An Ethical Founding of Christology in Liberal Theology. The Exemplary Humanity of Jesus vs. His Divinity, in the System of Fr. Schleiermacher

Considered the father of liberal theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher is the first thinker to attempt to develop a system of Christian doctrine that starts “from below”, which is grounded in the natural. Christianity is presented as the result of the exercise of a natural function of human nature, under the influence of a certain model that is equally human (that of Jesus Christ). For Schleiermacher, spirituality does not begin “from above”, by man receiving a revelation, but begins “from below”, being based on some capacities naturally present in the human being. The spiritual is embedded in human nature, not being something external to man, which only through a special act of divinity would descend to the natural realm. The founder of Christianity, the man Jesus Christ, does not perform any mediation initiated by the divine towards man; he is not credited with any “sacrificial offering” required by the divinity as a price for restoring the relationship with humanity. He represents only an exemplary man, who fully lived his potential of connection to the Totality and who can thus be taken as a model by any ordinary man. Jesus is not the Savior, but only the perfect example, the archetypal instantiation of the connection of man to the divine Whole. Therefore, the emergence of Christianity represents a natural phenomenon, which does not involve raising humanity above the human but optimizing the intrinsic potentialities of human nature.