Natural Religion In Schleiermacher's Philosophy

Now, the problematic or precarious assessment of natural religion in the last centuries of theology was not only the result of granting theology of revelation a privileged position, but it was also the effect of the devastating critique of natural religion presented by both Hume and other thinkers of the Enlightenment. Their efforts in trying to show how absurd it is to warrant a religious position on the basis of reason and experience did not only have a sobering effect on those who wanted to argue for a natural theology; it also showed how deeply problematic it could be to try to develop religion without any reference to a concrete religious tradition. Among the few theologians who were able to work around these issues without ending in

He also offers important insights relevant to the present debate, from the point of view of philosophy of religion. His emphasis on the concrete, historically mediated experience that shapes and informs religion makes him an interesting third party: On the one hand, he rejects natural religion as empty of religious content; on the other hand, he also sees the problem of assuming some kind of supernatural revelation as a basis for religious life. If we read the fifth of his Speeches and interpret his description of natural religion as something that also may be seen as a characterization of the recent study of religion’s naturalness, we get some stunning perspectives. We can read them as a critique against any approach to religion that wants to reduce religion to mere nature, and which therefore ignores, or brackets, the concrete cultural and historical form and context by which religion expresses itself. He writes: “The essence of natural religion consists almost entirely in denying everything positive and characteristic in religion, and in violent polemics.” He therefore finds in natural religion the “wretched generality and vain soberness” that cannot contribute to cultural education. Schleiermacher thus sees in the concrete outcome of the description of natural religion a reduction that empties religion of its actual content in human life, and something that seems to lack true recognition of its contribution to this life. The product it offers is “empty and formless.” In other words: the reduction of religion to “the natural” disregard the actual and concrete content that religion has in its positive historical form and it cuts the understanding of religion off from its cultural roots; the roots that make religion into something else than the invention of individuals on