Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann

Social relations between humans and animals are complex and require nuanced ethical consideration. This volume investigates human-animal relations from a constructive-critical, and theological perspective.

Christoph Schwöbel shaped a generation of theologians with his vision of the Trinity as an eternal conversation which addresses all humans and draws them into conversation with each other and God. This volume continues Schwöbel’s theology through essays engaging his central topics of conversation: Trinity, tradition, the arts, religion and society.

Even in an increasingly secular society, love remains central. Eberhard Jüngel’s "Theology of Love" is an ambitious attempt to convey Christian faith in an accessible, experiential way.

Bruce L. McCormack draws on his multi-award-winning interpretation of Karl Barth’s theology in several interconnected steps to develop a new systematic theological approach, the developmental history of which becomes visible here for the first time. This volume documents the most important studies on this journey, offered here in their first German translation.

Paul Ricœur engaged extensively with the significance of symbols, metaphors, and narratives, drawing on phenomenological, structuralist, and psychoanalytical influences, as well as on influences from analytical philosophy, to enrich hermeneutics. This proves to be particularly beneficial for the philosophy of religion. This volume is a continuation of the studies on the concept of significance, but can also be read in itself.

Significance has played a crucial role in the history of hermeneutic philosophy – and not just in Dilthey, Heidegger, and Blumenberg. However, there are few studies on the concept. Between vagueness requiring interpretation and over-determination that generates meaning, what is significant is interesting, thought-provoking, and challenging. This dynamic cannot be pinpointed – which makes it particularly enlightening in the philosophy of religion.

Hanns-Lilje-Stiftungspreis Freiheit und Verantwortung 2025

Revenge and retribution are making a comeback: aggressive emotions are being assessed more positively, the retribution theory of punishment is back in vogue, and retaliatory practices seem to serve a crucial role from both an ethnographic and evolutionary standpoint. How can this kind of valorization be reconciled with a Christian view of human coexistence? This volume succinctly captures current developments through a theological lens.

Der Band repräsentiert die internationale Diskussion über Christologie protestantischer, römisch-katholischer und anglikanischer Provenienz und belebt den Diskurs neu. Fokussiert werden Innovationen in den Wissenschaften vom Neuen Testament und der Patristik auf Christologie hin. Dabei werden vor allem zwei aktuelle Entwürfe von Christologie diskutiert , in denen die Dimensionen Kreuz, Auferweckung, Menschwerdung, ‚Jesus Remembered‘ neu bearbeitet sind – paradigmatisch im Ansatz und vollständig in der Ausführung.

Die Beiträge umfassen

Paradigmen von Christologie: Christologie als Verständigungsmedium über den Charakter heutiger Dogmatik in der Pluralität konfessioneller und positioneller Standpunkte, modernitätstheoretischer und traditionsbestimmter Kontexte.

Bestandsaufnahme und Revision: Kritische Auseinandersetzungen mit Heinrich Assel Elementare Christologie Bände 1-3 (2020) und Bruce McCormack The Humility of the Eternal Son (2021).

Christology – Revised: Beiträge zu gegenwärtig anstehenden Themen und möglichen künftigen Revisionen von Christologie.

Karl Barth’s theology is better understood when it is read in the context of secularization and the debates that surrounded it during his time. This is the starting point for this volume’s examination of Barth’s specific "theology of the world," that is, his theological perspective on non-Christians, the secular state, and profane culture. It paints a picture of a theology that constantly emphasized that the secular world is also God’s world.

To mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, renowned scholars of theology and philosophy from Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the US came together in Taiwan to reconsider the Reformation’s intellectual and reception history to launch a dialogue between the West and the (Far) East. What kind of creative resonance can the Western Reformation produce in China, e.g. as an Eastern reformation within the scope of the nascent Sino-Christianity?

The present volume examines an underdeveloped component in the theology of Karl Barth. Specifically, the work asks: how, and to what extent, can faith be understood as ontologically proper to the trinitarian becoming of God? The work argues for an ontological grounding of faith in the becoming of God. To do so, Watson performs an in-depth examination of Barth's understanding of the concept of faith. Using Barth's threefold movement of revelation, the work contends God can be thought of as the subject (Glaubender), predicate (Glaube), and object (Geglaubte) of faith. Barth's theological exposition of Jesus as subject and object of election offers a promising proposal for how faith is ontologically understood. At the same time, the argument brings to the fore a crucial component of Barth's theological program, namely, the concept of recognition (Anerkennung). God's recognizing faith is then conceived as the condition of the possibility of human faith. Drawing on Barth's entire oeuvre, Watson offers an understanding of the divine becoming of faith that opens possibilities for thinking systematically about the realization of the corresponding human faith.

Is theology a dead corpse or living organism? For Uruguayan Jesuit Juan Luis Segundo (1925-1996), theology is dynamic. Freedom and existence for central themes. Segundo believed that theology should be transformative in human lives. For a theology to be transformative, there must be a connection to existence. That is,　it must be existential. Yet most scholars have overlooked this assumption in critical analyses of liberation theology. This prima facie connection to existence is distinguishable　from existentialism as a school of philosophy. By showing the significant existential dimension to Segundo's theology, assessing his work and contribution to twentieth-century theology relates to freedom, ecumenism, the role of faith in society, and the relationship between faith and ideologies.

Religious studies and theology are two closely interwoven disciplines, both in their historical development and through their shared subject area of religions and a common collection of intellectual and cultural studies methods. It is unclear what distinguishes them from each other. This work examines the autonomy of the two subjects, especially in view of their close interweaving in terms of discourse theory.

The concept of image is central to Augustine’s argument for human dignity and it is the basis for Augustine’s appreciation of human identity. The present volume charts Augustine’s views on human identity in God’s image and explicates its applications to imagine the communal embeddedness of individuality in a growingly individualistic world.

