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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2025
The study will focus on the German philosopher, Richard Schaeffler (1926–2019). Schaeffler wanted to create a new transcendental philosophy by developing Kant’s thought and thereby a new form of Christian philosophy. In his texts, he not only sketched the contours of a possible Christian transcendental philosophy, but his philosophy is already just such a philosophy. The aim of the study is to answer two questions: How did Schaeffler understand Christian philosophy, and what is specific about his Christian philosophy? In answering these questions, I will briefly compare Richard Schaeffler and Gianni Vattimo, who considered his philosophy to be Christian. The specific character of Christian philosophy – not only of Schaeffler’s – will be highlighted against the background of Vattimo’s philosophy, and the limits and deficiencies of Vattimo’s ‘Christian philosophy’ will be shown against the background of Schaeffler’s thought.
Translations from German into English are by the author.
1 ‘It is such a further developed transcendental philosophy from which a new way of “Christian philosophy” can also be developed’. Richard Schaeffler, Transzendentale Theologie. Gott als Möglichkeitsgrund der Erfahrung (Baden-Baden: Verlag Karl Alber, 2022), p. 103.
2 Jean Luc-Marion, The Visible and the Revealed (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), p. 74.
3 Schaeffler, Transzendentale Theologie, pp. 13–14.
4 Schaeffler, Transzendentale Theologie, p. 109.
5 Schaeffler, Transzendentale Theologie, pp. 75–76.
6 Richard Schaeffler, ‘Der strittige Begriff einer christlichen Philosophie’, in Wahrheit und Erfahrung. Chancen der Transzendentalphilosophie, Tobias Trappe (Hg.) (Würzburg: Echter, 2004), p. 10.
7 Schaeffler, ‘Der strittige Begriff einer christlichen Philosophie’, 15–16.
8 Schaeffler, ‘Der strittige Begriff einer christlichen Philosophie’, 19.
9 Schaeffler, ‘Der strittige Begriff einer christlichen Philosophie’, 19.
10 Heinrich Schmidinger, ‘Christliche Philosophie. Eine Übersicht’, Information Philosophie (1995), pp. 20–30.
11 Richard Schaeffler, ‘Bin ich ein christlicher Philosoph?’ in Testis Christi Passionum (1 P 5,1). Analecta academica Professori Adae Kubiś oblata. Świadek Chrystusowych cierpień. Prace dedykowane Księdzu Profesorowi Adamowi Kubisiowi, Józef Morawa (Hg.) (Krakau: Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej, 2004), pp. 257–271.
12 English translation: ‘2. Philosophy must reject both those who want to draw its principles from theology and also those who hold that philosophy would be useless if there were no supernatural revelation. 3. Nevertheless, it is true that established doctrines of theology would be like guiding stars to philosophers’. Ion Tănăsescu, Alexandru Bejinariu, Susan Krantz Gabriel and Constantin Stoenescu, Brentano and the Positive Philosophy of Comte and Mill (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2022), p. 433.
13 Schaeffler, ‘Bin ich ein christlicher Philosoph?’, 258.
14 Schaeffler, ‘Bin ich ein christlicher Philosoph?’, 266.
15 Bernd Irlenborn, ‘Veritas semper maior’. Der philosophische Gottesbegriff Richard Schaefflers im Spannungsfeld von Philosophie und Theologie (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2003), p. 344.
16 Schaeffler, ‘Der strittige Begriff’, 16.
17 The fact is that interpretations concerning Kant’s philosophical theology and his classification as a ‘Christian philosopher’ vary. They have been succinctly summarised by Lawrence Pasternack: Kant has been regarded as a successful Christian apologist, an unsuccessful Christian apologist, a ‘non-doxic theologian’, and a philosopher who constructed a purely rational system of religion. See: Lawrence Pasternack and Courtney Fugate, ‘Kant’s Philosophy of Religion’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2022 Edition, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/kant-religion/.
The inclusion of Kant in ‘Christian philosophy’ has been defended by Stephen Palmquist: ‘If indeed the Christian is someone who seeks to believe in God, obey Him, and have a personal relationship with Him, then it seems not only legitimate, but compulsory, to view Kant as having developed a radically Christian philosophy’. Stephen Palmquist, ‘Immanuel Kant: A Christian Philosopher?’, Faith and Philosophy, 6(1) (1989), p. 73.
18 J.-L. Marion writes: ‘Even more, should one not also qualify as “Christian philosophy” any philosophy that opposes itself to Christian revelation yet does not stop calling upon revelation as upon an “indispensable auxiliary of reason” precisely in order to criticise it in detail? Is this not essentially the case with Feuerbach and Nietzsche, who at least methodologically are no different from the medievals, insofar as they apply reason to the given that is revealed?’ Marion, The Visible, p. 67.
19 Gianni Vattimo, Not Being God: A Collaborative Autobiography (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 152.
20 Gianni Vattimo, ‘Philosophy as Ontology of Actuality. A biographical-theoretical interview with Luca Avarino and Federico Vercellone’, Iris, I(2) (2009), pp. 337–338.
