Gud og samvittigheden. Et tema i Ralph Waldo Emersons prædikener

Despite the fact that the entire collection of Ralph WaldoEmerson’s sermons was published more than two decades ago, scholarlyinterest has so far been limited. By focusing on the particular themeof the relation between God and individual conscience, the presentarticle analyzes most of Emerson’s sermons on this particular topic.Emphasizing Emerson’s background in Boston-Unitarianism and histheological debt to William Ellery Channing, it is demonstrated howEmerson already in his sermons cherishes the idea of a living, directconnection between God and the soul. The fact that he inherits fromCalvinism the idea of God as moral perfection, leads him to regard theindividual’s conscience as the highest faculty and the place where Godprimarily speaks to man. Conscience also implies an obligation to judgefor yourself or having ‘self-trust’, and in this way the sermons reveal thetheological roots of the later Emerson’s concept of self-reliance.