Paul Lorenzen (1915-1994) confesses faith in Jesus Christ

The Czech mathematician and philosopher Vladimir Richter (1925-2013) was a Jesuit teaching logic and medieval philosophy at the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck from 1969 till 1993. Richter was a logical constructionist and a faithful Roman Catholic Christian. He wanted to show the logical coherence and logical legitimacy of sentences that express faith, convictions, and values. Therefore, he develops a formalized procedure that builds on a dialogical interpretation of the intuitionist logic of Paul Lorenzen (1915-1994). Intuitionist logic operates refuting the principle of the excluded third and knows three truth-possibilities: “true”, “false”, and “I do not know”. This kind of logic proves wrong the refutation of the truth-value “true” for theological sentences and accepts not being able to prove right theological sentences speaking of God and faith. Doing theology was logically legitimate for Richter, as long as the theologians respect the rule of telling what they are able to proof and what they are not able to proof. Richter and Lorenzen did not only engage in the discussion and development of intuitionist logic and its possible application for the faith sentences of theology. To my surprise Lorenzen wrote Richter about his belief in Jesus Christ. I would not expect from the co-founder of the famous School of Erlangen of methodological constructivism to confess his Christian faith. I would not even expect that a constructivist philosopher would be interested in the Christian faith. I would content myself getting from a constructivist the logical clearance for my theological faith sentences.

I was surprised when on May 15, 2007, Vladimir Richter gave me the one-page photocopy of the typewritten “Eleven theses on a constructive historic theology” (Theses) that Paul Lorenzen had written in Erlangen in February 1979 (Lorenzen, Paul. 1979. Elf Thesen zu einer konstruktiven historischen Theologie. Philosophisches Archiv der Universität Konstanz. Paul Lorenzen Sammlung: PL. 3-2-8. https://www.kim.uni-konstanz.de/phil-archiv/bestaende/paul-lorenzen/).

I present the first three theses and Theses 9 and 10:

In Thesis 1 Lorenzen assesses the scientific Enlightenment’s recognition of the concept of a God-creator as a mythical picture. Thesis 2 refutes the picture of a God judging good and evil on the basis of fearing godly punishment as the reward for evil behaviour and hoping for goodly reward for good deeds. The picture of a God judge is no longer the foundation of moral behaviour. Thesis 9 reasons why the picture of a God judge is no longer possible for a man of the Enlightenment: it is because of Good Friday, because of the death of Jesus, that is because of a God who permits his son to die on the cross, that the picture of a God judge is no longer possible. Thesis 10 follows that instead of the picture of a God judge, the picture of God as the principle of love gave strength to the early Christian community to continue to live together practicing the principle of brotherly love and not hoping for a rewarding God judge. Easter, the resurrection, therefore, must be regarded as the decisive fact in the history of religion. Lorenzen does not speak of the Christian religion; he speaks of the history of religion neglecting that the Christian religion is one religion among many religions in history. How is it possible to regard with scientific Enlightenment a confession of faith, that is faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as a decisive fact in the history of religion? Certainly, the faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a decisive fact of the history of the Christian religion. The term resurrection is a term of faith that logically corresponds with the logical truth-value “I do not know”. It seems that Lorenzen forgets about logic if he opens to communicate his faith in Jesus Christ and derives personal moral convictions from his faith. Rather than logic Lorenzen follows the mainstream of Protestant theology of his time. In thesis one Lorenzen recognizes the scientific Enlightenment’s claim of the concept of a God-creator as a mythical picture. After this assessment he forgets about logic.

Lorenzen does not clarify that it is his religious conviction as a Protestant that makes him claim that Good Friday is the decisive fact in the history of religion. In Thesis 9 and Thesis 10 he takes religious convictions of his faith as arguments for his foundation of ethics and moral behaviour. In Thesis 3 Lorenzen announced that the construction of a systematic theology based on scientific methods becomes political anthropology. How do the principles and methods of political anthropology as an empirical science correspond with Lorenzen’s religious belief in Jesus as the son of God and the belief in his resurrection, etc.? It looks to me as if Lorenzen did not for one moment give thought to this question.

