By the 1790’s there were two fundamental avenues for the reception of Kant’s critical
philosophy. First, there was the way of Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel, who sought complete closure
in the derivation of a system of reason from first principles concerning consciousness and its
possibility. The second way was that of Schleiermacher and the Romantics, who denied that such
systematization was possible. Schleiermacher located the ground of self-consciousness in an
immediate relation to the Absolute given to consciousness in feeling. This ground could not be
grasped by the intellect but could only be experienced. It conditioned all knowing and willing,
and thereby conditioned the possibility of ethics and metaphysics. This understanding of the self
lay at the basis of the existentialism of Heidegger and Kierkegaard. It also made possible a
philosophical and theological systematic appropriation of Luther’s radical insights. In this paper
I will discuss how Schleiermacher’s reception of Kant’s philosophy conditioned his understanding
of self-consciousness, and the implications of this understanding for existentialist theology
grounded in experience and praxis.