Andreas Benk

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Andreas Benk (* 1957 in Stuttgart ) is a German Roman Catholic theologian and university professor.

Life

From 1976 to 1981 Benk studied Roman Catholic theology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen and the University of Vienna . From 1981 to 1984 he studied physics at the University of Tübingen, where he worked in the Catholic Theological Faculty in 1987 with the dissertation Skeptical Anthropology and Ethics. The philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner and its meaning for the theological ethics was promoted. From 1994 to 2000, Benk was a teacher for Catholic theology and religious education at the Heidelberg University of Education . After his habilitation in 1999 in the field of basic philosophical questions in theology with the habilitation thesis Modern Physics and Theology. In 2000/2001, Benk held a substitute professorship at the University of Dortmund for the prerequisites and perspectives of a dialogue . Since 2002 he has been Professor of Catholic Theology / Religious Education at the Ecumenical Institute for Theology and Religious Education at the Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Education . He is a signatory of the memorandum “ Church 2011: A Necessary Awakening ”. Benk has been a city councilor and member of the "Die Linke" parliamentary group in Schwäbisch Gmünd since 2019.

Benk is married and has four children.

Theological positions

Benk opposes the abuse of the concept of nature in traditional Catholic doctrine of natural law, "which first asserts something as natural and continues to equate this natural with what should be." Benk criticizes the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards homosexuals as untenable. To describe homosexuality as a “serious aberration” and “in no way approve of homosexual acts” is “arrogant, hurtful and ignorant with regard to scientifically recognized insights”.

Benk emphasizes that every theology is subject to the fundamental reservation that all of its conceptions of God remain inadequate and therefore have to be repeatedly negated. For Benk, such negative theology becomes the guiding principle that "shapes the self-understanding of theology as a whole and thus also all disciplines and all topics with which it deals". "The reference to the inadequacy of every divine speech and the memory of the fundamental limits of every theological language relativize [...] common Christian beliefs, dogmas and confessions and make them again justifiably appear questionable." With regard to the dialogue with the natural sciences, Benk has attempts to want to theologically exploit as yet inexplicable scientific phenomena, back.

With reference to the Second Vatican Council, Benk criticizes the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to be exclusively the Church of Jesus Christ. The existence of different Christian churches is not a nuisance, but a legitimate and encouraging expression of the "polyvalence of Christianity". Benk advocates an open Christian practice of the Lord's Supper and describes the exclusion of women from the priesthood as "discrimination [...] which is incompatible with an image of man that understands man and woman as equal images of God".

Following Dietrich Bonhoeffer , Benk emphasizes that Christian faith is related to this world. Jesus' Kingdom of God message relates to this world: “The punch line of Christian hope is a radical reversal of unjust conditions, not consolation for an afterlife.” Benk's liberation theology-oriented creation theology takes up Dorothee Sölle's thoughts and interprets the biblical texts of creation as “hope poems, images of longing and songs of protest ”, as“ orienting, practice and politically relevant resistance literature ”and“ as utopian, that is, as an alternative to the prevailing conditions that has never been realized before ”. The idea of ​​creation demands radical consequences for lifestyle, education and political commitment, and "calls [e] [...] to organized resistance against a global apartheid system that uses sometimes brutal, sometimes perfidious methods to separate the world into profiteers and victims". By contributing to global learning and education for justice, religious education could become the nucleus of contradiction and resistance against an upside-down world.

Fonts

Monographs:

  • Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible. Matthias Grünewald. Ostfildern 2016, ISBN 978-3-7867-3096-5
  • God is not good and not just. To the present image of God. Patmos. Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-491-70417-6 ; 2nd edition 2012 ISBN 978-3-8436-0259-4
  • Modern physics and theology. Requirements and perspectives for a dialogue. Matthias Grünewald Publishing House. Mainz 2000, ISBN 3-7867-2275-7
  • Skeptical anthropology and ethics. Hemuth Plessner's philosophical anthropology and its significance for theological ethics . Peter Lang. Frankfurt a. M. 1987 ISBN 3-8204-0142-3

Editing:

  • Global learning. Education under the guiding principle of global justice . Matthias Grünewald Publishing House. Ostfildern 2019, ISBN 978-3-7867-3200-6
  • Wanted: credible speech from God. Locations on our doorstep (ed. With Martin Weyer-Menkhoff). Patmos. Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-8436-0170-2
  • Negativity and Orientation (ed. With Philipp Thomas). Königshausen & Neumann. Würzburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-3810-5

Articles (selection):

