Was Gisle a Schleiermachian? Gisle Johnson & Friedrich Schleiermacher

A good theologian has many influences in his life, both those in the present, and those in the past. Martin Luther once wrote, “If you, O human being … are capable of unveiling the concealed truth only in part—be it as large as it may—then know that there is a witness there that points past you and will only be revealed to you or others in the future.” Eclecticism is thus an important part of being a theologian; but, significantly, it must be a learned eclecticism, reaching out into the various dimensions of theological thought from the solid foundation of the revelation of God. Gisle's influence are quite varied, and we learn from his biographical sources that, during his travels in continental Europe, he both gleaned from as well as vetted the complex strains of thought he encountered there. Indeed, his early mentor, Christian Thistedahl, had given Gisle a solid grounding in Lutheran confessionalism and even scholasticism, having had him read Stenerson's Lærebog i Religionen and Johan Gerhardus's Methodus Studii Theologici (see Kolsrud's biography of Thistedahl, pp. 92-93).

Nonetheless, I recall being markedly concerned upon my initial reading of Gisle's Grundrids, as he seems to construct theology from subjective self-conscious and follow a material ordering of loci similar to Friedrich Schleiermacher, the so called "Father of Liberal Theology." After all, who ends a theological treatise with the Trinity? This raises the question: is Gisle Johnson a Schleiermachian? In my estimation, the answer is no—Gisle had many influences ranging from those of Lutheran confessionalism all the way to Hans Martensen, Søren Kierkegaard, Johannes von Hofmann, and beyond. But don't take my word for it! Here's a translated section from his biographer, Godvin Ousland, pages 61-63 of En Kirkehøvding:

Influence from Schleiermacher

The investigation we now undertake of Gisle Johnson's relationship to German theology is no easy matter. It is always difficult to trace indirect influence in a person, and especially in a theologian. Because the material is given, two theologians can easily arrive at the same chains of reasoning completely independently of each other. One must therefore reckon with often being wrong. Nevertheless, the investigation cannot be avoided. If it is to be possible to assess Johnson's theology correctly, one must first and foremost be clear about whether he is original in the overall picture. It could, after all, be imagined that Johnson was dependent on a major theologian such as, for example, von Hofmann. Or one could imagine that he was an eclectic who had taken up ideas from various quarters without melting them down into anything coherent and unified. Finally, it is possible that he may have received impulses from the best in the theological thought of his time and melted them together with his own material on the forge of the spirit, so that the result became a new product.

The entire theology of Gisle Johnson is to be drawn into this investigation, both from his earliest years and from his last. It is not primarily theological detailed questions that are to be examined, but the main questions: the theological starting point itself and the method. We want to see how his theological system came into being and grew from the ground up. In this way, we are also led toward the center of Johnson's theology.

The theology that Johnson became acquainted with in Germany was, in its starting point, for the most part determined by Schleiermacher. Of course, his influence is also noticeable in Johnson's theology, as it is generally in all experiential theology. In Schleiermacher's view of dogmatics as the independent scientific self-reflection of the Christian faith, there is a point of contact. When Schleiermacher defines religion and turns against both intellectualism and moralism, Johnson does the same. It says in Schleiermacher: “Piety, which forms the basis of all church communities, is, considered purely in itself, neither a knowledge nor a doing, but a determination of feeling or immediate self-awareness.” But Johnson cannot limit himself to referring religion to feeling, even if this is identified with the “immediate self-consciousness”: “Religion is thus something that encompasses man's personal existence in its entirety. It is neither a mere matter of feeling, nor a mere matter of understanding, nor a mere matter of will. It is a matter of the heart, the feeling, knowing, and willing heart's firm, living conviction—grounded in the innermost center of personality and therefore also active in the whole of personal life—of God, his existence and relationship to man; it is essentially the heart's faith in God.”

As we have seen earlier, Gisle Johnson found little reason to rejoice in the fact that it was precisely Schleiermacher who came to shape the Lutheran theology that revitalized in the 19th century after the slumber of rationalism. In Johnson's view, Schleiermacher's theology was far too vague and confessionally undetermined. In reality, there is no clear qualitative distinction in Schleiermacher between immanent religion and revealed religion, nor between profane science and theology. This confessional indifferentism, as we have seen earlier, Johnson traces back to the Herrnhut influence on Schleiermacher. It is particularly interesting to note that already the young Johnson had discovered the line that runs from Zinzendorf through Schleiermacher to the 19th-century subjectivism in theology.

And yet it is clear that Gisle Johnson has learned from Schleiermacher when he takes his theological starting point in the Christian consciousness. Nevertheless, there is an essential difference between these two theologians. The Christian consciousness that Johnson takes as his starting point is not the immediate one, but the new consciousness created in the encounter with God's Word in Scripture. As we have seen earlier, Johnson believes that the distance is not so great between the theology of the old dogmaticians, who took their starting point in Scripture, and his own theology, which takes its starting point in the believer's consciousness of his justification. And he finds the point of contact in the testimonium Spiritus Sancti internum. His own theology is evidently nothing other than an unfolding and description of what, through the Spirit's inner testimony, is revealed and created in the human heart. As we have shown above, the source of systematic theology is not to be reason in its immediate form, but “reason permeated by faith.” However, since the Spirit's testimony must always come on the basis of God's word, Scripture comes to play quite a different role in Johnson than in Schleiermacher.

It is clear that when we deal with such a markedly confessional theologian as Johnson, one cannot expect to find greater direct influence from Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher undoubtedly came to guide most directions within 19th-century German theology. But he did not form a 'school' in the proper sense. The theologians who carried his tradition forward usually went their own ways. And it is through a series of these theologians that Johnson has received impulses from Schleiermacher. For even in the most confessional Lutheranism with which Johnson especially came into contact, one can in principle see traces of Schleiermacher. During his journey abroad, Johnson received an immediate impression of this theology; through study after his return home, he deepened this acquaintance, and then we find traces of it in his own theology.