STAUDENMAIER, FRANZ ANTON. – Theologian, born 11 September 1800 at Dorzdorf (Württemberg), died 19 January 1856 at Freiburg in Br.
After obtaining his doctorate in theology at Tübingen with the dissertation Geschichte der Bischofswahlen (Tübingen 1830), following his Ordination and a year of pastoral ministry he became professor of apologetics and dogmatics at the University of Giessen (1830), where, Kuhn (v.), he founded the Jahrbücher für Theologie und christliche Philosophie (1834–38), in which he published various articles. He taught the same subjects at the University of Freiburg in Br. (1837), where he founded the Zeitschrift für Theologie (1829–48) with his colleagues; in 1843 he was appointed canon of Freiburg Cathedral and engaged in intense scholarly and religious activity.
After an incomplete essay on Eriugena Johannes Scotus (Frankfurt 1834), he published a series of theological monographs, in which his speculative bent is manifested—at first excessively personal, but subsequently ever more faithful to the documents of Revelation and the Church’s magisterium: Encyclopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften als System der gesammten Theologie (Mainz 1834; 2nd ed. 1840, in 2 vols., of which only the 1st appeared); Geist des Christenthums (ibid. 1850), inspired by Chateaubriand’s Génie du christianisme; Geist der göttlichen Offenbarung, oder Wissenschaft der Geschichtsprincipien des Christenthums
(Giessen 1837); Die Philosophie des Christenthums oder Metaphysik der heiligen Schrift als Lehre von den göttlichen Ideen und ihrer Entwicklung in der Natur, im Geiste und in der Geschichte (ibid. 1838, limited to the 1st part, out of four announced); Günther (v.); Die christliche Dogmatik (I–II, Freiburg 1844; III, ibid. 1848; IV, ibid. 1852, incomplete); a work rich in personal insights, centered on the idea of the regnum Dei: it is a dogmatics conceived in a predominantly ecclesiological sense. He wrote other important works to refute Kant and Hegel—especially the latter’s concept of the philosophy of history—by whom he had been influenced in his youth.