Lorenzen presented in March 1979 his understanding of a political anthropology (Lorenzen, Paul. 1979: Politische Anthropologie und konstruktive Theologie. Philosophisches Archiv der Universität Konstanz. Paul Lorenyen Sammlung: PL. 3-2-7.1-15. 1–25. https://www.kim.uni-konstanz.de/phil-archiv/bestaende/paul-lorenzen/). He is preoccupied with the method, the “praxis”, for obtaining normativity of rules for the social life of a community (ibid. 8). The “praxis,” the process that realizes the putting into practice of social norms for a community, is called “political” (ibid.). Lorenzen defines the term “political interest” as the social realization of consensus by efforts of argumentation; and this political interest keeps alive the political praxis (ibid. 9). Political practice is a practice that generates the normative rules for the living together of a community and for Lorenzen these rules or principles are anthropological principles, that is principles and norms of ethics (ibid. 10). Lorenzen wants to understand ethics as the science that gives thought to maintaining and improving the communication processes involved when the members of a community speak with each other for the sake of living together as a community (ibid.). A community that speaks with each other, a “dialoguing community,” therefore must be seen as the possibility-condition of any political praxis and of any political theory; picturing of norms is only possible with language (ibid.). One can say that ethics must construct consensus on the process of argumentation, that is a consensus on the use of language (ibid. 11). Lorenzen is conscientious about the fact that a consensus-making effort by the community concerning the use of language needs to take into consideration the culture; it is within a culture that a particular use of certain language pictures is defined as normative (ibid.). The social realization of this dialogical reasoning that constructs consensus on a pluralistic and conflicting set of norms is called “trans-subjectivity” (ibid. 19). The subject of trans-subjectivity is the conscience of the subject (ibid. 20). Lorenzen speaks of solidarity as the practice of self-criticism and of the necessity of becoming educated by forming an artistic and religious culture (ibid. 21), because we find the experiences of joy or suffering, of confidence, love and hope today in the irrational and in religion and not in modern technical reason (ibid. 22). As a picture for “unconditioned solidarity that is trans-subjectivity” Lorenzen points again at the example of the life of Jesus for his disciples (ibid. 24).

I turn again to the above letter with the “Eleven theses on a constructive historic theology”. In Thesis 4 Lorenzen classifies contemporary universities and schools as institutions of an exclusively technical and value-free education. In Thesis 4 he qualifies the Churches as the most important institutions for the ethical-political formation and moral education. Thesis 5 demands that theology contribute to this ethical and political education and Thesis 6 claims that the basic principle of theology’s contribution to the ethical and political formation consists of the scientific construction of the Christian religion. Thesis 7 claims that theology’s activity has to aim at clarifying the confused ethical and political situation of the present. Finally, Thesis 11 claims that the Churches are the institutions that have to realize the “godly principle of unconditioned solidarity” that is called “trans-subjectivity”. If Lorenzen rightly qualifies the concept of a God-creator as a mythical picture, and if he wants to stay coherent with this first Thesis, then he has to accept his concepts of trans-subjectivity, of the godly principle of unconditioned solidarity, and of ethics as science, just as mythical pictures too. Actually, he forgets about what he is talking.

