Karl Heim was a professor of dogmatics at Münster

Münster

Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...

 and Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

. One of his students was Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...

. He retired in 1939. His idea of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 controlling quantum events

Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

 that do and would seem otherwise random has been seen as the precursor to much of the current studies on divine action. His current influence upon religion and science theology has been compared in degree to that of the physcist and theologian Ian Barbour

Ian Barbour

Ian Graeme Barbour, born 5 October 1923, is an American scholar on the relationship between science and religion. According to the Public Broadcasting Service his mid-1960s Issues in Science and Religion "has been credited with literally creating the contemporary field of science and religion."In...

 and of the scientist and theological organizer Ralph Wendell Burhoe

Ralph Wendell Burhoe

Ralph Wendell Burhoe was an important twentieth century pioneer interpreter of the importance of religion for a scientific and technological world. He was awarded the Templeton Prize in 1980....

. His doctrine on the transcendence of God has been thought to anticipate important points of later religious and science discussions, including the application of Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...

's idea of a paradigm

Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...

 to religion and Thomas F. Torrance's theory of multilevelled knowledge. Mention of Heim's physical and theological concept of extra-dimensional space can be found in a 2001 puzzle book by the popular mathematics writer Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...

. His concept of space has also been discussed by Ian Barbour

Ian Barbour

Ian Graeme Barbour, born 5 October 1923, is an American scholar on the relationship between science and religion. According to the Public Broadcasting Service his mid-1960s Issues in Science and Religion "has been credited with literally creating the contemporary field of science and religion."In...

 himself, who in a review of the book Christian Faith and Natural Science (English translation, 1953, Harper & Brothers

Harper & Brothers

Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...

) and in a mention of "its more technical sequel" The Transformation of the Scientific World-View (English translation, 1943, Harper & Brothers

Harper & Brothers

Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...

), found it to be "an illuminating insight."

Place amongst German scholars

Until the late 1960s Karl Heim's call for a religion and science dialogue was a lone voice amongst German theologians. Within the realm of German scientists who were also Christian laity or religious proponents, Heim's views did however have contemporary company. So while German theologians Karl Barth

Karl Barth

Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...

 and Rudolph Bultmann discouraged all types of interdisciplinary religious dialogue with science or any other intellectual discipline, scientists such as Max Planck

Max Planck

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...

, Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg

Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...

, Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn FRS was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner...

, Gunther Howe, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker

Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the research team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership...

 readily participated in religion and science dialogues from the 1930s onward. In the 1960s Anglo-American Creationism

Creationism

Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

-type religion and science dialogues (in particular young earth) began to be promoted by A.E. Wilder-Smith and others involved in the Karl-Heim-Gesellschaft (i.e., the Karl Heim Society).

Concept of spaces

Heim's analog of spaces has been subject to some criticism. He appeared to use a scientific concept to create a new natural-supernatural relationship using a fourth dimension, which, in modern physics, cannot be visualized, and relates to mathematical and physical measurements and is always expressed as a mathematical equation.

Publications

• Christian faith and natural science (1953) http://www.asa3.org/ASA/BookReviews1949-1989/3-56.html
• The transformation of the scientific world view (1953)
• Jesus the Lord; the sovereign authority of Jesus and God's revelation in Christ (1959)
• Jesus, the world's perfecter : the atonement and the renewal of the world (1959)
• The world: its creation and consummation (1962) full text
• God transcendent; foundation for a Christian metaphysic (1935)
• Germany's new religion; the German faith movement(1937)
• The nature of Protestantism (1963)
• The church of Christ and the problems of the day (1935)
• Spirit and truth; the nature of evangelical Christianity (1935)
• The world : its creation and consummation : the end of the present age and the future of the world in the light of the resurrection (1952)
• The Living fountain; a series of sermons (1936)
• The new divine order (1930)
• The gospel of the cross; a second series of sermons (1937)
• The power of God (1937)