Der verwundbare Mensch

The task of theology is to call things by name without glossing over them. Thus states thesis 21 of Martin Luther's Heidelberg Disputation. Following this line, Heike Springhart considers the phenomenon of dying from a theological perspective which faces up to the trials and menaces that are (also) part of dying. As an intense process of life, dying is associated with painful partings and the experience of an inherent vulnerability. Unlike in classical dogmatic approaches, the author offers less a description of death and more a dogmatic confrontation with dying. This confrontation is to take seriously the ineluctable character of the experience associated with dying and introduces vulnerability as a core category for a dogmatic approach to dying from the vantage point of theological anthropology.