Georg Samuel Francke

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Georg Samuel Francke (born September 7, 1763 in Hörnerkirchen ; † March 28, 1840 in Kiel ) was a Protestant theologian.

Live and act

Georg Samuel Francke was a son of the pastor Johann Samuel Francke (born February 6, 1731 in Calbe ; † November 9, 1809 in Neuendorf ) and his wife Catharine Elisabeth von Lengerke (born June 1, 1741 in Sarau ; † February 27, 1819 in Kiel ), whose father Johann von Lengerke (1692–1750) was a pastor in Sarau.

Francke initially received lessons from his father and then attended the learned school of the Johanneum in Hamburg. Little is known about his youth. When a sister married in 1779, at the age of sixteen, he commissioned the printing of a speech he had written. From the summer semester of 1781 he studied theology at the University of Kiel . In addition, he attended lectures on philosophy, philology, history, mathematics and natural sciences. His most important teacher was Andreas Wilhelm Cramer , under whose leadership he graduated in 1784.

In 1784 Francke got a position as fourth teacher at the Husum city school and was the youngest teacher there. Despite his age, the city magistrate made him head of the school in 1788. In 1791, as rector, he accompanied the reorganization of the educational institution into a school for scholars . From 1798–1802, Georg Friedrich Schumacher was one of his colleagues , who noted that Francke was pious as a father, shy of sociability, very hardworking and educated, convinced of his own importance and was ambitious. He judged the merits of other people mildly. Schumacher criticized his teaching methods for the fact that Francke always lectured and even gave the students little space for their own verbal contributions, even in exams.

In the 1790s Francke wrote extensive theological texts for the first time. He received a gold medal for a study published in Altona in 1800 on the history of practical theology , with which he had answered a question about the price of the Royal Danish Society of Sciences in Copenhagen. In 1805 the Copenhagen Academy awarded him a prize for a contribution on the history of Spinozism . In the same year there was an award from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin for a study on the analytical method in philosophy. The Philosophical Faculty of the University of Kiel appointed him an honorary doctorate because of these sometimes very extensive works. In 1806 Francke left the school in Husum and went to Sonderburg as pastor . In 1810 he received a call from the University of Kiel as a full professor for systematic theology . In his lectures he not only covered this subject, but also homiletics and catechetics . At Kiel University he received his doctorate in theology at the theological faculty in 1813 and was rector of the university two years later.

Works

Francke wrote an unusually large amount on theology, pedagogy and ecclesiastical-religious topics. He dealt with individual dogmatic, but also fundamental conceptual questions. This included the relationship between religion and ethics, the methodical and content-related design of practical theology, the apologetics and theological encyclopedia. In several works he dealt with the question of whether the soul is immortal.

In addition to the religious contributions, Francke wrote on pedagogical issues in 1787 and dealt with the didactics of mathematics teaching in community schools. These works show that Francke was very much influenced by Christian Wolff . In 1808, in the field of research on the history of philosophy, he wrote the remarkable treatise on the new fate of Spinozism and its influence on philosophy in general and on rational theology in particular . This work is significant in the context of the debate about Spinoza around 1800 . Francke positioned himself between the extreme views of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi , who saw Spinoza as an atheist, and people around Johann Gottfried Herder who wanted to rehabilitate Spinoza. Francke described the philosopher as critical pantheists .

Theological classification

In theology, Francke showed himself to be a moderate contemporary rationalist. In addition to his teacher Cramer, he followed the positions of Jacob Christoph Rudolph Eckermann . Francke saw no contradictions between revelation and reason, which he had in common with all other theologians of the Enlightenment. From his point of view, the content of revealed truths must always be comprehensible with rational insight. On this basis he also wrote the draft of an apologetics of the Christian religion in 1814 , which appeared on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Reformation .

At Kiel University, Francke took the leading moderating role in the discussions about the 95 theses of Claus Harms . Of many of his theological writings, his outline of the theology of reason from 1824 is particularly noteworthy. In it he was optimistic that differences in theological doctrine and also in confessional groups can be overcome. Francke assumed that the importance of reason-based assessments in questions of religion would steadily increase. The result is a balance of all contradictions and differences in teaching and a worldwide peace in ecclesiastical and theological matters, according to the theologian.

family

Francke married Anna Margrethe Fruchticht on April 7, 1790 in Hohenwestedt (born April 1, 1764 in Hohenwestedt; † December 30, 1864 in Kiel). Her father Valentin Fruchtchtenicht (born November 19, 1735 in Elmshorn ; † August 17, 1802 in Hohenwestedt) was a pastor and married to Anna Sophia, née von Lengerke (born March 12, 1743 in Sarau; † May 18, 1833 in Rendsburg ) .

The Francke couple had two daughters and three sons, including the philologist Johann Valentin Francke , the teacher and pastor Georg Karl Theodor Francke and the lawyer August Wilhelm .

Francke's grandchildren included Alexander Francke and Kuno Francke .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 155.
  2. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 155.
  3. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 156.
  4. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 155–156.
  5. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 156.
  6. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 156.
  7. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 157.
  8. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 157.
  9. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 157.
  10. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 157.
  11. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 155.
  12. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 155.
  13. ↑ Matthias Wolf / Hartwig Molzow: Francke, George Samuel . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 155.
personal data
SURNAME Francke, Georg Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH Horn churches
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1840
Place of death Kiel