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Философия религии В. Де Ветте: религиозное чувство и пути его постижения
This paper is devoted to the study of main ideas of philosophy of religion
of W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1849), the German and Swiss Protestant theologian and
biblical scholar. Two elements of de Wette’s work had a prolonged influence on the
development of theology and religious studies, i.e. the original and fairly elaborate
doctrine of the religious feeling and drafts of topics and methods of the planned scientific
study of religion in the framework of theological knowledge. The article shows which
place de Wette’s constructions occupy in the development of the German-language
philosophy of religion of the 19th century. They are close to Fries’s ideas, though they
do not go back to them in terms of their origin. De Wette states that the essence and
source of religion are the unconveyable, the initially non-conscious feeling that emerges
separately in each individual and has its foundation in the perception of the unity
and the need for separate objects and phenomena. The natural and at the same time
supernatural ability to feel the divine is also termed by de Wette the inner revelation.
This complex feeling is comprised by several elements, i.e. the anticipation of the
presence and activity in the finite world of the eternal, non-conditional, omnipotent
Will; the anticipation of God’s kingdom on earth; full trust and self-offering to God;
awe in front of the beautiful and elevated in nature and culture. The feeling is initially
image-related, then it is conceptualised by the power of reason on the collective level of
community; its symbolisation generates religious institutions. De Wette’s contribution
to the development of knowledge of religion is made up of his focus on making clear
what religion is, his desire to reconstruct the initially non-conscious religious feeling
by means of extremely strict introspection and reflection; the claim that in order to
study religion, one should master the language of its texts; the claim that it is necessary
to study history of religion. The article shows that in its conception and methodology,
de Wette’s doctrine foreshadows both the later-to-come liberal theology and the early
projects in religious studies.