: Christian Thomasius
: Essays on Church, State, and Politics
: Liberty Fund Inc.
: 9781614872085
: 1
: CHF 21.50
:
: Philosophie, Religion
: English
The essays selected here for translation derive largelyfrom Thomasiuss work on Staatskirchenrecht, orthe political jurisprudence of church law. These works,originating as disputations, theses, and pamphlets, weredirect interventions in the unresolved issue of thepolitical role of religion in Brandenburg-Prussia, a statein which a Calvinist dynasty ruled over a largely Lutheranpopulation and nobility as well as a significant Catholicminority. In mandating limited religious toleration withinthe German states, the provisions of the Peace ofWestphalia (1648) also provided the rulers ofBrandenburg-Prussia with a way of keeping the powerfulLutheran church in check by guaranteeing a degree ofreligious freedom to non-Lutherans and therebydetaching the state from the most powerful territorialchurch. Thomasiuss writings on church-state relations,many of them critical of the civil claims made byLutheran theologians, are a direct response to this stateof affairs. At the same time, owing to the depth of intellectualresources at his disposal, these works constitute amajor contribution to the broader discussion of therelation between the religious and political spheres.Christian Thomasius(16551728) was a Germanphilosopher and legal theorist. He wasa cofounder of the University of Halle,where he was also a professor.Ian Hunter is AustralianProfessorial Fellow in the Centre forthe History of European Discourses,University of Queensland.Frank Grunert is a member ofthe Institute for Philosophy at theUniversity of Giessen.Thomas Ahnert is a Lecturer inHistory at the University of Edinburgh.Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.