Paul Althaus (4 February 1888 – 18 May 1966) was a German Lutheran theologian. He was born in Obershagen in the

Province of Hanover The Province of Hanover (german: Provinz Hannover) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1868 to 1946. During the Austro-Prussian War, the Kingdom of Hanover had attempted to maintain a neutral position ...

, and he died in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhab ...

. He held various pastorates from 1914 to 1925, when he was appointed associate professor of practical and systematic theology at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

, becoming full professor two years later. Althaus was moderately critical of

Lutheran Orthodoxy Lutheran orthodoxy was an era in the history of Lutheranism, which began in 1580 from the writing of the ''Book of Concord'' and ended at the Age of Enlightenment. Lutheran orthodoxy was paralleled by similar eras in Calvinism and tridentine Ro ...

and evangelical-leaning

Neo-Lutheranism Neo-Lutheranism was a 19th-century revival movement within Lutheranism which began with the Pietist-driven '' Erweckung,'' or ''Awakening'', and developed in reaction against theological rationalism and pietism. This movement followed the Old L ...

. He termed it a “mistake” to “defend the authenticity and infallibility of the Bible.” In 1933, when a professor of theology at the

University of Erlangen A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, and probably the leading

Luther Luther may refer to: People * Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation * Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement * Luther (give ...

authority of his day, he welcomed the emergence to power of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

- "Our Protestant churches have greeted the turning point of 1933 as a gift and miracle of God".

Life

Paul Althaus, son of the Protestant theologian Adolf Paul Johannes Althaus (1861-1925), studied Protestant theology in Tübingen and Göttingen. In Tübingen he was especially influenced by Adolf Schlatter. In Göttingen his doctorate was supervised by Eduard Stange, and he passed his habilitation there in 1913/'14. In the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he served as a military chaplain. From 1919 Althaus was an ordinary professor in systematic theology at Rostock University. In 1925 he took up the chair in systematic and New Testament theology in Erlangen. From the summer semester of 1929, he was an honorary member of the Christian student union of Erlangen. He exclusively taught systematic theology until 1932, after which he also taught New Testament theology. Althaus held the position of university preacher from 1932 to 1964. Between 1926 and 1964, he was president of the Luther-Gesellschaft. Having welcomed the National Socialist rise to power as a 'divine gift and miracle' in 1933, he nonetheless served after the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

as the inaugural head of the internal university denazification commission.Ernst Klee: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich.''. Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, S. 13. However, on 31 January 1947, after his involvement in National Socialism became public, he was removed from his post by the American military government in the course of its own denazification process. In 1948 he was once again granted permission to teach in the University of Erlangen, where he worked until his retirement in 1966. In 1953, he was elected as a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The executor for his literary estate was the historian and political theorist Gotthard Jasper.

Theology

Original Revelation

With his doctrine of 'original' or 'fundamental' revelation, Althaus opposed the Christocentric theology of revelation of

dialectical theology In Christianity, Neo-orthodoxy or Neoorthodoxy, also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology, was a theological movement developed in the aftermath of the First World War. The movement was largely a reaction against doctrines of ...

, especially that of Karl Barth, who had denied any self-disclosure of God outside Christ. For Althaus God reveals himself outside of Jesus Christ in, for example, human existence, in fate, in history, in nature and in humanity's consciousness of truth and sin. Original revelation is however subordinated to the revelation of salvation in Christ, owing to its being tainted by the attributes of the sinful world.

Doctrine of Creation

Althaus treated institutions such as marriage, family, work, the economy, the people (''das Volk''), state, church and society as originally ordained by God as part of God's good creation. They are not to be understood (in Lutheran terms) as mere orders of preservation but as orders of creation, because God acts continually through them. The orders are the ways God draws the world towards God's kingdom and secures human common life. For this reason the orders bind humanity: it is obligated towards them in its freedom for responsible decision. Althaus' view of the people (''das Volk'') as an order of creation led to his contentious declarations about

National Socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

and

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

Luther

Althaus is considered one of the foremost experts of

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

's theology. In particular his works ''The Theology of Martin Luther'' and ''The Ethics of Martin Luther'' remain standard works in the field.

