History of theology as history of theology as science

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Folkart Wittekind
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2021 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 455706616

The history of protestant systematic theology since the enlightenment can be told by structuring is issues, positions, schools and discourses and relating them to the question of how systematic theology in modern times evolves into a science in its own right and becomes aware of its own scientific character. This is done in two basic steps. First, in the turn to religion, which is rooted in human consciousness, as evoked by Kant's critique of metaphysics. In this way, theology breaks away from its systematizing, apologetic and pedagogical basic form that rests on faith and its contents and places itself between the contents and human piety in a substantiating and constructing way. Then, by turning away from the philosophy of religion at the beginning of the 20th century. Here theology tries to formulate a foundation of faith on its own, thus without building on philosophical, psychological, sociological or cultural-historical knowledge. By this turn, systematic theology becomes an independent science referring to itself. The so formulated basic thesis on the development of systematic theology in the modern age can only be proven by working on a historical account of the material. And vice versa: a narrative of the development of systematic theology since the enlightenment is only meaningful if it knows and explains why and for what purpose it is told.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants