Peter Knauer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter Knauer celebrates a mass in Esperanto during the 95th Esperanto World Congress in Havana , Cuba .

Peter Knauer SJ (born February 5, 1935 in Berlin ) is a Roman Catholic theologian , who is best known for his fundamental ecumenical theology .

resume

This section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Peter Knauer comes from a family of civil servants. His father Otto Knauer was a district judge , his mother Lucie Knauer was a housewife. He grew up with his brother Herbert , graduated from the Canisius-Kolleg Berlin high school in 1953 and entered the East German province of the Society of Jesus .

From 1955 to 1959 Knauer studied at the Philosophical Faculty Berchmanskolleg Pullach and graduated with a licentiate in philosophy. From 1961 to 1965 he studied at the Theological Faculty of the Society of Jesus, Section S. Albert, in Leuven (Belgium) with a degree in theology. On August 6, 1964, Knauer was ordained a priest in the church of the Collège St. Michel in Brussels. From 1966 to 1969 he did his doctorate at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster with the dissertation Responsibility of Faith - A Conversation with Gerhard Ebeling from a Catholic Point of View (Frankfurt, 1969).

Since 1969 Knauer has been a lecturer for fundamental theology at the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main. In 1977 he completed his habilitation in dogmatic theology with the work Faith comes from hearing - Ecumenical Fundamental Theology (Graz, 1978). Knauer has been an associate professor for dogmatics since 1978 and has held the chair for fundamental theology since 1980. From 1993 to 1997 he was Vice Rector of the university and retired in 2003.

Knauer held the following teaching positions in fundamental theology abroad:

Since September 2003 Knauer has worked in the Foyer Catholique Européen and in the Office Catholique d'Information et d'Initiative pour l'Europe ( OCIPE ) in Brussels.

reception

Peter Knauer's ethics as well as his theology have had a lasting influence on a number of contemporary theologians. His best-known students include Barbara Andrade (in the field of systematic theology), Gerhard Gäde (especially in the field of theology of religions), Robert Deinhammer and Stephan Ernst (both especially in the field of ethics and moral theology) and Hans-Joachim Höhn (especially systematic Theology, but also ethics), A critical overall analysis of Peter Knauer's fundamental theology was presented by Dominikus Kraschl in 2009 with his work "The precarious God-world relationship. Studies on Peter Knauer's fundamental theology".

Theological positions

According to Knauer, the starting point of theology is not to formulate any speculations about God. Rather, the starting point of all appropriate theology is the encounter with the Christian message, which claims to be “the word of God”. God does not fall under our terms. But how can one speak of him at all?

Knauer also takes the standpoint of relational ontology : Accordingly, everything that exists is completely absorbed in it, without being able to be God at all; God is "without whom there is nothing". According to Knauer's view of God, we always only understand what is different from him and which refers to him. So the whole world, all reality of our experience is the basis of our talk about God. The assertion of the Christian message that we were “created out of nothing” means that if we could get rid of our creation, nothing would be left of us. Our being and our created being ( complete relation to God in complete difference from God ) are one and the same.

Knauer also dealt with the question of God's omnipotence: God is omnipotent , but not in the merely potential sense that he should be able to do whatever we think up (only you never know whether he actually wants to do it ). Rather, he is "powerful in everything", namely in everything that actually happens: "No sparrow falls to earth without your father" ( Mt 10.29  EU ).

The basic message of faith, to which everything else can be traced back, is the Christian message that God gives us fellowship with himself. We are accepted into God's eternal love for God, that is, of the Father for the Son, which the Holy Spirit embodies. Only in this way is communion with God possible (cf. Rom 5: 1-2  EU ; Eph 2.18  EU ; 3.12 EU ), and no power can come against it (cf. Rom 8: 35-39). Therefore - according to Knauer - we no longer need to live out of fear for ourselves, which would otherwise lead us to act inhumanly instead of humanly. This is our salvation ( Heb. 2.15  EU ).

In Knauer's eyes, the church is the ongoing process of the transmission of this unsurpassable word, which concerns all people.

Prayer is answers to the word of God, as it were "speaking faith" (cf. Rom 8 : 15-17  EU ).

Reason has a kind of filter function in relation to the proclamation of faith. You don't allow superstition to interfere. Nothing can be believed that contradicts a reason that upholds its own laws. But nothing can be believed that is already accessible to a knowledge other than belief as true.

A statement of faith is therefore not a sentence of an unreasonable kind that can only be believed. Rather, only what expresses the core of the Christian message can count as such, namely that God is directed towards us with a love that has no measure in anything human.

