Martin Werner

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Martin Werner (born November 17, 1887 in Bern ; † March 23, 1964 ibid) was a Swiss Reformed theologian.

Life

Martin Werner was born in Bern in 1887 as the son of a city missionary of the same name. He completed his training as a primary school teacher at the Muristalden Protestant seminar there (Muristalden campus ) and then taught in Heimenschwand . In 1910 he began studying theology in Bern. In 1916 he took office as a reformed pastor in Krauchthal and in the same year married Lydia Howald, the daughter of the seminary teacher Johann Howald. After his habilitation in 1922 he became a private lecturer for the New Testament , from 1927 professor for systematic theology and for the history of philosophy at the University of Bern . 1945 awarded him the University of Chicago the honorary doctorate . Werner, with his students Fritz Buri and Ulrich Neuenschwander, is the most important representative of liberal theology in Switzerland in the 20th century and has been a vehement opponent of Karl Barth on the theological and ecclesiastical level since the 1920s .

theology

Werner's theological roots lie in reading the works of Albert Schweitzer . With this he opposes the de-scientificization of theology perceived in dialectical theology with a completely independent theory. This is based on a radically historicizing and rationalizing approach. On the one hand, all traditions, including biblical stories, must be checked for their historicity and presented in such a way that they can be viewed either as history or as myth. On the other hand, in this way the traditional material must be conveyable to the reason of today's man. So credibility arises through reasonableness.

In his early work up to around 1940, Werner worked primarily on the history of dogma. There he proves Schweitzer's thesis of the de-chatologization of Christianity. Werner describes the world view of the historiographically tangible Jesus as largely shaped by an eschatological expectation. According to the biblical sources, Jesus saw himself as the coming Messiah at the end of the world during his lifetime. As such, he believed that by acting in unconditional love the end of the world had come and it would soon pass. On the one hand, Jesus failed in the cross because the end of the world had come neither before nor with his crucifixion. On the other hand, this unprecedented self-sacrifice for a completely humanistic life was, in turn, meaningful for the disciples, which would have led to his story being passed on and to the fact that the example of Jesus is still relevant to faith. However, through the Hellenization of Christianity, on the one hand the eschatological character of Jesus was whitewashed and Jesus metaphysically charged as the Christ; on the other hand, through the dogmatic Son of God theology, his ethical relevance was overwritten and thus rendered worthless. Only by referring again to the eschatological worldview of Jesus - and also to his failure - can his ethical relevance come into play and Jesus becomes the model of faith that can also today significantly promote ethically good behavior and the building of a humanistic society.

Werner's systematic-theological theory is based on the question of meaning. What can convey meaning to a person in the face of the experience of senselessness? In his dogmatics "The Protestant Way of Faith" he shows the different ways that the biblical authors have chosen to make God plausible as a meaningful power in their life context. The creation of meaning by Jesus, who devoted himself to loving devotion to one's neighbor and thus gave his life an ethically higher status, is of particular importance. To emulate this is the Christian task of faith.

Fonts (selection)

  • The influence of Pauline theology in the Gospel of Mark. Töpelmann, Giessen 1923.
  • The worldview problem with Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer. A dispute. Haupt, Bern 1924.
  • The emergence of Christian dogma presented in terms of the history of the problem. Haupt, Bern 1941; 2 1954; Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1959; Reprint Spenner, Waltrop 2007.
  • The Protestant Way of Faith. 2 volumes. Haupt, Bern / Katzmann, Tübingen 1955/1962.
  • Belief and superstition. Articles and lectures. Haupt, Bern 1957.
  • Mysticism in Christianity and in non-Christian religions. An overview. Katzmann, Tübingen 1989.
  • Who Was the Apostle Paul? Bautz, Nordhausen 2018, ISBN 978-3-95948-343-8 .

Literature (selection)

  • Francosco Sciuto (ed.): Way and work of Martin Werner. Studies and memories . Paul Haupt, Bern 1968.
  • Max Ulrich Balsiger: Martin Werner (1887–1964). Believe in an undogmatic manner - act ethically . In: Stephan Leimgruber u. Max Schoch ed .: Against the forgetting of God. Swiss theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries . Herder, Basel 1990, pp. 276-287.
  • Jochen Streiter: Werner, Martin, systematic theologian . In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL), Volume 39, Bautz, Nordhausen 2018, Sp. 1558–1584.

Honors

  • 1945: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Chicago

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Ulrich Balsiger: Werner, Martin. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
personal data
SURNAME Werner, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss reformed theologian
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1964
Place of death Bern