Friedrich Gogarten

Friedrich Gogarten ( born January 13, 1887 in Dortmund, † October 16, 1967 in Göttingen) was a Lutheran theologian co-founder of dialectical theology in Germany in the early 20th century.

Life

Under the leadership of Karl Barth, this new theological direction delineated by the hitherto prevailing liberal theology and their representatives (Albrecht Ritschl and others). Against historicism and anthropocentrism of the evangelical theology of the 19th century introduced the dialectical theology of the absolute contrast between God and man out. The ultimate publication organ of the dialectical theology was named after a formulation Gogarten series " Between the Times".

Although Karl Barth wrote enthusiastically in 1920 in a letter to Eduard Thurneysen about Gogarten: "This is a Dreadnought for us and against our adversaries. Who knows, one day he will still teach us! " Is, however a few years later occurred a certain distance between Barth and Gogarten. Later it came to the resolution of the journal " between the times" and to break with Barth and at times with Rudolf Bultmann, however in 1940 the relationship with Gogarten resumed.

Shortly after the August 4, 1933 Gogarten joined the German Christians. After the " Sports Palace rally " on 13 November 1933 in Berlin, he parted from the faith community with a character appearing in several magazines explanation about the " German Christian movement ." The NSDAP is never joined Gogarten.

Gogarten taught in Jena, where he habilitated on intellectual history and theology since 1927; he took over in 1931 as the successor to Erich Schaeder in Wroclaw Professor of Systematic Theology, had to take over the representation of the dismissed from the service Karl Barth in Bonn in the summer semester 1935 and then in the winter semester 1935 in Göttingen, succeeding Carl rod to full professor for Systematic Theology and was promoted to university preacher. Was his retirement in Göttingen on 25 February 1955.

Gogarten general theme is "Man between God and the world ", " The Church in the World " and secularization as a result of Christian revelation.

Quotes

"This is the fate of our generation that we are between the times. We never belonged to the time it comes to an end today. Whether we will ever belong to the time that is to come? And if we could from us belong to it, whether it will come so soon? So we are in the middle between them. In an empty room. "

Honors

  • Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Giessen (1924 )
  • Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1957 )
  • Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany (1967 )
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