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[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] 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] (Ger. Takt, Fr. tact, Lat. tactus, “sense of touch, feeling, influence”) denotes the practical judgment that enables the accurate application of rules in concrete cases by drawing on the totality of the determinants present in the mind as universal rules of common sense or experience, without being elevated to the level of conscious scientific clarity (I. Kant). In a moral sense, tact is sensitivity to what is right and proper given the distinctive character of a particular situation a…

[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. 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] 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] 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] 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] Penitence, like the related terms contrition, repentance, regret, and remorse (cf. Ger. Reue), denotes a common human feeling in which a person feels painfully affected by the effects of his or her actions or attitudes, and is moved to wish these things had not happened and to attempt to revise them in future behavior or make good their effects. The concept of penitence presupposes the processual nature of personal being (Process), which in the case of finite persons has a temporal structure …

[German Version] I. Philosophy Rationality is derived from Latin ratio (“calculation, consideration, reason”) and medieval Latin rationalitas (“reason, capacity for thought”). The term denotes various intellectual capacities that distinguish human beings as “rational animals” from the other more highly developed animals. In German, from the 18th century, these capacities were generally designated as Verstand (Intellect: I) and Vernunft (Reason: I). Under the influence of the English term rationality, and the usage of various scientific disciplines, especially s…

[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] (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] I. The Concept Social psychology studies the modes of social experience and behavior and the interaction processes both of individuals and between individuals and social systems (Community and the individual) of varying complexity (microsystems like partnerships, families [Family], groups; mesosystems like organizations and institutions; macrosystems like social, political and cultural entities), as well as the relationship of social systems to each other. The basic issues, which are…

[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…

[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. 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] 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] 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] The term selfishness denotes the disastrous focus of finite persons on their own selves (Self), perverting their creaturely self-love through inversion of the proper relation between relationship to God, the world, and self. 1. When one’s relationship to God is subordinated to relationship to oneself or is replaced entirely, selfishness manifests itself as hubris, the desire to be like God (Gen 3:5), spiritual pride, and self-righteousness. Theologically, therefore, there has been a tendency to identify selfishness with sin per se (Augustine, Puritanism ¶ [Purit…

[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…