Archive: Dietmar Mieth in 2007 © Harald Oppitz (KNA)
He is one of the most renowned German ethicists and in 1974 was the first non-priest in the world to hold a chair in moral theology. Now Dietmar Mieth turns 80 – and his expertise is still in demand.
In Erfurt a research position, in Wurzburg a lecture on the relationship between philosophy and theology, in Karlsruhe the Verfangsdialog on euthanasia, in Stuttgart a lecture on sexual morality and in Krefeld a book reading. For Dietmar Mieth, one of the most renowned German ethicists, retirement seems more like restlessness. This Wednesday he turns 80.
Ethicist, theologian and author
A book written together with his wife Irene was published the previous year. This is about her decision, as a cancer patient with metastases, to forego surgery. With a heavy heart, he respected the stance of his wife, now deceased, did not try to persuade her to make such an intervention.
His latest book, published a few weeks ago, is called "Nicht einverstanden" ("Not agreeing"). Interwoven in this, in addition to his biography, are six decades of contemporary, ecclesiastical, and theological scientific history. It is the record of a man who describes himself as a "constructive nonconformist" and "perspectivist". Mieth sees himself as committed to "autonomous morality," which starts with the reality of experience and does not focus on abstract doctrinal edifices. Born in the Saarland, he rather relies on reason and experience.
Member of high-ranking ethics committees
For many years, Mieth was a member of various high-ranking ethics committees of the Bundestag and the Federal Ministry of Health, he advised the European Union and helped the German bishops as well as the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK). The topics were living wills, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia. The focus was usually on questions of technological and medical progress, as well as the connections between the world of work and capital.
In 1990, the renowned International Center for Ethics in Science was founded under his leadership in Tubingen, which he directed for more than a decade. The institution brings natural science, humanities, and social science into conversation. In 1974, Mieth was the first non-priest in the world to receive a chair in Catholic moral theology. Since 1967 he worked as assistant to Alfons Auer in Tubingen, with whom he also habilitated. In 1981, the scientist returned to Tubingen after seven years in Fribourg, Switzerland, and taught theological ethics there until his retirement in 2008.
Looking at reforms in the church
Within the church, Mieth stands for reforms. In his most recent book, he recalls a dialogue with Eugen Drewermann, who describes himself – presumably self-deprecatingly – as the one who throws stones through windows from the outside, while Mieth sees himself more as someone who picks up the stones on the inside and rebuilds them, because he wants "the church to be different, but not a different church". He cites the separation of powers as an important keyword for reform, and his church's treatment of women, which he considers fundamentally flawed.
He is also concerned with the priesthood of women, but above all with the dismantling of "clerical-hierarchical forms of rule" in the sense of the word "layman" from its Greek root: then layman means "belonging to the people of God", and then all are initially laymen as Christians: men and women, priests and non-priests. Mieth also criticizes Pope Francis' leadership style because it "lacks the contours of an institutional vision. The pope rules and reacts only on a case-by-case basis. I miss a consistent concept."
But the father of two children, who has been living in Bochum near his daughter's family for a few years, is driven by other ies: above all mysticism in the sense of religious experience. He is vice president of the Meister Eckhart Society, an interdisciplinary association that cares for the legacy of the late medieval philosopher and theologian with whom Mieth's academic career began.
But Mieth is also present where theologians are often sidelined: in sports. He edited the "Lexikon der Ethik im Sport" (Encyclopedia of Ethics in Sport), for which the Federal Institute for Sports Science is responsible, and he is involved in the Ethics Award of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). Pragmatically also the attitude of the VfB fan to soccer on television in times of Corona: Who would be held with the leisure activity barrier in the living room, should be allowed to watch in good conscience.