Comments on "The Doctrine of Election"
As Found In The Christian Faith
(Second Edition, 1830)
by
Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1768-1834)
By Jonathan Mitchell
This post shares a few quotes from a short section in Schleiermacher's propositions, concerning The Christian Faith, which deal with the Protestant Reformed Doctrine of Election, as he understood it. His work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. We will expand upon his thoughts by considering what seem to be pertinent NT statements.
From: the Second Section, "The Constitution of the World in Relation to Redemption"; First Division, "The Origin of the Church"; First Doctrine: Election
"In accordance with the laws of the divine government of the world... all those living at any one time can never be uniformly taken up into the kingdom of God founded by Christ.... The absence of uniformity refers to the definite distinction between the inner and outer circles of the Christian fellowship." (the apocryphile press, 2011, p 536)
The above quote represents his distinction between "calling" and "election," in his presentation. We will more clearly see his intent, as we proceed.
"But all this is rooted in the divine government of the world. And we find the same absence of uniformity in connection with the subsequent preaching of the apostolic times and on to the present day.... It could not be otherwise if the supernatural in Christ is to become natural, and the Church to take shape as a natural historical phenomenon..." (ibid p 537)
"Among those living within the circle of the church, there are in every period many who do not yet belong to it.... In such a situation, each will attain far earlier to the possession and enjoyment of his appropriate share in the higher life. Yet, even so, differences will remain, such that some will as yet have failed to attain to enjoyment though their companions of the same age have long possessed it.... Whole peoples have accepted Christianity, of whom a considerable proportion at least attained regeneration, while on the other hand many a member of nations long Christian remained provisionally excluded from that inner circle. There is, besides, the fact that the end of life is appointed so differently for different people.... Many are called away, their length of life divinely fixed, from places where the gospel has only just begun to be heard. Thus, obviously it is the divine government of the world which appoints many... [to] die unregenerated simply because the course of their life is run..." (ibid pp 538-9; brackets added)
"If, therefore, that equal, natural incapacity out of which, in everyone, the consciousness of the need for redemption may spring, is in one case reinforced, but in another left to itself, in one case absorbed into the revelation of the divine decree of pardon, but in another [is] not so absorbed - this non-uniformity within the same human race... is of such a kind that to accept it we must either again reduce our God-consciousness to a mere idiosyncrasy, or else attach much less value to the difference between those blessed by grace and others, almost making it a merely accidental more or less. Otherwise the blessedness springing from the consciousness of grace would of necessity be swallowed up in the sympathetic feeling of unblessedness that accompanies humiliation.
"All this takes on a quite different aspect as soon as we venture to hold that at each particular point this antithesis is merely a vanishing one, so that everyone still outside this fellowship will some time or another be laid hold of by the divine operations of grace and brought within it. In that case, there is no longer a cleavage in our race-consciousness; the merely gradual passage of individuals into the full enjoyment of redemption is for our race-consciousness just what the gradual progress of sanctification is for our personal self-consciousness, namely, the natural form necessarily taken by the divine activity as it works itself out historically and, as we have seen, the inevitable condition of all activity in time of the Word made flesh.... The incarnation of Christ is analogous to the regeneration of the whole race considered as a unity.... But when we read that 'when the fullness of the time was come' Christ was born (Gal. 4:4), this means that the divine fore-ordination concerning the whole human race and the special determination of the point in time when the Redeemer should be manifested are so much a single, indivisible revelation of the divine omnipotence, that the spiritual life conditioned by this determination of time is certainly also the absolutely greatest, and gives expression to the entire idea of the essential nature of humanity. Now the same thing can be said of the individual. Each man, when his time is fully come, is regenerated; and his new life conditioned by this fixation to time, is, however late its appearance, an absolute maximum, and fully expresses the entire idea of his personality..." (ibid pp 540-1; brackets added)
Here, we insert Paul's statement, in 1 Cor. 15:
22. Thus, just as within Adam all humans keep on (or: everyone continues) dying, in the same way, also, within the Christ, all humans will keep on being made alive (or: everyone, or all, will one-after-another be created and produced with Life, in union with the Anointed One) [cf Rom. 5:18; Rev. 21:5]
23. - yet each person within the result of his or her own set division, or position [in line] (or: effect of ordered placement; appointed class; proper rank; arranged time, or order, in the procession [cf 2 Cor. 2:14]; or: = place in a harvest calendar, the season of maturity): Christ a Firstfruit (First one reaped); or: after that, those belonging to the Christ (or: those from the Anointing; those who are [body members; cf 12:27-28, above] of the Christ) within the midst of, in union with, and in the sphere of, His presence, [cf 16:22b, below; Phil. 3:16]
Schleiermacher proceeds from this point to consider the problems involved in Reformed theology, where folks, "come to think of a portion of our races as destined to be entirely shut out from this [Christian] fellowship and the higher state dependent thereon....
