Hans Joachim Iwand

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Iwand (2nd from left) 1956 in Wuppertal together with Karl Barth (1st from right)

Hans Joachim Iwand (born July 11, 1899 in Schreibendorf , Strehlen district , Silesia , † May 2, 1960 in Bonn ) was a German Protestant theologian .

Life

Beginnings

Hans Joachim Iwand's parents were the pastor Otto Iwand and his wife Lydia, nee. Herrmann. After graduating from high school in Görlitz in 1917 , Iwand first studied Protestant theology at the University of Breslau . After a year he was called up for military service. After the end of the war, he served for six months in the Silesian border guard . Then he resumed his studies in Breslau (and two semesters in Halle an der Saale ). His academic teachers were Hans von Soden , Erich Schaeder and above all Rudolf Hermann . He later adopted important suggestions from Karl Barth's theology . After completing his exams, he was appointed as a study inspector at the Lutherheim in Königsberg in East Prussia in 1923 . Iwand received his doctorate in 1924, completed his habilitation and married the lawyer Ilse (née Ehrhardt) in 1927. In 1928 he passed the second theological exam. With his wife, who died in 1950, he had five children, including the youngest daughter Veronika Geyer-Iwand, whom Klaus Geyer married.

time of the nationalsocialism

In November 1934 Iwand was appointed to the Herder Institute in Riga as a New Testament scholar . Because of his participation in the church struggle , he had to give up this activity and from 1935 to 1937 became head of the illegal preachers' seminar of the Confessing Church in Blöstau (East Prussia) and in Jordan (Brandenburg) . In 1936 a "Reich speech ban" was imposed on him. After the preacher's seminary in the east was closed, he reopened it in Dortmund in January 1938 and was therefore imprisoned for four months. At the turn of the year 1938/1939 he took over the pastor's office at St. Marien in Dortmund; he stayed there until the end of the war.

Professor in Göttingen and Bonn

After the Second World War Iwand became a professor for systematic theology at the University of Göttingen , where he worked closely with Ernst Wolf . During this time, too, he was a member of the Brotherhood Council of the EKD and main author of the Darmstadt word . From 1949 to 1960 he was a member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany . In 1952 Iwand moved to the University of Bonn , where he stayed until his death.

In 1958 Iwand was one of the founders of the Christian Peace Conference (CFK) in Prague with Josef Hromádka and Werner Schmauch . He was a co-founder of the papers for German and international politics .

Hans Joachim Iwand is buried in Beienrode , where he founded the "House of Helping Hands", which first alleviated the plight of the refugees from the former German East and then worked for understanding between Germans and the peoples of Eastern Europe. His estate is now being kept in the Federal Archives in Koblenz, after it was initially administered in the Iwand Archive in Beienrode (see link below).

Teaching

The central starting point for Iwand (based on Luther) is the question “how far man can 'decide' for himself when it comes to the question of God” [2, p. 295], the statement of the lack of freedom of the human will . Iwand believes that "Jesus Christ cannot be known as Savior and Redeemer without the Spirit of God, who transfigured him for us." [Ibid.] With this, however, the freedom of human decision-making is lost. Both cannot be “on one board”.

This position has far-reaching consequences. For Iwand it is about the "right faith" (which God gives), about the right understanding of law and gospel, sin and grace, faith and work and the righteousness of God. “ Gospel ” is “the today of God's grace” while the most important function of “ law ” is to point out sin. Christ is "life itself," the fulfillment of what is commanded in the law. When it comes to the assignment of faith and works, it is true that man can do good on his own, but is not good himself. Iwand refers here to the basic Reformation positions of sola fide and sola gratia . The Reformation view says that man becomes just without works, solely out of faith (cf. justification ).

The certainty of faith also results exclusively from the effectiveness of the word of God. The truthfulness of God is more certain than life and all experience [3, p. 316]. The believer sees in the Holy Scriptures the clarity of God himself, "which is reflected in the face of Jesus Christ" [3, p. 318]. All the riddles of the hidden God "lose their sting when we read the knowledge of God from the face of Jesus Christ, who, according to the eternal counsel of his Father, redeemed us through his suffering and death" [3, p. 303].

