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[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics I. Dogmatics While the term liberty (Lat. libertas) denotes the state or property of being free, liberation describes the process through which liberty or freedom is achieved. Liberation is the conscious praxis of freedom to achieve freedom from oppression (Freire). In the New Testament, ἐλευθερόω/ eleutheróō denotes the process of being set free through the work of Christ from the dominion of sin (V), death (VI), and decay (Rom 6:18, 22; 8:2, 21; John 8:32, 36). Enslavement and captivity are the objec…

[German Version] This concept was introduced by K. Jaspers to describe the specific existence of the human person as distinct from all that exists as a thing (Existentialism [philosophy]; Existentialism [theology]). A borderline situation cannot be planned and controlled by the reason; it is contingent, and is an existential datum of human existence like for e…

[German Version] I. Fundamental Theology – II. Philosophy I. Fundamental Theology Historicality as a specific determinant of human existence in contrast to everything that is simply there (Existence) must be distinguished from the historicity of an event or situation in the sense of its having been authenticated as an assured historical fact (see also Historicism, History/Concepts of History, Historiography) – unlike, for example, the stories of sagas and legends or the poetry of myth – even though it wo…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies S. Freud claimed credit for discovering the unconscious as a key concept for psychoanalysis, but much older concepts of the unconscious are found in religious and philosophical systems: (a) in the works of Plato(ἀνάμνησις/ anámnēsis as the unconscious condition for conscious mental activity) and Plotinus, (b) in Indian Vedānta and Buddhism ( avidyā, “ignorance,” inducing māyā), and (c) in the medieval Christian mysticism of Meister Eckhart ( Seligkeit) and the 14th-century English mystical text The Cloud of Unknow…