Fundamental theology

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Fundamental theology (also: theological basic research) is a discipline of Catholic theology in research and teaching. It is a sub-discipline of systematic theology . Questions of fundamental theology also play a role in evangelical theology , there as “systematic theology” or under terms such as “ prolegomena to dogmatics ”.

Tasks of classical fundamental theology

The task of fundamental theology is to justify the foundations and characteristics of the Christian faith to reason, to analyze its prerequisites and to work out the essential differences to other world views or religions from a systematic perspective. In the last few decades in particular, different self-conceptions, methods and content-related priorities can be found.

Fundamental theology has its origins in the apology of early Christianity and apologetics . The name itself came up in the 19th century . Fundamental theology has inherited its three classic subareas or treatises from apologetics :

  • “Tract on Religion ” (demonstratio religiosa), which dealt with the analysis of religion in general as rational and traditionally dealing with atheism .
  • "Treatise on Revelation " (demonstratio christiana), in which the Christian religion should be rationally justified as a religion of revelation (traditionally in contrast to other religions).
  • “Tractate Church ” (demonstratio catholica), in which one's own denomination should be presented as the appropriate one and analyzed as a church institutionalized religion (traditionally in contrast to other Christian denominations).

In more recent fundamental theological drafts there is often a fourth “treatise on theological theory of knowledge ”, which traditionally discusses the grounds for knowledge (“founding instances of faith” / “ loci theologici ”). This topic overlaps with that of the philosophy of science of theology .

Specific forms and approaches

Turn to intrinsicism

When medieval apologetics moved away from the provability of beliefs with natural reason, it focused on external evidence: miracles, authentic witnesses. With the turning away from neo-scholasticism in the middle of the 20th century, but already with Maurice Blondel's immanence apologetics, this so-called extrinsecism was passed. Karl Rahner justifies in hearers of the word. For the foundation of a philosophy of religion (1941) the fundamental theology on an anthropological foundation. This direction, which quickly reached a consensus, is often referred to (according to Max Seckler ) as intrinsicism.

Practical or political fundamental theology

The focus is on historical, practical and political aspects. The memory of the Auschwitz catastrophe in particular shaped this direction. A first and important representative is Johann Baptist Metz .

Fundamental ecumenical theology

Peter Knauer , for example, focuses on ecumenical concerns .

Fundamental Hermeneutic Theology

Hermeneutic fundamental theology asks in advance for all questions of justification the question of the appropriate understanding in relation to faith or regards both factors as inseparable from each other. A defining representative of this accentuation is Eugen Biser . Many other concepts underline the relevance of the concern pursued in the hermeneutic approach.

What is faith basically about?

A hermeneutic fundamental theology answers first to the question of what the Christian faith is basically about, and only then to the question of how this faith can be justified before reason.

The Christian faith refers to the Christian message ( Gospel ), which understands itself as " Word of God ". The word “ God ” is introduced in the Christian message by the statement that the world depends entirely on him, so it could not be without him. God is “without whom nothing is”. Faith itself only begins in relation to the “Word of God”: To believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God means, on the basis of the word he encounters in today's proclamation of faith, oneself and the whole world into God's eternal love for God, the Father for the Son to believe created in. In this belief, lived as certainty, one no longer has to live out of fear for oneself.

Faith and reason

If this belief is to be responsible to reason , all reason objections to it must be answered in their own field, so they must be refuted by reason. Because nothing can be believed that contradicts a reason that preserves its independence. In the understanding of the Christian faith, what contradicts such a reason can only be superstition. That is why belief is very interested in the functioning of critical reason. Critical reason is the “doorkeeper” ( John 10.3  EU ) against any form of superstition .

Conversely, nothing can be believed that can be traced back to mere reason. Everything different from God is world and cannot be believed; Only that which can only be understood as God's self-communication to this world of his can be believed.

The Christian faith cannot be traced back to reason, but it presupposes reason (according to the scholastic “grace presupposes nature”). In relation to belief, reason does not primarily have a support function, but the function of a filter against superstition. Within faith, it performs the important service of making clear the inner unity of all individual statements of faith, which can only ever be the unfolding of the one and only basic secret of communion with God.

Only the content of the Christian message (God's love for the world, beforehand the Father's love for the Son; revelation of this through the incarnation of the Son; faith itself as being filled by the Holy Spirit ) makes its claim to be the word of God understandable. The truth of the claim of the Christian message to be the word of God is only accessible to faith as knowledge filled with the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Corinthians 12 : 3  EU ).

Hermeneutic fundamental theology thus contests the view of classical fundamental theology that one can recognize the positive possibility of a divine revelation in advance for faith or that it is possible to prove faith in advance to deal with its content as rational. Faith cannot be traced back to reasons of reason and thus classified in a more comprehensive framework of reason (= rationalism , or theological rationalism ), but rather has to be identified precisely by the fact that only itself with its concrete content is understood as that which encompasses everything else can. This statement differs from a fideism , which refuses to justify faith before reason and thus universally, in that all reason objections must be able to be refuted with reasons of reason.

In the claim of the Christian message to be the word of God, the claim to understandability of this word is given. Only those who hear and “understand” the word of God ( Matthew 13:23 EU ) will be able to bear  fruit. It is true that the mystery of faith in communion with God cannot be read in the world and comes to knowledge only in the manner of the word and is only recognized as true in faith itself; but it is not "incomprehensible" or "puzzling".

Account for the division of the theological subjects

Hermeneutic fundamental theology then gives an account of the division of theology into historical and systematic subjects: Because the Christian faith comes "from hearing" ( Romans 10:17) and one does not invent it oneself, one has to ask historically what the Christian message encountered in this way is Reference to belief actually says. The systematic question is how what has been said in this way can really be understood in the sense of faith as God's self-communication. Historical subjects include exegesis and church history as the history of the exposition of Scripture; The systematic subjects include, on the one hand, dogmatics, which unfolds the content of faith in detail, and, on the other hand, practical theology , which deals with the conditions for the transmission of faith.

The relationship of the Christian faith to other religions and to atheism

Finally, fundamental theology examines the relationship of the Christian faith to other religions and to non-religion . Fundamental theology is in a sense also the advocate of the unbeliever in theology. She is interested in the fact that all objections to the faith can be expressed and publicly discussed intersubjectively and comprehensibly in order to define the contours and boundaries of the Christian understanding of the world and to identify and indicate problems and differences.

Ultimate foundation of belief

Some systematic theologians have attempted to justify belief in ultimate meaning on the basis of slight assumptions. These drafts are in the process of being developed, discussed and sometimes also criticized. Notable representatives with different accentuation are Thomas Pröpper , Hansjürgen Verweyen , partly Klaus Müller . Often, transcendentally pragmatic forms of argument are taken up. The reference points are often Hermann Krings , Karl-Otto Apel and Wolfgang Kuhlmann .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see Kern, Pottmeyer, Seckler, 1985–1988, 4 volumes (1)