Ernst Troeltsch.

Ernst Troeltsch (17 February 1865 – 1 February 1923) was a German Protestant theologian and writer on philosophy of religion and philosophy of history, and an influential figure in German thought before 1914. His work was a synthesis of a number of strands, drawing on Albrecht Ritschl, Max Weber's conception of sociology, and the Neo-Kantians of the Baden school.

His The Social Teachings of the Christian Church (two volume edition in translation by Harper Row, 1960) is a seminal work in this area.

While religious thinking in the days of the Weimar Republic moved away from his direction, Troeltsch's work in the sociology of religion remains important.

Further reading[link]

• Nix, Jr., Echol. Ernst Troeltsch and Comparative Theology (Peter Lang Publishing; 2010) 247 pages; a study of Troeltsch and the contemporary American philosopher and theologian Robert Neville (b.1939).

External links[link]

• Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) entry in the Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology by Bill Fraatz
• G. Cantillo, Introduzione a Troeltsch,"I Filosofi", Laterza, Roma-Bari 2004.

This Christianity-related biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

Ernst Bloch

Ernst Bloch (1954)
Born	July 8, 1885 Ludwigshafen, Germany
Died	August 4, 1977(1977-08-04) (aged 92) Tübingen, Germany
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Marxism
Main interests	Humanism, history, nature, subjectivity, ideology, utopia, religion, theology
Influenced by Marx, Hegel, Karl May
Influenced Ernesto Balducci, Jürgen Moltmann

Ernst Bloch (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁnst ˈblɔx], July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977) was a German Marxist philosopher.

Bloch was influenced by Hegel, Marx, and novelist Karl May. Counted also among his influences are apocalyptic and religious thinkers as diverse as gnostics like Valentinus (see "Spirit of Utopia") and Thomas Müntzer (see "Thomas Müntzer als Theologe der Revolution"). He established friendships with Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno. Bloch's work focuses on the concept that in a humanistic world where oppression and exploitation have been eliminated there will always be a truly revolutionary force.

Life[link]

Bloch was born in Ludwigshafen, the son of a Jewish railway-employee. After studying philosophy, he married Else von Stritzky, daughter of a Baltic brewer in 1913, who died in 1921. His second marriage with Linda Oppenheimer lasted only a few years. His third wife was Karola Piotrowska, a Polish architect, whom he married in 1934 in Vienna. When the Nazis came to power, they had to flee, first into Switzerland, then to Austria, France, Czechoslovakia, and finally the USA. Bloch returned to the GDR in 1949 and obtained a chair in philosophy at Leipzig. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, he did not return to the GDR, but went to Tübingen in West Germany, where he received an honorary chair in Philosophy. He died in Tübingen.

Work[link]

Endlose Treppe by Max Bill, which is dedicated to the Principle of Hope by Bloch.

Bloch's work became very influential in the course of the student protest movements in 1968 and in liberation theology. It is cited as a key influence by Jürgen Moltmann in his Theology of Hope (1967, Harper and Row, New York), by Dorothee Sölle, and by Ernesto Balducci.

Bloch's Principle of Hope was written during his emigration in the USA, where he lived briefly in New Hampshire before settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He wrote the lengthy three volume work in the reading room of Harvard's Widener Library. Bloch originally planned to publish it there under the title Dreams of a Better Life. The Principle of Hope tries to provide an encyclopedic account of mankind's and nature's orientation towards a socially and technologically improved future.

