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1. “Christianity” and “churches”This subject area is not called simply “Christianity” but has the more complex title “Churches and Religious Culture.” Clearly it was intended to present the early modern history of Christianity, one of the great transformations of the early modern period. For centuries, Christianity affected all areas of life; it inspired soaring hopes and terrifying fears, and – with its changes and innovations – it contributed in a major way to the fact that Europe in 185…

1. TerminologyThe word   Weltanschauung was coined by Immanuel Kant in 1790; its use today is problematic and often unclear. It is a peculiarly German expression, used as a loan-word in several European languages [15]; it has also been translated (English  world view,  world vision; French vision  or  conception du monde), but then it no longer differs from  Weltbild (World view), and in fact the English expression is usually retranslated into German as  Weltbild. On the other hand, since the second half of the 19th century, the German word has become hugely pop…

1. The termThe English noun  progress (in the sense of advancement or improvement; from Latin progressus via Old French  progres) came into use around 1600. Like its equivalents (French  progrès, German Fortschritt, Italian  progresso), it denotes the specifically early modern view of historical movement and change in contrast to earlier concepts of movement such as journey, growth, and development. It is true, though, that the related Latin roots ( progressus,  profectus, processus) can mean the change of things for the better; both classical cosmology, based …

1. Metaphysics 1.1. Concept and prior historyThe term “infinity” (French infinité; German  Unendlichkeit) is often used figuratively (metaphorically) to denote very large or unknown values (“infinite depths of the ocean”), so that its literal use has faded into the background. “The infinite” (Latin  infinitum, Greek  ápeiron, “the boundless”, “the indeterminate”) in the strict sense, however, has since the first days of Greek philosophy been a precise term in both mathematics and metaphysics contrasted with the “finite.” What was often unc…

1. DefinitionLike the sacral building itself (Church architecture), the church interiors in early modern Europe were all clearly recognizable as Christian. The most important features were the altar (or a table replacing it; see Altar design), font, and pulpit or lectern; from the late Middle Ages on, there was also an organ (initially in the larger churches, in the 19th century even in the smallest village churches; Organ music), as well as movable or permanent seating, e.g. choir stalls in mona…

1. Introduction 1.1. General considerationsIn the early modern period, sacraments were part of the religious practice of all Christian churches, albeit with varying emphases and interpretations. Nevertheless, all believed that the celebration and administration of the sacraments, like the proclamation of the word of God, was central to the Christian church, and that sacraments, though performed by human beings, provided a place where the promise of Jesus Christ to be present with his flock was fulfi…

1. Introduction Theological and pastoral concepts continued to define early modern Church architecture that had shaped Christian sacral architecture since its very earliest days. The church was a meeting-place for the congregation that had to fulfill a function as the real venue and crucible of the divine service (Worship). Spatial forms and fittings had to support liturgical procedures and make their content available to experience. Still, changing cultural parameters and profound religious and c…

1. General observations “Jesus Christ” is not originally a name but the declaration that Jesus of Nazareth is the  christós (Greek: “anointed,” Messiah) of God. As such, in the European modern era, Jesus Christ was a prominent figure in religious and cultural orientation. However, these orientations underwent far-reaching changes amounting to a move away from the unquestioned authority of the Christian tradition toward a more independent, critically modifying reception. The belief (Faith) that God incarnated himse…

1. ConceptPalingenesis (Greek palingenesía, Latin  renascentia, German  Wiedergeburt, literally “rebirth”) in the early modern period was mostly the Christian metaphor for the (singular) process of a spiritual birth of a person comparable to their physical birth, that is, second birth, a prerequisite for eternal life. The origins of the concept in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (Jo 3) were remembered, and like the Pauline formula of “new creation,” it was from the outset associated with the act of …

1. Introduction The term “church year,” probably first attested (as German Kirchenjahr) in the postil of the Lutheran pastor Johannes Pomarius (Magdeburg 1585) (see below, 4.1.), denotes the annual cycle of Christian festival and holiday. In the rhythm of the week and year, the church celebrates the memory of Jesus Christ (year of the Lord) [1], with the celebration of the saints’ days (Name day) taking a secondary role (year of the saints).The core and “origin” of the year was the Sunday on which the key events of Easter are celebrated (Passion Week) in the fe…

