Search

[German Version] (born Degen; 1511, Schorndorf – May 9, 1587, Tübingen), professor of philosophy at Tübingen from 1536, also professor of medicine there from 1543; he was superintendent and several times rector of the Tübingen Stift; he lost his sight in 1577. His commentaries on Aristotle’s logic and physics represented the (non-Scholastic and anti-Ramist) reform of ¶ Aristotelian topics and theory of proof in logic and were closely associated wi…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Philosophy – V. Social Sciences – VI. Systematic Theology I. Religious Studies Religious studies have paid little attention to f…

[German Version] I. New Testament – II. Dogma and the History of Dogma – III. Art History I. New Testament Christ's descent into hell, i.e. his descent to the underworld, the realm of the dead, is, as Descensus ad inferos, one of the christological statements of the early and medieval church's confession of faith (Apostles' Creed, Athanasia…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Piety (recently often also “spirituality”) is understood, first, as the forms of expression of lived religiosity; research in this area is particularly the subject of folklore studies and church history for the idividual, secondly, piety has to do with particular qualities of feeling, such as reverence, with which the psychology of religion (Gruehn, Sundén) is concerned. Objective and subjective comp…

[German Version] I. New Testament – II. Church History – III. Theology I. New Testament 1. The term ἀντίχριστος appears in Christian literature only in 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7, and, dependent on these texts, Pol. Phil 7:1. There it refers to someone who turns against Christ and the confession of Christ, not – as would be linguistically possible – someone who seeks to take the place of Christ; in context, it refers to theological opponents collectively. The neologism introduced by the…

[German Version] …

[German Version] I. Use and History of the Term – II. Architecture and Landscaping – III. Painting and Sculpture – IV. Literature – V. Music I. Use and History of the Term …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Dogmatics – VI. Judaism – VII. Islam – VIII. Buddhism – IX. Contemporary Art I. Religious Studies 1. Hell as a place of retribution in the afterlife for those who continually…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Dogmatics and Ethics – V. Politics and Jurisprudence I. History of Religion Laws are generally regarded as formulated, i.e. sentential and often codified rules of life and coexistence; this ¶ refers especially to principles of nature (Law/Natural law) and norms of action (Commandment, Ethics). For the modern age, the validity of natural la…

[German Version] (Nov 30, 1702, Zell am Main – Dec 19/20, 1749, Wolfenbüttel), translator of the so-called Wertheim Bible. The son of a clergyman, Schmidt studied philosophy and theology at Jena (with J.F. Buddeus) and was appointed tutor to the comital (i.e. Protestant) House of Löwenstein-Wertheim. In this position he worked on a Bible translation, the first portion of which, the Pentateuch, was published by his pupils in 1735 ( …

[German Version] I. Natural Sciences and Psychology – II. Religious Studies – III. Philosophy – IV. Old Testament – V. New Testament – VI. Church History – VII. Dogmatics and Ethics – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam I. Natural Sciences and Psychology 1. Evolution From the perspective of the natural sciences, the theory of evolution offers the most comprehensive framework for understanding human beings. It views the human species as a late product of a biogenetic process that began with the origin of life (VI) on earth some 3.8 billion years ago. Humans are members of the order Primates. Between five and seven million years ago, the hominid clade diverged from the line of apes, with which we still share 98.4% of our DNA. While fossils of the first …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Dogmatics – III. Philosophy of Religion I. Religious Studies R. Otto used the concept of the demonic in close association with the concept of the numinous, which occupied the center of his theory of religion. The essence of the numinous includes the element of the tremendum, the unnerving or unsettling element corresponding on the human side to numinous or religious awe – whose “preliminary stage” according to Otto is demonic awe ( …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In archaic cultures, the wellbeing of the community is determined by a fatal power that can be influenced by religious rituals but is ultimately incalculable. In the context of advanced early urban cultures, however, there emerged religious worldviews in which universal concepts of order played a central role. In this historical context, a “functioning world order” (Klimkeit) became the structural principle for models explaining the world. The connection between …

[German Version] I. Philosophy - II. Dogmatics - III. Ethics - IV. Practical Theology I. Philosophy …

[German Version] (c. 1538, Halle/Saale – Nov 30, 1611, Wolfenbüttel), Lutheran theologian. Hoffmann was appointed professor of philosophy in Helmstedt in 1574/1576 and professor of theology in 1578. In association with V. Strigel, S. Musäus, and T. Heßhus, Hoffmann attempted to preserve the integrity of Luther's doctrine against Philippistic (P. Melanchthon) and Flacian (M. Flacius) deviations, but also, while defe…

[German Version] …

[German Version] (Jun 4, 1753, Frankfurt am Main – Feb 17, 1826, Jena), Protestant theologian, became professor of OT at Altdorf in 1785, and at Jena in 1804, where he had studied OT and NT exegesis from 1772 to 1778 with J.G. Eichhorn and J.J. Griesbach. Linked with theological neology (Enlighten…

…

[German Version] (Oct 1, 1589, Cölln an der Spree – Aug 19[?], 1634, Berlin) was rector of the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster in Berlin from 1618 onward. As a philosophical author he professed the Wittenberg Aristotelianism of his teacher J. Martini in Logik (1626) and Metaphysik (1628/1630) and logically conceived a new discipline of Intelligentia. The cognition-enabling habit…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Bible – III. Fundamental Theology and Dogmatics – IV. Philosophy – V. Philosophy of Religion – VI. Natural Sciences – VII. Ethics I. Religious Studies Religious ideas and rituals focus fundamentally on life in this world and the next (Here and now, and the hereafter), i.e., coping with life and death (I). Through an immense range of variations, certain returning elements are discernible. Because of its numinous origin (Creation), life is usually felt to be “owed,” but because it is existentially imperiled, it needs constantly to be preserved through special spiritual or ritual means. As part of a larger, cosmic context, it transcends the indiv…