Lorenzen declares in Thesis 8 that the Churches are the most important institutions for ethical-political formation and moral education; and in Thesis 11 Lorenzen identifies the Churches as the institutions that have to realize the “godly principle of unconditioned solidarity” (Lorenzen 1979a). What we read sounds like a fundamentalist’s claim and not like the claim of an enlightened and famous mathematician and philosopher of the twentieth century. Immmanuel Kant, one of the principal thinkers of the Enlightenment, announces 182 years before Lorenzen a different vision concerning the task of enlightening the masses (Kant, Immanuel. The Conflict of the Faculties. Der Streit der Fakultäten. Translated and introduced by Mary J. Gregor. New York: Abaris Books. 1979. 161). He did not think of conferring the task of the “Enlightenment of the masses” to the Christian churches. We read in Point 8 of the Conflict of the Philosophy Faculty with the Faculty of Law that “Enlightenment of the masses … is the public instruction of the people in its duties and rights vis-à-vis the state to which they belong” (ibid.). Kant wanted to confer this task to “free professors of law, that is philosophers who, precisely because this freedom is allowed to them, are objectionable to the state, which always desires to rule alone” (ibid.). He did not confer this task on the Churches and even explicitly excluded people who are officially appointed by the state from this “public instruction of the people” (ibid.) Political practice as the practice that generates the normative rules for the living together of a community is for Kant the duty and right of the individual citizen. “The Idea of a constitution in harmony … in which the citizens obedient to the law, besides being united, ought also to be legislative … signifies a Platonic Ideal (respublica noumenon)” and “is not an empty chimera, but rather the eternal norm for all civil organization in general, and averts all war” (ibid. 163, 165). We need the individual citizen as the free subject of political practice, and the result of the citizen’s legislation and obedience of the laws will be peace in the world; this seems to express Kant’s conception of progressing toward the better in the world. For Kant there is no need for terms like “trans-subjectivity.” It is the rule of law and the freedom of the citizen who makes the law and obeys the law that constructs a constitution in harmony. Lorenzen misses the crucial recognition that political liberties and democratic rights are among the constituent components of a liberal democracy. Kant does not forget to speak of the free citizen when he speaks about ideas and pure concepts of reason. I am convinced that Lorenzen very much agrees with Kant on the importance of democracy for the peaceful development of the world. Lorenzen’s readiness in 1979 to identify the Christian churches as the most important institutions for ethical-political formation and moral education testifies to a great ignorance of the actual state of affairs of the normative power of the Christian churches in Europe. In the 1970ies Europeans turned away from classical institutions, religious or not religious, and embraced personal freedom and dignity.

I am thankful for the constructivist logic that Kamlah and Lorenzen had developed, especially for the carefully constructivist and logical use of predications and definitions (Kamlah, Wilhelm, and Paul Lorenzen. 1973. Logische Propädeutik. Vorschule des vernünftigen Redens. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut). Concerning social and cultural realities and empirical sociology Lorenzen was not a constructivist. Speaking of cultural developments such as “modern technical reason”, he rather represents a kind of cultural scepticism. Even if his views on ethics, norms and moral behaviour sound a kind of naïve, he was not naïve. I am not allowed to judge on his membership of Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party (NSGWP). During the Second World War Lorenzen wanted to work as a mathematician in the armed forces of the Third Reich. He refused to be a soldier in combat and gets a crushing military judgment by his army superiors. Lorenzen had hoped to get a job in the military as mathematician through the intervention of his doctoral thesis supervisor, the renowned mathematician Helmuth Hasse (1898-1979), a militarist since his service as marine in World War I, an authoritarian German nationalist with political views at the far right, and since 1939 member of the NSGWP. Hasse was deeply disappointed by Lorenzen’s lack of enthusiasm for the destructive military aggressions of Nazi Germany, and on May 7, 1941, writes Lorenzen a harsh letter. Hasse tells Lorenzen that his insubordination, stubbornness and unmilitariness are irresponsible, that there are many other young mathematicians who are ready to fight for the victory of the Wehrmacht and he warns Lorenzen that he will also be judged in his scientific career according to his military attitude; he will not help Lorenzen anymore, who should now prove his value as a soldier (Neuwirth, Stefan. Editor. Lorenzen’s Correspondence with Hasse, Krull, and Aubert, Together with Some Relevant Documents. In: Gerhard, Heinzmann, Gereon, Wolters. Editors. Paul Lorenzen – Mathematician and Logician. Springer 2021. 185-267. 188. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65824-3). Lorenzen did not change his views on war and became soldier by order of the Nazi authorities. Contradictions are not only logical truth-functions. Contradictions are also characteristics of our personal behavior, convictions, and life.