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• Geist der Utopie (1918) (The Spirit of Utopia, Stanford, 2000)
• Thomas Müntzer als Theologe der Revolution (1921) (Thomas Müntzer as Theologian of Revolution)
• Spuren (1930) (Traces, Stanford University Press, 2006)
• Erbschaft dieser Zeit (1935) (Bequest of This Time)
• Freiheit und Ordnung (1947) (Freedom and Order)
• Subjekt-Objekt (1949)
• Christian Thomasius (1949)
• Avicenna und die aristotelische Linke (1949) (Avicenna and the aristotelian Left)
• Das Prinzip Hoffnung (3 vols.: 1938–1947) (The Principle of Hope, MIT Press, 1986)
• Naturrecht und menschliche Würde (1961) (Natural Law and Human Dignity, MIT Press 1986)
• Tübinger Einleitung in die Philosophie (1963) (The Tübingen Introduction in Philosophy)
• Religion im Erbe (1959–66) (trans.: Man on His Own, Herder and Herder, 1970)
• Atheismus im Christentum (1968) (trans.: Atheism in Christianity, 1972)
• Politische Messungen, Pestzeit, Vormärz (1970) (Political Measurements, the Plague, Pre-March)
• Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz (1972) (The Problem of Materialism, Its History and Substance)
• Experimentum Mundi. Frage, Kategorien des Herausbringens, Praxis (1975) (Experimentum Mundi. Question, Categories of Realization, Praxis)

Articles[link]

• “Causality and Finality as Active, Objectifying Categories:Categories of Transmission”. TELOS 21 (Fall 1974). New York: Telos Press

Further reading[link]

• Adorno, Theodor W. (1991). "Ernst Bloch's Spuren," Notes to Literature, Volume One, New York, Columbia University Press
• Geoghegan, Vincent (1996). Ernst Bloch, London, Routledge
• Hudson, Wayne (1982). The Marxist philosophy of Ernst Bloch, New York, St. Martin's Press
• Schmidt, Burghard (1985) Ernst Bloch, Stuttgart, Metzler
• Münster, Arno (1989). Ernst Bloch: messianisme et utopie, PUF, Paris
• Jones, John Miller (c1995). Assembling (post)modernism : the utopian philosophy of Ernst Bloch, New York, P Lang. (Studies in European thought, v.11)
• Korstvedt, Benjamin M. (2010). Listening for utopia in Ernst Bloch’s musical philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
• West, Thomas H. (1991). Ultimate hope without God : the atheistic eschatology of Ernst Bloch, New York, P. Lang (American university studies series 7 theology religion ; vol 97)

See also[link]

• Exilliteratur

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ernst Bloch

• Illuminations: Ernst Bloch, Utopia and Ideology Critique By Douglas Kellner
• Ernst-Bloch-Zentrum
• Ernst Bloch Assoziation
• Centre for Ernst Bloch Studies, University of Sheffield

Adolf von Harnack
Born	(1851-05-07)7 May 1851 Tartu, Governorate of Livonia
Died	10 June 1930(1930-06-10) (aged 79) Heidelberg
Nationality	German
Occupation	theologian and church historian
Spouse	Amalie Thiersch (1858–1937)
Children	Anna (20 May 1881–1965) Margarete (1882-1890) Agnes (19 June 1884 – 22 May 1950) Karl Theodosius (19 January 1886 – 14 April 1922) Ernst (15 July 1888 – 5 March 1945) Elisabet (1 January 1892 – 27 July 1976) Axel (12 September 1895–1974)
Parents	Theodosius Harnack (3 January 1817 – 23 September 1889) Marie Harnack, nee Ewers (22 May 1828 – 23 November 1857)
Relatives	Anna (sister; 1849 – ?) Axel (brother; 7 May 1851 – 3 April 1888) Erich (brother; 10 October 1852 – 23 May 1915) Otto (brother; 23 November 1857 – 23 March 1914) Arvid Harnack (nephew)

Adolf von Harnack (7 May 1851–10 June 1930), was a German Lutheran theologian and prominent church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873-1912. Harnack traced the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on early Christian writing and called on Christians to question the authenticity of doctrines that arose in the early Christian church. He rejected the historicity of the gospel of John in favor of the synoptic gospels, criticized the Apostles' Creed, and promoted the Social Gospel.

