# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 43

against enthusiasm is himself an enthusiast, we wanted to show. We now want to do so further by taking into view what Schleiermacher has to say about:

1. The Origin of Faith. He says, § 14: "There is no other way to obtain a share in the Christian fellowship than through faith in Jesus as the Redeemer." Pp. 87 ff.: "To have a share in the Christian fellowship means, in the foundation of Christ, to seek the approach to the state of absolute ease and steadiness of devout excitations." "This faith is a purely factual certainty. . . . It cannot be in the individual until in him, through an impression he receives from Christ, a beginning, if only an infinitely small one, a real presentiment is set of the removal of the state of need of redemption. The expression faith in Christ is here, however, as there, faith in God, the relation of the state as effect to Christ as cause." "Thus from the beginning only those attached themselves to Christ for his new fellowship whose devout self-consciousness was stamped as need of redemption, and who now became certain of the redeeming power of Christ in themselves." "Herein has also ever since consisted the essence of all immediate Christian proclamation, which can only take shape as testimony; testimony of one's own experience, which is to arouse in others the desire to have the same experience." As, however, "it is not possible to demonstrate to anyone the necessity of redemption" (to convince of the necessity by proofs) "so little can it be demonstrated that Christ is the only one who can bring about redemption." What does Schleiermacher reckon under this demonstration? This, "that one wants to bring about the recognition of Christ through the miracles he performs, or through the prophecies that foretold him, or through the special qualities of the testimonies originally given about him, that they be a work of divine inspiration." P. 96: "So it must be conceded that a proof of Christ as Redeemer from the prophecies is impossible." Further it says: "From all this it follows that miracles as well as prophecies — if faith in the revelation of God in Christ and in redemption through him has not already arisen in the original way through experience as the proof of the Spirit and of power — cannot produce it." Now suddenly we already have experience, that is, according to Schleiermacher himself, the effect of the union with the congregation and its testimony brought about through faith. We were, however, according to Schleiermacher's promise, to learn in this section something about the origin of faith. How, then, does it stand? It stands so, that according to the true underlying opinion of Schleiermacher faith arises altogether without any mediation, and in any case without