The paper introduces Johannes Kern, protestant pastor and representative of enlightenment theology in Ulm. In addition to a brief biographical introduction and an overview of the social and political situation in Ulm at the end of the 18th century, references to the term freedom are contextualized and interpreted, which can be found in his journal "Schwäbisches Magazin zur Beförderung der Aufklärung". The references to the term freedom are presented in the context of Kern's overall argument in various articles and are interpreted in the context of his affiliation with a new bourgeois elite in the Reichsstadt. The concept of freedom is mentioned explicitly in Johannes Kern's journal articles in two contexts. First, freedom is a condition for human development and perfection, in the sense of a "trial and error" approach. However, this development is not open to results, but directed along continuous perfection. Second, Kern makes clear by using a description of "false freedom" that freedom is realized only in the perception of duty in the context of a meaningful social whole. This includes the acceptance of the social order and the individual position in this order. The freedom of God, the theologians had been busy with over so many centuries, vanishes implicitly. The order of nature, history and society is recognizable and manageable. The deficiencies of man serve his perfection, rather than putting him in need of the free divine decision of grace. The worldliness and controllability of salvation becomes particularly clear from the fact that arguments originally used to defend divine freedom in the relationship between man and God are now only used to defend social order. In the context of the reference to the term freedom it also gets clear that Kern is well aware of the contradiction between the universal demands of the Enlightenment and their particular fulfillment and that he searches for strategies to hide or balance this contradiction.
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