In the 19th century, higher criticism flourished in Germany, establishing the historical-critical method as an academic standard for interpreting the Bible and understanding the historical Jesus (see Tübingen school). Harnack's work is part of a reaction to Tübingen, and represents a reappraisal of tradition.

Besides his theological activities, Harnack was a distinguished organizer of sciences. He played an important role in the foundation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft and became its first president.

Biography[link]

He was born at Dorpat (today Tartu) in Livonia (then a province of Russia, now in Estonia) where his father, Theodosius Harnack, held a professorship of pastoral theology.

Harnack studied at the local University of Tartu (1869–1872) and at the University of Leipzig, where he took his degree; and soon afterwards (1874) began lecturing as a Privatdozent. These lectures, which dealt with such special subjects as Gnosticism and the Apocalypse, attracted considerable attention, and in 1876 he was appointed professor extraordinarius. In the same year he began the publication, in conjunction with Oscar Leopold von Gebhardt and Theodor Zahn, of an edition of the works of the Apostolic Fathers, Patrum apostolicorum opera, a smaller edition of which appeared in 1877.

He married Amalie Thiersch on 27 December 1879. Earlier that year, he was called to the University of Giessen as professor ordinarius of church history. There he collaborated with Gebhardt in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur (1882 sqq.), an irregular periodical, containing only essays in New Testament and patristic fields. In 1881 he published a work on monasticism, Das Mönchtum — seine Ideale und seine Geschichte (5th ed., 1900; English translation, 1901), and became joint editor with Emil Schürer of the Theologische Literaturzeitung.

In 1885 he published the first volume of his Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (3rd ed. in three volumes, 1894–1898; English translation in seven volumes, 1894–1899). In this work Harnack traced the rise of dogma, which he understood as the authoritative doctrinal system of the church and its development from the 4th century down to the Protestant Reformation. He considered that from its earliest origins, Christian faith and Greek philosophy were so closely intermingled that the resultant system included many beliefs and practices that were not authentically Christian. Therefore Protestants are not only free, but bound, to criticize it; Protestantism could be understood as a rejection of this dogma and a return to the pure faith that characterized the original church. An abridgment of this appeared in 1889 with the title Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte (3rd ed., 1898).

In 1886 Harnack was called to the University of Marburg and in 1888, in spite of violent opposition from the conservative church authorities, to Berlin. In 1890 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. In Berlin, somewhat against his will, he was drawn into a controversy on the Apostles' Creed, in which the partisan antagonisms within the Prussian Church had found expression. Harnack's view was that the creed contains both too much and too little to be a satisfactory test for candidates for ordination; he preferred a briefer declaration of faith which could be rigorously applied to all (cf. his Das Apostolische Glaubensbekenntnis. Ein geschichtlicher Bericht nebst einer Einleitung und einem Nachwort, 1892).

In Berlin, Harnack continued writing. In 1893 he published a history of early Christian literature down to Eusebius of Caesarea, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (part 2 of vol. 5., 1897); and in his popular lectures, Das Wesen des Christentums appeared in 1900 (5th ed., 1901; English translation, What is Christianity? 1901). One of his later historical works, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (1902; English translation, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, in two volumes, 1904–1905), was followed by some important New Testament studies (Beitrage zur Einleitung in das neue Testament, 1906 sqq.; Engl. trans.: Luke the Physician, 1907; The Sayings of Jesus, 1908).

Adolf von Harnack (right) close to Kaiser Wilhelm II on the occasion of the inauguration of a new Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut (1913).

Harnack was one of the most prolific and stimulating of modern critical scholars, and brought up in his "Seminar" a whole generation of teachers who carried his ideas and methods throughout the whole of Germany and beyond.

From 1905 to 1921, Harnack was the General Director of the Royal Library at Berlin (from 1918 called the Prussian State Library).

