“It Is Only With John That the Philosopher Can Deal.” Fichte on the Difference Between Pauline and Johannine Christianity

Abstract

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was one of the first theoreticians who not only differentiated between the Pauline and Johannine theology, but also sharply opposed to them. However, he considered Saint Paul’s theology “wholly untenable” and he held that Saint John – “the only teacher of true Christianity” – had taught the same and frequently “with the very same images and expressions” as the Wissenschaftslehre did. The Characteristics of the Present Age and The Way Towards the Blessed Life, which is about these two “opposite systems of Christianity”, attempts to present all the fundamental considerations of Fichte’s late philosophy clearly and apply it to everyday phenomena. In this context, the Johannine theology becomes favoured, because it emphasizes unity. Firstly, in my paper I sketch the main ideas of this philosophy, which Fichte also found in the Gospel of St. John. Then I present Fichte’s genuine interpretation of St. Paul and John, and finally, I show the Fichtean way led from the hard opposition of the two apostles to the rejection of the theology as it is.