Iwand was the initiator and later also the editor of the much-used " Göttingen Sermon Meditations ", which he founded together with Joachim Jeremias , Gerhard von Rad and Wolfgang Trillhaas . Reflecting on God's Word is central here. “With our work we would like to support all those who knock at the point where one day - if God gives grace - the door will be opened, where the promise of finding is given to us. The letter of Scripture is just this place where we can and must knock ”[5, p. 94], it says in one of the first prefaces of Iwand. The promise that God will not allow his word to return empty stands over the whole undertaking of meditations as an aid in preparation for the preaching.

Honors

Iwand was awarded an honorary doctorate from Charles University in Prague in 1960 . In 1978 a street in Bonn was named after im.

Fonts

  • About the methodical use of antinomies in the philosophy of religion - presented on Karl Heim's "Confidence of Faith" , 1924 (unpublished inaugural dissertation).
  • Doctrine of Justification and Faith in Christ - an investigation into the systematics of Luther's doctrine of justification in its beginnings , 1930 (habilitation thesis).
  • Theological explanations . In: Martin Luther: Of the unfree will . Christian Kaiser Verlag, Munich, 1939, pp. 289–371.
  • Faithful righteousness according to Luther's teaching (= Theological Existence Today, Issue 75). Christian Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1941.
  • On the primacy of Christology . In: answer. Festschrift Karl Barth, 1956, pp. 172–189.
  • To the right faith. Collected essays . Edited by Karl Gerhard Steck , 1959 (2nd edition 1965).
  • Sermon Meditations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1963, 3rd edition 1966 [with portrait photo]
  • Postponed works . Published by Helmut Gollwitzer, Walter Kreck, Karl Gerhard Steck and Ernst Wolf, 6 vols., Christian Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1962–1967:
    • Vol. 1: Faith and Knowledge , Munich 1962
    • Vol. 2: Lectures and Articles , Munich 1966
    • Vol. 3: Selected Sermons , Munich 1967
    • Vol. 4: Law and Gospel [lecture], Munich 1964
    • Vol. 5: Luther's theology [lecture], Munich 1964
    • Vol. 6: Letters to Rudolf Hermann . Edited and introduced by Karl Gerhard Steck, Munich 1964
  • Peace with the east. Texts 1933-1959 , edited by Gerard C. den Hertog and others, Munich 1988
  • Theology in time. Outline of life and letter documentation. Bibliography . Edited by Peter Sänger and Dieter Pauly, Munich 1992
  • Postponed works. New episode. Edited by the Hans Iwand Foundation, Gütersloh 1998–2004:
    • Vol. 1: Church and Society , Gütersloh 1998
    • Vol. 2: Christology. The reversal of man to humanity , Gütersloh 1999
    • Vol. 3: History of theology in the 19th and 20th centuries. "Fathers and Sons" , Gütersloh 2001
    • [Vol. 4 not published (should or should (?) Contain letters from Iwand)]
    • Vol. 5: Sermons and Sermon Doctrine , Gütersloh 2004

literature

Hans Iwand Foundation V.

The "Hans Iwand Foundation eV" makes it its business to promote the study of Hans Joachim Iwand's legacy. Every year the association organizes a theological symposium to research and discuss the theology of Iwand. Through publications he draws attention to the importance of Iwands for theology and the church in the present. He also promotes scientific work on Iwand (see link below).

Footnotes

  1. ^ Art. Hans Joachim Iwand . In: Friedrich Bartsch (Ed.) Portraits of Protestant People. From the Reformation to the present . 6th, revised edition. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1981, pp. 260–261, here p. 260.
  2. ↑ Thomas Großbölting : The lost sky. Faith in Germany since 1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-30040-4 , p. 67.
  3. ^ Hans-Iwand-Strasse in the Bonn street cadastre

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Iwand, Hans Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and professor of systematic theology
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Write Village , District Strehlen , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1960
Place of death Bonn