1. Definition, motives, problemsPredestination, God’s “preordination” of individuals to eternal salvation, was a central concept for early modern theology but also for metaphysics, though it was subject to radical criticism with the coming of the Enlightenment. It was introduced by Augustine ( De praedestinatione sanctorum, “On the Predestination of the Saints”; 428/429) on the basis of biblical texts (Rom 8:29f.; Eph 1:5). Going beyond the Stoic notion of  providentia (providence), that is, the governance of the world as a whole by a god, the doctrine of…

1. DefinitionMetaphysics (Middle Latin  metaphysica, from Greek  ta metá physiká, “the [works traditionally arranged] after the Physics [in the Aristotelian canon]”) has since Greco-Roman antiquity been the traditional name for a theoretical discipline that deals not with individual objects as such, but with everything that is and can (therefore) be thought about: the Sein alles Seienden (Heidegger: the "being of all that is being"). Since Aristotle, then, metaphysics has been regarded as the “primal philosophy”, that is, the guiding discipline of …

1. SignificanceThe theological term  Christology, coined in the 17th century, denotes normative reflection (Dogma) on the person and work of Jesus Christ and his enduring religious significance. This intellectual image of Christ in Christology is one among many, for devotion to Christ always found expression in symbolic, literary, visual, musical, and theatrical forms as well. Despite reciprocal influences, however, these images of Christ (Jesus Christ; Iconography) by no means always conformed to t…

1. IntroductionThe noun mysticism, a general term dating from the 17th century, eluded all attempts of students of religion and the psychology of religion to define it in the 19th and early 20th century [1]; [3]; [5]. More recent researchers therefore use it only as a heuristic term for highly diverse phenomena of an intense individual experience of bonding or union (Latin  unio mystica) with God, the divine, the holy, etc. – always in specific cultural and social contexts. These phenomena are never accessible directly, since we know of them only through (…

1. Introduction The reciprocal but never symmetrical relationship between Church andState in early modern Europe was the result of a historical development that in some respects remained indebted to the political ethics of the New Testament (Rom 13; Rv 13), while in other respects confronting profound changes in both ecclesiastical and secular political institutions, specifically the emergence of the early modern territorial and nation state. At first, the underlying assumption was that the Europe…

1. Terminology The word atheism (from Greek átheos, “without  God”, “godless”) denotes both a complex variety of interpretations of the world and life-designs shaped by conscious rejection of the existence of one or more gods, transcendent beings, or powers (positive atheism) and a conscious denial of the earthly influence of such gods or powers, while simultaneously recognizing the theoretical possibility of their existence (negative atheism). Terms such as “God,” “creator,” “absolute,” “supreme being…

1. Definition The term Zwei-Regimente-Lehre (two governments doctrine), coined in the late 19th century, refers to the older belief, common to all Christian bodies, that God governs the world in two ways, partly with an eternal purpose, partly with a merely temporal purpose: the first by means of religion (the Christian church), the second by means of politics. It is easy to misunderstand the term, since what is involved is less a single theological “doctrine” than a larger complex in which theologi…

1. Historical surveyThe term syncretism (French  syncrétisme, German  Synkretismus) was first used in the early modern period by Erasmus of Rotterdam with reference to the classical Greek term  synkrētismós, which implied that the Cretans would bury their internal conflicts and unite in the face of external threats. Erasmus counseled syncretism in dealing with controversies, which he ascribed to un-Christian vindictiveness. He believed it was possible to join in a political alliance despite religious differences – as did …

1. Terminology and contexts Since the early Midde Ages, sin (German Sünde, French  péché) has meant a culpable and punishable transgression of a divine commandment or an ecclesiastical law legitimated by a divine commandment by a responsible offender. Over and above the moral concept of “vice,” the religious or theological word  sin always denotes an injury to the human relationship with God. In this (narrower) sense, it translates such words a  hamartía in the Greek Bible and  peccatum in the Latin Bible. Related but not always clearly distinct is the term  evil (German Böses or …

1. BackgroundThe Indo-European word behind  Latin  veritas, French  vérité, German  Wahrheit (English “truth”) meant “respect,” “assent,” “fidelity”; Greek  alḗtheia (literally “unconcealment”) was also important for the history of the term. The pragmatic questions concerning whether an assertion or message is true and what criteria we should use to assess and recognize its truth have been answered implicitly or explicity in every culture. The question of what truth is arises whenever a culture reflects on its…