Franz Overbeck on Carl Albrecht Bernoulli

Abstract

In 1897 Franz Overbeck's1 pupil, C.A. Bernoulli,2 published a long essay on his ideas for a new method in theology, entitled Die wissenschaftliche und die kirchliche Methode in der Theologie. Ein enzyklopädischer Versuch (The Academic and the Church-Based Method in Theology. A General Essay). On the first blank page of his own copy of this book,3 Overbeck in the same year wrote some brief comments on this work, which are here translated. Part of the interest of this short piece lies in the concise and candid statement it contains of Overbeck's fundamental attitude to theology and Christianity. In the following few years, he added, again in his own copy of the book, a further few comments to the remarks he had initially written. All but one of these additions are also translated here. The original German text follows below after the translation.