The paper begins by outlining the Nicene doctrine of Trinity, including the doctrine of the immanent Trinity that lies behind its references to the Son as “born of the Father before all ages,” “God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made”; and its reference to the Holy Spirit, who “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The paper then turns to Schleiermacher’s criticisms of the doctrine of the immanent Trinity in §§170-171 of his Glaubenslehre (1830/31), including especially what he identifies as inherent subordinationism with regard to the relations of the three distinctions within the Godhead. Brief attention will be paid to how these concerns are echoed in the contemporary work of Linn Tonstad in God and Difference (2017).
Turning to Schleiermacher’s call for a fresh treatment of the doctrine in §172, the paper describes the culmination of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God, namely, the identity of the divine causality with love and wisdom in §§164-169. Here, Schleiermacher’s attribution of purpose and intentionality to God sets him apart from Spinoza’s understanding while also drawing on his thought (cf. Julia Lamm’s The Living God, 1996). The paper also attends to key portions of Schleiermacher’s essay, “On the Discrepancy between the Sabellian and Athanasian Method of Representing the Doctrine of the Trinity” (1835), aiming to clear Schleiermacher of the charge of modalism.
The paper argues that Schleiermacher’s enduring influence is to be identified not with an abandonment of trinitarian theology, but as the (post-Kantian, anti-speculative) theological insistence that the doctrine of the Trinity ought to be explicitly related to the history of God’s salvific work within created existence. The paper concludes with a brief summary of how Nicene theology is reshaped in Schleiermacher’s work and holds promise for contemporary constructive forms of theology.
Friedrich Schleiermacher is perhaps a curious figure with whom to reflect on the reception of the Nicene Creed in the modern era, since he was not shy about pointing out the difficulties in trinitarian thought that are enshrined in the Nicene Creed, and his Glaubenslehre (1830/31) called for a fresh Protestant treatment of the doctrine. This paper complicates the prevalent interpretation of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God and trinitarian thought, which sees his work as marginal to the discussion, instead suggesting not only that Schleiermacher’s dogmatics had an enduring influence in this regard but also that his work has significance for constructive theology in the present era.