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[German Version] Since the 4th century, the “consensus of the (church) Fathers” has been considered a criterion of the revealed truth of doctrines of the faith; according to the Council of Trent (DH 1507) and Vatican I (DH 3007), it is a norm of scriptural interpretation, whereas the Reformers subordinated the Fathers to Scripture. Since Vatican II (DH 4211, 4217–4219, 4230), Catholic theology has used arguments based on the history of theology and dogma to qualify the witness of the Fathers; in the interpretation of Scripture, consensus patrum clearly plays a lesser role than his…

[German Version] (Oct 5, 1890, Falkenberg, Upper Palatinate – Jul 23, 1973, Bonn), Catholic theologian. Lang began teaching at Regensburg as an associate professor in 1929; in 1935 he went to Munich as a full professor, and from 1939 to 1958 he taught at Bonn. The focus of his research was the history of apologetics and theological epistemology in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. His textbook Fundamen-¶ taltheologie, based on traditional Neoscholasticism, drew on insights from immanence apologetics; in its fourth edition (after Vatican II), it no longe…

[German Version] (Feb 21, 1810, Vienna – Oct 23, 1864, Prague), Catholic theologian and philosopher and a Piarist father. He taught philosophy in Krems (1836), was professor of moral theology at the Universities of Graz (1850) and Prague (1852), held the first chair with the designation fundamental theology (Prague 1856), and authored the first German-language work with that term in the title ( Leitfaden für Vorlesungen… der Fundamentaltheologie, 1859–1862). He was initially influenced by the philosopher F.H. Jacobi, and later by his fri…