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Research Interest

In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the internet of things, the boundaries between nature, technology, and the human person are becoming blurred. This development not only challenges our anthropological and ontological self-understanding, but also raises fundamental theological questions: How can the Catholic Church preserve and renew the meaning of its sacraments in an increasingly digitized world?

This doctoral project investigates to what extent sacramentality – understood as the ontological foundation of visible signs of divine presence – needs to be rethought under the conditions of digital culture. The central thesis holds that sacraments, precisely as events of bodily presence, temporal depth, and unmanipulable grace, represent a critical counterpoint to the dissolution of reality into information.

The urgency of these questions has been brought into sharp relief by recent debates over digital worship services, online confession, and virtual community – discussions that gained renewed intensity through the experiences of the pandemic. This project thus contributes to a theology of embodiment that does not adopt a merely defensive posture toward digitalization, but recognizes in it a challenge to articulate anew the depth-dimension of sacramental reality.

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Research Questions

01 How does digital transformation – especially through artificial intelligence and virtual spaces – alter the understanding of reality, presence, and relationship?

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02 To what extent can the human person be understood as a "sacramental being," whose bodily-relational existence is challenged or transformed by digital culture?

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03 Can sacramental practice be conceived under digital conditions without losing its connection to embodiment, community, and material sign-character?

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Research Methods

The dissertation combines systematic-theological reflection with philosophical-anthropological analysis. Its starting point is ressourcement theology (particularly Henri de Lubac and Hans Boersma), which understands sacramentality as the ontological basic structure of reality. This perspective is complemented by phenomenological approaches to embodiment and intersubjectivity (including Thomas Fuchs), as well as by media-philosophical and cultural-critical analyses of digitalization.

Contemporary theological positions on digital transformation (in particular Johannes Hoff) are also considered, in order to systematically explore the tension between sacramental presence and digital simulation.

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Supervision

Selected Bibliography

• Boersma, Hans: Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology. Oxford 2009.
• Han, Byung-Chul: Undinge. Berlin 2021.
• Hoff, Johannes: Verteidigung des Heiligen. Freiburg i. Br. 2021.
• Fuchs, Thomas: Verkörperte Gefühle. Berlin 2024.
• Jones, David: Art and Sacrament, in: Epoch and Artist. London 1959.
• Cavanaugh, William T.: Migrations of the Holy. Grand Rapids 2011.