Kurt Leese

Kurt Rudolf Hermann Anton Leese (born July 6, 1887 in Gollnow , Naugard / Pomerania district , † January 6, 1965 in Hamburg ) was a German pastor and religious philosopher .

Life

Kurt Leese, the son of Ernst Leese, who holds a doctorate in law and a secret government councilor in Berlin, and of Helene Leese, b. Dorschfeldt, attended the humanistic Protestant grammar school in Strasbourg until he graduated from high school in 1906 . He then studied Protestant theology and philosophy at the Bethel Church University (one semester), in Rostock , Strasbourg and Berlin . He made friends with Paul Tillich during his studies . After graduating in 1910 in Berlin, he attended the Royal Seminary in Naumburg am Queis and was 1912 in Kiel with a thesis on "The principles of the newer teaching systematic theology in the light of criticism of Ludwig Feuerbach " in theology for licentiate doctorate. After passing the state examination in 1912, he took up a position as a pastor in Danzig . In December 1912 he married Minna Margarethe Marckmann (1878–1968), the daughter of a Hamburg teacher. The marriage had three children.

After positions in Berlin and Western Pomerania , he did military service from 1915 to 1918 and was awarded EK II on the front line . Most recently he worked as a chaplain . After further activities as pastor in Prussia , he moved to Hamburg in October 1921 to the Dreieinigkeitskirche in the St. Georg district . In addition to his work as a pastor, Leese was involved in the scouting body "Sankt Georg" and in 1926 became federal leader of the " German Scout Association ".

In 1927 Leese received his doctorate from Ernst Cassirer and William Stern in philosophy with the dissertation Von Jakob Böhme zu Schelling : An investigation into the metaphysics of the problem of God . In the following year, he completed his habilitation with a thesis dedicated to Tillich on “Philosophy and Theology in Late Idealism” and began working as a private lecturer at the University of Hamburg . Whenever Tillich was in Hamburg, he stayed at Leese's. So it came about that during a discussion in Lee's apartment with Tillich, Eduard Heimann and the later editor-in-chief August Rathmann, it was decided to found the “New Papers for Socialism” . Correspondence with Albert Schweitzer was also important for Lee's thinking . Leese joined both the Kant Society and the German Philosophical Society in 1928 .

In April 1932, Leese retired because he could no longer exercise his office for reasons of conscience. He justified this as follows:

1. I no longer feel a sufficient connection to the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church . They are more of a hindrance to me than a help for me personally. Its religious significance in the present is unrecognizable to me. In particular, I cannot adopt Article II of the Creed in any sense.
2. I no longer have a sufficient inner relationship with the sacraments : baptism and the Lord's Supper . I myself do not use the sacrament course.
3. It is impossible for me to preach the gospel in the sense of a message from the crucified and risen Lord. Cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ carry for me purely mythical resp. cult legendary character. Nor can I call Christ my Lord.

Regardless of his resignation, Leese held lectures as a lecturer at the Philosophical Faculty from 1931 to 1937 for prospective religion teachers. After disputes with the Hamburg regional church , he only read on the history of theology and no longer on ethics and dogmatics . In November 1933 he signed the professors' commitment to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist state at German universities and colleges . In 1935 he was made a non-official associate professor. In 1940, Leese's license to teach was revoked. In a statement of reasons, the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education stated in April 1941 that it was not certain whether he was ready “to stand up for the National Socialist state without reservation at any time . I cannot affirm this guarantee with you, after you have represented opinions in your writings which cannot be reconciled with the National Socialist worldview , for example on the race question. The position you ascribe to Judaism is indicative of your view of the Jewish question . ”During the war, Leese lived for a time on a farm in the Swabian Alb and was only professionally active with a few lectures.

After the end of the war, Leese was appointed to a scheduled extraordinary professorship in Hamburg and resumed teaching in the winter semester 1945/46 until his retirement in 1955. Even after that, he lectured at the university until 1965. In 1957 Leese received an honorary doctorate from the Marburg Theological Faculty . Tillich wrote to him in 1957:

“We went the same way in many very important things, and you have often helped me to make my thoughts accessible and to objectify them. Nevertheless, we went our own way in two things. You stayed away from politics when I helped create Religious Socialism . And you stayed true to the Schleiermacher-Troeltsch line when I received the big push from the Kierkegaard - Barth line . But we both stuck to the Böhme-Schelling- Bergson line and, in terms of life, to the affirmation of mysticism , culture and vitality . And in this we are resisting the attacks of both the liberal and the orthodox. [...] From the first edition of the system in Germany I have the impression that it was hushed up. It doesn't fit into the current mood any more than your things "