Works (selection)

As an author

  • Responsibility of Faith - A conversation with Gerhard Ebeling from a Catholic perspective, FThSt 3, Verlag Josef Knecht: Frankfurt 1969.
  • Catholic theology. Henn Reader, ed. v. Peter Knauer and Friedhelm Mennekes, Verlag Aloys Henn: Ratingen-Kastellaun 1975.
  • Ignatius von Loyola, Spiritual exercises and explanatory texts, translated and explained by Peter Knauer, St. Benno Published by Leipzig 1978 (3rd edition 1988).
  • Faith Comes from Listening - Fundamental Ecumenical Theology . Styria: Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1978. 6th revised and expanded edition: Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-451-22187-X ( corrected electronic edition ); in the meantime a 7th revised edition has appeared, BoD: Norderstedt 2015.
  • Understand our faith. Echter: Würzburg 1986; 8th edition 2014, ISBN 3-429-00987-1 .
  • Action Networks - On the Basic Principle of Ethics. BoD: Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-8311-0513-8 ( electronic edition ).
  • Introduction to Ignatius of Loyola. Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-451-29055-3 .
  • Christian Faith - Brief Introduction , Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2018, ISBN 978-3-752 8-7950-6 .

As editor and translator

  • Ignatius of Loyola , The Spiritual Diary. Edited by Adolf Haas and Peter Knauer. Herder: Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1961.
  • Ignatius von Loyola, Pilgrim's Report, translated and commented by Peter Knauer, St. Benno-Verlag: Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-7462-0587-5 ; Revised and improved edition, printed as a manuscript, Frankfurt am Main 1999 (see new editions Echter: Würzburg 2002, 2005, 2011, 2015).
  • Ignatius von Loyola, Letters and Instructions, German Edition Volume I, translated by Peter Knauer, Echter: Würzburg 1993, ISBN 3-429-01530-8 .
  • Ignatius von Loyola, Spiritual Exercises - Translated from the Spanish autograph by Peter Knauer, Echter: Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-429-02018-2 , 4th edition 2006.
  • Ignatius von Loyola, Founding Texts of the Society of Jesus, German Edition Volume II, translated by Peter Knauer, Echter, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-429-01957-5 .
  • Hugo von Sankt Viktor , About the healing properties of the Christian faith, translation by Peter Knauer SJ, introduction, apparatus, bibliography and index by Rainer Berndt SJ, Aschendorff Verlag: Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-402-10425-5 .
  • Franz Xaver , Letters and Documents 1535–1552. Edited by Michael Sievernich and Peter Knauer. Schnell & Steiner 2006, ISBN 3-7954-1875-5 .
  • The New Testament , a new translation of the Greek version by Peter Knauer, available online as a PDF document [1]

literature

reception

  • Barbara Andrade: God among us. Draft of a kerygmatic trinity theology. Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1998
  • Robert Deinhammer : Questionable Reality. Questionable Life. Philosophical theology and ethics with Wilhelm Weischedel and Peter Knauer . Wuerzburg 2008.
  • Stephan Ernst : Ethical reason and Christian faith. The process of their mutual release in the period from Anselm of Canterbury to William of Auxerre. (BGPhMA NF 46) Münster 1996.
  • Stephan Ernst: Basic questions of theological ethics. An introduction . Munich 2009.
  • Gerhard Gäde : Christ in the Religions The Christian faith and the truth of the religions.  Schöningh, Paderborn 2003; 2 2010.
  • Gerhard Gäde: Islam from a Christian perspective. Understand the Muslim Faith.  Schöningh, Paderborn 2009.
  • Dominikus Kraschl : The precarious God-world relationship. Studies on the fundamental theology of Peter Knauer . Regensburg 2009.
  • Dominikus Kraschl: Relational Ontology. A contribution to the discussion on open questions in philosophy . Würzburg 2012.

Festschriften

  • Stephan Ernst: Gerhard Gäde (ed.): Responsibility for faith in theology, pastoral care and ethics. For Peter Knauer SJ . Freiburg 2015.
  • Gerhard Gäde: (Ed.): Listening-believing-thinking. Festschrift for Peter Knauer SJ on the completion of his 70th year . Munster 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CV. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
  2. ↑ See also: Dominikus Kraschl: The problem of God's relationships to the outside world. To discuss a remarkable proposal for a solution. In: Theology and Philosophy . No. 89 , 2015, p. 359-383 .
  3. ↑ Peter Knauer: Faith comes from hearing. 6., re-edit. and exp. Ed., Freiburg etc. 1991, p. 24.
  4. ↑ Peter Knauer: Faith comes from hearing. 6., re-edit. and exp. Ed., Freiburg etc. 1991, p. 9.
  5. ↑ Peter Knauer: Faith comes from hearing. 6., re-edit. and exp. Ed., Freiburg etc. 1991, p. 62.
  6. ↑ Peter Knauer: Faith comes from hearing. 6., re-edit. and exp. Ed., Freiburg etc. 1991, p. 14f.
  7. ↑ Peter Knauer: Faith comes from hearing. 6., re-edit. and exp. Ed., Freiburg etc. 1991, p. 223ff.
personal data
SURNAME Knauer, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic theologian
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin