KUHN, JOHANNES EVANGELIST von. - Theologian and philosopher, b. at Wäschenbeuren (Württemberg) on 19 Feb. 1806, d. at Tübingen on 8 May 1887. He pursued his studies at the Universities of Munich and Tübingen and was ordained a priest in 1831. The following year he received the chair of New Testament exegesis at the University of Giessen; in 1837 he moved to teach the same discipline at Tübingen, where in 1839 he succeeded his teacher Sebastian Drey (v.) as professor of dogmatic theology. He took an active part in political life: in 1848 he was a deputy for Ellwangen, in 1868 a perpetual member of the Chamber of Lords; in 1882 he withdrew into private life.
His extraordinary output reflects the twofold activity of exegete and dogmatician: the numerous biblical studies were published in the Jahrbücher für Theologie und christl.
Philosophie (7 vols., Frankfurt am Main 1834-37), which he founded together with his colleagues at Giessen. At Tübingen he supported the Theologische Quartalschrift for 50 years, in which he published substantial theological essays. The principal works are: Jacobi und die Philosophie seiner Zeit (Tübingen 1834); Das Leben Jesu (Mainz 1838), incomplete, against Strauss; Über Prinzip und Methode der speculativen Theologie (Tübingen 1840); Katholische Dogmatik: I. 1. Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik (ibid. 1846; 2nd ed. reworked, ibid. 1859); 2. Die dogmatische Lehre von der Erkenntnis der Eigenschaften und der Einheit Gottes (ibid. 1849; 2nd ed. ibid. 1862); II. Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Dreieinigkeit (ibid. 1875); III. Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade (ibid. 1868): this is his masterpiece, which remained unfinished.
A profound connoisseur of Greek patrology and Augustinian theology, he matured a dogmatic system of a Platonic-voluntaristic hue, in tune with the philosophical tendencies of Germany (at Munich he attended the lectures of Schelling and from the fideism of Jacobi he adopted its fundamental demands), whereby he was spontaneously led to oppose the resurgent Scholasticism. Indeed he was the recognized head of this tendency, which for decades fought vigorously against the best representatives of Neo-Thomism: with Clemens, over the relations between science and faith, with Schäfer over the relations between nature and Grace. At the time of the Vatican Council he sided with the minority, but once the definition had been made and the submission of the German episcopate had followed, he declared every further opposition illegitimate and laid down his pen.