Human actions have diverse consequences. Some consequences are intended, others are considered side effects, although they too – such as climate-damaging CO2 emissions – can be ethically relevant. Ethically speaking, considering consequences in a differentiated way is therefore clearly unavoidable. After discussing the influential concepts of utilitarianism and moral theology, the author presents his own approach to considering consequences.

The academic disciplines of Biblical Studies and Systematic Theology were long closely linked to one another. However, in the modern period they became gradually separated which led to increasing subject specialization, but also to a lamentable lacuna within the various branches of Divinity. As the lack of dialogue between Biblical Studies and the various theological disciplines increased, a minority-group of scholars in the past few decades reacted and sought to re-establish the time-honoured bonds between the disciplines. The present volume is part of this intellectual response, with contributions from scholars of various professional and denominational backgrounds. Together, the book's 25 chapters seek to reinvigorate the crucial cross-disciplinary dialogue, involving biblical, narrative, historical, systematic-theological and philosophic-theological perspectives. The book opens the horizon to contemporary research, and fills a lamentable research gap with a number of fresh contributions from scholars in the respective sub-disciplines

The 38 texts in this volume are like prismatic refractions of the main theological topic: God’s self-revelation, "I am the Lord, your God!," accurately characterized by Luther as the epitome of all promises. Shaped by decades of academic engagement with Luther and Hamann, the author expands this prism into a broad spectrum of systematic theology in studies on dogmatics, ethics, and religious philosophy.

This volume investigates to which extent evil is constitutive of the system identity of the Christian perspective on reality. Based on a model analysis of the role played by evil in the works of six authors, a model synthetic reconstruction shows that evil is not a constitutive but an inevitable and – transformed – also a permanent relatum in the Christian understanding of reality.

Self-optimization is all the rage. What do theology and the church have to say about it? Should they issue a warning and strike up a cultural pessimistic tune? Maybe they could activate their own resources, which have the potential for discursive compatibility with phenomena of self-improvement. This study brings the discourse of enhancement into dialogue with the locus of healing in Calvin.

Friedrich Brunstäd, a philosopher in the Hegelian tradition, was a central figure in the Lutheran Protestantism of the early twentieth century. For the first time, this study presents his life and work in a unified context. Alongside Brunstäd’s theology and philosophy, it also examines his relationship to the Conservative Revolution as well as the contribution he made to social Christian Protestantism.

This study makes an important contribution to the historicization of the concept of "Christianity" within the scope of global religious discourse in the late 19th century. Looking at the theology of religions formulated by the protestant theologian and cultural philosopher Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923), it traces the historical conditions in which new understandings of "religion" and "Christianity" were established that have an impact to this day.

Since its first appearance in 1821/22, The Christian Faith has had a fractious history of reception. It implements decisive departures for theology, founding the possibility to speak about God on human freedom. It recognises the role of historical consciousness, and the need to relate to advances in the natural sciences. The study investigates the early critiques of Schleiermacher’s analysis of the feeling of utter dependence, of his conception of Christ as the archetype of the God-consciousness, and of his doctrine of God in terms of absolute causality. It reconstructs the revisions carried out in the second edition of 1830/31 as a break-through to a transcendental argumentation. Does Schleiermacher’s elaboration of the anthropological turn in theology leave it defenseless against the dissolution of faith in a saving God in Feuerbach’s projection thesis? Does it offer a naturalising account of religion? And where does the interconnectedness of nature established by God leave what was prized by the Romantics, human individuality? Ongoing objections and new constellations of questions are examined in their relevance for a modern theology that spells out faith in God as a practical self-understanding.

“Maureen Junker-Kenny’s book is an outstanding presentation of Schleiermacher’s theology. She attends not only to the development of his method from the first to the second edition of The Christian Faith, but also to his concrete interpretation of Creation, Christology, Redemption, Theological Anthropology, especially human freedom, and his understanding of God. The book has an exceptional value in the way she relates Schleiermacher not only to his contemporaries, but also contemporary concerns. Schleiermacher’s theology is shown in its relation to the modernity of his age, but also the ongoing modernity of today. The book has a depth and breath that make it indispensable not only for historical theology, but also contemporary constructive theology.”
– Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School

“In Self, Christ and God in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics. A Theology Reconceived for Modernity, Maureen Junker-Kenny proves herself to be not only a distinguished interpreter of Schleiermacher’s work, but a creative practitioner in her own right of his dialogical method. Elegantly conceived and beautifully written, the book shows how Schleiermacher connected the different aspects of his thought—form/content, structure/doctrine, piety/critical rigor—into a coherent system. Self, Christ and God in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics is now the only guide to Schleiermacher’s magnum opus, Christian Faith, anyone needs.”
– Christine Helmer, Northwestern University, Chicago

This book draws the philosophical contribution of Martin Heidegger together with theological-spiritual insights from the East, especially that of Nikolai Berdyaev. Thus, it brings into dialogue the West with the East, and philosophy with theology. By doing so, it offers Christian theology an existential-spiritual language that is relevant and meaningful for the contemporary reader. In particular, the work explores Heidegger’s ‘being towards death’ (Sein zum Tode) as the basis for theological-philosophical thinking. Only the one who embraces ‘being towards death’ has the courage to think and poetize. This thinking, in turn, makes ‘being towards death’ possible, and in this circular movement of thinking and being, the mystery of being reveals itself and yet remains hidden.

Since the work aims at demonstrating ‘being towards death’ through language, it transitions away from the common formulations and traditionally accepted ways of writing (dogmatic) theology towards an original, philosophical reflection on faith and spirituality. At different points, however, the work also retrieves the profound thoughts and theologies of the past, the insightful creativity of which cannot be denied.

This study understands the foundation of ethics as basic research, which is thus only loosely related to applied ethics. The objective of ethics is solely to generate ethical knowledge. Any foundation of ethics must encompass the immediate character of ethical experience and thus those categories that theology relates to God. Despite this element in all ethics, this foundation is open to pluralism.

