Philosophy of Religion after the Enlightenment

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Jörg Dierken

Project associates: PD Dr. Malte Dominik Krüger, Constantin Plaul 

Duration of Project: 1995 - 2025

The concept of philosophy of religion, which emerged in 1770, denotes a way of thinking about religion which considers itself bound to reason. Conceptual and categorical reflection from and about the divine was admittedly already very old by then, but it acquired a new quality and dynamic dimension with the Enlightenment and the advent of modernity. An essential aspect of this is the fact that religion became understood as "the concern of Man" (Spalding).

The philosophies of religion which emerged in rapid succession since 1770 initially took up the older theologia naturalis, which had arisen partly as a supplement, and partly as a critical corrective to the theology founded on biblical Revelation. Early forms of philosophy of religion date back to English Deism and French rationalism. In terms of content, new interest in this nascent philosophy of religion was sparked by questions about the compatibility between rational insight and the authority of Revelation and the importance of religion for the moral and practical life. The logic and validity of religion had to be debated and proven within a reasonable human framework for the interpretation and organization of life. In addition, it was necessary to consider at Christianity within the context of other religions and their history.

With the German classicism initiated by the critical thinking of Immanuel Kant, a massive boom in religious/philosophical projects occurred. Religion became a major philosophical topic through which reason could explore with her own means its foundations and its limits. With religion, it is therefore always about the ultimate unity of reason, which also remains tied to mental performances. 

This reformulation of classical metaphysical themes on the one hand focused on the structure and ways of functioning of human subjectivity, and on the other hand highlighted the array of social lifestyles in society and culture along with their history.

Religion, in the major systematic works of German classicism, was and is understood as being related to the structure of subjectivity and is discussed in the context of the diversity of cultural forms. The context of religious/philosophical debates in the 19th and 20th centuries is marked by these ideas. This applies both to attempts at a constructive continuation of the impulses that came out of the religious philosophies of classicism, as well as to the various criticisms of these.

This research project makes significant contributions to these debates by a categorial clarification of the basic religious and philosophical concepts (especially those of religion), by reconstructing representative constellations of discourse of major thinkers (such as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schleiermacher), through research on the history of their impact (as in Troeltsch , Weber, Tillich, Wagner, Luhmann and others) and by systematic work on key concepts of the philosophy of religion (such as subjectivity, culture, history, as well as perception, expression and symbol).

• Jörg Dierken: Freiheitsdiskurse. Selbstreflexion durch das Gespräch mit Anderen. In: Freiheit denken, Protestantische Transformationen in der Gegenwart (Erwiderung zu den Beiträgen beidem Symposium zum 60. Geburtstag). Eds. Malte Dominik Krüger, Constantin Plaul, Christian Polke and Arnulf von Scheliha. Berlin 2021, pp. 223–278.
• Jörg Dierken: Hegel, Schleiermacher und die Verkörperung. In: Körper und Kirche. Symbolische Verkörperung und protestantische Ekklesiologie. Eds. Philipp David, Thomas Erne, Malte Dominik Krüger and Thomas Wabel. Leipzig 2021, pp. 59–84.
• Jörg Dierken: Heilsgeschichte, Religionsgeschichte und Offenbarungsgeschichte. Probleme und Perspektiven christlichen Geschichtsdenkens. In: Theologie der Religionsgeschichte. Zu Wolfhart Pannenbergs Entwurf. Pannenberg-Studien 8. Ed. Hunter Wenz. Göttingen 2021, pp. 17–33.
• Jörg Dierken: Substanz oder Subjekt? Zum Gottes-gedanken. In: Die Theologie Eberhard Jüngels. Kontexte, Themen und Perspektiven. Ebd. Dirk Evers and Malte Dominik Krüger. Tübingen 2021, pp. 83–90.