Christoph Schwöbel

Christoph Schwöbel (* 19 February 1955 in Frankfurt am Main; † 18. September 2021) was a German Evangelical (in the German sense) Theologian and was Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland

Life

Christoph Schwöbel studied evangelische Theologie and Philosophy at the Bethel und Marburg, received his doctorate in 1978 in Marburg and qualified there as a professor, through his Habilitation, in 1990.

Christoph Schwöbel was Lecturer for Systematic Theology atKing’s College London from 1986 to 1993 and in 1988 founded the Research Institute in Systematic Theology (RIST), serving as its Director until 1993.

Subsequently he taught as professor of systematic theology at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel from 1993 to 1999. This was followed by a professorship of systematic and ecumenical theology at the Faculty of Theology of Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg from 1999 to 2004, where he was also director of the Ecumenical Institute. From October 2004 to July 2018, he was Professor of Systematic Theology at the evangelisch-theologischen Fakultät of Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.

His focus was in the area of fundamental theology and philosophy of religion. In connection with the topic of creationism, Schwöbel provided a scholarly theoretical analysis. He considered the juxtaposition natural science versus faith used by many ideological evolutionists in the debate with creationism to be self-defeating, and pointed out,

that the natural sciences themselves create their own relations of authority, which are justified by the already always theory-laden character of the concept of experience and by the fact that they operate in theoretical paradigms that certainly have authoritative status.

Schwöbel was also director of the Institute for Hermeneutics and Dialogue of Cultures.

He was a member of the scientific advisory board of the interdisciplinary research center Key Concepts in Interreligious Discourses (KCID) at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

In September 2018, Schwöbel succeeded the English theologian John Webster as Chair of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, established in 1643.

Academic Works

• Martin Rade. Das Verhältnis von Geschichte, Religion und Moral als Grundproblem seiner Theologie. Gütersloh 1980.
• Als Hrsg.: Karl Barth – Martin Rade. Ein Briefwechsel, Mit einer Einleitung. Gütersloh 1981.
• Gottes Stimme und die Demokratie. Theologische Unterstützung für das neue demokratische System. In: Richard Ziegert (Hrsg.): Die Kirchen und die Weimarer Republik. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1994, S. 37–68.
• Hrsg. mit C.E. Gunton: Persons: Divine and Human, King´s College Essays in Theological Anthropology. Edinburgh 1991, 2. Aufl. 1999.
• God: Action and Revelation (= Studies in Philosophical Theology; 3). Kampen 1992.
• Hrsg. (für das Research Institute in Systematic Theology): Trinitarian Theology Today. Essays on Divine Being and Act. Edinburgh 1995.
• Gott in Beziehung. Studien zur Dogmatik. Tübingen 2002.
• Christlicher Glaube im Pluralismus. Studien zu einer Theologie der Kultur. Tübingen 2003.
• Hrsg. mit Friedrich Schweitzer: Aufgaben, Gestalt und Zukunft Theologischer Fakultäten. Gütersloh 2007.
• Hrsg. mit Friedrich Schweitzer: Religion – Toleranz – Bildung. Neukirchen-Vluyn 2007.
• Die Religion des Zauberers. Theologisches in den großen Romanen Thomas Manns. Tübingen 2008.
• Hrsg. mit Bernd Janowski, Friedrich Schweitzer: Schöpfungsglaube vor der Herausforderung des Kreationismus. Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2010.
• Gott im Gespräch: theologische Studien zur Gegenwartsdeutung. Tübingen 2011.