Gottlieb Christoph Adolf von Harless

Gottlieb Christoph Adolf von Harless (German: von Harleß; 21 November 1806 – 5 September 1879), was a German Lutheran theologian.

He was born at Nuremberg. As a youth, he was interested in music and poetry, and was attracted by ancient and German classical literature, especially by Jean Paul. He was indifferent to Christianity. In 1823 he entered the University of Erlangen, at first studying philology, then law; but he finally tried theology. The teacher who particularly influenced him was Georg Benedikt Winer.

Harless wanted to understand the reasons for the importance of the Christian religion in the life of the people and the history of the world. He first thought that the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was adapted to the solution of this problem. Later he was led to the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, in whose system he searched for the roots of Hegel's and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's philosophy. He moved, in 1826, to the University of Halle, attracted by Friedrich Tholuck. He conceived a plan of studying the literature of the ancient philosophers and theologians. Harless received a further impulse from his study of Blaise Pascal's Pensées, but at about this time he had a crisis of conscience; he turned to the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church and found their contents in conformity with the experience of his faith. The chief attraction in the Lutheran confession was, for him, the doctrine of justification, which would become the central point of his theology.

In 1828 Harless returned from Halle to Erlangen as privat-docent in theology, and three years later became professor of New Testament exegesis. The theological faculty at Erlangen owed its later conservative tendency chiefly to Harless. In 1836 he became ordinary professor, and as such lectured also on Christian ethics, theological encyclopedia, and methodology. In 1836 he became preacher of the university. He declined calls to Rostock, Berlin, Dorpat, and Zurich. In 1840 he was appointed delegate of the chamber of states in Munich to defend the rights of the Lutheran Church against the measures of the ministry. Harless won popularity by defending the interests of his church but the opposition party succeeded in removing him in 1845 to Baireuth, as second councilor of the consistory. In the same year, however, he was appointed professor of theology in Leipzig, where he lectured for the first time on dogmatics. Within two years he was appointed preacher at St. Nicolai, in addition to his duties as professor.

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