The Way of Consciousness: Kant and 19th Century Theology

By the 1790’s there were two fundamental avenues for the reception of Kant’s critical

philosophy. First, there was the way of Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel, who sought complete closure

in the derivation of a system of reason from first principles concerning consciousness and its

possibility. The second way was that of Schleiermacher and the Romantics, who denied that such

systematization was possible. Schleiermacher located the ground of self-consciousness in an

immediate relation to the Absolute given to consciousness in feeling. This ground could not be

grasped by the intellect but could only be experienced. It conditioned all knowing and willing,

and thereby conditioned the possibility of ethics and metaphysics. This understanding of the self

lay at the basis of the existentialism of Heidegger and Kierkegaard. It also made possible a

philosophical and theological systematic appropriation of Luther’s radical insights. In this paper

I will discuss how Schleiermacher’s reception of Kant’s philosophy conditioned his understanding

of self-consciousness, and the implications of this understanding for existentialist theology

grounded in experience and praxis.