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[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Science – III. Dogmatics – IV. Ethics I. Philosophy Causality (from Lat. causa, “cause”), also causal nexus, causal relationship, is a term for the characteristic relationship between cause and effect. The things related are generally assumed to be pairs of events (event causality), though in some cases they may be an active thing and an event (agent causality); whether agent causality can be reduced to event causality is disputed. In either ca…

[German Version] (Jul 25, 1798, Tübingen – Jun 18, 1864, Stuttgart), was educated in Maulbronn and in the Tübingen (II) Stift, a house of studies of the Evangelical regional church. He was initially a supporter of theological Rationalism. In 1820, as a curate in Feuerbach, Knapp experienced a change of direction under the influence of L. Hofacker, whose biographer he later became (1852). Knapp was appointed curate in Gaisburg in 1821, deacon in Sulz am Neckar in 1825, pastor in Kirchheim am Teck i…

[German Version] (Mar 8, 1607, Ottensen – Aug 31, 1667, Wedel), studied theology and medicine from 1626 in Rostock, and from 1629 to 1631 in Rinteln (under J. Stegmann in particular). From 1635 until his death, Rist was pastor in Wedel. He was one of the most important religious poets, alongside A. Gryphius, S. Dach, and P. Gerhardt. He was a member of the literary societies Societas Florigerae ad Pegnensum (from 1645) and Societas Fructifera (from 1647), and in 1658 also founded his own poets’ society (Elbschwanenorden [Order of the Elbe Swan]). In 1646 he became poeta laureatus and in 164…

[German Version] After transsubstantiation, the doctrine of consubstantiation is the most prominent explanation of the miraculous bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist (II, 2) proposed by medieval Scholasticism. This theory, whose roots go back to the christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries, maintains that the eucharistic consecration does not transform the substances of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, annihilating the former. Instead the substantiae of Christ's caro and sanguis are added to the substantiae of panis and vinum to constitut…

[German Version] (1585, Lübeck – Jun 30, 1628, Danzig [Gdansk]), completed his schooling under Georg Rollenhagen in Magdeburg and studied in Rostock and Cologne, where he earned his living as a printer’s reader. Educated to be a Lutheran and/or Jesuit theologian, Rahtmann obtained an M.A. and continued his studies in Leipzig. He became a deacon in Danzig in 1612, and pastor in 1626. Starting from a dualism of spirit and flesh, and influenced by K. v. Schwenckfeld and a spiritual interpretation of …

[German Version] The doctrine of Holy Scripture as the principium of theology was formulated classically in the dogmatic theology of Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxy (II, 2). It succeeded in highlighting Luther’s principle of sola scriptura, i.e. the conviction that the verba divina are the Christianorum prima principia (WA 7, 98.4), and the apostrophization of Holy Scripture as unica regula et norma (FC SD [BSLK 767]) and its own interpreter ( sui ipsius interpres [WA 7, 977.23]), relying on the (neo-)Aristotelian definition of scientific knowledge. Philosophy and m…

[German Version] The doctrine of transsubstantiaion, made a dogma at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (DH 802) and reiterated by the Council of Trent in 1551 (DH 1642), emerged from the debates over the symbolic interpretation of the Eucharist by Berengar of Tours. The doctrine is an effort to make the mystery of Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist comprehensible within the framework of an Aristotelian (Aristotle) conceptuality. It states that the substances of bread and wine are annihilated…

[German Version] (Sep 14, 1588, Sülzfeld – Aug 3, 1632, Rinteln), received his Dr.theol. at Leipzig in 1617. In 1618, on the recommendation of J. Gerhard, he was called to Stadthagen as superintendent and professor at the Academic Gymnasium, which achieved university status in 1621 and was moved to Rinteln, where J. Rist was among his students. When Rinteln was occupied by Brunswick troops in 1623, Stegmann took flight. When he returned, he was appointed ephorus of the county of Schaumburg. With t…

[German Version] I. Philosophy The term rationalism is used in philosophy in a wider and a narrower sense. In its wider sense, it stands for all those antiskeptical positions (Skepticism: I) in the theory of being and its epistemology that see the only reliable source of certain knowledge not in sensory perception but in the activity of ratio, reason (I). The paradigm for reasoning activity that guarantees certainty (I) is provided by mathematical thought with its concepts of tautologies and deductive conclusions. In its narrower sense, Rationalism st…

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Lutheran theologian and philosopher, was born in Mohrungen in East Prussia. He began his study of theology and philosophy in 1762 in Königsberg, being strongly influenced there by the pre-Critique I. Kant and by J. G. Hamann, with the latter of whom Herder developed a lifelong friendship. Herder’s studies included historical-critical biblical scholarship, the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz and C. Wolff, and so-called rational orthodoxy (e.g., S. J. Baumgarten). In 1764 Herder became a teacher at the cathedral school in Riga, serv…