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[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 concept of religious a priori was shaped, in analogy to the terminology of I. Kant, by E. Troeltsch in 1904. He attempted, by means of the insights of consciousness theory, to ascertain the value of religion according to the goals of objective conceptions of religion. This attempt involved a point of contact with Kant's doctrine, but also a profound difference from it. As Kant understood it, a priori are those structures of consciousness that form the basis equally for the categorical conceptualization of spatial-temporal experience, for the moral self-determination of rational subjects, and for assent to aesthetic judgments. From this concept, the expression "religious a priori" adopts the claim of a structural necessity of religion for consciousness. To be sure, this contention includes a broad modification of …

[German Version] I. Name – II. History – III. Concept – IV. Positions – V. Phases – VI. Significance I. Name “Dialectical theology” refers to the theological movement …

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion I. Philosophy Ever since Aristotle, immediacy has been placed on a par with the highest concept of judgment (syllogism) and of evaluation (self-evidence), the principle of a first cause and that of a presuppositionless beginning. The theoretical enhancement of the subject's immediate self-awareness proposed by R. Descartes as the secure foundation of philosophical knowledge was further emphasize…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Fundamental Theology – IV. Dogmatics – V. Ethics I. Philosophy In the traditional doctrine of cognition (Epistemology), the intellect is primarily viewed as an intuitive capacity (Gk νοῦς/ nous, Lat. intellectus), partly in demarcation from reason as a discursive capacity. The intellect enables a person to attain direct insight into last principles or simple facts, so that the process of cognition is brought to a close logically and rationally (Arist. Eth. Nic. 1143a…

[German Version] I. Philosophy Self-consciousness (or self-awareness) is knowledge of one’s own states, wishes, and intentions, together with assessment of one’s own person (II) in relationship to others. An essential element of self-consciousness is reflection, i.e. the ability to relate to one’s own states, wishes, and intentions, to the embeddedness of one’s own life in situations, and to the course of one’s own life. Thus self-consciousness is neither immediate knowled…

[German Version] Subjectivism is unmistakably a polemical term, and is associated with political theory. It presupposes the rise of subjectivity as a paradigm in modern philosophy (III, 2). The charge of purely subjective knowledge it articulates is grounded in epistemology (II), whence it found its way into ethics, philosophy of religion, and theology, as well as aesthetics. Whoever uses it lays claim to a superior form of knowledge, which must be able to say in turn how it relates to the subjectivity that is inescapable in all forms of knowledge. The term subjectivism allows old and heterogeneous charges to be expressed in a single word. It can take aim at the homo mensura statement of Protagoras of Abdera (“Man is the measure of all things”), various varieties of skepticism (II; “We cannot know anything with certainty”), and relativism (“All knowledge is subjectively distorted”); in ethics it can be leveled at Utilitarianism(“The good is identified through comparison of competing interests”), in aesthetics at Romantic irony (Korff ). I…

[German Version] (Sep 22, 1845, Koblenz – Feb 25, 1935, Innsbruck), SJ, was professor of church history in Innsbruck (1871–1895), then an independent scholar active primarily in Rome, after 1902 in Munich and after 1902 in Innsbruck. He was a leading representative of the Catholic interpretation of Luther in the first third of the 20th century. After Grisar's involvement in Vatican I in Rome, he was an emphatic proponent of the papal claim to primacy. His highly detailed studies on the trial of Ga…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Dogmatics I. Philosophy In philosophy, the concept of dialectics serves to characterize various types of thought which share the tendency to seek out contradictions or other oppositions and render them fruitful for cognition. Dialectics takes contradictions as the occasion to…