"On Free Choice of the Will" (Google Preview) was one of Augustine's earlier writings, and long before the Pelagian Heresy reared its ugly head. I picked this 120 page treatise up after reading Luther's Bondage of the Will to go to his sources: ad fontes! Aurelius Augustine of Hippo (354-430) wrote De Libero Arbitrio (it's Latin title) in three parts, the first in circa 387 A.D., and the last two in 395 A.D. The book is formated like the Greek Dialogues of Plato where "Augustine" instructs "Evodius." The first question begins, as well as ends my translation of the book (by Thomas Williams): "Evodius: Please tell me: isn't God the cause of evil?"

The Thomas Williams translation contains a lengthy introduction, and ends with selections from Augustine's Retractions that contains Augustine's reconsiderations of De Libero Arbitrio. And reflecting back on the book, without reading the notes from Retractions, it would be possible for many people to misconstrue Augustine as to be even advocating a Pelagian view. Augustine says that Pelagius used this book and similar writings against him later. In the Retractions, several selections that Augustine wrote quickly and briefly in De Libero Arbitrio were repeated and reaffirmed, and Augustine even praised himself for anticipating the Pelagian Heresy's arguments.

The most important clarification in the appendix, is that Augustine said that he wrote De Libero Arbitrio against the Manichaeism, who held opposite beliefs than the Pelagians. Mani, a Persian philosopher, and someone Augustine "confesses" to have been a hear of for 9years before he was a Christian. Mani taught a form of Dualism that attributed evil to the god of the Old Testament and attributed good to Jesus (or rather the god of the New Testament), and in that sense, Mani wished to attribute evil to God. Throughout De Libero Arbitrio, Augustine affirms the "free choice of the will", meaning that individuals have a free choice in their actions and do not only (as Evodius argues) "do things out of necessity". As the retractions affirm, there are times that when evil and sin is done out of necessity, man is still guilty for it, but Augustine's primary argument is to show that God is not evil and does not do evil. There's a very good argument at the beginning that consists of reasoning that teaching only occurs when knowledge of Good is transfered, so knowledge of evil is not truly teaching.

Augustine is an amazing orator and writer, and his other works are so beautifully written that even simple folk may understand and benefit from them, however, Augustine is no fool. And, this work is very difficult to read and follow, and is a flex of Augustine's muscles. Some wrongly argue that his Retractions prove that it is only the later Augustine that matters, and however true that may be, the book as the editor WIlliams said is not really a "retractions" but rather a "reconsiderations" where Augustine doesn't "retract" as so much as rather he "clarifies" what he originally said.

One additional feature to note, is that it is no accident that this book is written as a Greek Dialogue because there are long passages where Augustine explains the Will by appealing to Platonic Forms and a Platonic understanding of Mathematics. He explains forms by using mathematical concepts of the "number one" and tackles some of his interesting answers about how forms are somehow part of God.

It's hard to understand this work without also reading Augustine's "Anti-Pelagian Writings" and maybe his "Anti-Manichaean Writings" as well.

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Martin Luther considered "The Bondage of the Will" (In latin: "De Servo Arbitrio" 1525 AD) his best work.  You may read it online for free at CCEL. I read the new translation by J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnson, that's about 320pages and has a lengthy introduction about the book, Luther and Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536). 

Martin Luther was an Augustinian Monk, and this work is a honor to his master Augustine. Bondage of the Will is Luther's response to Erasmus's short book "Diatribe", where Erasmus attack's Luther's doctrine of Double Predestination. So Luther's book is in response to Erasmus' book, and Erasmus's book is in response to Luther's writings. In general, books in this format are not very fun to read and require too much of a back story. However, this particular work is on every Luther reading list I've seen for the great arguments it contains.

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Oh, Schleiermacher! The most influential theologian of the last three hundred years, but who knows him by name? How do I begin to talk about Schleiermacher and what may I say? The place to begin is Friedrich Schleiermacher's magnum opus, "Der Christliche Glaube (The Christian Faith)" first published in 1821-22. I read (and recommend) the T&T Clark Int'l 1999 edition that I struggled through last december, however there is a new cheaper reprint available from Apocryphile Press 2011 edition. The was the most difficult theology book that I've ever read: harder than barth, calvin or augustine, and maybe only matched by Edward's Ethical Writings (Vol 8 of Yale WJE Online).

