The 20th century’s most original Danish theologian and author of The Ethical Demand (1957)

Knud Loegstrup (1905-81) (Loeg rhymes with “her”) was first a pastor, then a professor of ethics.

The central theological idea of his best-known book, The Ethical Demand (Den etiske fordring) is that human experience must take precedence over dogma and that trust is of the essence.

Our very attitude to our neighbour colours his world
“Our very attitude to our neighbour colours his world,” he writes. “I can broaden or narrow it, lighten or darken it, make it seem threatened or secure. There is an unvoiced challenge to us to look after the life which trust places in our hand.” Life is created in such a way that it will eventually lead man back to God, an idea that took root in Loegstrup in the post-war years when a common ethical base for all mankind was a very distant concept.

Professor Ole Jensen’s new book, The Story of K.E. Loegstrup, published in January 2007, has already received high praise. 50 years after the publication of Loegstrup’s groundbreaking book, it has put him firmly back at the heart of 20th century Danish theology with a message for our times: “We could do the possibly impossible and turn our attitude 180 degrees on its axis to realise that the universe is not our environment but our origin.”

As reviewer Sørine Godtfredsen writes in the Christian Daily, “That could be a suitable headline for the present intense debate on the fragile state of our planet.”

Works by Loegstrup available in English

• The Ethical Demand. With an introduction by Alasdair MacIntyre and Hans Fink. Notre Dame/London 1997.
• Metaphysics. Vol I-II. Translated and with an Introduction by Russell L. Dees. Milwaukee 1995.
• Beyond The Ethical Demand (Loegstrup’s Later Ethics)ed. Kees van Kooten Niekerk, Univ. of Aarhus, publ. by Notre Dame/London, forthcoming 2007.

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