Answering the Enlightenment: Friedrich Schelling, Johannes Kuhn and the recovery of historical revelation
Abstract
This dissertation examines the philosophy of revelation in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Germany. The introduction explains why the question of revelation remains central for contemporary theology as well as outlines why revelation became an important theological topic in modernity. The first chapter explores the epistemological basis and the consequent Enlightenment critique of revelation in G. E. Lessing (1729-81), Immanual Kant (1724-1804) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). These three thinkers purported an understanding of revelation stripped of the historical and salvific elements upheld by Christian doctrine. They did so to protect the integrity of the human against contemporary theological trends that ignored the complexity of the human knowing process and its participation in divinely revealed truths. The second chapter examines the philosophy of Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854), which represents the most thorough philosophical attempt to recover the integrity of history and make divine revelation feasible in modern epistemology. The chapter culminates in an examination of Schelling's later philosophy. His philosophy exposed the weaknesses of the modern project and laid the foundation for a philosophy of revelation. The third chapter introduces the main tenets of the Catholic Tübingen School. More than any other Catholic theological movement in the nineteenth century, this School attempted to address concerns raised by the modern world while simultaneously recovering the riches of the pre-scholastic theological tradition. Its main expositors, Johann Adam Möhler (1796-1838) and Johann Sebastian Drey (1777-1853), helped prepare the groundbreaking theology of their most famous student, Johann Evangelist Kuhn (1806-1887). The fourth chapter examines the life and theology of Kuhn. It shows how Kuhn's entire theology centered on the relationship between the natural and the supernatural. Eventually this concern led him to produce the first Catholic post-Enlightenment theology of revelation. Through his reception of Schelling's philosophy Kuhn was able to answer the Enlightenment, recover a notion of history, remain within the Catholic fold, and produce a theology that provides fruit for the contemporary discussion of revelation.
Recommended Citation
Grant Andrew Kaplan,
"Answering the Enlightenment: Friedrich Schelling, Johannes Kuhn and the recovery of historical revelation"
(January 1, 2003).
Boston College Dissertations and Theses.
Paper AAI3077342.
http://escholarship.bc.edu/dissertations/AAI3077342
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