ABSTRACT
Contrary to a common opinion in Protestantism, the body is not only the space for exercise and the visible sign for asceticism. In the 18th century a line of thought became prominent among some orthodox Lutheran thinkers that rehabilitates the body and (really) all its functions from condemnation as a sinful prison of the soul, elevating it to an important means of salvation in opposition to an overly self-confident human spirit. This theological development emerged from a special kind of contact situation: it reacted on and strongly opposed philosophical developments of the same period, namely the Enlightenment movement. For thinkers like Friedrich Christian Oetinger (1702–1782) and Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788), the body and its functions became a counter-concept to rational methodology as introduced by Descartes and his followers, and also to concepts that promote the purity of reason which is to be found in Kant’s famous first Critique. Thus, a religion of purity is opposed by a soteriology of the body, which is not only highly significant for the assumed necessity of the body for religion, but is also very entertaining to read.