"To begin with, if equality is the original appointed plan for human nature, but inequality of the kind noted just as much results from this plan, contradiction between the two can only be stated in the form of some censure of the appointed plan... But the inequality that first arises through the intervention of Christ cannot have its seat in the human nature underlying the common life of sinfulness, unless, contrary to our assumption, we go back to Pelagian principles, and admit either powers of attraction in one class of people, or powers or repulsion in the other. And apart from this, we should still be thrown back upon the inequality in the distribution of endowments that can have its basis only in the divine good-pleasure. Conversely, if the equality is held to have the same basis as the inequality, namely, the divine plan of salvation, this means that in respect of redemption God has put all men under sin, although only for some does redemption accrue. In that case, the reception of the one and the exclusion of the other has its ground in such divine arbitrariness, that we must rightly describe the ordinance as sheer caprice. And even if the concurrent existence of the equality and inequality can be thus made conceivable... the more our race-consciousness equals our personal consciousness....
"We cannot, however, concede in general that the revelation of divine attributes is pieced out or partial; for then they would be limited, and God would be an unlimited Being with limited attributes. Justice and mercy must not exclude one another. Mercy in the case of the same people must show itself as justice. And in thought this is incompatible with the permanent exclusion of some from the communicated blessedness of Christ." (ibid pp 542-544; brackets added)
The inequality which Schleiermacher addresses can be seen from statements such as,
"To (or: For; With) you folks it has been given to intimately experience and insightfully know the secrets (mysteries) of the reign and dominion of the heavens, yet it has not been given to those people" (Mat. 13:11).
And then there is,
"Stop fearing (or: Do not continue being wary or afraid), Little Flock, because it delights the Father (or: because the Father thought it good, and thus, approved) to give the Reign and Realm (rule; kingship; kingdom; sovereign influence and activities) to YOU folks" (Lu. 12:32)
We suggest that this privilege and the specific assignment of these two verses apply to their lives as they lived them in the 1st century, in what Schleiermacher would refer to as "the blessedness springing from the consciousness of grace," or, "living fellowship with Christ" (ibid). Participation in God's reign was perceived as a function of "the called-out covenant community" (aka the 'church'). It did not, nor does it now, define an individual's existence as being a part of the first humanity, Adam, which, when "born again, from above" (Jn. 3) ultimately results in being a part of the Last Adam, the second Humanity (1 Cor. 15:45-6). And Paul makes an unequivocal statement in 1 Cor. 15:49,
"And correspondingly as we bear and wear the image (likeness; form; [cf Gem. 5:3]) of the mounded, dusty person, [p46 adds: doubtless] we can and should [B reads: will continue to] also bear and wear the image (likeness; form) of the Added, Imposed, Heavenly One (or: belonging to the One having the quality and character of the finished, perfected atmosphere; or: from the fully-heaven [sphere]; of the added-sky person). [cf Rom. 8:29; 1 Jn. 3:2]
We can observe the connection of Schleiermacher's "equality" in what Paul says in Rom. 5:12,
"Because of, and through, this (or: Therefore; That is why), just as through one man (or: So it is that, even as through the act or agency of one person,) The Sin (or: the miss of the target; "the derangement of our nature") entered into the aggregate of humanity (ordered system of religion, culture, society and government; or: world; cosmos), and through The Sin (failure; the mistake; the miss of the target; the deviation), The Death [also entered]. In this way, The Death thus also passed through in all directions (or: came through the midst causing division and duality; pervaded; permeated throughout) into all mankind (or: into the midst of all humanity; or: to all people), upon which [situation and condition, the result is that] all people sin (or: whereupon, everyone failed and fell short of the goal, and thus all make mistakes, deviate from the path, and become sinners) [cf Rom. 8:6; Gen. 2:17; 3:1ff]
But then, three verses later, in Rom. 5:
15. Yet to the contrary, [it is] not, in fact, in the same way [with] the effect of grace (result of favor; the thing graciously given) as [it was with] the effect of the fall to the side (or: = the result of the stumbling aside, and the offence, is not simply balanced out by the result of the joyful gift of grace - the gratuitous favor). For you see, since by (or: in) the effect of the fall to the side (the result of the stumbling aside and offense) of the one (= Adam) THE MANY (= the mass of humanity) died, MUCH MORE (= greater) [is] the Grace of God (God's Grace; favor which is God), and the gift (gratuitous benefit) within Grace (centered in a joy-producing act of Favor) - by that of the One Man, Jesus Christ - surrounded (or: encircles) into an encompassing abundance, surplus and excess into THE MANY (or: THOSE Many; = the mass of humanity).