Like many ostensibly liberal professors in Germany, Harnack welcomed World War I in 1914, and signed a public statement endorsing Germany's war-aims (the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three). It was this statement, with his teacher Harnack's signature on it, that Karl Barth cited as a major impetus for his rejection of liberal theology.

Harnack was one of the moving spirits in the foundation, in 1911, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG), and became its first President. The Society's activities were much constrained by the First World War, but in the Weimar Republic period Harnack guided it to be a major vehicle for overcoming the isolation of German academics felt as a result of the war and its aftermath. The society's flagship conference centre in Berlin, the Harnack House, which opened in 1929, was named in his honour. After a long period in U.S. Army hands after World War II it has now resumed the role Harnack envisaged, as a centre for international intellectual life in the German capital, under the management of the KWG's successor organisation, the Max Planck Gesellschaft.

Theology[link]

Among the distinctive characteristics of Harnack's work were his insistence on absolute freedom in the study of church history and the New Testament (i.e. there were no "taboo" areas of research that could not be critically examined); his distrust of speculative theology, whether orthodox or liberal; and his interest in practical Christianity as a religious life and not a system of theology. Some of his addresses on social matters were published under the heading "Essays on the Social Gospel" (1907).

Though the four gospels have been regarded as canonical since Irenaeus in the 2nd century,^[1] Harnack - like earlier German scholars - rejected the Gospel of John as without historical value regarding Jesus' life:

"In particular, the fourth Gospel, which does not emanate or profess to emanate from the apostle John, cannot be taken as an historical authority in the ordinary meaning of the word. The author of it acted with sovereign freedom, transposed events and put them in a strange light, drew up the discourses himself, and illustrated great thoughts by imaginary situations. Although, therefore, his work is not altogether devoid of a real, if scarcely recognisable, traditional element, it can hardly make any claim to be considered an authority for Jesus' history; only little of what he says can be accepted, and that little with caution. On the other hand, it is an authority of the first rank for answering the question, What vivid views of Jesus’ person, what kind of light and warmth, did the Gospel disengage?"^[2][3]

Harnack denied the possibility of miracles but argued that Jesus may well have performed acts of healing that seemed miraculous: "That the earth in its course stood still; that a she-ass spoke; that a storm was quieted by a word, we do not believe, and we shall never again believe; but that the lame walked, the blind saw, and the deaf heard will not be so summarily dismissed as an illusion."^[2]

Bibliography[link]

• Adolf von Harnack. Christentum, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft, Kurt Nowak et al., eds., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, ISBN 3-525-35854-7 is the best recent assessment of Harnack and his impact from a variety of perspectives.

See also[link]

• Harnack medal

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Adolf von Harnack

• Harnack-Forum (German Website)
• Works by Adolf Harnack at CCEL (English)
• Adolf von Harnack (1902, 1924). The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/religious_studies/rak/courses/535/Harnack/bk0-TOC.htm. 
• Adolf von Harnack in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• Works by Adolf von Harnack at Project Gutenberg

References[link]

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Harnack, Adolf". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

1. ^ Henry Chadwick, The early church. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967, p. 43. OCLC 421929492
2. ^ ^{a b} What is Christianity? Lectures Delivered in the University of Berlin during the Winter-Term 1899-1900. | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
3. ^ Note that the word "disengage" here is a mistranslation of the word entbunden which appears in the original German text, which would be better rendered "give birth to", "set in motion" or "release"

Adolf Schlatter (16 August 1852 - 19 May 1938) was an Evangelical theologian and professor specialising in the New Testament and systematics at Greifswald, Berlin and Tübingen. Oxford scholar Robert Morgan suggests that Schlatter is the only "conservative" that ranks among the likes of FC Bauer, William Wrede and Rudolph Bultmann in terms of genius and academic output. There has been a Schlatter Renaisance in the English speaking world since the second half of the 20th century with scholars like Andreas Korstenberger and Robert Yarbrough taking the lead.

Biography[link]

Adolf Schlatter, 1925.