21 Vattimo, ‘Philosophy as Ontology of Actuality’, 338.
22 Thomas G. Guarino, Vattimo and Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2009), p. 144.
23 Ulrich Engel, ‘Philosophy in the Light of Incarnation. Gianni Vattimo on kenosis’, New Blackfriars 89(1022) (2008), pp. 468–477, doi:10.1111/j.1741-2005.2007.00151.x.
24 Frederiek Depoortere addressed these issues in more detail. Frederiek Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy: Gianni Vattimo, René Girard, and Slavoj Žižek (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2008).
25 John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo, After the Death of God (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), p. 42.
26 Schmidinger, ‘Christliche Philosophie’, 29.
27 Schmidinger, ‘Christliche Philosophie’, 29–30.
28 Richard Schaeffler, ‘Philosophie und katholische Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert’, in Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Band 3: Moderne Strömungen im 20. Jahrhundert, Emerich Coreth (Hg.) (Graz: Styria Verlag, 1990), p. 49.
29 Schaeffler, Transzendentale Theologie, p. 107.
30 Schaeffler, Transzendentale Theologie, p. 103. ‘Es ist eine solche weiterentwickelte Transzendentalphilosophie, von der aus auch eine neue Weise der “christlichen Philosophie” entwickelt werden kann. Es wird eine Philosophie sein, die den Mut des Subjekts rechtfertigt, sich dem Anspruch des Seienden auch dann auszusetzen, wenn dieser Anspruch immer neu die Formen seines Anschauens und Denkens zerbricht. Es wird, knapper gesagt, eine Philosophie sein, die den Mut zur Erfahrung auf eine Hoffnung gründet, die sich, wie das stets die Eigenart der Hoffnung ist, von aller Anmaßung des Subjekts ebenso unterscheidet wie von seiner Verzweiflung. Und es wird eine Philosophie sein, die den Rechtfertigungsgrund einer solchen “transzendentalen”, d.h. Erfahrung ermöglichenden Hoffnung darin findet, daß sie in dem “je größeren” Anspruch der Dinge, der allen Herrschaftswillen der Vernunft als illusorisch erweist, die Gegenwarts- und Erscheinungsgestalt des “Deus semper maior” erkennt – eines Gottes, der, mit einem Wort aus dem Hymnus der alttestamentlichen Channah gesprochen, nicht nur “tötet”, sondern eben dadurch “lebendig macht” (1 Sam 2,6)’.
31 Richard Schaeffler, Philosophische Einübung in die Theologie. Erster Band: Zur Methode und zur theologischen Erkenntnislehre (Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber, 2004), p. 20.
32 Guarino, Vattimo and Theology, p. 148.
33 ‘But this does not mean that the link between faith and reason as it now stands does not need to be carefully examined, because each without the other is impoverished and enfeebled. Deprived of what Revelation offers, reason has taken side-tracks which expose it to the danger of losing sight of its final goal. Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so runs the risk of no longer being a universal proposition. It is an illusion to think that faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition. By the same token, reason which is unrelated to an adult faith is not prompted to turn its gaze to the newness and radicality of being. This is why I make this strong and insistent appeal – not, I trust, untimely – that faith and philosophy recover the profound unity which allows them to stand in harmony with their nature without compromising their mutual autonomy. The parrhesia of faith must be matched by the boldness of reason’. Fides et ratio, IV, 48. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html.
34 Irlenborn, Veritas semper maior, p. 340.
35 Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo. The Future of Religion, Ed. by Santiago Zabala (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), p. 49.
36 Bernd Irlenborn and Christian Tapp (Hg.), Gott und Vernunft. Neue Perspektiven zur Transzendentalphilosophie Richard Schaefflers (Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber, 2013). Thomas M. Schmidt and Siegfried Wiedenhofer (Hg.), Religiöse Erfahrung. Richard Schaefflers Beitrag zu Religionsphilosophie und Theologie (Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber, 2010).
37 Richard Schaeffler, ‘Die “Kopernikanische Wendung” in der Wissenschaft und die neuzeitliche Subjektivität als Problem der Philosophie’, in Unbedingte Wahrheit und endliche Vernunft. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen menschlicher Erkenntnis, (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2017), pp. 1–24. First published under the title: ‘Die “kopernikanische Wendung” – mehr als eine bloße Metapher’, in L’uomo moderno e la chiesa, Paul Gilbert (ed.) (Roma: Gregorian Press, 2012), pp. 365–388.
38 Schaeffler, ‘Die Kopernikanische Wendung’, 23–24.
39 Jürgen Habermas, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie. Band 1: Die okzidentale Konstellation von Glauben und Wissen. Band 2: Vernünftige Freiheit. Spuren des Diskurses über Glauben und Wissen (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2019). See also: Jakub Sirovátka, ‘Vyhublé postuláty rozumové víry. K Habermasově kritice Kantovy filosofie náboženství’, Filosofický časopis, 72(4) (2024), pp. 617-630.
40 Jürgen Habermas, ‘Die Grenze zwischen Glauben und Wissen. Zur Wirkungsgeschichte und aktuellen Bedeutung von Kants Religionsphilosophie’, Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 44(4) (2004), p. 471.