James Ambrose Lee II - Confessional Lutheranism and German Theological Wissenschaft: Adolf Harleß, August Vilmar, and Johannes Christian Konrad von Hofmann

Theologische Bibliothek Tpelmann

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Theologische Briefe der Professoren Delitzschund v. Hofmann. Edited by Wilhelm Volck. Leipzig: J. Ch. Hinrichs, 1891.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, Kritische Gesamtausgaube, ed. Herman Fischer et al.

Johannes von Hofmann. Die Encyklopdie der Theologie. Edited by H. J. Bestmann. Nrdlingen: C. H. Beck, 1879.

Johannes von Hofmann. Der Schriftbeweis. Ein theologischer Versuch. 2 vols. Nrdlingen: C. H. Beck, 18521855.

Johannes von Hofmann. Der Schriftbeweis. Ein theologischer Versuch. 2 vols. Second edition. Nrdlingen: C. H. Beck, 18571860.

Johannes von Hofmann. Die Schutzschriften fr eine neue Weise alte Wahrheit zu lehren. 4 parts. Nrdlingen: C. H. Beck, 18561859.

Johannes von Hofmann. Theologische Ethik. Edited by H. Rutz. Nrdlingen: C. H. Beck, 1878.

Das Heil der Deutschen ist in der Wissenschaft.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

By 1848 the burgeoning Neolutheran confessional awakening was gathering momentum.

The general contours of Hofmanns atonement debate are already well established.

A consequence of the caustic debate that erupted over Hofmanns doctrine of the atonement was the awareness of a greater theological diversity amid this coterie of Lutheran theologians. The recognition of this division occurred as other theological fault lines came to the surface. A shared denouncement of forced Protestant Unions (e.g. the Prussian Union), a rejection of modern university theology, and a commitment to the confessional texts of the Lutheran church, proved to be an unsteady foundation for grounding confessional and theological unity.

Returning to the debate over Hofmanns doctrine of the atonement, when viewed through the prism of nineteenth-century confessional Lutheran consensus and dissimilarity, one is able to discern a concomitant subject of theological dispute, entwined within the atonement controversy, that was often overshadowed by the vehement nature of the atonement controversy. Threads of this subject are clearly observable throughout the publication that kindled the atonement controversy, Hofmanns Der Schriftbeweis. Properly speaking, the doctrine of the atonement was not the subject of this work. As evident in the subtitleEin theologischer Versuchthis volume represented Hofmanns attempt to establish what he referred to as a Schriftbeweis, that is, a work of systematic theology purposed to depict a comprehensive, unified presentation of the Christian truth. In other words, as he explicitly stated on the first page, in place of haphazard amalgamations of individual doctrinal propositions, Hofmann intended to present theology as a wissenschaftlich whole, where individual doctrinal propositions only have relevance in so far as they belong to this structured, unified, interrelated wissenschaftlich body.

Already apparent on the first page and throughout the introduction (Wesen und Gesetz des Schriftbeweis) is that Hofmann had not penned Der Schriftbeweis merely for the purpose of critiquing and revising the Lutheran theology of the atonement. The result was that any potential conversation and debate over the subject of Wissenschaft was wholly eclipsed by the atonement controversy.

The employment of the term Wissenschaft alerts the reader of the necessity to situate Hofmanns thought into a larger historical framework. Throughout the long nineteenth century growing enamor over Wissenschaft forced the German intellectual community to confront certain definitive questions regarding the definition of Wissenschaft, the relationship between the university and Wissenschaft, how an academic discipline achieves the status of a Wissenschaft, and what was the nature of the relationship between Wissenschaft, individual disciplines, and the university.

The foundation of the University of Berlin was a monumental coup for proponents of contemporary Wissenschaft. It was the realization of an institution dedicated to training and research for the cultivation of universal knowledge, intended to revitalize German academic culture, in service of the greater good of the German peoples. The university symbolized the advent of a new era of education, research, knowledge, and Wissenschaft; however, the theoretical grounds that supported its formation were neither stable nor homogenous. Todd Weir,

The matter of Wissenschaft and its relationship to the German academic environment had a transformative impact on the discipline of theology. Already with Kants Streit, theology found itself in a defensive posture, where theologians were forced to demonstrate the wissenschaftlich bona fides of their discipline in order to secure theologys place within the university. As recent English and German scholarship has helped to demonstrate, the trajectory of theology in nineteenth-century Germany cannot be understood apart from its relationship to Wissenschaft. From Schleiermacher onward, theology found itself in a constant state of conceptual upheaval, shaped by theologians attempts to structure theology according to the ever-developing tenets of Wissenschaft. One result of the different attempts at interweaving Wissenschaft and theology was the formation of different models of theological Wissenschaft.

Within the last thirty years, there has been a renewed scholarly interest regarding the nexus between Wissenschaft, theology, and many of the most influential theologians of nineteenth century Germany. In examining these relationships from philosophical, theological, institutional, political, social, and geographical perspectives, the result has been a rich, nuanced, and complex depiction of the academic and theological milieux throughout the century. The history of Wissenschaft and theology in nineteenth century Germany is remarkably complex, irreducible to a simplistic narrative of a handful of figures and institutions.

Recent scholarship has contributed to the production of an intricate and complicated picture of theology and Wissenschaft during Germanys long nineteenth century, yet an area that remains under-researched is the reception of Wissenschaft among the theologians of the Neolutheran confessional revival. but none have compared a particular theologians theological Wissenschaft with those of the popular schools of the day, nor has any scholar done an extensive comparison of the variety of models of Wissenschaft represented among confessional Lutheran theologians.

This study is an attempt to begin the process of addressing the confessional Lutheran lacuna in scholarship regarding theological Wissenschaft. My research examines the relationship between confessional Lutheran theologians and theological Wissenschaft during the nineteenth century. At this time, a comprehensive study of the various models of confessional Lutheran theological