Christianity is not based on pure subjectivism
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Biblical Christianity is not pure subjectivism. There is an objective content
— Christ’s life, death, and resurrection — that undergirds our faith. Without
this content there is no way to know if we are depending upon the right God.
Hegel, himself no friend of biblical Christianity, criticized Schleiermacher,
saying that if the essence of religion was the feeling of absolute dependence,
then the dog, being absolutely dependent upon people, is the most divine
creature of all. Many people feel dependent on their spouses, their jobs, or
the teaching of other religions, but this does not make them truly pious. Only
those dependent upon the biblical Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, will
ever find salvation (John 14:6).