Hartmut von Sass

Hartmut von Sass (born 28 January 1980 in Rostock) is a Protestant theologian and philosopher of religion as well as and professor of systematic theology with special focus on dogmatics and philosophy of religion at the University of Hamburg.

After completing his dual degree in evangelical theology and philosophy at the University of Göttingen, Edinburgh and Berlin, Hartmut von Sass became an assistant at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Zurich. He received his doctorate in 2009 and received his Habilitation in 2012. He was then appointed deputy director of the Collegium Helveticum, its interdisciplinary research institute, in Zurich. From 2019 to 2025, he was an research professor and holder of an Heisenberg scholarship of the German Research Foundation at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Longer research stays took him abroad to the Claremont Graduate University 2009), Trinity College, Oxford (2012), Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena (2014), University of California, Berkeley (2018) and as a Lynen Fellow to the New School for Social Research New York, (2022–2024). Since 2025, he has held the chair of systematic theology at the University of Hamburg.^[1]

Von Sass research interests are mainly the following topics: theologies of emotions and feelings, faith and ontology, dialectical and hermeneutic theology, atheism as an element of faith, religious diagnosis and secularization, theologies of prayer and hope, radical eschatology and the normative status of the future, Phenomenology of religious language, and some topics of ethics such as theories of pacifism.

Von Sass is also interested in a publicly visible theology and philosophy of religion and also publishes in Merkur in the history of the present, at Zeit online and appeared in numerous formats such as the Sternstunde Philosophy

Von Sass publishes primarily in German language The titles below indicate the scope of his work in English. Any ISBN refere to the original publication

• Language games of faith. A study on the contemplative philosophy of religion of broadcaster Dewi Phillips with regard for the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-16-150460-0.
• God as an event of being. An attempt to relate a hermeneutics and theology. Tübingen 2013, ISBN 3-16-152751-8.
• A Philosophy of Comparisons. Theory, Practice and the Limits of Ethics. New York / London 2021, ISBN 978-1-350-18551-7.
• Atheistic belief. A theological essay. Berlin 2022, 4. Edition 2024, ISBN 978-3-7518-0541-4.
• Beside yourself. Hope and a new format of theology. Tübingen 2023, ISBN 978-3-16-162767-5

• Christianity in the 21st century
• Christianity in the modern era