Barth, Schleiermacher and the task of dogmatics1

Abstract

The article focuses on the similarities and differences between Friedrich Schleiermacher's and Karl Barth's views on the task and nature of dogmatics. It shows that Schleiermacher sought to awaken in his hearers an awareness of the immediate presence of God, a presence achieved and fulilled in Jesus Christ and emanating from him as "the union of the divine essence with human nature in the form of the common Spirit which animates the corporate life of believers". Barth aimed by contrast to speak of the transcendent power of the Word of God in Jesus Christ, which he identified as "the humanity of God," as the true ground, object and goal of Christian theology. In this sense, both identiied the essential substance of the faith christologically and, at the same time, as contemporary.