KUHN, JOHANNES EVANGELIST von. – Theologian and philosopher, b. at Wäschenbeuren (Württemberg) on 19 Feb. 1806, d. at Tübingen on 1 Aug. 1887. He pursued his studies at the Universities of Munich and Tübingen and was ordained priest in 1831. The following year he obtained the chair of New Testament exegesis at the University of Giessen; in 1837 he moved to Tübingen to teach the same discipline, and in 1839 Drey (v.) as professor of dogmatic theology. He took an active part in political life: in 1848 deputy for Ellwangen, in 1868 a life member of the House of Lords; in 1882 he retired from public life.
His extraordinary output reflects his dual activity as exegete and dogmatician: the numerous biblical studies were published in the Jahrbücher für Theologie und christliche Philosophie (7 vols., Frankfurt am Main 1834–37), which he founded together with his colleagues at Giessen. At Tübingen he sustained for fifty years the Theologische Quartalschrift, in which he published substantial theological essays. His 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. Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik (ibid. 1846; 2nd rev. ed., 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, left unfinished.
A profound connoisseur of Greek patristics and Augustinian theology, he developed a dogmatic system with a Platonist-voluntarist hue, in harmony with the philosophical trends of Germany (at Munich he attended Schelling’s lectures and embraced the fundamental tenets of Jacobi’s fideism), which led him naturally to oppose the rising scholasticism. Indeed, he became the recognized leader of this tendency, vigorously contesting for decades with the leading representatives of neothomism: with Clemens on the relations between science and faith, with Schäfer on the relations between nature and grace. At the time of the Vatican Council he sided with the minority, but once the definition had been issued and the German episcopate had submitted, he declared any further opposition illegitimate and laid down his pen.