This book provides a new approach to Albrecht Ritschl’s theology. Leif Svensson argues that Ritschl’s theological project must be related to three cultural developments – historical criticism, materialism, and anti-Lutheran polemics – and understood in the context of the de-Christianization of the Bildungsbürgertum in nineteenth-century Germany.

“Albrecht Ritschl remains the great unknown of nineteenth-century theology. In this important study, Leif Svensson sheds new light on Ritschl’s thought by relating it to contemporaneous social and cultural developments. Rooted in deep familiarity with German intellectual life of the time, the book convincingly illustrates the value of a history of theology that is mindful of its various contexts.”
– Johannes Zachhuber
University of Oxford

“I confess I was hesitant to blurb a book on Ritschl, but then I read it. Svensson’s well researched presentation of Ritschl’s thought is compelling and forceful. I highly recommend this book.”
– Stanley Hauerwas
Duke Divinity School

“Svensson’s work ably places Ritschl’s contribution to theology in the broader context of the intellectual and cultural history of the nineteenth century. Students of Protestant theology and thought and all interested in the complex relationship between Christian theology and modernity will learn something of value from this important study.”
– Thomas Albert Howard
Valparaiso University

The essays contained in this book originated as lectures at an international conference held in Princeton organized by Christine Helmer (Northwestern) and the editors of this book.

This book itself illuminates in a fresh way the formation, cross-fertilization, break-up, and re-organization of movements of theological renewal during the tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic. Three Protestant movements, in particular, demand our attention: the dialectical theology (Karl Barth, Friedrich Gogarten, Rudolf Bultmann); the Luther Renaissance which found adherents amongst the students of Karl Holl (Hans Joachim Iwand, Rudolf Herrmann and Emmanuel Hirsch) and Lutheran confessional movement (Werner Elert and Paul Althaus). Attention is also given to Bultmann’s close conversation-partner Martin Heidegger. Rounding out the picture thus drawn is Martin Buber, representing the Jewish Renaissance that flourished briefly in the Weimar years.

The goal of this book is twofold: to trace the most significant developments that occurred within and across these movements and, most importantly, to assess the uses made of Luther’s theology in all phases of these developments and in relation to dramatically different sets of issues (ranging from the doctrines of revelation, reconciliation and sin to theories of the state). We find Luther at the heart of a number of debates. So important was he that the divergences between and within the various movements can rightly be seen as a dispute over his legacy.

Most of the theologians and philosophers treated in this book were educated in the pre-war years - and some at least of what they learned survived in a transfigured form the impact of the collapse of the Wilhelminian Empire. That is especially clear in the impact of the Jeiwsh philosopher of religion Hermann Cohen on K. Barth, R. Bultmann, and R. Hermann.

During the years of peace (prior to the stock market crash in 1929), divergences could be accepted with some degree of equanimity by most of those engaged in renewal. To be sure, tensions already existed which could, at any time, have led to splits within the dialectical theology most especially - but did not have to do so. The commentary of R. Bultmann on F. Gogarten’s Ich glaube an den dreieinigen Gott, which is published for the first time in this volume, gives vivid expression to these latent tendencies. For the time being, however, a spirit of cooperation and rigorous academic engagement prevailed. That changed with the onset of the Great Depression. After the national election held on 14 September1930 (which saw the National Socialists become the second largest party in the Reichstag, the fortunes of all movements were increasingly held hostage to the uses made of theology to devise theological accounts of the state which stood in differing degrees of support or open resistance to government policy. The result was a realignment of forces within church and theology

The clarification of the relationship between religion and rationality is one of the core tasks of religious-philosophical and theological understanding and self-understanding respectively. The contributions in this volume from the fields of theology, philosophy and history are dedicated to this task in detail studies as well as in overarching contexts and also open up ethical and moral perspectives.

Edith Stein is widely known as a historical figure, a victim of the Holocaust and a saint, but still unrecognised as a philosopher. It was philosophy, however, that constituted the core of her life. Today her complete writings are available to scholars and therefore her thinking can be properly investigated and evaluated.

Who is a human person? And what is his or her dignity according to Edith Stein? Those are the two leading questions investigated in this volume. The answer is presented based on the complete writings of the 20th-c. phenomenologist and, moreover, compared to the traditional Christian understanding of human dignity present in the writings of the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church as well as Magisterial Documents of the Catholic Church.

In the final parts of the book, the author shows how Stein's ideas are relevant today, in particular to the ongoing doctrinal and legal debates over the concept of human dignity.

This study integrates Schleiermacher’s understanding of freedom by way of his principal works (early works, Soliloquies, writings on Election, the Christian Faith, lectures on psychology, ethics and dialectics), and interprets it in the light of the free will debate in analytic philosophy. It makes clear that Schleiermacher advocated a theory of compatibilism, which also reflected the ontological and metaphysical underpinnings of freedom.

The rise of populism and nationalism in the West have raised concerns about the fragility of liberal political values, chief among them tolerance. But what alternative social resources exist for cultivating the interpersonal relationships and mutual goodwill necessary for sustainable peace? And how might the lived practices of religious communities carry potential to reinterpret or re-circuit these interpersonal tensions and transform the relationship with the cultural "other" (Fremde) from "foe" (Feind) to "friend" (Freund)?

This volume contributes a unique analysis of this shifting discourse by viewing the contemporary socio-political upheaval through the lens of Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology, with a focus on the themes of friendship, interpersonal subjectivity, and sociability as a path beyond mere tolerance. Each of the essays of the volume is written by an internationally recognized scholar in the field, and the volume examines Schleiermacher's novel reflections across multiple social contexts, including North America, Great Britain, western Europe, and South Africa. As these essays demonstrate, the implications of this conversation continue to resound in contemporary religious communities and political discourse.

This study examines the Christological doctrine of the threefold office of Christ from the perspectives of theological history, exegetics, political theology, as well as the theology of revelation and experience. In this way, it attempts to theologically elucidate the central insights and persistent relevance of a classical trope of Christology.