How do I talk positively about Schleiermacher without being hated by the conservative Reformed and having them accuse me of harboring Liberal Protestantism in my heart? My first answer is that B.B. Warfield called Schleiermacher a genius in his Studies In Theology, of which I read right before the The Christian Faith. Warfield's comments were what caused me to actually read Schleiermacher (and thanks to KCLS's interlibrary loan who saved me the $85 list price). I read ultimately read The Christian Faith because of the infamy of Karl Barth's criticism of Schleiermacher. (But, was Barth actually a critic of Schleiermacher or really a disciple?) I'd also defend myself by saying that Schleiermacher thought his work was an asset to the Church, and an improvement on Calvin. His work was not written in hatred like the works of Ludwig Feuerbach and David Strauss. There are many times in the Christian Faith when Schleiermacher veers at the last moment away from a strong heterodox position. Overall, this review will be a positive evaluation, granted that Schleiermacher is read critically and understood that his system is a failure due to his inherited system from Kant and Hegel. First, some background--

He was a German Theologian and a Pastor. It's a mystery, what kind of sermons did he preach? Especially since Schleiermacher has been wrongly accused of being an atheist. My friend Josh Hurd explained it best to me that Schleiermacher believed that his The Christian Faith was a service to the church, and he was working out an improved Systematic Theology based on his belief in the veracity of Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel criticisms of Christianity. I also suppose The Christian Faith may be seen as an attempt to reconcile the Reformed and Lutheran Churches as well (as Barth made the same attempts.)

(Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1768 – 1834)

Here's a sample sentence from The Christian Faith to demonstrate how hard it is to read:

"If we include in this mechanism all inferior life, animal and vegetable (since there can, in this conception, be no question of a universal life of the heavenly bodies), then free causes, by which we mean mean, are the sole finite causality, and it only needs one step to leave the divine causality as the only one, i.e. to hold what we have already shown to be destructive of the feeling of absolute dependence, and with it all piety--that men should regard themselves too as simply part of this mechanism, and should treat consciousness of self-activity as only an unavoidable illusions.", Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith I.49.1, pg. 190-191

The Christian Faith begins with an important polemic of Knowing, Feeling, and Doing, where Schleiermacher explains that Feeling is Piety, and therefore Feeling is the realm of revelation of God because Feeling is the place where Experience encounters Knowledge, and therefore (here it comes...) where we really find and know and meet god is in our feeling of absolute dependence. I don't know if I am able to express this more profoundly other than by saying that Schleiermacher's God is actually defined as the feeling of absolute dependence. This short statement is the foundation of Schleiermacher's system and cannot be understated. And so, unless you read The Christian Faith in this understand of God as a feeling of absolute dependence, it will be one long frustrating, misunderstanding and useless venture through the almost 800 pages.

Back to the prolegomena, The Christian Faith is an apologetic book and an answer to pantheism or possibly deism of the Enlightenment. However, the books does not deny deism or pantheism, but rather it finds understanding by moving forward with Christianity as if God is inaccessible to us and as if we only have this vague feeling of absolute dependence to know God. If we are unable to say anything meaningful about God, we can turn our theology into anthropology and say something meaningful about God -- not by analyzing or scrutinizing God -- but rather by recognizing the inadequacies and failures of man, especially where all we have is our absolute feeling of dependence even if we do not know what we are dependent upon. 

So, considering this prolegomena, the Trinity only appears an appendix with only a few pages dedicated to it at the end of the book. Jesus is not the God-man, but rather the man who exhibits a perfection of the feeling of absolute dependence. The Church becomes that which is entrusted with the feeling of absolute dependence from Jesus, that could not be fully received unless Jesus leaves us.

I know all of this sounds like thick and deep heresy, and it is so, but the book is still a genius work (as B.B. Warfield called him) in understanding what Piety means. I suppose this is an indefensible position of praise, and maybe a contradiction in my theology. Maybe if I move on to Barth, it will help.

Several of my friends has said that Barth said that the answer to Schleiermacher was to go through Schleiermacher. So in some regard this explains Barth tremendously, and shows why Barth is a great improvement over Schleiermacher, however there are some failures in Barth that are not in Schleiermacher, especially in regards to Schleiermacher's superior handling of Pelagianism and Manichaeism, and Schleiermacher's doctrine of Predestination. 

