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THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EDUCATED CLASSES IN PROTESTANT GERMANY...
In making this distinction he did not believe that he was introducing anything
new. He thought that he was merely bringing up to date a tradition that had
long existed. For old Protestant theology, subscribing to the true doctrine as
revealed in the Bible, to the theologia vera, defined a Christian. Semler, however,
distinguished between religion and theology in the sense that subscribing to
a Christian religion was what made a Christian, while the term “theology”
was reserved for the specialized knowledge possessed only by the Christian
teachers, professors, or clergy. In making this distinction Semler’s aim was to
establish theology as an academic discipline, define its place in the Church, and
deprive it of the right it claimed to represent the generality and universality of
Christian belief and thinking.
In addition to discriminating between theology and religion, Semler drew
a distinction between “public” and “private religion”? and between “public”
and “private theology”.”’ The notion of “private religion” as opposed to “public
religion” meant a personal belief in God, acommitment to the word of God as
it had been expressed in the Bible. The element of personal choice and private
religion meant that in his beliefs and his practice, the individual was bound
neither by traditional doctrines nor by the authority of the church. The private
religion of the individual Christian who was prepared to think for himself was
no longer committed to the official church dogma.”$ This “true, private Chris¬
tian religion” followed no “prescribed forms”; everyone practiced it “according
to his own conscience.””
Thus private religion expressed itself where Christians had found their
own independent access to and appropriation of the fundamental truths of
the Christian religion. It involved their conscience and feelings, understand¬
ing and will, whereas for many, official religion had degenerated into a habit
which did not involve their inner selves. If, however, private religion was the
individual’s personal matter, it was also subject to change as a result of new ex¬
periences, ideas and knowledge. But for Semler, private religion meant neither
26 SEMLER, Johann Salomo, Versuch zu einer freien theologischen Lehrartzur Bestätigung und Er¬
läuterung seines lateinischen Buches, Halle, C. H. Hemmerde, 1777, 7ff., and passim; on the
subject of “private religion” cf. esp. RENDTORFF, Trutz, Kirche und Theologie. Die systematische
Funktion des Kirchenbegriffs in der neuen Theologie, Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1966,
36ff.; HoRNIG, Gottfried, Die Freiheit der christlichen Privatreligion. Semlers Begründung des
religiösen Individualismus in der Protestantischen Aufklärungstheologie, Neue Zeitschrift für
systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 21 (1979), 198-211.
27 Ibid., 181 and passim.
28 SCHÜTZ, C. Gottfried (ed.), Johann Salomo Semlers letztes Glaubensbekenntnis über natürliche
und christliche Religion, Königsberg, Nicolovius, 1792, 137.
25 Ibid. p.139.