Walter Kasper and the Tubingen School

Goal: The Tübingen School then and now
In the nineteenth century, the Catholic Tübingen School has marked out in a rigorously scientific and systematic manner the contours of a renewal of theology. In this way, according to Kasper, it initiated ‘a new epoch in the history of the Spirit which has only now arrived at its full development. In other words, at the time of the great theologians of Tübingen there began a new theological Kairos which only today and thanks to the renewal of the Council has reached its full maturity with the retrieval in the universal conscience of the Church of some essential proposals that were made back then.’ It appears, nonetheless, that the heritage of the school in many of its aspects is no more present in today’s theological and cultural debates. Its character is dated in various ways compared to today’s positions and problems. Occupying oneself with it, therefore, means to restrict oneself, with the reserve required by the rules of discourse, to the insistence on learning purely for its own sake; it means to limit oneself to ideas and thoughts fixed in time and space at one point and which, therefore, no longer carry with them any novelty and ultimately no longer display any intellectual vigour. Taking a close look at the cultural situation then and comparing it with that of today, one consequently notices at first sight, according to Kasper, ‘more differences than commonalities’. For example, science (and technology) and scientific questions are more important today than any other subject. Furthermore, the idealistic systems (Hegel, Schelling) had a vaste influence and led to the production and glorification of philosophical systems. Today, more than ever, one is sceptical. Overall, ‘the differences between then and now are thus immense, and it could seem, in a first moment, that there could scarcely exist anything in common between the theology of that time and that of today, insofar as given that today’s theology as much as the theology of the past enters into dialogue with its own time. One could practically have the impression that today’s theology has moved to the opposite extreme.
According to Kasper, even though these differences are evident and incontestable, however, one must not forget the fact that there is something crucial in common which connects the two centuries, the nineteenth and the twentieth. The extent of the importance of this common aspect can become clear if one pays close attention to the problem of history. This is no peripheral matter, but a structure of thought, a bundle of ideas and tendencies which affect central aspects of our lives so much so that one could say that ‘history today is our greatest problem. The Tübingen theology of that period sought to establish this problem of historicity which at the time began to emerge. It understood itself as eminently historical theology, and this historical character has remained its distinctive sign by contrast to other theological currents.

For Kasper, this orientation has not only retained its importance without alteration, but in various successions of historical and theological events has even become the paradigmatic example of an attitude that today has become ‘fundamental for all theology’.


Walter Kasper e la Scuola cattolica di Tubinga
Nel 1964 il giovane Walter Kasper (nato il 1933) consegue, presso la Facoltà di Teologia cattolica di Tübingen, la libera docenza in teologia dogmatica, con una tesi su Philosophie und Theologie der Geschichte in der Spätphilosophie Schellings. L’accostamento a Schelling, già studente nel convitto evangelico di Tübingen, emerge così nell’ambito dei suoi studi universitari, alla scuola J.R. Geiselmann, e va di pari passo con la sua formazione teologica. Perciò, non ci si può formare un’idea corretta di Kasper e di tutta la sua teologia qualora si voglia disconoscere questa formazione, anche perché egli con piena consapevolezza e forza si è sempre riconosciuto e ha visto il suo centro di gravità in essa. Infatti, la sua produzione e il suo pensiero sono stati plasmati in maniera duratura dagli anni universitari, sulla cui linfa egli ha innestato tutta la sua produzione scientifica, tanto da diventare uno dei più noti e importanti nomi della scuola cattolica di Tubinga. Egli si è profondamente ispirato ad essa e le ha così dato un nuovo impulso creativo; «ha sempre messo in risalto le sue radici, non solo come insegnante di teologia, e membro del corpo docente di questa scuola, ma anche come vescovo» e cardinale.

Date: 26 May 2019 - 30 October 2023