The article deals with Kant's understanding of personhood and autonomy. It highlights the connection of autonomy and human dignity within Kant's appreciation of morality, and indicates how his distinction between the empirical and transcendental spheres enables Kant to extend dignity even to humans who are not actually autonomous. Turning to contemporary approaches within ethics that refer to Kant but omit this transcendental framework, it defends the necessity of a trans-empirical frame within the Kantian system and hints at consequences for bioethics. (...) It concludes that Kant works with neither an absolutist notion of freedom in terms of solipsistic autarky, nor an empirical freedom and autonomy that begin and end at certain points of time. (shrink)

This volume views human existence from various perspectives and asks what its purpose is. The underlying thesis is that humans are creatures of relationships. Any anthropology that fails to take this fact seriously will of necessity remain abstract. Instead the authors are interested in how different academic disciplines describe the variety of relationships in human life, taking into account their ethical and theological dimensions.

ZusammenfassungDer Text versucht in Auseinandersetzung mit den Ansätzen von Jürgen Moltmann, Johann Baptist Metz und Odo Marquard und im Anschluss an lutherische Theologie zu einer Verhältnisbestimmung von Theodizeefrage und Kreuzestheologie zu gelangen. Dabei wird Luthers Einsicht fruchtbar gemacht, dass Gott verborgen im Leiden wirkt, das Leiden aber nicht zu seiner Wesenseigenschaft wird. Vielmehr eröffnet sich in der Klage des leidenden Menschen die Möglichkeit, das Leiden an Gott zu beenden und gegen Gott zu Gott zu fliehen. Von Luthers Kreuzestheologie her ist (...) eine gegenseitige Durchdringung von Theodizeefrage, Hamartiologie, Kreuzestheologie und Eschatologie anzumahnen. Gleichzeitig verhelfen Klage und Anklage dazu, sich aufgrund von erfahrenen Leiden nicht in sich selbst zu verschließen, sondern kontrafaktisch an Gott festzuhalten.SummaryDiscussing the thoughts of J. Moltmann, J. B. Metz and O. Marquard the essay attempts – whilst following Martin Luther's theologia crucis – to find a relation between the theodicy-question and the theology of the cross. For this concern it refers to the aspect that God acts in suffering in a hidden way but does not posses suffering as an intrinsic characteristic. Rather, the lament of suffering people address to God, as we find it in the Psalms, gives the opportunity of bringing suffering from God's hiddenness to an end and to “flee from God to God”. Returning to Luther's theologia crucis should lead to further reflections on theodicy, sin, theology of the cross and eschatology. At the same time, lamentation as bringing human suffering before God provides an aid for suffering people not to lock their suffering in themselves, but to maintain the relationship to God – even against the supposedly factual evidence of the experience of suffering. (shrink)

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGIm Rekurs auf Luthers Verständnis der communicatio idiomatum, also der gegenseitigen Mitteilung und Partizipation von Göttlichem und Menschlichem in der Person Jesu Christi, versucht der Text eine Annäherung zu leisten an eine kommunikative theologische Anthropologie innerhalb einer relationalen und kommunikativen Ontologie. Mit einem solchen Konzept erscheint es als möglich, innerhalb der Debatte um Leib und Seele beziehungsweise Gehirn und Geist, die in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten aufgrund der Forschungsergebnisse der Neurowissenschaften von neuem in die öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit gerückt ist, zu einer Klärung (...) zu gelangen und sowohl einen Leib-Seele-Dualismus als auch eine naturalistische Reduzierung mentaler Prozesse auf rein physische Vorgänge zu vermeiden. Luthers Modell der communicatio idiomatum dient in diesem Zusammenhang als Strukturmodell für die Kommunikation von Mensch und Gott im Glauben und für die leib-seelische Existenz des Menschen selbst.SUMMARYThe article tries – in referring to Martin Luther's understanding of communicatio idiomatum, thus the communication of divine and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ – to outline a communicative anthropology and ontology, in order to help to clarify the body-mind-problem and to overcome both the body-mind-dualism and a naturalistic approach currently favoured by several neuroscientist concepts. In comparing Luther's view of the communication of immaterial and material processes within the person of Jesus Christ and his concept of communication that takes place between Christ and the believer, the essay concludes that Luther seems to conceive a constitutively relationally structured view of man. In taking this approach seriously, there could be a way for Christian theology to appropriately deal with the challenges caused by the contemporary neuroscientist debate. Following Luther's concept of communication within the person of Jesus Christ, of Christ and man and within man himself, this communicative concept could turn out to be helpful in outlining a relational and communicational theological anthropology. (shrink)

This article notes differences in legislation in Germany and Great Britain regarding human embryo research and looks for an explanation in their divergent intellectual traditions. Whereas the German Stem Cell Act invokes an anthropological concept of human dignity to ground its ban on using embryos for research, there is no definition of what it means to be human in either the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act or in the advisory Warnock-Report. After studying the differences and providing some philosophical background, (...) the essay distinguishes two notions that are significant for understanding human dignity. It then proposes from a theological point of view a basic understanding within a relational anthropology, and comes to the conclusion that because of continuity in development and their relational constitution, humans embryos should be accepted as human from the moment of conception. (shrink)

The study investigates the »Four Principles of Biomedical Ethics« published by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress with a particular concern for the principle of respect for autonomy. The leading question is in which philosophical background autonomy is dealt with by Beauchamp/childress and by the enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, while the more emipirical theoretical framework of Beauchamp/childress and the rationalistic framework of Kant are being analyzed. After having considered the foundation of autonomy both in Beauchamp/childress and Kant, the study turns to (...) the relationship of autonomy and human dignity by exploring the implicit extension of autonomy, human dignity and being human, and asks which consequences have to be drawn from a theological point of view. (shrink)