Johannes von Kuhn

File:Johannes von Kuhn.jpg

Johannes von Kuhn (Portrait by Josef Anton Gegenbauer, 1874)

Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn (19 February 1806 – 8 May 1887) was a German Catholic theologian. With Franz Anton Staudenmaier he occupied the foremost rank among the speculative dogmatists of the Catholic Tübingen school.

Life

Kuhn was born in Wäschenbeuren in the Kingdom of Württemberg. He pursued his classical studies at Schwäbisch Gmünd, Ellwangen, and Rottweil, and courses in philosophy and theology from 1825 to 1830 at Tübingen; entered the seminary at Rottenburg in the autumn of 1830, and was there ordained on 14 September 1831. In the autumn of 1832, he became professor of New Testament exegesis in the Catholic theological faculty then attached to the University of Giessen. At Easter, 1837, he was called in the same capacity to the University of Tübingen, where, in 1839, he was appointed to the chair of dogmatic theology. He retired in 1882, dying five years later in Tübingen.

Works

His first important work was the result of his research into the new philosophy (Mainz, 1834). During the years he taught at Giessen, his literary activity in the domain of New Testament studies resulted in a series of articles which he published in the (Frankfurt, 1834-6), edited by him and by his colleagues, Johann Nepomuk Locherer, Johann Baptist Lüft, and Franz Anton Staudenmaier. His work in this field closed with the important, though unfinished work, (Mainz, 1838), in which he opposed the critical tendencies of David Strauss.

After he had taken the chair of dogmatic theology at Tübingen, he made the study of speculative dogma his life work. His most important work is the an undertaking of wide scope which was never completed. The following parts appeared:

• Vol. I, part I: (Tübingen, 1846, 2nd ed., 1859);
• Vol. I, part II: (1849; 2nd ed., 1862);
• Vol. II: (1857).

Kuhn had already outlined his work in the paper "" (University programme, Tübingen, 1840). Among his other works which were issued in part independently, and in part in the Tübingen "" many bear a polemical character. His treatment of the fundamental questions on the relation of faith and knowledge, of philosophy and theology, brought about a controversy first with the Hermesians, and in later years with the advocates of the neo-Scholastic philosophy (Franz Jakob Clemens, Constantine von Schäzler). To the analysis of Hermesanism the work: "" (Tübingen, 1839), is partly devoted. The "" (Tübingen, 1860) was directed against the philosopher Franz Jacob Clemens of Bonn, as was also the essay, "" (," 1862, pp. 541–602; 1863, pp. 3–83).

In 1863 and the subsequent years, Kuhn was engaged in a controversy with Constantine von Schäzler, first in regard to a free Catholic University and later on the dogmatic question of the relation of nature and grace, of the natural and the supernatural. On the former question he wrote "" (Tübingen, 1863); on the latter he wrote "" (Tübingen, 1864). Schäzler then published his important work, "" (Mainz, 1865), and later "" (Mainz, 1867). It was especially against these two works that Kuhn directed his last important book, "" (Tübingen, 1868). A prospective second volume, in which the grace of Redemption was to be set forth from a positive and theoretical standpoint, never appeared.

Kuhn's works against contemporary philosophy included:

• "" ("," 1842, pp. 171–225; 1843, pp. 3–75; 179–226; 405–67);
• "" ("," 1844, pp. 57–88; 179–221; 1845, pp. 3–39).

Kuhn also opposed Hegel's philosophy of religion in the above-mentioned "" (1839).

References

Attribution

Template:Catholic cites:

• • Schanz: Zur Erinnerung an Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn, in: Theologische Quartalschrift (1887), pp. 531–98;
  • Idem: Gedächtnissrede auf Johannes Ev. von Kuhn (Rottenburg, 1887);
  • Idem: in Kirchenlexikon, (2nd ed., 1891), s.v.;
    • Lauchert: in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, LI, pp. 418–2
  • Regarding Kuhn's philosophy, see also:
    • Schmid: Wissenschaftliche Richtungen auf dem Gebiete des Katholicismus in neuester u. in gegenwärtiger Zeit (Munich 1862);
    • Werner: Geschichte der katholischen Theologie (Munich, 1866), pp. 499 sqq., 637 sqq.;
    • Godet: Kuhn et l'école catholique de Tubingue, in: Annales de philosophie chrétienne, LXXVIII (1907), pp. 26 sqq., 163 sqq.

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