The study systematically analyzes Karl Barth’s understanding of human faith in Church Dogmatics. Barth’s anthropology founded on Christology is presented with special attention to the doctrines of creation and justification. Applying Barthian dialectics, Schüz shows how the “eccentric” nature of faith “extra nos,” and its free and historical adoption, is transmitted through interpretations.

How can we understand theology as a science, given that its objects are not determined by reason but rather by revelation? Along with jurisprudence, theology was the preferred realm for ancient topoi to formulate meaning as epistemology, that is, as a scientific theology. This study examines the history of these discourses up to the "confessional age."

In his writings on the sociology of religion, Weber offers interpretive schemes of religious life. Elaborated with great complexity, these schemes encompass numerous dimensions. This study examines them in the context of contemporary discourse.

This study approaches Luther’s hamartiology by way of the relatively neglected Great Lecture on Genesis. The author integrates different research perspectives on sin to understand man’s turning away in the context of God’s attention, understood in Trinitarian terms. By viewing creation, reconciliation, and perfection as the manifestation of God’s will for the community of man, sin can be conceived as a turning away from the Word.

Erich Schaeder (1861–1936) is a largely forgotten theologian of the 20^th century. By examining Schaeder’s works, this study explores how he integrated the reality and power of the Holy Spirit as part of the foundation of theological work, preserving at the same time God’s absolute majesty and unparalleled proximity. Barth’s harsh critique serves to clarify the presentation.

This book seeks to amplify approaches native to philosophy, literature, and the social sciences regarding contemporary discourse on identity by supplementing them with theological reflection. It develops a proposal for the theological understanding of identity, which imagines the relationship of self to others not in terms of threat but rather as an irreducible element in the fulfilment of personal identity.

The opposition between creation and evolution is invalid because humans are creators of new life, such as synthetic life or artifical intelligence. Thus the problem of how it is possible that reality arises at all needs a new answer. The phenomenological framework of this volume combines scientific and theological knowledge to offer a new theory of reality.

Stoic philosophy represents an important reference point for European cultural and intellectual history. This volume elucidates the impact of stoic philosophy on theology and the philosophy of religion. It examines the theological underpinnings of ancient stoicism as the essential basis of the stoic conceptual system. From this starting point, the book develops and interprets the other topoi of stoic philosophy.

Recent insights at the interface between neurobiology and philosophy suggest that the human mind is best understood as a dynamic form of physical being-in-the-world. This volume engages in a theological discourse with the philosophy of embodiment, seeking to go beyond theology’s chronic neglect of the body. The authors describe links back to those Biblical anthropologies that radically viewed being human as embodied existence.

This study explores the substantive relevance of the young Schleiermacher’s sermons to his overall theological and philosophical oeuvre. By engaging in a rhetorical analysis of the sermons, it develops insights into the ethical content of the sermons, their underlying theological and philosophical traditions, and into the basic function of mediation in interpreting the world and in homiletics.

Sports raise a host of ethical questions and problems. This study presents sports ethics using as its ethical model the dignity of man who is created in the image of God, and applies this model productively to ethical questions in sports. It includes exemplary discussions on contemporary issues, including doping, gender ratios, environmental protection, politicization, commercialization, and sports as a possible venue for ethical education.

How can ecumenism succeed and under what preconditions? Silke Dangel examines these questions by considering the conflicts between identity and difference in contemporary interdenominational dialogue. She shows that successful ecumenism depends upon a dynamic notion of identity. The ecumenical process in turn updates and modifies the nature of denominational identity.

The idea of the Kingdom of God is a leitmotiv in 19th century theology. This study examines the theological propositions of Franz Theremins, Isaak August Dorners, and Johann Tobias Becks to illustrate the importance of the idea of the Kingdom of God. It reveals the major significance of this principle in the theologies of the era, and illuminates its societal and socio–political dimensions.

This study examines the prospects for unity in view of the ecclesiastical differences facing the 19th century Church of England. It reconstructs each of the prevailing conceptions of the Church during this period to examine its relation to contemporary ecumenical dialogue and current reverberations. The work offers deep insights into Anglican ecclesiology and the implications of intra–Church differences for interdenominational dialogue.

This volume examines the complex intersections between religion and enlightenment from a historical and systematic perspective, and for the first time, shows the profound implications of the works of Schleiermacher, Troeltsch, and Tillich for understanding religious-cultural pluralism in our times. The authors use these sources to discuss the difficulties and challenges facing contemporary enlightened religion as well as the limitations of religious enlightenment.

The fascinating connection between the spirit and the letter has had a deep impact on the work of theological scholarship. In this volume, 26 experts examine the connection of spirit and letter by means of examples from the perspectives of philology, hermeneutics, philosophy, theological history, and practical theology. From this multi-disciplinary view, a picture emerges of a dynamic fraught with crisis, with which the specific consciousness of each era interpreted and transformed a unique religious tradition.

It is no longer possible to regard the heterogeneous disciplines of theology in terms of a unitary and dominant thematic dictum. Nevertheless, a common perspective is essential if theological research and studies are to develop an integrated body of knowledge rather than disparate islands of understanding. Using a critical application of Schleiermacher’s approach, this volume offers an encyclopedic view of the sub-disciplines of theology.

Questions related to the subject of political action are among the important current issues in political theory formation. Across its diverse interpretations of the story of Jesus Christ, the New Testament discloses revealing elements of the process of becoming a subject. By examining this history through interdisciplinary reflection, this book reveals valuable perspectives on contemporary theories of the political subject and makes an important contribution to contemporary discourse about the nature of politics.

Liebrucks uses the New Testament notion of the Logos to propose language as the logical structure for relating to the world. This opens up an engagement with Christian tradition that is at once experiential and speculative. The center of this study is an examination of the concept of God in the context of the question of freedom and its relevance for human self-understanding: what is the meaning of human freedom in the context of a real and existing God?

This study takes up the current debate about free will in the neurosciences and philosophy and develops a theological perspective on the issue. It provides lucid information about different positions within the interdisciplinary debate. At the same time, the author adopts a definite position of his own and gives a trenchant presentation of a theological notion of free will.

