# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S41
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 41

difference is, however, that the old theologians do not let the core of the biblical doctrine of the Fall and of redemption vanish behind the doctrinal edifice, as Schleiermacher does with his magic wand "Dialectic." A theologian of the most recent time and truly no small admirer of Schleiermacher, namely Prof. Zöckler (in the Handbuch II, 633), also says: "Many truths of the Christian whole of revelation fade and wither under the influence of this schematism" (namely of the scheme or doctrinal edifice in Schleiermacher — where it would be more correct to say "vanish" than fade and merely wither); "much that is factual is converted into subjective feeling or merely feeling-like perception." These latter words mean, for example, this: When, according to Schleiermacher, a person feels himself transported in his mind into God — that is supposed to be what the Bible means by the fact, the really occurred great event and work of reconciliation on Golgotha on the cross. — After the words of Prof. Zöckler just quoted one can only hear with the greatest astonishment what he says immediately afterwards. He says: "Nevertheless the character" (of Schleiermacher's doctrine of redemption) "remains a Christocentric one, indeed, in a certain sense an ecclesiastically conservative one." Yes, very much "in a certain sense," if by "ecclesiastically conservative" one understands only the retention of ecclesiastical expressions, and by "Christocentric" the mere name Jesus Christ. For a Redeemer in any sense of Scripture Christ is not, according to Schleiermacher. Rather, Jesus Christ is the Central Man (— which, incidentally, is also a very ancient invention before Schleiermacher), who first took up the fullness of God-consciousness in himself. This Christ of Schleiermacher is plainly not the Christ of the Bible. But is there another than he? Can there be another? 1 Tim. 2:5; Acts 4:12. Where does a pious consciousness want to get another? — Soon, to return to what is highly praised in Schleiermacher, one praises the division of the statements of Christian consciousness into those that precede the central idea of Christian consciousness, or are directed immediately upon it, or follow. Now, that is nothing but the old-Lutheran theory of the division of the articles of faith into fundamental and non-fundamental, which, as is well known, goes by the foundation of doctrine, namely the proposition: "We are justified and saved through faith in Christ, the Reconciler." But Schleiermacher knows how to translate skillfully. Soon, too, one admires (Gass, Herzog 547) a presentation of the attributes of God as ideas of God, but only look closely at the doctrine of our old theologians on the question whether God's attributes are something real or only something thought, and one will be surprised. Especially Schleiermacher is praised as the one who brought the true essence of Christianity as religion to light. Gass (loc. cit. 575) says: "Schleiermacher wanted decidedly