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[German Version] I. Philosophy The term process denotes a directed course of events in nature, history, or the life of an individual that can run its causally determined course teleologically, as a self-organizing dynamic and, in the case of living creatures, on the basis of intentions and meanings. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, it was assumed that everything existing is determined by its nature and possesses an immanent tendency to actualize its potentialities. The understanding of process chang…

[German Version] The noun wish denotes a person’s desire to obtain an anticipated or pursued good (Goods) for him- or herself or others. It presupposes the temporality of existence, as is present in our experiencing as the immediate present of the remembered past and the awaited future of personal presence. In wishes as phenomena of consciousness, intentional act and content can be distinguished but never separated. Hence the common distinction between the subjective sense of the word (wish as an ac…

[German Version] I. Ethics – II. Practical Theology I. Ethics The Greek noun κρίσις/ krísis originally denoted the action derived from the verb κρίνειν/ krínein: (a) “sepa¶ ration, quarrel”; (b) “selection”; (c) “decision, judgment, verdict”; (d) “turning point (in a battle or disease)” (cf. also criticism, kairology). The adoption of the forensic sense in the LXX added a theological dimension to the term. In the NT, krísis stands for the verdict of the judge, the court of judgment, and especially the eschatological Divine Judgment, the ultimate separ…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Fundamental Theology – IV. Ethics – V. Practical Theology I. Philosophy To speak of the meaning of a linguistic utterance is ambiguous from a systematic point of view. The various ¶ semantic concepts correspond to various levels of understanding (comprehension of meaning). The first three levels belong to the field of semantics: (1) If the spoken sentence P is free of lexical and grammatical ambiguities in the language of the speaker, then the interpreter understand…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. History of Dogma – V. Dogmatics – VI. Ethics – VII. Ecumenics I. Religious Studies In European Christian theology the doctrine of merit (Lat. meritum) became a controversial subject, by which (at least on the Protestant side) it was thought possible to demonstrate with particular clarity the basic difference between Catholicism and Lutheranism (see IV below). Discussion in religious studies has shown that the use of such a theologically loaded conc…

[German Version] I. Cultural History The Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga identified play as a fundamental cultural phenomenon and thus a defining feature of human life. His thesis of homo ludens supplements the anthropological theories of homo sapiens and homo faber and other explanations of culture grounded in reason and fabrication (Labor). Huizinga posits the following definition: “Play is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules that are freely accepted …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies A sense of shame is a fundamental element of being human. It is a social feeling that ensues when one becomes aware of a shortcoming that might offend others. Unlike a sense of guilt, it does not presuppose an actual transgression. Shame is therefore not just a concomitant of behavior subject to social condemnation, such as violation of a sexual taboo, dishonesty, cowardice, or disloyalty; it is also a reaction to situations for which the individual has no respon…

[German Version] 1. Anthony Ashley Cooper (Feb 26, 1671, London – Feb 4, 1713, Naples), third Earl of Shaftesbury, major Enlightenment philosopher, moralist, and pioneer of aesthetics. His grandfather of the same name, a renowned politician, entrusted Shaftesbury’s education to J. Locke; through his governess Elizabeth Birch, he received thorough training in the classical languages along with ancient and modern literature. After a period at Winchester College (1683–1686), travels through Europe (1686–…

[German Version] (Feb 20, 1866, Guilford Township, IN – Nov 18, 1947, Los Angeles, CA), American pioneer of the psychology of religion and educational theory as an empirical science based on developmental psychology. After a happy childhood with his Quaker parents, he studied at Harvard under W. James and at Clark University under G.S. Hall. His dissertation on conversion and adolescent development, based on questionnaires, was published in 1899; it is considered the first book on the empirical ps…

[German Version] As an ethical and legal term, imputability denotes (in a person who has reached the age of discretion) the normally assumed capacity to recognize the morality (Morality and immorality) or legality of an action in a given situation and to act on this recognition by voluntarily choosing whether or not to act, thus becoming legally and morally responsible for any consequences. The concept is a product of the theory of imputation (see also Justification) as developed in 17th- and 18th-centu…

