# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 37

B. The Subtle Enthusiasm.

1. The Speculative Enthusiasm.

What is speculative enthusiasm? Speculation is as much as the probing or investigation of a matter, in order to become truly inwardly aware of it and to possess it rightly in the mind. God, too, has become an object of speculation. People wanted to have God, to become certain of him. That is in itself a good aim; God, too, wants us to be able to say: You in me, and I in you. But God does not want our way; he knows only one way to his investigation and knowledge, and that is Holy Scripture. Every other way, wanting to find God and become certain of him, is contrary to God, is enthusiasm.

Speculative enthusiasm wants now to behold God not in the mirror of the Word outside us, but in the mirror of the God-consciousness in us. Two forms of this enthusiasm can well be distinguished.

a. The mystical enthusiasm. It is speculation too, that is, investigation of God, penetration into the eternal, immeasurable light. Here the method or way of investigation consists in turning the self away from all things and, in contemplation, sinking into the essence of God, which is supposedly mirrored in consciousness. The quiet letting oneself be bathed in the inner light, which in the end excludes all thinking — that is the way of mysticism, of whose reprehensibility we have already spoken.

b. The dialectical and developing enthusiasm. Here the method is this: that the thinking spirit lets its God-consciousness present within it be decomposed and dissolved into its parts, and lets it become manifest in its relations on all sides. In this, the same is on the one hand to undergo a necessary purification and at the same time to receive its certainty in consciousness in a truly fitting manner. Said in plain biblical terms it is supposed to mean: In this way man comes to a truly conscious spiritual life, to true inwardness of faith and right piety. And that we call enthusiasm, and rightly so. That can be recognized from the outset. Consider that speculation is supposed to lead to a purification of the God-consciousness. What, then, is the standard for such a work of purification? Yes, again consciousness. That means indeed to appeal from Pontius to Pilate. The scholastics of the Middle Ages wanted, as is well known — and this was the nerve of their theology — to mediate between two things, namely between philosophy and Scripture, between reason and revelation, between Church and world. Much more energetically this was attempted by the much-named Schleiermacher, whom we may call the father of dialectical enthusiasm. Schleiermacher investigated his God-consciousness,