Reformed Orthodoxy and German Enlightenment: Johann Friedrich Stapfer (1708-1775) on God and Prolegomena

This dissertation is the first monograph on Johann Friedrich Stapfer. As an eighteenth-century Swiss-German theologian, Stapfer stood at the crossroads of two intellectual traditions: Reformed Orthodoxy and the German Enlightenment. How exactly these interacted in Stapfer is the question of the dissertation. Stapfer was trained in Bern under Johann Heinrich Ringier Jr., and then under Christian Wolff (and other Wolffians) at Marburg. Midway through his writing career, he took up a pastorate in Oberdiessbach as successor to Samuel Lutz and had deep connections to the Moravians, though he was Reformed. He produced three major works including Polemical Theology (5 vols., Latin), Systematic Theology (12 vols., German), and Ethics (6 vols., German), not to mention many more minor works. These focused on defending Christianity against radical Enlightenment threats, demonstrating the truth of Christianity in a deductive and persuasive manner, and showing the practical value of Christianity. Controversially, he considered reason and Scripture as the foundation of theology which led to an expanded role for natural theology mediated through Leibniz and Wolff. He utilized their principle of sufficient reason, the best of possible world theory, and theodicy. His polemical theology emphasized discovering the central principle from which errors proceeded and in this, he influenced the likes of Archibald Alexander and John Pye-Smith. In demonstrating the practical aspect of Christianity, he defined religion (in general) as “dependence on God” which greatly influenced Friedrich Schleiermacher’s more famous formulation. He defended the existence of God by using Leibniz’s cosmological argument. The attributes of God were demonstrated to be coherent even in light of the reality of evil. Thus God’s acts of predestination, creation and present providence were defended by the use of Leibniz’s best of possible worlds theory, the introduction of the category of metaphysical evil, and human free will. In many ways, he influenced Jonathan Edwards’ mature theology and Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of religion. The dissertation seeks to demonstrate the interweaving influences of Reformed Orthodoxy and German Enlightenment in this portrayal of Stapfer.