion who seek to know the nature of 277the Universe and of a Highest Being whose work it is, are metaphysicians, but discreet enough not to despise a little morals the practical persons, to whom the will of God is the chief matter, are moralists, but a little in the metaphysical style. But religion cannot venture to use the Universe for the deduction of duties, or to contain a code of laws.” The common idea of religion is that it is a mixture of fragments of metaphysics and ethics, but it is time this idea was quite annihilated. “And what does your ethics do? It developes from the nature of man and his relation to the Universe a system of duties, it commands and prohibits actions with absolute authority. “What does your metaphysics do, or, if you will not have that antiquated, too historical name, your transcendental philosophy? It classifies the Universe, gives the grounds for what exists, deduces the necessity of the actual, and spins from itself the reality and the laws of the world.” Religion, however, has nothing to do with grounds and deductions and first causes. It must, therefore, deal with the same matter in a different way. Yet your instinct and opinions are against making religion one with metaphysics, for you do not admit that it can tread with the same firm step, or with morals, for there are foully immoral parts in its history. ‘Ultimately, metaphysics, morals and religion have the same object, the Universe. The opening passage is little altered, the parallel drawn between the sociality of states and the combining of the mental activities is only verbally different, but it is used to explain that he frequently returns to more childlike times, not from depreciation of the present but in order to discover religion more by itself. 26-66), has been materially altered, a large part of it having been entirely re-cast. The earlier portion of the Second Chapter (pp. You must seek this heavenly spark which is produced when a holy soul is stirred by the Universe, and you must attend to it in the incomprehensible moment of its formation.” An atom impregnated with heavenly power, fell into their soul, and there assimilated all, and gradually expanded till it burst like a divine fate in a world whose atmosphere offers too little resistance, and produced in its last moments one of those heavenly meteors, one of 276those significant signs of the time, of the origin of which none was ignorant, and with awe of which all mortals were filled.
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The magic thunder of an enchanting speech accompanied the high phenomenon, and announced to adoring mortals that the Deity had spoken. “Only single noble thoughts flash through their soul, kindled with celestial fire. He is speaking of the work of the true heroes of religion. 17, foot, beginning “In isolation,” a somewhat mighty figure has been weakened, doubtless as too youthfully daring. It evaporates usually between the first mouth and the first ear.” The spirit is neither to be confined in academies nor to be poured out into a row of ready heads. “We have systems from all schools, yea, even from schools that are mere habitations and nurseries of the dead letter. 16, last par., has lost something of the irony of the Romanticist. ‘Religion can only be for us a dead letter, a sacred article in the constitution without any reality, for we are only occupied with fierce defence of national orthodoxy and the maintenance of superstitious attachment to ancient usages, while our pursuit of knowledge is limited to a miserable empiricism.’ The complimentary passage on us proud Islanders is even stronger in its original form. IN the first chapter there are many changes, but for the most part merely of single words and phrases.