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[German Version] In the broadest sense, the term news (or communication) technology covers the total technology of producing, transmitting, and processing news, including the technology of control and regulation; in the strict sense, though, the term refers just to electronic communication technologies as tools for optimizing the transmission of tokens with the help of electronic signals. First the invention of the electric telegraph by Samuel F.B. Morse, then later the telephone enabled remote communication as an everyday phenomenon. The explosive development of broadcasting technology led to media of mass communication (Radio, Television, Mass media), which reaches ever-increasing portions of the world’s population. Further improvements in transmission capacity (satellites, fiber optics), establishment of new telecommunication networks (cell phones, the internet), and digitization of the corresponding technologies have increasingly brought communication technologies and data processing together, producing all the forms of information communication, acoustic, visual, and textual. The importance of data protection and encryption has grown apace. Today’s communication systems are increasingly taking the form of a network in which users communicate reciprocally as soon as they have established contact, going beyond simple point-to-point communication of data. Complex transactions like purchase of merchandise, money transfer, telecommuting, and teleconferencing have been made possible. Today’s forms of communications technology thus create the conditions necessary for a global community by supplying a comprehensive infrastructure through which economic, political, and cultural goods and information are accessible throughout the world, a development which clearly represents an ecumenical opportunity for the church. Whether and how economically impoverished or ideologically isolated societies gain access, how national and international law can be enforced, and how freedom of opinion is to be weighed against crime prevention are unresolved issues of a still embryonic ethics of modern information technology. Since Christian churches and organizations are constituted through communication, they naturally make use of this technology. The glut of information naturally raises the question how these institutions can bring their own profile into focus and find a form appropriate to their commission to preach the gospel in the face of the fast…

[German Version] regard the earth as a self-regulating system that behaves like an organism. The British atmo-¶ spheric chemist, James E. Lovelock, justified this view in the 1960s. He pointed out…

[German Version] I. Natural Science – II. Dogmatics – III. Ethics I. Natural Science The term “natural law” refers to a general…

[German Version] I. Science Natural laws express regular connections between natural phenomena, with the ideal aim of potential mathematical modeling. Depending on whether the connection is unconditionally valid, or merely describes probabilities, a distinction can be made between deterministic and statistical natural laws. In classical physics, all natural events are consistently determined by laws of causality; only epistemic chance in relation to the state of…

[German Version] I. Natural Sciences In the natural sciences, necessity usually appears as an implication of causal natural laws (Natural law/Law of nature), according to which by necessity an event A as a cause must be followed by an event B as its consequence. This necessity implied by laws of nature is not undisputed. Empiricism, which goes back to D. Hume, rejects the possibility of human insight into necessary …

[German Version] I. Philosophy of Religion – II. Dogmatics I. Philosophy of Religion…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Dogmatics I. Philosophy Infinity is a key concept of ancient philosophy that combines a wide spectrum of meanings under the title ἄπειρον/ ápeiron: boundlessness and indeterminacy of the origins from which becoming emerged, that is, the fundamental principle of the physical world and of its objects (Anaximander); the limitlessness, to be evaluated negatively, which stands in opposition to the positive delimitation effected by number or measure (Pythagoras); the infinite, which pre-Socratic philosophy initially conceives of in its opposition to the boundary (πέρας/ péras), itself becomes a hybrid through the determinations of ratio and measure or determinative for péras; this is what Plato defines as the truly existing, the beauty and the good ( Phileb. 23c–32b). ¶ In demarcation to any substantiating argumentation (principle, substance, quality), Aristotle's conceptual analysis, which is oriented to quantities, uses the concept of the infinite to describe time, and especially the continuity of becoming and decaying, constancy, furthermore the additive inconcludability of that which …

[German Version] I. Classical Field Theory – II. Quantum Field Theory – III. Field Theory in the Social Sciences I. Cla…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Philosophy – III. Theology I. History of Religion In one of the earliest usages in the German language, materialism was described as an “error,” i.e. “when a person denies the spiritual substance and …

[German Version] I. Theology and Science – II. Systematic Theology – III. Ethics I. Theology and Science Emergence (from Lat. emergere, “to arise”), an idea that describes the appearance of novel and higher forms, represents an alternative to mechanistic, vitalist (Vitalism and mechanism), reductionist, and preformationist explanations. Emergence claims that complex structur…

[German Version] I. Philosophy Objectively, probability is the measure of the chance that a particular event will take place (ontological probability); subjectively, it is the measure of the certainty or credibility of a statement (epistemic probability). The interest in ontological probability arising from decision theory, as in games of chance, led to the mathematical theory of probability (Andrey N. Kolmogorov; Chance). But we must distinguish the logical ( …

[German Version] I. Science – II. Ethics – III. Practical Theology I. Science Cybernetics denotes the science of the control and communication processes in machines and biological systems. Of particular interest for cybernetics are those systems that can regulate or organize themselves through feedback processes. Norbert Wiener coined the term cybernetics in 1947. It is the transliteration of the Greek κυβερνητική/ kybernētikḗ, “the helmsman's art.” Plato used this term both for the regulation of people and for the steering of a boat. To…

[German Version] I. Theory – II. Ethics – III. Practical Theology I. Theory “Communications” in the broadest sense encompasses the interdisciplinary study of communication in biological, technological, and social systems, insofar as it manifests itself as a purposeful exchange of information through a system of signs. The subject of study is ultimately the communication process as a whole, including both its mutually interacting components (communicator, medium, recipient) and the basic conditions by which it …

[German Version] I. History 1. Antiquity. Although there is good reason to speak of natural science in the strict sense only with the dawn of the modern era, its roots actually go back to the beginnings of human history. Early scientific traditions arose from technical and practical knowledge acquired in dealing with nature, but they were also shaped by intellectual traditions that sought historical and mythological explanations for natural phenomena. Mathematics early on became a significant tool for…

[German Version] I. The Concept …

[German Version] I. Philosophy The philosophical value concept is the result of a hypostatization of value predicates that are assigned to objects or circumstances as signs of human esteem. By way of inference, the evaluative assessment gives rise to a value, which is in turn meant to serve as a source of norms. R.H. Lotze developed the value concept in the mid-19th century, at a time when the upcoming natural sciences were increasingly challenging its claim…

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Bible I. History of Religions The (potentially) imminent end of the world is taken up in many religious traditions, as is evident from the ¶ many graphic accounts of it. The term end of the world refers primarily to cosmological (“physical”) eschatology, as distinct from individual and collective eschatology (i.e. from the idea of a judgment of all or of each person individually). Some fundamental distinctions should be drawn. First, cyclically oriented models of explaining the end of the …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Systems theory considers religion one social system alongside others, like the economy, law (Law and Jurisprudence), politics, and education and analyzes it in terms of the function it discharges. The evolutionary approach of systems theory assumes that in primordial local communities the function of religion was nonspecific and was fulfilled in combination with other functions – military, economic, and familial. The transition to modern societies witnessed a differentiation from which religion …

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Philosophy of Religion – VI. Fundamental Theology – VII. Dogmatics – VIII. Education and Practical Theology – IX. Judaism – X. Islamic Theology …

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. History of Theology – VI. Creation and Preservation – VII. Religious Education – VIII. Islam – IX. Science – X. Art History I. History of Religion …