View source for Gaston Frommel

{{Short description|French-Swiss protestant pastor}}
{{One source|date=February 2012}}
{{Infobox scholar
| name = Gaston Frommel
| image = Gaston Frommel.jpg
| caption = undated portrait photo of Frommel by [[Frédéric Boissonnas]]
}}
'''Gaston Frommel''' (November 25, 1862, in [[Altkirch]], [[France]] – May 18, 1906, in [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]]) was a [[French people|French]]-[[Swiss people|Swiss]] [[Protestantism|protestant]] [[pastor]] and professor of [[theology]] at the [[University of Geneva]] from 1894 until his death.

== Life ==
A Frenchman by birth, his family fled [[Alsace]] under German occupation in 1870 and he spent the rest of his life in Switzerland. He may best be described as continuing the spirit of [[Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet]] amid the mental conditions marking the end of the 19th century.{{sfn|Bartlet|1911}}

Like Vinet, he derived his philosophy of religion from a peculiarly deep experience of the Gospel of [[Christ]] as meeting the demands of the moral consciousness; but he developed even further than Vinet the psychological analysis of conscience and the method of verifying every doctrine by direct reference to spiritual experience. Both made much of moral individuality or personality as the crown and criterion of reality, believing that its correlation with [[Christianity]], both historically and philosophically, was most intimate.{{sfn|Bartlet|1911}}

But while Vinet laid most stress on the liberty from human authority essential to the moral consciousness, the changed needs of the age caused Frommel to develop rather the aspect of man's dependence as a moral being upon God's spiritual initiative, "the conditional nature of his liberty." "Liberty is not the primary, but the secondary characteristic" of conscience; "before being free, it is the subject of obligation." On this depends its objectivity as a real revelation of the Divine Will.
[[File:GraveGastonFrommel-NouveauCimetiereDeCologny RomanDeckert24122022.jpg|thumb|Frommel's grave at the New Cemetery of [[Cologny]] in the [[canton of Geneva]].]]
Thus he claimed that a deeper analysis carried one beyond the human subjectivity of even [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]'s [[categorical imperative]], since consciousness of obligation was "''une experience imposée sous le mode de l'absolu.''" By his use of ''imposée'' Frommel emphasized the priority of man's sense of obligation to his consciousness either of self or of God. Here he appealed to the current psychology of the subconscious for confirmation of his analysis, by which he claimed to transcend mere intellectualism. In his language on this fundamental point he was perhaps too jealous of admitting an ideal element as implicit in the feeling of obligation. Still he did well in insisting on priority to self-conscious thought as a mark of [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] objectivity in the case of moral, no less than of physical experience.{{sfn|Bartlet|1911}}

Further, he found in the Christian revelation the same characteristics as belonged to the universal revelation involved in conscience, viz., [[God]]'s sovereign initiative and his living action in history. From this standpoint he argued against a purely psychological type of religion (''agnosticisme religieux''; as he termed it)--a tendency to which he saw even in [[Louis Auguste Sabatier|A Sabatier]] and the ''symbolofidéisme'' of the Paris School—as giving up a real and unifying faith. His influence on men, especially the student class, was greatly enhanced by the religious force and charm of his personality. Finally, like Vinet, he was a man of letters and a penetrating critic of men and systems.{{sfn|Bartlet|1911}}

==External links==
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==Notes==
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==References==
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Frommel, Gaston|volume=11|page=247|first=James Vernon|last=Bartlet}}

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{{s-aca}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Auguste Bouvier]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=Chair of theology at the [[University of Geneva]]|years=1894–1906}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Georges Fulliquet]]}}
{{s-end}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Frommel, Gaston}}
[[Category:1862 births]]
[[Category:1906 deaths]]
[[Category:Swiss Protestant theologians]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Geneva]]
[[Category:French emigrants to Switzerland]]