Otto Kirn


Otto Kirn was a German Lutheran theologian and university professor.

Life

Kirn went through the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren, where he was trained, among others, by the philosopher Karl Christian Planck. From 1875 to 1880 he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Tübingen and was then a lecturer at the Tübinger Stift from 1881 to 1884. In 1886 he earned the degree of Lic. Theol. with the work Die christliche Vollkommenheit and in 1889 he was finally promoted to Doctor of Philosophy and graduated with the dissertation Kants transcendentale Dialektik in ihrer Bedeutung für die Religionsphilosophie. During his time as a doctoral student he worked from 1885 to 1889 in Besigheim as a Deacon.
After his doctorate Kirn turned to Basel. There he began in 1889 as a Privatdozent for New Testament and systematic theology, in 1890 extraordinary and finally in 1894 full Professor of the University of Basel in this field. Just one year later he moved to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Leipzig as a Full Professor of Systematic Theology. He was dean at the faculty in 1900/1901 and 1906/1907. He died in office.
In 1896, the University of Tübingen awarded him the honorary doctorate in theology.

Publications (selection)

In the latter work, Kirn criticized as overbroad Max Bernhard Weinstein's assertions that such historical philosophers as John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Moses Mendelssohn, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism.

Literature