Ratzinger's Spiritual Father: Gottlieb Söhngen

Gottlieb Söhngen

"It is probably no exaggeration if one should here speak of a spiritual relationship. Considered in retrospect one could even say that the advice of Gottlieb Söhngen in 1953 to his habilitation student to choose Bonaventure was providential."

Marianne Schlosser 2009 prologue to the publication of the Habilitation Thesis in Gesammelte Schriften II: Offenbarungs-Verständnis und Geschichts-Theologie Bonaventuras, Joseph Ratzinger, Herder: Freiburg, 2009, 37.

"If the bibliography has the purpose of uncovering the spiritual influence in which the author stood during the drafting of his work, then it must necessarily remain with lacunae; for, more than what we read, what influences us most is the often obvious and given context of human relations in which we live. Thus I must at least not neglect to point out in this regard that above all the literature which has proven most significant for me is what I assimilated as a student in the classes of the Munich School of Theology. But without excluding any material, I wish to mention the classes of Professor Söhngen, especially those of Revelation, Theological Science and the Philosophy of Religion, as also the lectures in Dogmatics by Professor Schmaus. Without the systematic apriori, which developed in me through these lessons, this work would have been unthinkable..."

Joseph Razinger 1954 prologue in Gesammelte Schriften II: Offenbarungs-Verständnis und Geschichts-Theologie Bonaventuras, Joseph Ratzinger, Herder: Freiburg, 2009, 46.