Wie steht es mit der Sünde?

This large review of the current studies in hamartiology in the German speaking area is divided into two parts: The Part I, given here, analyzes three most important contributions to the topic of hamartiology in the German protestant area in the last years. Primarily, it is the broad study by I.U. Dalferth: Sünde, definitely the most important book on sin of the last decades, which, hopefully, will become the normative and inavoidable outline of hamartiology. The second is the book by Th. Dietz: Sünde, intended primarily for church readers, written in a more essayistic style, referring often to novels, movies and art and trying to grasp the difficult topic of sin through a new series of today's seven main sins. The third discussed publication is the principal study (Grundlagentext) of German Protestant Church (EKD) on sin, debt and forgiveness, which offers in a nicely compact form a comprehensive text on the theological, phenomenological and practical side of sin and debt and of the way of dealing with it. It speaks also inwards of the church, starting with the situation of worship, where both sin and its forgiving are explicitly dealt with. From here, the view opens toward the phenomena of sin within the world and its relations. Part 2 will be published in the next issue. It contains the discussion mainly of the roman-catholic contributions to the topic and also some principal remarks to the topic following questions, problems and challenges that arose from the reviewed material.

THORSTEN DIETZ, Sünde. Was Menschen heute von Gott trennt. Witten: SCMR. Brockhaus 2019, 224 S. – INGOLF U. DALFERTH, Sünde. Die Entdeckung der Menschlichkeit. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2020, 422 S. – EVANGELISCHE KIRCHE IN DEUTSCHLAND (Hg.), Sünde, Schuld und Vergebung aus Sicht evangelischer Anthropologie. Ein Grundlagentext der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2020, 131 S.