Mathias Joseph Scheeben

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Honor plaque on the former building of the Dreikönigsgymnasium in Cologne

Matthias Joseph Scheeben (born March 1, 1835 in Meckenheim near Bonn , † July 21, 1888 in Cologne ) was a German Catholic theologian . Catholic scholars of the 20th century regarded Scheeben as “the most important speculative and dogmatic theologian of the last centuries”; In 1935 he was appointed by Pope Pius XI. referred to as a "brilliant personality".

Life

Grave (Melaten cemetery)

Mathias Joseph Scheeben, one of eight children of the farrier Wilhelm Scheeben and his wife Susanna Lützenkirchen, first attended school in Münstereifel . He completed his Abitur at the Marzellengymnasium in Cologne. He entered the Cologne seminary and came to Rome at the age of only 18 , lived in the Collegium Germanicum and studied from 1852 to 1858 at the Pontifical Gregorian University , where he also received his doctorate in theology and philosophy. The Roman years were decisive for his later work as a theologian. He acquired a good knowledge of the Greek and Latin church fathers as well as the most important theologians of scholasticism ( Thomas Aquinas , Francisco Suarez, etc.). His teachers (Perrone, Passasslia, Franzelin, Schrader) belonged to the so-called Roman School. In 1858 he was ordained a priest in Rome . After a brief pastoral activity, he was appointed as a theology professor at the seminary in Cologne in 1860 .

Scheeben died in 1888 at the age of 53 and was buried in Cologne's Melaten cemetery (Hall 31).

Scheeben as a Catholic dogmatist of the 19th century

Scheeben is first and foremost a dogmatist . That is why he is less interested in the fact and the credibility of Christian revelation - that was the subject of classical apologetics as it had developed since the 18th century - than in its content. The content of the revelation forms an organic system of supernatural truths in which there is no contradiction. It is the task of the dogmatist to emphasize the inner coherence of Christian revelation.

Scheeben is also less interested in dealing with contemporary philosophy or with outsiders. He sees the justification of faith in the theological self-reflection of faith, in the accountability of faith to itself. But that is also fundamental theology in the modern sense. Scheeben, however, neither saw it in this way nor made it a subject of it. But his attempt to address the rationality inherent in Christian faith promotes that tendency in theology of the beginning of the 20th century, which tries to argue based on revelation and faith (“theology of revelation ”).

Overall, Scheeben, with his immanent justification of faith, appears primarily within the Catholic community, which does not mean, however, that he did not appear apologetically to the outside world in the dispute over the First Vatican Council . In the so-called Kulturkampf he defends the Catholic Church against the rationalism , naturalism and liberalism of his time.

Scheeben's theological theory of knowledge and principles

The greatest importance is attached to Scheeben's considerations on a theological theory of knowledge and principles . In detail, this concerns the relationship between faith and knowledge, the so-called “teaching apostolate” and its infallibility, like the theological analysis of the act of faith.

The subject of theological epistemology is the transmission of revelation by the church, the establishment of the truth of faith and its scientific treatment as well as the prerequisites and methodology of theology . Scheeben distinguishes between the objective principles of theological knowledge (revelation and its transmission, apostolate teaching , tradition) and theological knowledge in itself ( faith , act of faith , faith and knowledge).

Remarkably, theological epistemology begins with the encounter with the visible church, which appears with the claim to be an authentic mediator of God's revelation.

"Mystery" and "Supernatural"

In Scheeben's theology , the category of the “ supernatural ” is of central importance.

Against the rationalist currents of his time, he emphasizes the supernatural character of revealed truths . A supernatural truth is a “mystery”, but not a riddle. It can be explained in a logically clear way, ie without contradiction; its content is, however, the subject of faith. The primary goal of his theological endeavors is to emphasize the organic unity of the natural and the supernatural. His reflections on the relationship between nature and grace, knowledge and faith, reason and revelation are directed towards this concern.

The theology it borders clear from the philosophy from which he sees reason science and follows the natural principles of reason. As a science of faith , on the other hand, theology is a system of non-contradicting knowledge that is built up from beliefs . Theology has its own principle of knowledge (the word of God) and its own material object (God).

The relation between faith and reason

Scheeben begins his theological work in the period before the First Vatican Council (1869–1870). After people have been freed from their self-inflicted immaturity ( Kant ), some epistemological and epistemological questions arise with a new urgency: theology / philosophy , nature / grace, belief / knowledge , reason / belief, etc. are pairs of terms in which such questions arise and ask for an answer.

Neither the rationalist nor the fideistic (or fundamentalist) model of thought present real answers. The first model eliminates belief, revelation and theology at all; the second model abolishes reason in belief, blurs the boundaries of superstition and exposes the content of belief to arbitrariness. The separation of faith and reason leads to “two-story thinking” (cf. the theory of double truth); the mixing of the two, on the other hand, is at the beginning of every pan (en) theism, as it is to be found especially in the romanticism of the time.

