Experience

Following an outline of the history of the term, this article presents a definition of Christian spirituality as the human response to God’s call. It describes the various forms of this response, whose foundation is the double commandment of love, and the many ways in which spirituality can be lived out in everyday life. Regularity, community, spiritual guidance, and discernment of spirits are identified as requirements for a sustainable spiritual practice in everyday life. Certain problems are then singled out, including the need to choose one’s own form of spirituality within the complex context of late modernity and the ambiguity of the concept of experience. Finally, spirituality is framed as a basis for ecumenical community.

Dogmatics is a field within (systematic) theology that deals with the development of the content of Christian faith and its responsibility to the present. Against the background of dogmatics’ historical developments, we focus on what characterizes dogmatics as an academic (wissenschaftliche) discipline (such as systematicity, positionality, contextuality, interdisciplinarity), the tasks and goals it pursues, the sources (Bible, practice of faith, experience) and norms it refers to, and the subjects that it deals with. In light of the plurality internal to dogmatics, we discuss the position of dogmatics in the context of systematic theology and also thematize the status of dogmatics as an academic discipline. Finally, our own understanding of dogmatics in the context of the SysLex project is presented and explained as followed: “Dogmatics means theologizing in the face of the present as a reflective endeavor related to the Christian faith and its practices. This process gives rise to a dialogical context that, within academic dogmatics at least, aims at increasing coherence and at methodologically grounded dispute around and between categories of interpretation. Dogmatics finds a central – but not the only – place in academic theology (wissenschaftliche Theologie).”

• Prolegomena
• Systematic Theology