Natural and Revealed Theology in the German Enlightenment

Organisers: Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet (University of Bucharest) and Alessandro Nannini (University of Bucharest/New Europe College)

The conference aims to explore original perspectives on theological-related subjects in the German Enlightenment up to Kant, with particular focus on the Late Enlightenment. Over the last few decades, the relevance of the theology of the Enlightenment has gained unprecedented momentum among scholars of the eighteenth century, going well beyond its traditional boundaries and arenas. The rapidly growing interest in the topic is reflected in an intense editorial activity that brought attention to lesser known texts. Key issues such as secularization and re-sacralization have raised questions that touch upon a range of disciplines. It is now clear that particularly during the second half of the eighteenth century metaphysics, aesthetics, epistemology, politics, ethnology, and the arts benefitted from fruitful exchanges with theology, resulting in a range of new approaches to the relation between the human and the divine.

Venue:  ICUB Humanities (1 Dimitrie Brandza str.)

Thursday, 23 May 2019

9.30-10.30       Stefanie Buchenau (Paris) Physicotheology as a Guide for the Life Sciences. Reimarus’ Treatise on The Noblest Truths of Natural Religion

10.30-10.45    Coffee break

10.45-11.45     Jan L. Propach (Munich) Leibniz on Socinianism, the Holy Trinity, and Divine Simplicity

11.45-12.45    Owen Pikkert (Toronto) Leibniz on the Cosmological Argument

12.45-14.00    Lunch

14.00-15.00    Lloyd Strickland (Manchester) Prémontval on Natural and Rational Theology

15.00-15.15     Coffee break

15.15-16.15     Gideon Stiening (Munich) Natürliche Theologie bei Wolff und Feder

16.15-17.15     Paola Basso (Milan) The Struggle on the Mathematical Method in Theology during the German Enlightenment

17.15-17.30    Coffee break

17.30-18.30     Maria Florutau (Oxford) A Transylvanian Perspective on God Presented as Force of Matter in the Berlin Academy during the Late Enlightenment

Friday, 24 May 2019

09.30-10.30    Paola Rumore (Turin) Buddeus’s Defense of Natural and Revealed Religion

10.30-11.00    Coffee break

11.00-12.00    Endre Szécsényi (Aberdeen/Budapest) Natural Religion and the Aesthetic in                  Early Modern Europe: Some Intellectual Historical Models

12.00-13.00     Alessandro Nannini (Bucharest) The Anthropologization of Spiritual Emotions in Lutheranism around 1750

13.00-14.30    Lunch

14.30-15.30     Gianluca Paolucci (Rome) «Komm! siehe und fühle Gott!»: Performative Theology in Johann Gottfried Herder’s Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts

15.30-16.00    Coffee break

16.00-17.00      Jason Yonover (Hamburg/Baltimore) Mendelssohn and Salomon Maimon on Religion and Superstition

17.00-18.00    Razvan Ioan (Bucharest) Kant’s Immanent God in the Opus Postumum

The conference is organized within the framework of the research project Progress through Eclecticism? The Redefinition of Metaphysics at the Berlin Academy in the Second Half of the 18th Century, funded by UEFISCDI-CNCS (PN-III-P1-1-TE-2016-2299)

For inquiries, please contact the organisers: Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet (tinca.prunea@icub.unibuc.ro) or Alessandro Nannini (alessandronannini1@gmail.com)