HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422 Page 1 of 6 Original Research ‘Doctor of the Church’: Gerhard Ebeling Authors: This article’s point of departure is the camaraderie of two eminent Protestant theologians, 1 Tanya van Wyk Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs. From the perspective of Eberhard Jüngel, Ebeling is Andries van Aarde2 described as a ‘doctor of the church’. Focusing on Ebeling’s autobiographical notes, the article Affiliations: describes his upbringing in a solid churchgoing family, the effect of critical theological training 1Department of Systematic in Marburg and the influence of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rudolf Bultmann on his theological Theology and Christian convictions. It points out Ebeling’s interest in the Reformer Martin Luther. The article follows Ethics, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Ebeling’s career in Zürich and Tübingen, and the way in which his visits to the US positively South Africa influenced his life and thinking. 2Department of New Testament Studies, Faculty of This article is dedicated to Professor Dr Graham Duncan, a church historian who has introduced to his Theology, University of Pretoria colleagues the truism that reformation means transformation, and that transformation is Pretoria, South Africa conversion’s other side of the coin. Project leader: T. van Wyk Project number: 22153145 A prelude Project leader: A.G. van Aarde Project number: 2334682 With this collaboration, we would like to pay tribute by means of two articles to scholars who succeeded to interconnect church history with systematic theology and biblical hermeneutics. Description: This research forms part of The German theologians Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs were such encyclopaedic scholars. two different research The first article, entitled ‘Doctor of the Church’, focuses on bibliographic notes with regard to projects. It is part of the Ebeling’s life story and his theological interest. In the second article, entitled ‘Doctor of the research project, ‘The legacy Academy’, the hermeneutics of Fuchs is the main theme, while not neglecting the focus on the of the 16th Century Reformation and the close interrelationship between Fuchs and Ebeling. South-African Democratic Ideal (Dr T. van Wyk) and ‘Hermeneutics and Biblical Doctor of the Church – Gerhard Ebeling Theology (Prof. A.G van Ein evangelischer doctor ecclesiae [an ‘evangelic doctor of the church’]!1 This is the way in which Aarde). Eberhard Jüngel described Ebeling on 2 October 2001, a few days after the death of the latter on Corresponding author: 30 September 2001 when, in an obituary, he wrote a few words about him. Ebeling was, according Tanya van Wyk, to Jüngel, a ‘reforming doctor of the church, a remarkable lecturer and clergyman (Lehrer), not [email protected] only for students, but in particular for the church’ (Jüngel 2001:1). He was not only a theologian of’ the church, but especially a theologian for the church. His whole existence was embedded in Dates: Received: 11 Feb. 2016 the church. Accepted: 04 Mar. 2016 Published: 30 Sept. 2016 In this article, we are particularly interested in those biographical aspects that can help us to form a picture of the person Gerhard Ebeling and the manner in which his personhood and humanity How to cite: Van Wyk, T. & Van Aarde, A., formed his theology and led to his collegiality with the biblical scholar and hermeneutist Ernst 2016, ‘“Doctor of the Fuchs. At the beginning of Mein teologischer Weg (Ebeling, in Mühler, Stoellger & Mauz 2006:7) Church”: Gerhard Ebeling’, Ebeling wrote that he has no intention of writing an autobiography; rather, he wants to give an HTS Teologiese Studies/ account of his ‘theological path’. In this article, ‘snapshots’ of his life story will be considered, Theological Studies 72(1), a3353. http://dx.doi. which had defining influences on him and affected his direction with regard to his paradigm and org/10.4102/hts.v72i1.3353 theology. Some aspects will be emphasised more than others. For the purposes of this contribution, a few aspects were chosen, and for the readers familiar with Ebeling’s and Fuchs’s oeuvres there Copyright: © 2016. The Authors. may be moments that have not been addressed. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Nobody practices theology in a vacuum. If somebody had asked Ebeling: ‘Who is your teacher – Creative Commons whose student are you?’ – he would have probably answered: ‘Rudolf Bultmann’s’. He is, Attribution License. however, also Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s student. This depends on the focus or approach of the reader or researcher into Ebeling’s life story: As far as hermeneutics is concerned, he is Bultmann’s Read online: student; ecclesiastically, he is Bonhoeffer’s student. Reinhard Schwarz (1979:159–160) (church Scan this QR historian in Munich) once wrote to Ebeling that no matter what he does, he (Ebeling) could not code with your smart phone or 1.In German, the term evangelisch refers to being a ‘Protestant’. However, the term ‘Protestant scholar’ or ‘Reformed scholar’ is seldom mobile device used in the academic discourse. The title doctor ecclesiae [doctor of the church] is mainly used by the Roman Catholic Church for to read online. exceptional great theologians such as Augustine and Thomas of Aquino. When Jüngel applies this title to Ebeling, he implies that he regards Ebeling as one of the greatest theologians of all time. http://www.hts.org.za Open Access Page 2 of 6 Original Research detach himself from Bultmann’s thinking. Ebeling recounted landmark in theology (cf. Schleiermacher, in Mueller-Vollmer this to Bultmann with pride. Bultmann responded that it was 1992:89). In this regard, Schleiermacher was the first person a compliment and an honour when one of his students, who to lecture on ‘hermeneutics’ as a scientific subject within the had achieved so much, refers to him in such a manner. But, encyclopaedia of theological disciplines. For Schleiermacher, Bultmann thought, this should be expressed differently: If hermeneutics was not a ‘recipe’ to understand or a way Ebeling cannot detach himself from Bultmann’s thought, it is to rigidly set the ‘rules of interpretation’. Schleiermacher not about Ebeling or Bultmann, it is rather the student and began to teach hermeneutics as a theory of the way in the teacher, who were both students of someone else: Martin which the process of understanding works. He illustrated Luther. In this regard, Ebeling’s specific ‘niche’ can be that ‘understanding’ is not formulaic, but according to the characterised by three broad lines of development: conceptualisation of a subject who approaches data as the object of investigation from an individual existential point of • the internalisation of the theology of Martin Luther, which view (see Grondin [1991] 1994:70). is the golden thread of his life story • his constant hermeneutic theology because of the influence This ‘thought path’ (hermeneutics as methodology) had an of Rudolf Bultmann important influence on Reformed theology since the • his existence as ecclesiastical theologian. Enlightenment. It was the beginning of the dialectical theology as thought path (methodology) by which the Bible, Ebeling did not practice theology or biblical hermeneutics for belief assertions or religious experience could be interpreted self-satisfaction or for solely scientific reasons, but only with and the results could be articulated. Before Schleiermacher regard to his embeddedness in the church. It is in this respect (see Grondin [1991] 1994:72–75), the notion ‘dialectic’ only that Dietrich Bonhoeffer substantially influenced Ebeling. referred to ‘dialogue’ in the rhetorical sense of the word. Dialectical, however, is mutual sense-making in terms of Ebeling’s methodology (‘thought each other – white can meaningfully exist in terms of black path’) and epistemology and black can meaningfully exist in terms of white, while not making the white black and the black white. Each interacts (understanding of knowledge) with the other and from there the meaning arises. Ebeling’s theology was a hermeneutic theology which significantly influenced the development of hermeneutics When it comes to aspects of Luther’s theological hermeneutics, itself, as well as the subject field of hermeneutics, in that his it is important to note that the sole reason of the Reformation approach (in collaboration with Fuchs) achieved the initiated by him was not to break away from the Roman description ‘new hermeneutics’. The methodology of Ebeling’s Catholic Church. It was not that he no longer wanted to be a theology is based on that of Schleiermacher’s (cf. Lindbeck priest or that he wanted to establish a new church order. 1981:309–311), and with his ontology (how he reflected on Luther’s frame of reference was one of enrichment and the essence or being of things an sich) and epistemology accommodation, and consequently he struggled with the (how he understood the phenomenon ‘knowledge’ and how teaching-method underlying the scholasticism of Aristotle and he perceived the essence of things) he followed in the Thomas of Aquino (see Ebeling [1964] 2007:89–92). Luther footsteps of Martin Luther.2 To understand this in context, a parted with scholasticism and began to realise that as minister brief overview of the relevant aspects of the theological of religion he could not feel at home in the concrete ecclesiastical hermeneutics of Schleiermacher as well as Luther is given. world of a philosophically inflexible scholasticism which cannot accommodate a dynamic reading and understanding of The term ‘methodology’ almost literally means a ‘thought Scripture as well as doctrine within their contexts of origin (Art path’ (Greek méthhodos) – a path along which a person finds and Weise of writing). He compared the difference between the his or her thoughts. Schleiermacher’s legacy was the world and the church with the difference between the law and awareness or understanding that so-called believers and the gospel (see Ebeling [1964] 2007:110–124).