Schleiermacher and Sustainability by Shelli M. Poe

Author:Shelli M. Poe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611648928
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

THE ORIGINAL PERFECTION OF THE WORLD

For Schleiermacher, the terms “creation” and “preservation” signify not the beginning and the continuation of the world as two separate events but the created world as it is sustained by God. The constitution of this world and its original perfection are discussed in the third section of the doctrine of creation in Christian Faith (§§57–61). Assuming with traditional dogmatic accounts that in its original state both the world and the metaphorical first pair, Adam and Eve, were perfect, what has happened to humanity, and how did the world get into the desolate state in which it is now? Schleiermacher’s interpretation employs an understanding of the concept of original perfection that is different from much that is represented in traditional doctrine. For Schleiermacher, the term does not designate some primordial state of the world before or outside the existence of human beings, nor some perfect ontological structure of the first pair. Moreover, he asserts that original perfection of the world and of human beings cannot be considered in isolation of each other: “there can be talk only of original perfection of the world in relation to humankind.”58

Schleiermacher explains that original perfection of the world has two aspects: it relates to the “natural subsistence of human organization,”59 which God has put in place to conduct all other finite being to what has spirit, and the “knowability” (Erkennbarkeit)60 of the world overall. Both aspects ensure the continuity of religious self-consciousness within the totality of creation, with the result that the innate human capacity for an ultimately uninterrupted God-consciousness cannot be lost. The perfection of the world thus consists in two things: human beings are endowed with the ability to lead other finite beings in the world toward the reign of God, and human beings can know the world and its existents and distinguish these from human self-consciousness. Within the world, thus originally perfect, the necessary conditions are in place for human beings to know or recognize aspects of the world that affect their self-consciousness and stir the development of their God-consciousness. An increasing awareness of the world and creation goes hand in hand with a growing God-consciousness and, it can be argued, could motivate Christians to preserve the world since original perfection has never been lost.

Similarly, Schleiermacher does not understand original perfection of human beings as a onetime state of innocence or as the ability not to sin. Rather, the term signifies the human capacity to receive grace or, as Dawn DeVries puts it, “the possibility for the actualization of God-consciousness both within the human race as a whole and within humanity.”61 Longing for communion with God, even if a person is unconscious of such yearning, is an anthropological constant, an inalienable characteristic of being human. This longing belongs to the original perfection of human nature.62 It cannot be annulled by sin. Hence no sin, including the first sin of the supposed first human pair, has the potential to destroy the world or to totally corrupt human nature.

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