Christology and Pneumatology face many challenges today. Eight contributors, four European and four Asian theologians, respond to some of these challenges. Christoph Schwöbel responds to the challenge of fundamentalism and spiritualism through the renewal of the Trinitarian theology of the Reformers, Markus Mühling through a return to the "concarnational" Pneumatology of Thomas Erskine. Hans-Joachim Sander meets the challenge of suffering and powerlessness through the postmodern hermeneutics of heterotopia (Foucault), Lieven Boeve responds to that of skepticism and pluralism through the hermeneutics of interruption. Lee Ki-Sang and Kim Heup Young address the globalization of materialism and anthropocentrism through the respective retrieval of the apophaticism and Christology of Ryu Young Mo, increasingly noted today for his original synthesis of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. Finally, Lai Pan-Chiu and Anselm Min engage in an East/West dialogue, Lai by comparing the Christian idea of deification and the Neo-Confucian idea of self-cultivation, Min the Trinity of Aquinas and the Triad of Zhu Xi. This is a substantial, timely, and insightful contribution to Christology and Pneumatology in the context of the many issues raised by globalization, especially the need for serious East/West dialogue.

In the tradition of reformatory theology “freedom” is a leitmotiv for the evolvement of the importance of Christian faith for salvation. Christoph Herbst studies the understanding of “freedom through faith” in three 19th- and 20th-century protestant classics. The detailed analysis of the concepts laid out by Wilhelm Herrmann, Rudolf Bultmann and Eberhard Jüngel reveals an extensive consensus in the theological controversy: faith frees modern man from the fixation on objectivising rationality and the problematic effects it has on how he deals with himself and the world.

This volume views human existence from various perspectives and asks what its purpose is. The underlying thesis is that humans are creatures of relationships. Any anthropology that fails to take this fact seriously will of necessity remain abstract. Instead the authors are interested in how different academic disciplines describe the variety of relationships in human life, taking into account their ethical and theological dimensions.

For decades theology tended to be oriented towards the empirical social sciences, but since the 1990s a shift of orientation towards aesthetics has been observed. Art and aesthetic experience have become more important for the reflection of religious experience. The aesthetic dimension of faith is being rediscovered. Based on different concepts, the author explores the systematic theological fundamental preconditions of such a frame of reference and investigates the chances and limits of a closer relationship between theology and aesthetics.

Liberal theology in Jena at the end of the 19th century is to be understood as an independent form of liberal theology in the meaning of a theological school of thought which aimed to mediate between the demands of modern rationality and theory of science and the authority of biblical tradition and theology as science of faith. Liberal theology in Jena is characterized by a religious philosophical and religious psychological foundation of theology as well as an interaction between philosophy and exegesis and thus provides a contribution to the present debate on theology and the theory of science.

When reflecting on whether and how religious faith can be justified or criticized, one must also consider which kind of rationality and which rules of thought constitute the presuppositions of such a reflection. Here the question about rationality and rules of thought must be understood as a question of a thought that is befitting human beings and the human situation.

Blaise Pascal made a contribution to this question which is remarkable in the history of philosophy and which offers promising potential in the context of modern models of religious-philosophical justification.

After being marginalized for a long time, creation became a central theme of the theological discussion in the second half of the 20th century. This book explores the main topics of the contemporary theology of creation, such as overcoming the modern era's dichotomy of subject and object and the relationship between the transcendence and immanence of God. The author investigates the historical-genetic development of Schelling's philosophy from its beginnings up to the Treatise on Freedom from a systematic-theological perspective.

In her book "Incarnation and Creation", Anne Käfer investigates the relationship between incarnation of God and His creation as the three theologians Luther, Schleiermacher and Karl Barth described it. Anne Käfer's comparison shows that this topic is of key significance for numerous theological problems. The respective understanding of the love of God and his freedom is contingent on the understanding of incarnation. The interpretation of incarnation is bound to certain convictions concerning the essence of man, his wickedness and his freedom.

John Henry Newman (1801–1890), lecturer in Oxford, Anglican priest and Roman Catholic cardinal, is the most influential convert of modern British history. Even today, through his masterful defense of his conversion, he still convinces many people to follow his example.

This study is the first Protestant monograph on the topic, providing an in-depth discussion of Newman’s arguments. Following a reflection on whether something could be learned from these arguments in a Protestant self-criticism, the book raises the question whether Newman’s Apologia is really sustainable.

The relationship between religion and politics has received increased attention in recent time. For religious traditions, this increased attention has been cause to reflect on their position regarding political life. Is it permissible for a religious person to engage in political life at all? Should he or she attempt to impose his religious views on the entire society? This book deals with Luther’s reflections on the relation between his religious views and politics. Luther understands political authority as a reflecting a God-given natural order. Christians are called to practice neighborly love also in political life. In Luther’s view, politics consists in the conversion of love into power. Can this idea still be defended today?

The past three decades have witnessed a significant transatlantic and trans-disciplinary resurgence of interest in the early nineteenth-century Protestant theologian and philosopher, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). As the first major Christian thinker to theorize religion in a post-Enlightenment context and re-conceive the task of theology accordingly, Schleiermacher holds a seminal place in the histories of modern Christian thought and the modern academic study of religion alike. Whereas his “liberalism” and humanism have always made him a controversial figure among theological traditionalists, it is only recently that Schleiermacher’s understanding of religion has become the target of polemics from Religious Studies scholars keen to disassociate their discipline from its partial origins in liberal Protestantism. Schleiermacher, the Study of Religion, and the Future of Theology documents an important meeting in the history of Schleiermacher studies at which leading scholars from Europe and North America gathered to probe the viability of key features of Schleiermacher’s theological and philosophical program in light of its contested place in the study of religion.