Teaching

Leese, who in his first work after his theological doctorate had primarily dealt with historical-philosophical topics, began from the mid-1920s to turn increasingly to questions of the philosophy of religion . He rejected Tillich's religious socialism . In a critical study of anthroposophy , he called it a comprehensive worldview that is powerfully permeated by the ethical spirit. In 1924 he saw the institutionalized church involved in the crisis of the “subjectivist-anarchist culture of modernity”. The church as an association that primarily takes care of social tasks and provides the state with “pretensioning services” fails to achieve its actual task. Instead, true church can only take place in groups and circles in "believing freedom". In a work on Böhme and Schelling he examined the question of the corporeality of God . The habilitation “Theology and Philosophy in German Late Idealism”, published in 1929, is above all a study of the philosopher Christian Hermann Weisse and a positively conceived examination of theism . The attempt to formulate an idealistic philosophy as an objective science has failed, but in contrast to the dogmatics of the denominational church, it contains an approach to higher valuation of the divine order of creation.

Subsequently, in a study of Hamann , Herder , Görres , Bachofen , Nietzsche and Klages, he developed his own philosophy of life position, with which he regarded the Dionysian intoxicating life as a component of Christian life in harmony with the original nature and thereby overcoming the saw the contradiction to life contained in traditional Christianity. Philosophy and theology are inextricably linked, if only because both deal with ultimate questions. Eucken , Bergson or Simmel indeed draft a metaphysics of life against positivistic naturalism , but this is based in different ways on an opposition of the spirit to nature and therefore does not grasp the core of the problem, the dialectical relationship between spirit and life . Not so Scheler , who gives life an intrinsic value. Leese put it:

"The law and truth of the philosophy of life are based on the fact that the spirit, through the no, which it dialectically opposes, not only penetrates its own self-affirmation and self-assertion, but in self-judgment about its hubris for affirmation and assertion, for the release of the person raped by it, penetrates valuable life. Not only is there a Selbstdialektik of mind, but because of this also - Hegel completely foreign - dialectic of spirit and vorgeistigem life. The philosophy of life is concerned with the latter. Natural life is the other to the spirit and to the spirit, not, as with Hegel, the other of the spirit itself. "

For Leese, life itself is “a fully fledged revelation of God”. In Heidegger's atheistically conceived fundamental ontology , Leese sees an emptiness in relation to religious meaningfulness and transcendence . "It is the person who, in the serious attempt to pull himself out of the water as a drowning person , falls victim to the futility of his" vain "behavior."

During the time of National Socialism , Lee's writings are strongly oriented towards contemporary topics, which he combined with theological questions. In The Mother as a Religious Symbol , Leese emphasized the special thing about feeling in religion. The human being feels a pure suffering and is moved and overwhelmed by what is felt to be absolutely powerful. These feelings are expressed in symbols. On the one hand, symbols are of a spiritual nature such as the " prophet " or the " saint ". On the other hand, things or facts symbolize religious feelings. This includes, worked out by Bachofen, the mother, who stands for the dependence of humans on chthonic powers and at the same time represents divine love . In the search for the “nature” of German piety, Leese draws parallels between the Germanic peoples' urge to assert themselves , the Indian urge for infinity , the combative element of Parsism and the Apollonian-Dionysian metaphysics of nature of the ancient Greeks. On the other hand, he emphasized against the German Faith Movement in 1935 that Christianity was superracial and super-national. In particular, he resisted the idea that Jesus was of Aryan origin and showed the Jewish roots of Christianity. However, ideas such as blood and race, soil and home , soul and people , instinct and urge as elements of a pagan natural religion are also of importance for Christianity. "There are specific issues that German people can never do without, even with regard to Christianity, and which in fact have never done without". In his reflections on Protestantism (1938 and 1941) he described it as “believing realism” with piety open to the world, culture and nature of a universal character, which is not limited to the ecclesiastical area. The assumption of eschatology (a new beginning for the world) has proven historically untenable. Rather, the basic principle of Protestantism is agape ( love for Christians), with which Protestant people break away from Jewish and mythical traditions. Leese formulated his religious ideal as passion for the world, tolerance and freedom and an associated panentheism (divinity of the world). There is a “positive more” that is real in space and time and impenetrable for logical knowledge. Protestantism is incompatible with dogma and confession. With reference to Schleiermacher , he advocated the thesis that the Reformation was not yet over and, following Troeltsch, took a "new Protestant" liberal position like his friend Tillich.

After the Second World War , Leese primarily dealt with questions of faith and atheism in Die Religionskrisis des Abendlandes . He distinguishes between an atheism of despair and an atheism of cessation. In the latter, the feeling for the divine and the religious search and ancestry has been lost. This form of atheism is more radical than any denial of God because the question about God is no longer asked at all. A decision no longer takes place. Criticism of religion is directed against the degeneration and decline of religions, but does not hit the level of religious feeling. Leese sharply criticized Friedrich Gogarten's dialectical theology . He described the thesis that belief must forego feelings as “orthodox rampage”.