Capital Punishment

Althaus called for the introduction of the death penalty after the passing of the German Constitution of 1949.

Criticism (Relation to Nazism, Antisemitism)

Like many Protestant theologians Althaus welcomed the National Socialists' rise to power. From 1936 he gradually distanced himself from the Third Reich, partly because of the increasing hostility to the church of Hitler's policies. Already in Althaus' writings before 1933, however, there were antisemitic views such as the idea of 'the people' (''das Volk'') as one of the orders of creation (in Luther's sense). In 1933 Althaus and his colleague Werner Elert drafted a report for the Erlangen Faculty of Theology on a planned '

Aryan paragraph An Aryan paragraph (german: Arierparagraph) was a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserved membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the "Aryan race" and excluded from such rights a ...

' for the

Protestant Reich Church The German Evangelical Church (german: Deutsche Evangelische Kirche) was a successor to the German Evangelical Church Confederation from 1933 until 1945. The German Christians, an antisemitic and racist pressure group and ''Kirchenpartei'', ga ...

(''Reichskirche''). Althaus and Elert called in their report for the exclusion of 'nihilist' candidates for official church positions. 'Nihilists' who already held appointments were however - despite demands from the

German Christians Christianity is the largest religion in Germany. It was introduced to the area of modern Germany by 300 AD, while parts of that area belonged to the Roman Empire, and later, when Franks and other Germanic tribes converted to Christianity from t ...

- not to be removed from office.For critical discussion and interpretation of the Erlangan Report cf. Walther von Loewenich, ''Erlebte Theologie.Begegnungen, Erfahrungen, Erwägungen''. München 1979, pp. 177-180; also Karlmann Beyschlag: ''Die Erlanger Theologie'' (= Einzelarbeiten aus der Kirchengeschichte Bayerns 67). Erlangen 1993, pp. 149-178, esp. pp.162-165.

Honors

In 1959 Paul Althaus was awarded the

Bavarian Order of Merit The Bavarian Order of Merit (german: Bayerischer Verdienstorden) is the Order of Merit of the Free State of Bavaria. It is awarded by the Minister-President of Bavaria as a "recognition of outstanding contributions to the Free State of Bavaria ...

, an honor instituted in 1957. It is awarded 'as a mark of respectful and grateful recognition for outstanding contributions to the Free State of Bavaria and the Bavarian people'.

Works

* ''Luther und das Deutschtum uther and Germanness', Leipzig 1917 * ''Kirche und Volkstum. Der völkische Wille im Lichte des Evangeliums hurch and Nationality: the National Will in the Light of the Gospel', Gütersloh 1928 * ''Grundriß der Ethik utline of Ethics', Erlangen 1931 (earlier edition: ''Leitsätze'') * ''Die deutsche Stunde der Kirche he Church's German Period', Göttingen 1934 * ''Obrigkeit und Führertum. Wandlungen des evangelischen Staatsethos in Deutschland uthority and Führerism: Changes in the Evangelical State Ethos in Germany', Gütersloh 1936 * ''Der Christenglaube und das Sterben hristian Faith and Death', Gütersloh 1941 * ''Vom Sterben und vom Leben n Death and Life', Gütersloh 1950 (earlier edition: ''Der Christenglaube und das Sterben'') * ''Die Theologie Martin Luthers he Theology of Martin Luther', Gütersloh 1962 * ''The Theology of Martin Luther'' (tr. Robert Schultz) Fortress Press 1966 * ''Die Christliche Wahrheit. Lehrbuch der Dogmatik hristian Truth: Textbook of Dogmatics', 8th edition, Gütersloh 1969 * ''Die Ethik Martin Luthers he Ethics of Martin Luther' Gütersloh 1965 * ''The Ethics of Martin Luther'' (tr. Robert Schulz) Fortress Press 1972