This study advances the thesis that prayer can be understood as the key to the fundamental structures of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. A particular focus is on the question of how humans are to be perceived as active and receptive subjects in the encounter with God. In the development of the argument, therefore, a key function is attributed to the concept of reciprocity. In this horizon, the relationship is analysed between the petition - which for Barth is central - and the response (as a realisation of the divine relationship). In this, the encounter with God is realised positively through the petition expressing human neediness by the prayer turning into praise. Here, a fundamental hermeneutic structure of Barth's is revealed - Barth wants to do justice to the religious experience in prayer by the very act of not thematising it. It is, however, rehearsed indirectly through the dogmatic statements of his theology.

Jesus of Nazareth is a perennial subject of interest, and one of the most influential people that ever lived. The religious movement which flowed from him produced the Christian Church in all its various manifestations. Christian believers have in common a regard for Jesus as Lord and God, in some way a bodily appearance revealing the Father of the universe. Christian thinkers down the centuries have continually tried to define and explain who Jesus was and is. This book draws together some of the best modern thinking about the biblical evidence, the beliefs of the first few centuries when “orthodoxy” was being defined, the past two centuries when churchmen have responded to the challenge of modern rationalism, and some of the reactions to Jesus in the world-wide spread of modern Christianity and in Islam. It concludes with an attempt at a simple formula which might provoke and sustain faith in Jesus Christ in the most recent intellectual environment.

The study is concerned with a dogmatic figure which placed Karl Barth in the centre of programmatic statements but also inflamed massive criticism of his theology - namely the relationship of the Gospel and the Law. For this, the author examines the 476 sermons which Barth delivered from 1913 to 1964 to determine how they address God’s demands and God's consolation. The analysis leads to a systematic theological accentuation of Barth's views on “Gospel and Law” with an enhanced depth of field.

This study examines the systematic adoption of modern thought by Protestant theology. It discusses theological models which not only topicalise new age themes on a theological level, but translate them directly into a draft programme. The external characteristic of these positions is the central importance of ethics, which functions as a foundation for theology. It is man, not God, from whom theological thinking emanates. The history of radical models of this kind is traced and they are subjected to critical examination.

The volume contains ten historical theological studies tracing the significance of Luther for Protestant religious culture (mainly in the German-speaking world) since the Reformation. The approach taken is one of the history of reception: selected positions in modern Protestantism are identified as different forms of reception of Luther's theology. In the background is the view that at present a productive systematic theological approach to Luther's theology primarily requires a detailed consideration of a new Protestant religious culture.

This study opens up a hitherto neglected chapter in the history of theology that at the same time reconstructs exemplars of problem complexes and lines of argumentation which are of present-day relevance for the treatment of questions in “apologetics”.
By clarifying the autonomy of Elert’s position, which astonishingly remained non-denominationalist until 1923, alongside the more familiar paths of liberal theology, but also of dialectic theology, the study at the same time makes a contribution to the history of early 20^th century theological apologetics in both its academic interest and the interest of cultural practice.

From 1909 to 1912 Paul Tillich devoted himself to an intensive study of Friedrich Schelling’s idealistic philosophy; this process of engagement led to the foundations of his early Christology. The objective of the present study is to interpret the development of Tillich’s early approach to Christology against the background of Schelling’s philosophy, and its systematic elaboration right up until his late work. The appendix contains Tillich's hitherto unpublished doctoral files from Breslau and Halle.

Why and to what extent is Protestant faith constituted in a church? What is the relationship between the “Communion of Saints” referred to in the Creed to the lived (or not lived) sociality of the Church? And if these questions give rise to tensions, how are these to be dealt with both theologically and in practical parish work? Luther, Troeltsch, Bonhoeffer and contemporary sociology are important reference points for the resultant interdisciplinary discussions.

Winner of the Johann-Tobias-Beck-Preis of the AfeT (Arbeitskreises für evangelikale Theologie) http://www.afet.de/jtbpreis.htm

In the modern age, the relationship between academic theology and the Church has become a fundamental problem. Theologians’ attempts to tackle this issue come to widely differing conclusions in determining the relationship between theology and the Church, society and academe.

This study sketches and evaluates selected positions adopted by Protestant theologians from Schleiermacher up to the present day. The relationship proposed by the author is directed towards a theology which succeeds in combining the substantive positioning and definition of the place of the Church with the ability for interdisciplinary communication and is aware of its responsibility for the world of religion and culture.

The anthology examines the historical and systematic dimensions of Luther's concentration of Christology on language-philosophically conceptualized communication through the use of idioms. In addition to background analysis on the history of tradition, historically there are also extensive reception-historical investigations on the Late Reformation and Orthodoxy. The work addresses not only the underlying metaphor theory, but also the capacity of the concept as a whole.

This book contains a systematic description of the theologies of Colin E. Gunton (1941‑2003) and Oswald Bayer (b. 1939). Their use of the doctrine of creation in systematic theology has remarkable consequences for late-modern theological ethics. This book explores those consequences from the example of the theological doctrine of marriage. The author also contributes to the ecumenical debate by building on the Neo-Calvinist theological heritage.

This first comprehensive study of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s work from the perspective of gender theory examines the development of his thought with regard to the gender debate of his time. The study takes the position that Schleiermacher’s concept of the egalitarian complementarity of genders is of fundamental significance for his philosophical ethics as well as for his theology. The analysis of central texts from Schleiermacher’s work demonstrates how his concept of gender influences his anthropology and his theology of marriage and how the linking of this gender concept and his theory of religion leads to a feminine coding of the religious which makes Schleiermacher the theoretical precursor of a feminisation of religion in the context of the 19th century bourgeois gender order.

This monograph aims to explicate Schleiermacher’s early theory of religion in relation to his reception of Spinoza. The key concept of religion as an “intuition of the universe” in Schleiermacher’s epoch-making speeches ‘On Religion’ has its foundations in the complex process of critically adopting Spinozan thinking. Working against the background of Spinoza’s philosophy, the study develops the origins of Schleiermacher’s thinking on the concept of religion from his early manuscripts and uses them to inform a systematic interpretation of the ‘Speeches’ as a whole.

