Schleiermacher's readers have long been familiar with his proposal for an 'eternal covenant'
between theology and natural science. Yet there is disagreement both about what this 'covenant'
amounts to why Schleiermacher proposed it and how he meant it to be persuasive. In The
Eternal Covenant Pedersen argues contrary to received wisdom that the 'eternal covenant' is
not first a methodological or political proposal but is rather the end result of a complex
case from the doctrine of God the notion of a world and an account of divine action. With his
compound case against miracles Schleiermacher secures the in-principle explicability of
everything in the world through natural causes. However his case is not only negative. Far
from a mere concession the eternal covenant is an argument for what Schleiermacher calls 'the
essential identity of ethics and natural philosophy.' Indeed because the nature system is both
intended for love and wisely ordered the world is a supremely beautiful divine artwork and is
therefore the absolute self-revelation of God. Schleiermacher's case is a challenging
alternative to reigning accounts of God nature divine action and the relationship between
religion and science.