So with Barth, if theology is actually anthropology, then that means that to do true theology means to understand theology as actually the theological anthropology of the man Jesus Christ alone: hence Barthian Christocentrism means we can only know God through man, that is, the man Jesus Christ. Voila! I've just explained Barth and Schleiermacher simply? (Hence Barth's rejection of Natural Revelation, etc.) God is only knowable through the man of Jesus Christ alone. So, I believe that Barth is not the end of this story, in terms of there's more to be said here, because what has been said is not enough but still very exciting. Hopefully there will be a link between Barthianism and Reformed Theology that unifies the church in the future.

Anecdotes from the Christian Faith

Pelagianism or Manichaeism

Schleiermacher said that there are two great dangers of falling into either Pelagianism or Manichaeism. Pelagianism occurs when we deny that man has an evil nature and say that there is no evil. Manichaeism is when we elevate Satan to the level of God. In Manichaeism, there are two ultimate deities, one is a good God and the other is a bad God where all the good comes from the good God and all the bad comes from the bad God. Ying and Yang. The only solution is to understand that God is sovereign over all even evil intermediaries. This is where Schleiermacher triumphs over Barth, for his doctrine of Predestination is far superior to Barth's.

"For if we are too readily disposed to exclude sin from the range of our absolute dependence on God, we inevitably verge upon Manichaeism; while if we seek to reconcile it with the original perfection of man, we shall hardly avoid Pelagianism. It may, in fact, be said that in the development of the Church's doctrine there has been an almost constant wavering between these antagonistic positions." ~ Christian Faith 2.65.2

Calvin's Proof of Satan's Existence

Schleiermacher dismisses Satan as a non-entity, however in his discussion he reminded me of Calvin's proof of Satan's necessity in his Christian Faith 1.45.2 (henceforth CF). Schleiermacher points to Calvin's Institutes 1.14.17, yet calls this the best argument for the existence of Satan.  The gist of Calvin's argument is that since God is absolutely sovereign and good, therefore he by necessity must have an agent or beings that are intermediaries to reconcile the fact that God is good yet evil exists. That being must desire to do evil for evil ends, but must be ordained by god for a chief and final good ends. The only alternate is to fall into Pelagianism or Manichaeism.

Inverting Scripture

A common exegetical tactic of Schleiermacher is to declare a clear passage to have an opposite meaning of the most plain reading. However, I wasn't able to quickly find a convincing proof. A quick search was his proof that angel's aren't real entities in CF I.43.1 by appealing to Zechariah 1:12 (which is a very trinitarian passage). Remember that Schleiermacher isn antitrinitarian.

"Then sthe angel of the Lord said, ‘O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?’" ~ Zechariah 1:12 (ESV)

Engaging with Calvin

It appears that Schleiermacher had a particularly high regard for Calvin and his Institutes, however he did view Calvin has deficient and hoped to improve upon Calvin. Here's a quote from the passage I quoted earlier that summarizes Schleiermacher's view of the Reformed Tradition:

"It was obviously from these two elements that the acute mind of Calvin composed his formulas, though they will not harmonize in one consistent view." ~ Schleiermacher, CF 1.45.2

In the preface was also this antagonistic comparison of The Christian Faith to The Institutes of the Christian Religion:

"The editors of this translation, first published in 1928, agreed with the opinion of those best qualified to judge that as a comprehensive exposition of Protestant theology Schleiermacher's Christian Faith was second only to Calvin's Institutes. They were right--unless perhaps we prefer to reverse the order of first and second place or, better, are content to set these two theological masterpieces side by side without presuming to rank them." - B.A. Gerrish, 'John Nuveen Professor Emeritus, The University of Chicago' (CF, page v.)

God as Redeemer

Since I'm unable to reproduce the Christian Faith in this blog, I won't quote one of the many passages discussing God as Redeemer. If Redeemer is an attribute of God, its by necessity that God would create a world that needed his redemption, and this one of Schleiermacher's better arguments for predestination.

Other Works

On Religion:speeches to its cultured despisers and his Life of Jesus have received tremendous discussion. His Life of Jesus appears often in the books regarding the Quest for the Historical Jesus.