The author uses the cultural anthropological understanding of an ‘economy of the gift’ (reciprocity) to show how in Martin Luther’s writings, especially between 1518 and 1522, his doctrine of justification cannot be formulated without the idea of a re-established mutuality between God and man. Luther’s newly-gained understanding of mutuality enables him to develop his positive understanding of the Christian person and for the frequent parallels he draws between Christology and anthropology.

The author presents a study on the ontological historical development of the central Christian message of God’s love.

Working from the concept of “Agape”, the reality of the Church is discovered in its tension between the wholeness of being and the crisis of being. By fully developing the possibilities offered by agape, the author resuscitates the vision of the alternative Christian way of being. As His willingness for reconciliation, God’s love offers ecumenism in particular a promising way forwards and shows how Christianity can discover a new credibility and future confidence.

Hamann's writing is strongly concerned with entering into a dialogue with the reader, and this is demonstrated by examining his use of intertextuality, his epistolary conversations, and his use of metaphor and rhetorical devices. In this, the idea of condescendence is a central influence on Hamann's work - just as God reveals himself in nature, history and the word in order to establish a relationship with humans, Hamann wishes to enter into a dialogue with his contemporaries.

This monograph explores the connection between philosophy and theology in Lohmeyer's thinking. His philosophical orientation is based on Richard Hönigswald's cognitive theory. For Lohmeyer, the historical question of New Testament contents is inseparably connected with their factual justification. As a result, Lohmeyer's thought presents an alternative to purely history-critical research, as well as to the existential interpretation of the Bultmann school of thought.

Working from a systematic fundamental-ethical perspective, this study inquires into convergent lines in the foundations of Friedrich Schleiermacher's and Thomas of Aquinas' ethics. Despite their radically different contexts - the one a product of the epoch 'after Kant', the other embedded in the scholastic tradition - these two predominant ethicists have a remarkable amount in common. Taught by theology, advised by Aristotle, both develop an ethics concerned with the unity of nature and reason which takes on concrete form in human actions.

This comprehensive study of Schleiermacher's theory of subjectivity and philosophy of religion presents an important contribution to the understanding of modern theology and philosophy. By following recent research into Idealism and Romanticism, and deploying contextually orientated historical and systematic methods, the author gains new insights into Schleiermacher's analysis of Kant, Reinhold, Fichte and Fr. Schlegel, among others. Thus Grove attains an assured and precise interpretation of Schleiermacher's early and mature works on the philosophy of religion.

The study examines the presentation and formation of spatial experience in the context of religion and cognitive psychology.

In recent discussions, increasing attention has been focussed on the question of how knowledge and the interpretation of reality come about. This volume presents a collection of papers dealing with this topic from historiological, philosophical and theological perspectives. In this way, a dialogue is conducted which transcends the boundaries of specialist disciplines and places the problem in a broader humanities perspective.

This first monograph on Luther's doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo demonstrates the comprehensive character of his interpretation of the phrase, emphasises its present-day significance and inquires into its theological and philosophical backgrounds. If the notion of creation from nothing runs counter to all logic and experience, the author works from Luther's great lecture on Genesis to show that for Luther the phrase names neither the "Whence" of creation nor the scientific "How" of its genesis. Rather, it answers the question of the relationship between creator and creature - in creation, maintenance and re-creation. Thus the formulation creatio ex nihilo is no peripheral determination of divine action, but the basic matrix of the Creator's dealings with humans and the world.

This collection of essays stages a dialogue between Friedrich Schleiermacher and Alfred North Whitehead on significant features of 'open' system. The volume offers new options for rehabilitating system for future theological and philosophical thinking by opening system to a flexible relation with changing reality. Key ingredients for system are discussed in three areas of contact between Schleiermacher and Whitehead. One such ingredient concerns historical precedents figuring crucially in Western systematic philosophy. Another feature is the systematic categorization of experience that relates epistemology, metaphysics, and the empirical sciences. System is also brought to bear on pressing contemporary issues, such as ethics and religious pluralism.

This seminal monograph on prayer in Luther's theology takes as its basic source text Luther's third lecture on the psalms, which has hitherto received little attention from researchers. The lecture is taken as a form of interactive performance of a prayer of thanks and intercession grounded in the theology of justification. The main point of the study is given in its thematic focus on the prayer act of praise and thanksgiving which Luther brings up in his programmatic first sentence. It becomes plausible that giving the prayers of praise and thanksgiving priority over the prayer of intercession is based on the theology of justification.

With its special methodology, this study opens up a new approach to Luther's theology and makes a claim for no less than general theological relevance.

The emergence of the Christian creed and its fixation in dogma understood as formulaic abridgments of key articles of faith were completed no earlier than the beginning of the seventh century. Whereas the rise of the creeds' basic hermeneutic and generative structures has traditionally been studied with the history and relationships between texts and meanings in mind, this book inquires into the motives behind the creeds' formation. This approach reveals that the inception of the creed in early Christian times grew out of a clear emphasis on the history of God's saving acts in creation, redemption, and fulfillment.

This doctoral thesis from Tubingen presents a new reflection on the topic of sin, in the form of a discussion of Julius Müller's Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde ('The Christian Doctrine of Sin' - first published 1839-44). In the judgement of Karl Barth, Müller's two-volume work is "the most important specialist literary work yet … that has treated this difficult material"; it is presented here for the first time in a comprehensive fashion and interpreted as a theory of freedom which moves towards an insight into the incomprehensibility of sin. Søren Kierkegaard "valued Müller's doctrine of sin most highly and benefited from it in his dispute with Hegel" (Emanuel Hirsch). An appendix documents the relevant diary passages on Julius Müller for the first time in German.

For Meister Eckhart, the human being as created in the image of God is a thinking being; for him, thought is of epistemological and ontological relevance. This study deals with central aspects of Eckhart's thought, such as his theory of intellect, the theoontological judgement of the ego, poverty, love, time, nothingness, happiness and peace.

