the nature of religion and religious experience in schleiermacher’s view

among the theologians of the 18th century and the period known as enlightenment in europe, particularly in germany, schleiermacher explains religion and religious emporience not in terms of metaphysics or ethics but from the viewpoint of religious intuition. his defining characteristic is that unlike his contemporaries, he does not reduce religion to ethics, science, metaphysics or art. having established the independency of religion, his attempt is to show that there is no conflict between religion and other arenas of knowledge. the way to interpret scriptures and the principals of religious hermeneutics is another component of schleiermacher’s thought. in this regard, the bearing his thought and method have had on the contemporaneous philosophers of religion should not be neglected. the present paper initially puts forward schleiermacher’s views on the distinction between religion on the one hand and science, ethics, metaphysics and art on the other hand, elaborating on the indeperdence of religion; and then it explins his ideas as regards the intuition of the reality of religion in the light of his key concepts associated with religious experience.