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Isaak Dorner

theologian university professor

Isaak August Dorner was a German Lutheran church leader.

Background

He was born at Neuhausen ob Eck in Württemberg, where his father was pastor. After assisting his father for two years, he travelled in England and the Netherlands to complete his studies and acquaint himself with different types of Protestantism.

Education

He was educated at Maulbronn and the University of Tübingen. He published the first part of it in 1835, the year in which David Strauss, his colleague, published his of Jesus. Completed it in 1839, and afterwards considerably enlarged it for a second edition (1845–1856).

Career

At Schmid’s suggestion, and with his encouragement, Dorner set to work on a history of the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ, Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi. lieutenant was an indirect reply to Strauss, which showed, "profound learning, objectivity of judgment, and fine appreciation of the moving ideas of history" (Otto Pfleiderer). The author at once became highly regarded as a theologian and historian, and in 1839 was invited to Kiel as professor ordinarius.

lieutenant was there that he produced Das Princip unserer Kirche nach dem innern Verhältniss seiner zwei Seiten betrachtet (1841).

In 1843 he moved as professor of theology to Königsberg. From there he was called to Bonn in 1847, and to Göttingen in 1853.

lieutenant is "a work extremely rich in thought and matter. lieutenant takes the reader through a mass of historical material by the examination and discussion of ancient and modern teachers, and so leads up to the author"s own view, which is mostly one intermediate between the opposite extremes, and appears as a more or less successful synthesis of antagonistic theses" (Pfleiderer).

He died at Wiesbaden on 8 July 1884.

One of the most noteworthy of the "mediating" theologians, he has been ranked with Friedrich Schleiermacher, August Neander, Karl Nitzsch, Julius Müller and Richard Rothe.

Achievements

  • The theological positions to which he ultimately attained are best seen in his Christliche Glaubenslehre, published shortly before his death (1879–1881). He also contributed articles to Herzog-Hauck"s Realencyklopädie, and was the founder and for many years one of the editors of the Jahrbücher fur deutsche Theologie.

Works

All works

Membership

Finally in 1862 he settled as a professor at Berlin, where he was a member of the supreme consistorial council of the Evangelical State Church in Prussia.

Connections

teacher:
Christian Friedrich Schmid