Abstract

The developments in science and philosophy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries created a methodological crisis for traditional Christianity. Friedrich Schleiermacher addressed the fundamental questions of how theological issues are framed and how the object of theological study is to be understood. The dipolar method of Charles Hartshorne provides a useful tool in understanding and analyzing the contributions of the "father of modern theology." In the dipolar method apparent opposites are related as either different levels of the same reality or as part to whole. The two poles maintain the integrity of their content while coming together to more fully define the reality under consideration. The poles relate in terms of a conjunction where both poles are required for reality to be expressed. ;Schleiermacher's epistemology is easily framed in dipolar terms. Proper thinking is the conjunction in self-consciousness of the sensual data of experience and the activity of reason. Ultimately, knowing takes place in the conjunction of the divine activity of God expressed as the Transcendent Ground of knowing and the human activity expressed in proper thinking as the "will-to-know." Although God cannot be known, he can be experienced in self-consciousness in the "feeling of absolute dependence." ;Schleiermacher developed his hermeneutical system out of a life-long study of and appreciation for philology. His "art of understanding" expresses the conjunction of the context provided by the language employed and the context created by the inner thoughts and motivations of the author . Without both of these poles true understanding is not possible. ;The dipolarity evident in Schleiermacher's epistemology and hermeneutics is also apparent in his dogmatics. An analysis of The Christian Faith reveals dipolar relationships within the primary structure of his work and within the major doctrinal expressions of his thought. ;Schleiermacher's revolutionary contributions to theological method are consistent with, and in some cases parallel to, the basic tenents of Hartshorne's process methodology. The dipolar elements discovered in Schleiermacher's thought suggest that he would have been sympathetic to the fundamental principles and methods of contemporary Process thought