The "all mankind" of verse twelve, is "THE MANY" of verse fifteen, and it is the same "MANY" in both parts of the verse. Likewise, what we read in Eph. 2:1,
is speaking about the same group that we find in Eph. 2:15,
"He Himself is our Peace (or: continuously exists being our JOINING and harmony [of Israel with the Gentiles]) - the One making (forming; constructing; creating; producing) The Both [to be] one.... to the end that He may frame (create; found and settle from a state of wildness and disorder) The Two into One qualitatively New and Different [p46 & others: common] Humanity..."
Where Schleiermacher saw the first "inequality" arising in Christ (ibid, above), we can see the pattern of this in God's election of Abraham. But that "election" was that he was to be a blessing for all the families of the earth. The extent of this blessing was pictured as being numbered as the sand of the sea (elsewhere, dust of the earth; Gen. 15:5; 13:16; 22:17) or the stars of heaven. These phrases were hyperbole to indicate that this election of Abraham (at first a picture of inequality, contrasted to the masses of humanity) would follow through to include all of humanity, which would come to participate in Abraham's blessing (Gal. 3:29), creating a race-wide equality (which started in the creation of humanity) in the fullness of the second humanity (1 Cor. 15:47). We see another figure of "election" in Ex. 4:22,
"Israel is My son; my firstborn."
This echoes the idea of Gen. 15:2, when Abraham was yet childless, and vs. 4b gives him the promise of an heir, who, through Sarah (17:19, 21), would be counted as his firstborn.
Jesus first chose the twelve to be His apprentices, and then He sent them out both to reproduce themselves, and to bless the aggregate of humanity, by injecting the Christ Life into it. Election is always a choosing to fulfill a function in God's plan of the ages (Eph. 3:11). Its goal is that God may be
"all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28)
and does not have any ultimate end in exclusion of anyone or anything (Eph. 1:23). We find this beautiful inclusive statement in Eph. 4:10,
"The One stepping down (descending) is Himself also the One stepping up (ascending) far above (back up over) all of the heavens (or: atmospheres; skies), to the end that He would at once fill the Whole (permeate and saturate everything; or: make all things full; bring all things to full measure and completion)." [cf Jn. 3:13; Acts 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 4:14; 7:26; 8:I; 9:24]
Schleiermacher continues on his presentations concerning "Election" (First Theorem: Predestination; Second Theorem: The Grounds of Election), but we will not investigate these in this paper.
Jonathan
PS: see John Gavazzoni 2020 post: "Adam, God's Elect Man." John further comments, here:"While, so to speak, the line of the election-narrative goes somewhat into hiding, or only appears obscurely in God's dealing with mankind for a couple of millennia, suddenly, there it appears again in striking clarity with Abraham, and from Him to His Seed, Christ, and from in union with Him, ultimately, the whole body of humanity as the finally completed corporate body of Christ, with His complement, His bride. It all traces back to God's elective-commitment to the first man and his bride. (By the way, the church father, Gregory of Nyssa, stated explicitly that the whole body of Christ would consist of the whole body of humanity)."
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