The piety of Christianity, natural myth in the sense of vitalism, is a corrective to the church and should be taken up by it. Leese distinguishes between natural religion , which has a pre-Christian or non-Christian origin, and the actual natural religion in the law and the limits of natural religion. This is not related to the technically controllable nature, it is not based on spiritual functions and structures, but has as a source the instinctual and lively flowing of the vital body-soul-nature. Even if he is unreservedly positive about the opposition of the Confessing Church to National Socialism, he criticizes Karl Barth's exclusive Christ orientation. The revelation of God was also before Christ and can also be experienced as creation without him. He contrasts the grace of redemption in Christianity with the grace of being in natural religion and, as Protestants, determines the one who unites the dialectic of both.

Fonts

• The doctrine of principles of modern systematic theology in the light of the criticism of Ludwig Feuerbach , Hinrichs, Leipzig 1912 (reprint 1938)
• Modern Theosophy , Furche, Berlin 1918 (2nd extended edition 1921)
• Hegel's philosophy of history is examined and presented on the basis of the newly developed sources , Furche, Berlin 1922 digitized
• The cultural crisis of the present and the church. From Friedrich Nietzsche to Karl Barth , Furche, Berlin 1924
• Anthroposophy and religion with special consideration of the Protestant concept of faith , Furche, Berlin 1926
• From Jakob Böhme zu Schelling. An investigation into the metaphysics of the problem of God , Stenger, Erfurt 1927
• German idealism and Christianity , Hütten, Berlin 1927
• Theology and Philosophy in German Late Idealism. Research on the conflict between Christianity and idealistic philosophy in the 19th century , Junker & Dünnhaupt , Berlin 1929
• The crisis and turning point in the Christian faith. Studies on the anthropological and theological problem of the philosophy of life , Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1932 (2nd edition Stuttgart 1941)
• The mother as a religious symbol , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1934
• Race - Religion - Ethos. Three chapters on the religious situation of the present , Klotz, Gotha 1934
• The problem of the 'species-specific' in religion. A contribution to the discussion of the German Faith Movement , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1935
• Natural religion and Christian belief. A theological reorientation , Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1936
• The religion of the Protestant people , Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1938 (2nd extended edition Federmann, Munich 1948)
• Protestantism in the course of modern times. Texts and characteristics on German intellectual and piety history from the 18th century to the present (selected and explained by Kurt Leese), Kröner, Stuttgart 1941
• Mental powers and powers of being , Erasmus, Munich 1946
• The Religious Crisis of the West and the Religious Situation of the Present , Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1948
• Law and Limits of Natural Religion , Morgarten, Zurich 1954
• Basic ethical and religious questions in contemporary thinking , Ring, Düsseldorf 1956
• The unknown god , Ring, Villingen 1961

literature

• Rainer Hering :  Leese, Kurt Rudolf Hermann Anton. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 826-848.
• Anton Knuth: Protestantism as a modern religion: historical-systematic reconstruction of the religious-philosophical theology of Kurt Leese (1887–1965), Lang, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 978-3-63153760-2
• Jan Rohls: Protestant Theology of Modern Times: The 20th Century, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 978-3-16146644-1
• Christian Tilitzki : The German university philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich, 2 vols. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, pp. 315–331, 587, 733–745, 930, 1043–1254, ISBN 978-3-05-003647 -2

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Leese in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Registration of Kurt Leese in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ Hans-Joachim Mähl : Renewal of religion under the sign of humanity. Unpublished letters from Albert Schweitzer to Kurt Leese, in: Zeitschrift für Theologiegeschichte, 4 (1997), 82-113.
3. ^ Rainer Hering: On dealing with theological outsiders in the 20th century (PDF; 496 kB), in: Hamburg Church History in Essays, Part 5 (Work on the Church History of Hamburg, Volume 26). Edited by Rainer Hering and Inge Mager, 375–398, here 383.
4. ↑ Quoted from Rainer Hering: Article “LEESE, Kurt Rudolf Hermann Anton” in: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon
5. ↑ Tillich: Briefwechsel, 312-313, quotation 312; Letter before July 6, 1957, after: after Rainer Hering: Article "LEESE, Kurt Rudolf Hermann Anton" in: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon
6. ^ Kurt Leese: The Philosophy of History of Religious Socialism, Christian World 37 (1923), 370-385.
7. ↑ Kurt Leese: The culture crisis of the present and the church. From Friedrich Nietzsche to Karl Barth , Furche, Berlin 1924, 24-27.
8. ↑ Kurt Leese: The crisis and turning point in the Christian faith. Studies on the anthropological and theological problem of the philosophy of life, Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1932, 266.
9. ↑ Kurt Leese: The crisis and turning point in the Christian faith. Studies on the anthropological and theological problem of the philosophy of life, Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1932, 412-413.
10. ↑ Kurt Leese: The Problem of the 'Species' in Religion. A contribution to the discussion of the German Faith Movement , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1935, 37.