Final Anecdote

"For our mutual consolation I offer a historical reminiscence. Schleiermacher was struggling to finish the first draft of his Christian Faith, on September 7, 1822 he wrote to his friend Twesten: "Every time I see this book, I sigh at its bulk." I know that my own Dogmatics is already a good deal bulkier than Schleiermacher's Christian Faith. Yet Twesten's reply on March 9, 1823 might equally well be applied to my own book: "You complain about the size of your book, but do not worry; for most of us the size is indispensable to understanding, and the few who would perhaps have understood you from a lesser work will certainly accept with gratitude all the eluciations you want to give" (cf. G. Heinrici, D. August Twesten nach Tagebuchern und Briefen, 1899, p. 377, 379f.) Yes, for a right understanding and exposition there is need of a thorough elucidation. May it not be that I have been too short and not too long at some important points?" - Karl Barth, Preface to CD II/2, pg ix

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Martin Buber was a Jewish philosopher that wrote a very famous poetic psychology book titled: Ich und Du (I and Thou). It's a short book, around 150 pages that was published in 1923. It's a difficult read, especially since its German poetry translated into English, and is a difficult philosophical theology treatise that is comparable to Jonathan Edwards' Nature of True Virtue.

I first learned about Martin Buber in Paul Tillich's book Theology of Culture, where Tillich devotes a chapter to Buber's I and Thou. I'd actually recommend reading Tillich's chapter on Buber before reading Buber's I and Thou, or some sort of summary (like this one at stanford.)

(Martin Buber and Rabbi Binyamin)

Summary of I And Thou

Buber defines two primitive words: I-Thou and I-It. (And before I say more than I know, I recommend reading this work before repeating anything I say about Buber, as the preface of my edition warns, "it must be read more than once."). I-Thou is the primitive where knowledge of existence dwells, but there is constant danger of falling into the I-It primitive. It may be helpful to think of these primitives as single words rather than relationships.

I-Thou verse I-It

The I-Thou is awareness of other beings, not by any universal Platonic form, or summation of attributes, but by dialectical relation with that very Thou entity. In knowing Thou is more than the summation of all It's attributes, but it is the very Thou. In knowing Thou, then we arrive at knowledge of ourselves defined in the I-Thou reciprocal relationship with Thou, because I only understand my own existence in direct relationship with that Thou as a I-Thou primitive correlation. Once the Thou is reduced to a universal, I am also dissolved into those same universals, and likewise, when Thou is reduced to It's attributes, then I am also reduce to non-existence in the I-It. So the true knowledge of being lies in only the I-Thou.

The Eternal Thou

The Eternal Thou is similar to Jonathan Edwards' Being In General (see his treatise: The Nature of True Virtue). The Eternal Thou is a monotheistic being from which all Thous are derived, but no one Thou is the Eternal Thou.

The plurality of I and Thou

Paul Tillich's discussion of I-Thou draws out the plurality of the Thou, because to know a Thou means to know all other Thou's in relation to that Thou, yet without falling into the bland universal It. So at the same time, I not only know myself by knowing the Thou of my I-Thou relationship. I know all others of my own I (think community), in relationship to all other Thous.  So I believe this is where the Trinity must be inserted, here to make sense of the Eternal Thou, and this is where an individual Christian does not have a meaningful relationship with the Trinity apart from the collective church body of Christians.

Conclusion

Paul Tillich's Theology of Culture has a very useful analogy for explaining the two primary ways that philosophy engages God: meeting a stranger (i.e. Deism or Atheism) and overcoming estrangement (i.e. Pantheism or Materialism), which I learned about through Michael Horton's A Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. Buber's I and Thou provides a system of knowledge that doesn't collapse into either extreme of Deism or Pantheism.

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It's almost impossible to engage in a conversation about culture without someone mentioning H. Richard Niehbur's Christ & Culture. I learned about Niehbur through D.A. Carson's magisterial Christ & Culture: Revisited, which I unfortunately read before I had actually read Niebuhr's book, which was a great detriment to myself. Al Mohler recently invoked the infamous quote, summarizing Liberal Protestantism after Rob Bell's stinky Love Wins controversy:

H. Richard Niebuhr famously once distilled liberal theology into this sentence: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." ~ Al Mohler

And again, Al Mohler lament's in a discussion on Original Sin about where have all the great theological commentators gone, such as Paul Tillich, and H. Richard Niebuhr (and I would add Francis Schaeffer.)

