Wolfgang Huber - Thought

Thought

Huber has worked on a wide variety and great number of ethical and theological themes. With his father Huber edited five volumes of documents on German church-state relations. His other publications include Kirche und Öffentlichkeit (1973), Menschenrechte. Perspektiven einer menschlichen Welt (1977, with Heinz Eduard Tödt), Kirche (1979), Folgen christlicher Freiheit. Ethik und Theorie der Kirche im Horizont der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung (1983), Konflikt und Konsens. Studien zur Ethik der Verantwortung (1990), Friedensethik (1990, with Hans-Richard Reuter), Die tägliche Gewalt. Gegen den Ausverkauf der Menschenwürde (1993), Gerechtigkeit und Recht. Grundlinien christlicher Rechtsethik (1996), Kirche in der Zeitenwende. Gesellschaftlicher Wandel und Erneuerung der Kirche (1998), Vertrauen erneuern. Eine Reform um der Menschen willen (2005), Im Geist der Freiheit. Für eine Ökumene der Profile (2007), Der christliche Glaube. Eine evangelische Orientierung (2008). As respected religious figure, academic and public intellectual Huber continues to initiate and contribute to a wide range of themes, amongst others by means of a large number of public lectures, sermons and public discussions.

Research on Huber’s thought emphasizes the centrality of the concept “communicative freedom” in his work. His theology and public engagement is characterized by the fact that Christianity is the religion of life-enabling freedom. He understands communicative freedom as a rearticulation of the Reformation’s rediscovery of freedom, as is clear in his use of Martin Luther’s theology to substantiate his understanding of freedom. Huber aims to reconcile individuality and sociality, by developing an understanding of freedom that transcends mere self-realisation. In his recent work he makes use of the term "responsible freedom" to denote this comprehensive understanding of freedom.

Following the sociologist Max Weber, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the philosopher Hans Jonas, Huber develops an ethics of responsibility for life in the context of modernity. This forms the starting point for Huber’s contributions to present-day ethical questions, as can be seen in his contributions to business ethics, political ethics and bio-ethics.

Huber is known for his opposition to embryology research. He understands human dignity as conferred by God, and expressed by the Christian conviction that the human person is created in the “image of God”. Human dignity cannot be equated with either the biological development or genetic characteristics as this contradicts the human person as subject of freedom. In Huber's view a human being is always a person and never simply an object.