Schlatter, born in St. Gallen to a pietistic preacher, studied philosophy and theology in Basel and Tübingen between 1871 and 1875, gaining his post-doctoral teaching qualification (Habilitation) in 1880. In 1888, he became a lecturer at the University of Berne. Between 1893 and 1930, he held professorships in Greifswald, Berlin, and Tübingen, where he eventually died. In Berlin, he was the intellectual antithesis to Adolf von Harnack.

From 1897, he was co-editor, alongside Hermann Cremer, of a magazine called Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie (Articles for the Promotion of Christian Theology).

Schlatter became particularly well-known for his analysis of the New Testament, which was accessible to a broad audience. He was adamant about the manifestation of God in nature and in Jesus Christ, and this conviction led him to a criticism of the theophilosophical ideas of German idealism. His down-to-earth interpretation of the Bible also brought Schlatter into in conflict with the contemporary school of thought in the Evangelical Church in Germany. In addition, Schlatter worked towards the development of a theory of knowledge with which he could reconcile his religious convictions.

Schlatter's role in the time of the Third Reich is subject of a scientific debate. According to the Pulitzer Prize winning historian Saul Friedländer in his Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945, Schlatter belonged to a "hard core of Jew haters" who considered the Nazi anti-Semitic laws too mild. Friedländer cites from a popular 1935 pamphlet by Schlatter, Wird der Jude über uns siegen? Ein Wort für die Weihnacht [Will the Jew be Victorious Over Us?: A Word for Christmas] that regrets the "favorable situation" of the Jews in contemporary Germany. ^[1] Werner Neuer on the other hand reads the same scripture as a word against racism and as a warning against the Nazi regime,^[2] pointing out that the booklet was forbidden and confiscated by the Gestapo and set on the list of damaging and undesirable writing.^[3] Anders Gerdmar exposes the complexity of Schlatters attitude: Although he was undoubtly anti-National Socialist (he strongly criticised Nazi neo-paganism, racial myth, the cult of the Fuehrer and he never supported the National Socialist party) and despite his positive view of the salvation-historical Judaism (which makes ist impossible to describe him as an anti-Semite), he "indirectly and directly" legitimized "the oppression of Jews. It is beyound our power to judge whether he understood it or not".^[4] The debate is still ongoing.

Archives of Schlatter's work, as well as a foundation dedicated to him, are situated in Stuttgart. In Tübingen, the "Adolf Schlatter House" in Österbergstrasse is named after him, as is the "Adolf Schlatter Home" in Recke.

Notes[link]

Works[link]

• Vom Dienst an Theologie und Kirche, Berlin, Furche Publishing
• Der Dienst der Christen in der älteren Dogmatik, 1897 (republished as Der Dienst des Christen in 1999)
• Evangelium und Dienst am Volk, Gotha, 1932
• Drei Predigten aus ernster Zeit
• Haering, Theodor von, Stuttgart (Steinkopf), 1918
• Die Geschichte des Christus, Stuttgart, 1921
• Die Gründe der christlicher Gewißheit, Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1917
• Am Leiden teilnehmen, Berlin, 1934
• Die Apostelgeschichte, Berlin, 1961
• Der Brief des Jakobus, Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1932
• Die Briefe an die Galater, Epheser, Kolosser und Philemon, Berlin, 1962
• Die Briefe des Petrus, Judas, Jakobus, der Brief an die Hebräer, Berlin, 1965

External links[link]

• Johannes Jürgen Seidel (1995). Bautz, Traugott. ed (in German). Adolf Schlatter. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 9. Herzberg. cols. 232–235. ISBN 3-88309-058-1. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/s/s1/schlatter_a.shtml. 
• Adolf Schlatter in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• Summaries of modern research literature about Schlatter
• Dr. Robert W. Yarbrough's Lecture Series on Schlatter followed by a list of his publications on Schlatter
•  "Schlatter, Adolf". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.