Metaphors are of particular significance for Christ's discourse in the New Testament and in the history of theology. The present studies examine the forms and functions of meta-phorical Christology in the New Testament, Christ metaphors in late classical antiquity, in Tauler's mysticism, in Luther's writings, or in the 19th century. Systematic papers discuss Christ's words as the "word of God", the relationship of meta-phor and experience, together with fundamental questions of the metaphoric nature of Christological discourse. Topics investigated also include Christ metaphors in lyric poetry and the significance of metaphor for the treatment of Christ's words in religious education.

The work presents a comprehensive systematic account of Luther's eschatological theology on the basis of the 17 sermons which he preached on 1 Corinthians 15 in 1532 and 1533. The interpretation of the sermons provides exemplary evidence for the thesis that Luther's theology is totally based on the promise of full completion. This applies both to his basic decisions in the doctrine of faith and the word and of the language of faith. It applies equally to the doctrine of the Resurrection, which covers the whole span from creation and the fall through salvation to the consummation of Christ's victory in "the death of death", and to Luther's discourse on life in this world.

The discussion concerns the actual and potential ethical ramifications of technology. All ethics are based on a particular understanding of humanity and its reality. This principled position has to be maintained against discursive and procedural ethical approaches as it does against the utilitarian levelling of basic theoretical questions.

The present study, undertaken from a Protestant perspective, uses the analysis of two contemporary conceptions of the philosophy of technology (G. Ropohl, W. Ch. Zimmerli) to demonstrate that the ethics of technology is relevant not only for technologists but also for human activity in general.

This study aims to make a contribution to the foundations of theological apologetics. In this, it seeks to determine the boundaries and possibilities of the apologetical process by orienting it to the quadruplicity of divine working (God's creation, divine legislation, redemption, God's hidden working). The study examines this quadruplicity within influencing theological concepts of the last two hundred years (F. Schleiermacher, K. Barth, E. Hirsch, P. Tillich, W. Elert, P. Althaus and E. Brunner).

For years now, the question of the universality of human rights has been the subject of controversial discussion between the various cultures. The present study examines whether ethical norms, e.g. human rights, can be justified universally or only particularly (for the values of a particular community). To achieve clarification, contributions are analysed from Protestantism (inter alia W. Herrmann, E. Troeltsch, K. Barth and T. Rendtorff) and from philosophy (the tradition of natural law, R. Alexy, O. Höffe). The author concludes that ethical norms are always grounded in a particular view of humanity - e.g. the christian view, but at the same time aim for a universal plausibility which is to be established in the discourse of world views.

Spirituality as a topic in systematic theology is taken up here using the example of Chiara Lubich, who was born in 1920 and later founded the Focolare Movement. This is the first comprehensive treatment using the original sources. Her multi-facetted concept of love and her understanding of the unity of the Trinity are grounded in Jesus being forsaken by God as an at one and the same time internal to the divinity and an actual earthly event. Amidst the suffering of a broken world, this offers the experience of salvation and the encounter with God.

Appendices contain thematic tables, a subject index and an index of names.

This systematic theological study uses the example of Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788) to examine and systematically develop the question of determining the relationship of theology and natural science.

In the course of translating basic structures of an "objective" view of the world into categories of a linguistic-hermeneutic understanding of reality, Hamann makes possible a connection of creation as a communicative process with an understanding of nature which opens up its "grammatical" structures.

In this examination Schleiermacher's theory of science is reconstructed as a universal doctrine of principles and a formal theory of structure. Based on Schleiermacher's interpretation of Plato, on the role of philosophy of nature and on an analysis of crucial texts, Dittmer reveals a triadic structure of Schleiermacher's thought behind his dyadic semantic.

Religion, metaphysics and theology face particular challenges from modern thought. The papers in this volume approach from different vantage points the tensions between these disciplines in the modern and post-modern eras.

In a dialogue with philosophical phenomenology, philosophy and sociology of religion this interdisciplinary collection of articles tries to investigate the relevance of scientific endeavour into lifeworld for Systematic as well as for Practical Theology. From various perspectives the particular contributions outline the interest of theology in “living religion”. This leads to a new approach developing Practical Theology on the basis of phenomenology.

In this volume, the author presents a comprehensive account of Paul Tillich’s theology.

Starting from the concept of freedom, Tillich’s theology is interpreted as a structural theory of the finite implementation of freedom. Within this perspective of the problem, its systematic structures and particular form of rationality are reconstructed, together with the historical background to the problem.

Aus dem Inhalt:
Epistemologische und ontologische Bedeutung der Liebe - Ich / Personalität - Du / Andere(s) - Das theologische Argument - Die entfremdete Liebe - Leiblichkeit / Praxis / Gefühl - Liebe als Kommunikation - Liebe und Existenz - Konstruktivität der Liebe

This volume introduces a theological epistemology. In conversation with major conceptions of the history of theology, this study develops a theological concept of negative theology. For the latter the basic connection of reflection and teaching, faith as a practiced as well as the experience of faith, are constituent: negative theology is speech about God on the basis of his revelation and from the viewpoint of the hiddenness of God in his revelation.

This study deals with the young Luther's critique and appropriation of Aristotle in his scholastic interpretation. The author is concerned with questions of how the young Luther appropriated Aristotle. Which Aristotle did the young Luther mean in his various comments on "Aristotle"? What is their exact content? How does Luther argue in dealing with Aristotle, and what problems evolve from this? What are the various forms this appropriation took? The author analyzes the problems for systematic theology which evolve here in regard to their historical sites.

In detailed studies the author analyzes important sections of the text and problems in Luther’s major work De servo arbitrio.

This study in systematic theology is concerned with central issues which are controversial between Erasmus and Luther (among other things freedom of the will, ethics, theodicy, predestination and God’s hiddenness). In dialogue with classical philosophical and theological positions, especially with literary texts, it describes the strengths and aporias in Luther's assertive, confessional, pugilistic theology.