Schleiermacher and Reformed Scholastics on the Divine Attributes

Schleiermacher's doctrine of the divine attributes has been controversial from its day until the present, with various nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century figures seeing it as a theological novum. Recent work has clarified Schleiermacher's understanding of the status of the attributes, challenging the simplistic readings of his critics. However, the charge of novelty still has not been addressed. I argue in response to this charge that Schleiermacher's doctrine is best explained as an inheritance of the Reformed tradition. Not only is Schleiermacher's doctrine of the divine attributes nearly identical to that of his Reformed Scholastic predecessors, but Schleiermacher holds the same conceptions for the same reasons.