Friedrich Schleiermacher
1768-1834 · Phenomenology · Prominent
Schleiermacher told educated Germans who had given up on religion that it runs deeper than doctrine and deeper than morals. His later theology named what it is: the feeling of absolute dependence, the sense that you did not put yourself here. He also made one set of rules for reading any utterance, scripture and a letter alike, which is where modern interpretation and liberal Protestant theology both begin.
Signature
The position Schleiermacher is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable
- Theology
- Panentheism
Positions on the 4 axes the sources answer
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (75 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Polity
- mildly between Illiberalism and Liberalism (58 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
16 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Schleiermacher refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Knowledge
- Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Language
- Expression
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Death
- Agnostic
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?