[German Version] I. Philosophy of Religion The word theonomy is a neologism modeled on Greek ϑεο-νομία/ theo-nomía. It means that reality and its order, especially human morality and immorality, are subject to God’s law. The term became popular in the 19th century in the context of reaction against I. Kant’s reformulation of the concept of autonomy. The issue raised by the two terms autonomy and theonomy can be summed up in the question whether they are opposites or correlates. The substantial meaning of theonomy is dependent on the conception of God that it …

[German Version] (Apr 9, 1868, Neuchâtel, Switzerland – Dec 8, 1946, Yellow Springs, OH). Born in Switzerland and brought up in a Reformed environment, Leuba lived in the United States from 1887 onward and studied at Clark University under S. Hall. His empirical study of conversion, which he submitted as a doctoral dissertation in 1895, is considered a pioneering work of the psychology of religion. From 1898 to 1933, Leuba was professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College. Together with W. James, he became the foremost promoter of the American psychology of religion. ¶ His religion-critic…

[German Version] I. Phenomenology and Social Sciences – II. Ethics – III. Mores and Church Life – IV. Ecclesiastical Mores I. Phenomenology and Social Sciences The term “mores” (cf. Ger. Sitte) refers to regular forms of common living that are relatively binding and provided by tradition. Behavior oriented to mores relates to cultural patterns that have been valid for “a long time,” and were often practiced by previous generations. M. Weber thus speaks of “embeddedness” ( Eingelebtheit). In German, the term Sitte (“mores”) competes with Brauch (Custom). There is no sharp dis…

[German Version] Maintenance of tradition means responsible concern for the authentic preservation of a significant traditional body of insights, norms, ways of life, or institutions that shape the identity of an ordered community along with the individuals within it and their formational history. Maintenance of tradition means more than fixing a tradition in oral or written form and rigid perpetuation of its existing state; precisely in order to preserve a tradition’s original meaning, it include…

[German Version] The expression judgmentforming denotes the more or less methodical process of arriving at a judgment – logical, moral, aesthetic, legal, etc. It comprises an ordered sequence of steps, beginning with the appearance of a particular constellation of problems and ending with a temporary or final solution. Objectively, it presupposes that the constellation of problems in question can be clearly identified and defined and is also amenable to solution under the conditions of finite reason…

[German Version] In the ethics of ancient philosophy, self-sufficiency (Gk αὐτάρκεια/ autárkeia, Lat. sufficientia sui) denotes the basic ethical stance through which individuals seek to attain the goal of their lives, true eudaimonia, by aspiring to happiness in the inward constitution of their soul (III, 3) independently of outward goods and the vicissitudes of fate; in this context, self-sufficiency resembles the virtue of prudence (Democritus). Xenophon sketches the figure of Socrates as the ideal of the …

[German Version] I. Bible – II. Dogmatics – III. Ethics I. Bible 1. Old Testament and Gospels. The word “body” rarely appears in the Hebrew OT, because human beings are usually referred to as flesh and soul (cf. Flesh and spirit: I). The LXX often uses σῶμα/ sṓma (“body”) to translate בָּשָׂר/ bāśār (“flesh”). Although the term “body” does not occur in creation passages, it is still true that human beings were created by God as physical creatures …

[German Version] I. Fundamental Theology Process theology is a school within North American theology (North America, Theology in: III) whose essential stimuli came from the process metaphysics (Process philosophy) of A.N. Whitehead. The early center of this movement was the University of Chicago, where from the mid-1920s Whitehead’s thought came to influence theology through the work of H.N. Wieman (and later his students Bernard M. Loomer and Bernard E. Meland) and Charles Hartshorne. The appeal to…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Philosophy of Religion and Historical Theology – III. Philosophy – IV. Dogmatics – V. Practical Theology – VI. Ethics I. Religious Studies Perceptions of animate and inanimate nature, dreams, ecstasy, trance, and death, as well as sickness and physical sensation, and finally self-reflection and self-transcendence have led to highly diverse models for interpreting …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In general usage, tradition (from Lat. transdare/ tradere, “hand on, transmit”) connotes retention and safeguarding, understood as a conservative handing down of mores, customs, norms, rules, and knowledge. The emphasis is on continuity with the past. Jan Assmann interprets tradition as an exemplary case of “cultural memory,” an enduring cultural construction of identity. In religions appeal to tradition is a prominent element justifying interpretations, practices, clai…