  • Global learning as a core task of religious education , in: Andreas Benk (ed.): Global learning. Education under the guiding principle of global justice, Ostfildern 2019
  • “Creation”: trivialized, separated, historicized and instrumentalized - or integrated into the liberating horizon of biblical hope? Critical examination of practical teaching materials on the topic of creation , in: Stefan Altmeyer / Rudolf Englert u. a. (Ed.): Creation (Yearbook of Religious Education 34/2018), 229–248
  • Art. Negative theology , in: Das Wissenschaftlich-Religionspädagogische Lexikon , 2018
  • Whoever speaks of creation demands justice. Creation as a key topic in religious education , in: Katechetisch Blätter 142 (2017), 48–52
  • Christianity without belief in the hereafter. The real theme of the Bible is not death and the afterlife, but justice on earth , in Publik-Forum 2016, No. 13, 34–35
  • Creation Theology as Political Theology. Loss of plausibility of traditional belief in creation and a sketch of a reorientation, in: Veit-Jakobus Dieterich / Gerhard Büttner (eds.): “Do you know how many little stars there are?” A cosmology (not only) for religion teachers, Kassel 2014, 104–120
  • Theology and church criticism in religious education. Critical ability as an elementary component of religious competence , in: Katechetic Blätter 138 (2013), 58–62
  • New topicality of negative theology. The unavailability of God as the central theme of theology , in: Theologie der Gegenwart 54 (2011), 117–129
  • Human work. Images of God, ban on images and human responsibility , in: Zeitzeichen. Evangelical Commentaries on Religion and Society, 2010, No. 12 (11th year), 21–24
  • Children's rights and Christian values ​​education. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a challenge for day-care centers sponsored by churches , in: tacheles. Magazine for the members of the National Association of Catholic Day Care Centers, No. 41 (September 2010), 8–11
  • Recognition of ecclesiastical involvement in the Shoah: the Catholic Church bears responsibility for anti-Judaism and its consequences , in: Orientation 73 (2009), 99-103
  • Be careful with reality. Does theology benefit from relativity theory and quantum mechanics? In: Separate Worlds? Faith and the natural sciences, Herder Korrespondenz Spezial (2008), 36–41
  • It becomes the person as he sees himself: Coincidences of philosophical and theological anthropology , in: Orientation 72 (2008), 153–159
  • Dionysius Areopagita: Negative Theology in Twilight. The critical potential of negative theology and its reversal in the Dionysian writings , in: Wissenschaft und Weisheit 71 (2008), 35–59
  • Recurring misunderstandings in the dialogue between theology and science , in: Jürgen Audretsch / Klaus Nagorni (eds.): Two sides of one reality. Balance sheet and perspectives of the dialogue between science and theology, Karlsruhe 2007, 9–31
  • Religious and interfaith education for all children. Cultural and religious diversity as a challenge - results of a survey at day-care centers in Schwäbisch Gmünd , in: Martin Plieninger / Eva Schumacher: It all depends on the beginning. Education and upbringing in kindergarten and in transition to primary school, Schwäbisch Gmünd 2007, 57–71
  • Physics and Theology - Limits of Understanding , in: Voices of Time 222 (2004), 795–806
  • Karl Heim and the theory of relativity. Critical remarks on Heim's determination of the relationship between theology and modern natural sciences , in: Theologie und Philosophie 76 (2001), 31–46
  • Neuscholasticism and modern physics. A forgotten chapter in the relationship between theology and the natural sciences , in: Wissenschaft und Weisheit 64 (2001), 129–153
  • Hell and no redemption: the player resigns. A moral pedagogical reminder , in: Religious instruction at high schools 44 (2001), 244–247
  • “The theological disciplines must be smashed for theological teaching” (Karl Rahner) . Plea for the overdue reform of teacher training courses for vocational schools, in: rabs. Religious Education in Vocational Schools 33 (2001, Issue 3), 67–73
  • On the way to the dialogue between theology and physics. An interim balance after the first century of modern physics , in: Theologie der Gegenwart 44 (2001), 282–296
  • Rousseau as a religious educator. An early stage model of religious education in the "Émile" , in: Religionspädagogischerechte 44 (2000), 85–96
  • Asylum law as a human right - and the limits of communitarian argumentation , in: Theologie der Gegenwart 43 (2000), 257-269
  • Physics on the way to metaphysics? Philosophical and theological aspects of modern physics , in: Voices of the time 120 (1995), 663–676

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Education: Andreas Benk
  2. ↑ Schwäbisch Gmünd local council: Andreas Benk
  3. ↑ Andreas Benk: Skeptical Anthropology and Ethics. Helmuth Plessner's philosophical anthropology and its significance for theological ethics, Frankfurt a. M., 1987, p. 191, cf. Pp. 129-133
  4. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, German edition, Munich / Vienna / Leipzig 1993, No. 2357
  5. ↑ Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, p. 146
  6. ↑ Cf. Andreas Benk: God is not good and not just. On the image of God in the present, Ostfildern 2012², p. 10; see. Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, pp. 166–168
  7. ^ Andreas Benk: New Topicality Negative Theology. The unavailability of God as a central theme of theology, in: Theologie der Gegenwart 54 (2011), p. 126
  8. ↑ Andreas Benk: Theology and Church Criticism in Religious Education, in: Katechetisch Blätter 138 (2013), p. 60
  9. ↑ See Andreas Benk: Modern Physics and Theology. Requirements and perspectives of a dialogue, Mainz 2000, p. 247
  10. ↑ Cf. Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, pp. 150–154
  11. ↑ Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, p. 150
  12. ^ Andreas Benk / Martin Weyer-Menkhoff (eds.): Wanted: Credible God's speech. Locations on our doorstep, Ostfildern 2012, p. 15
  13. ↑ Andreas Benk: Being a Christian without belief in the hereafter, in: Publik-Forum 2016, No. 13, p. 35
  14. ↑ Cf. Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, p. 277, note 4
  15. ↑ Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, p. 218
  16. ↑ Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, p. 17f.
  17. ↑ Andreas Benk: Creation - a vision of justice. What never was, but is possible, Ostfildern 2016, p. 12
  18. ↑ Cf. Andreas Benk: Global learning as a core task of religious education, in: Andreas Benk (ed.): Global learning. Education under the model of global justice, Ostfildern 2019, p. 222
personal data
SURNAME Benk, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic theologian
DATE OF BIRTH 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart