Karl Friedrich August Kahnis

From a poor background, Kahnis was educated at the gymnasium of his native town Greiz, and after acting as private tutor for several years began the study of theology at Halle.

In 1844 he was called to Breslau as professor extraordinary to represent the orthodox party in a rationalistic faculty, but in his inaugural speech De Spiritus Sancti persona he departed from the accepted doctrine of Trinitarianism, ranking the Son as subordinate to the Father, and assigning the last place to the Holy Spirit, which he described as the impersonal principle of life, binding together the other two.

After the revolution of 1848, in which Kahnis supported the king and the established order, he came to believe that the safest defense against irreligion was in rigid orthodoxy, and gradually drifted into an attitude of opposition to the Union (the consolidation of the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia effected by a royal decree in 1817).

In addition to his academic duties, Kahnis from 1851 to 1857 was a member of the board of missions, from 1853 to 1857 edited the Sächsische Kirchen- und Schulblatt, and from 1866 to 1875 was one of the editors of Niedner's Zeitschrift für historische Theologie.

He found the nature of Christianity in the community of salvation between man and God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, seeking his proof in history, philosophy, and the common facts of life.

It was not the system he advanced that aroused opposition, but the attitude assumed by him toward the higher critics of the New Testament, his readiness to adopt the most of their theories, and his consequent modification of the doctrine of inspiration, as well as his dissent from the dogma of the Church in respect to the Trinity and the Lord's Supper.