Scheeben dedicates the last main part (§§ 104–110) in the “Mysteries of Christianity” (1st edition 1865) to epistemological and epistemological questions of theology . In the later, multi-volume manual of Catholic dogmatics, the theological theory of knowledge appears as the first volume (1873–75). In Section 109 of the “Mysteries” Scheeben deals specifically with the relationship between faith and reason. For him there are two (subjective) "principles of knowledge", two "lights" (lumina), which indeed come from a single source (God), but still have to be differentiated with regard to their subject area . Reason relates to nature (everything worldly), belief to the supernatural (everything non-worldly). With regard to the secrets (mysteries) of Christianity, there is a "service relationship" between the two, which, however, is not supposed to be the submission or subordination of reason to faith. It's not a slave relationship. The reason plays an absolutely independent and irreplaceable role. Scheeben uses the image of the marriage of bride and groom, the (partnership) relationship between man and woman. The two natures in Christ offer the analog for the relationship between reason and faith, between philosophy and theology. Reason cannot produce the theological knowledge of the mysteries of God out of itself “without the fertilized germ of faith”, while faith cannot develop, develop and explain its content without reason.

Meaning and effect

Scheeben does not belong to any theological school and cannot be classified in any. He is also not a representative of the “ Roman School ” in Germany , even if he is undoubtedly close to it due to his theological training in Rome . Scheeben stands for a theological pluralism at a time that struggled with it.

His explanations are not always exactly clear - especially where he makes use of images and symbols. All of this made the reception of his work more difficult than easier. Scheeben wanted to use the most diverse directions for their own concerns.

Scheeben's remarks on the distinctive character of theology sometimes seem to come close to "two-story thinking". His endeavor to “marry” philosophy and theology leads at a time when the great philosophical systems have failed, to a certain extent to a theological late idealism (thus one has spoken of a “Hegel of Catholic theology”) that of the historicity of thought little Takes into account and (especially in his later work) seeks to subordinate realities to the system.

After Eugen Paul, Scheeben developed a “romantic theology” of Roman character conveyed by Möhler (1796–1838), which however, with the help of the great representatives of theological tradition, developed into an independent design.

Fonts (selection)

  • Nature and grace. Attempt at a systematic, scientific representation of the natural and supernatural order of life in humans (Mainz 1861)
  • The glories of divine grace according to P. Eusebius Nieremberg, SJ (Freiburg i.Br. 1862)
  • The mysteries of Christianity. The nature, meaning and context of the same are presented according to the perspective given in their supernatural character (Freiburg i.Br. 1865)
  • Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics (5 volumes, Freiburg i.Br. 1873–1887)

literature

  • Wilhelm Bäumker :  Scheeben, Matthias Joseph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 30, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 663 f.
  • Franz-Josef Bode : Communion with the living God. The teaching of the Eucharist with Matthias Joseph Scheeben (= Paderborn Theological Studies. Vol. 16). Paderborn 1986.
  • Karl Eschweiler : The two ways of modern theology: Georg Hermes - Matth. Jos. Scheeben. A critical examination of the problem of theological knowledge . Benno Filser , Augsburg 1926 ( digitized version ).
  • Linus Hauser: Logic of the theological epistemology. A formal and transcendental systematics dealing with Matthias-Joseph Scheeben and Karl Rahner on the background of the set theoretical philosophy of science. Altenberge 1996.
  • Raimund Lachner :  Mathias Joseph Scheeben. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 29-37.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Thomas Marschler : Scheeben and Kleutgen - their relationship in the mirror of two unpublished letters. In: Nicolaus U. Buhlmann, Peter Styra (ed.): Signum in bonum. Festschrift for Wilhelm Imkamp on the occasion of his 60th birthday (= Thurn and Taxis Studies. New Series Vol. 1). Regensburg 2011, pp. 459-484.
  • Karl-Heinz Minz: Pleroma Trinitatis. The theology of the Trinity with Matthias Joseph Scheeben (= Disputationes Theologicae. Vol. 10). Frankfurt / M. 1982.
  • Karl-Heinz Minz: Scheeben (Mathias Joseph) . In: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité . Volume 14, Beauchesne, Paris 1989, Col. 404-408.
  • Karl-Heinz Minz: Communio Spiritus Sancti . On the theology of the "inhabitatio propria" in MJ Scheeben . In: H. Hammans et al. (Ed.): Geist und Kirche. Studies of theology in the context of the two Vatican Councils. Commemorative letter for Heribert Schauf . Paderborn 1991, pp. 181-200.
  • Wolfgang W. Müller:  Scheeben, Matthias Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 602 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Eugen Paul: Path of thought and thought form of theology by Matthias Joseph Scheeben. Munich 1970 (with extensive bibliography).
  • Eugen Paul: Matthias Joseph Scheeben (1835–1888). In: Heinrich Fries , Georg Schwaiger (ed.): Catholic theologians of Germany in the 19th century. Volume II, Munich 1975, pp. 386-408 (with detailed bibliography).
  • Maciej Roszkowski: “In praise of his glory” (Eph 1:12). The sacramental character according to Matthias Joseph Scheeben . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2017, ISBN 978-3-402-12207-5 .
  • MJ Scheeben. Teologo cattolico d'ispirazione tomista (= Studi tomistici. Vol. 33). Citta 'del Vaticano 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Gregor Brand: "Matthias Joseph Scheeben - Theologian from Meckenheim" , Eifel newspaper , August 10, 2015
  2. ^ Eugen Paul: Matthias Joseph Scheeben (1835–1888) . In: Heinrich Fries, Georg Schwaiger (ed.): Catholic theologians of Germany in the 19th century . Volume II, Munich 1975, pp. 386-408.
  3. ↑ So the Belgian Benedictine Augustin Kerkvoorde.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Scheeben, Mathias Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scheeben, Matthias Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic theologian
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Meckenheim
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1888
Place of death Cologne