Dialektik der Freiheit

Social development in the modern age is based on increasing individualization. What is debatable about this theory is not its explanatory power but the affirmative or critical assessment which it involves. In the 19th and 20th century, this applied especially to the development of religion in relation to the churches and their dogmatics. Does dogmatics have to conflict with the manifold emancipation movements or does it support the realization of freedom? The Protestant and Catholic reactions in the church and in theology were and are not consistent, but comparable. The new discovery in this volume is the interdenominational reciprocity in the area of the recognition of the modern age and its dialectics of the benefits and the dangers resulting from individualization. The participants of an ecumenical conference at the Max Weber Center in Erfurt discussed these issues, using classical authors and dogmatic problems from the recent past, always bearing in mind how to come to terms with the dialectics of freedom in the present.