It's amazing how often H. Richard Niebuhr's book, "Christ & Culture", is still discussed today. It was published in 1955, I recently found and read a reprint of Niebuhr's classic that celebrates the book's half-century milestone that includes a foreword by Martin E. Marty, and a preface by James M. Gustafson and a very helpful summary introductory essay by H. Richard Niebuhr. Niebuhr's essay gave a great context to the book by listing examples of famous theologians that fit each of his five categories of Christ & Culture. Gustafson's short history book was more nostalgic than clarifying, although it added the minimum details to read the book. Unfortunately, the was not much biographical information on H. Richard Niebuhr in this book, which was disappointing since this is my first engagement with Niebuhr. All I took away from the prefaces was that Reinhold Niebuhr was Richard's older brother, and that Richard had a son who also published theology books, but I don't know of any of Richard's son's writings, and that Reinhold has produced a large amount of books. However, one anecdote from the introduction was a list of George Marsden quotes that gave a negative evaluation of Niebuhr's classic, which the editor was more offended by than addressed in anyway. (I love Marsden, especially his biography Jonathan Edwards: A Life, and know that he wrote many other church history books, especially on fundamentalism, so I think Marsden's critiques are worth considering.)

I turned to The Google for a Niebuhr biography, and was disappointed by the information on the famous MMORPG commonly known as Wikipedia where I only learned that his first name is Helmut and some history about the United Church of Christ. However, I was able to find H.R. Niebuhr's obituary from the New York Times hosted at his alma-matter, Elmhurst College (Read It Here). 

The first thing to know about Christ & Culture, is this book is foremost considered a book on ethics. "Christian Ethics" was not my first thought when I categorized this book, but "ethics" is the first word everyone says when they see me holding this Niebuhr volume. Maybe its because its a seminary class that young minds are first dragged into the mess of Christian Ethics. When I think of Ethics, I think of Jonathan Edward's magisterial Ethical Writings (Yale Volume 8) containing The Nature of True Virtue and The Ends For Which God Created The World, etc. And when I think of Christ & Culture I typically think of Luther's Two Kingdoms or the recent fad topic of Federal Vision and the perennial topic of Church and State.

At last, the content review! As you may know already, Christ & Culture consists of five categories of the ways that Christians have historically understood culture in relation to Christianity: Christ Against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ Above Culture, Christ And Culture In Paradox, Christ Transforming Culture. In short, each of theses views have things to embrace and elements to avoid.

Christ Against Culture

Christ Against Culture basically is the view that culture is all bad and needs to be annihilated.  The pinnacle example via Niebuhr was Tertullian, and his rejection of culture. Although Tertullian is analyzed in depth, to be frank, this Chapter read like one big rant against Leo Tolstoy. Yes, Tolstoy was an Anabaptist, and Yes, everyone hates Anabaptists. That's what the reformation was actually about -- hating Anabaptists. But, Tolstoy wrote two amazing novels: War and Peace and Anna Karenina. And, not everyone can be a "Dostoevsky" and write a "Brothers Karamazov." Even if Niebuhr is right about Tolstoy, it's still good to separate Tolstoy out from the disaster of the Radical Reformation. Niebuhr makes great analysis of this perspective, and the contradiction of being a literary master and someone who rejects culture.

Christ Of Culture

This is the great chapter about John Locke's "The Reasonableness of Christianity, Friedrich Schleiermacher's "The Christian Faith" and the works of Albrecht Ritschl. The irony of this chapter is that it's basically the same as Christ Against Culture but it's arch-enemy. This is where the modern-scientist, like Marcion, comes and rips out the supernatural and unfashionable parts of the New Testament, in the same way as Thomas Jefferson did to his bible.

Christ Above Culture

Above, as in Idealism. When I say "idealism", don't think Locke, but rather think Doctor Angelicus Thomas of Aquinas. If Christianity were to perfect culture, no one could do it better than Aquinas.

Christ And Culture In Paradox

Here lies Martin Luther's doctrine of the "Two Kingdoms". R.I.P.

Christ Transforming Culture

Augustine of Hippo, and John Calvin too are lumped into this category, and as most of Church History.

Conclusion

This book is a recorded lecture, so it doesn't have the depth as a theology book normally has that was intended primarily for print. However, its still ecellent, in the same way as Abraham Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism were, despite being first lectures and second a theology book. People will talk about this book for another fifty years, and I hope they talk about it much more than the Two Kingdoms.

I recommend reading my review of D.A. Carson's Christ & Culture: Revisited..

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