Rudolf Schmid

Rudolf Schmid (1828–1907) was a Württemberg Lutheran theologian, born at Altensteigdorf and trained at Blaubeuren and the Tübingen Stift. In 1854 he went to Scotland as tutor to the sons of the Duke of Argyll and spent four years in that household, meeting figures such as David Livingstone and absorbing British scientific debate at close range. He was town pastor at Friedrichshafen from 1868, where he wrote this book, then dean at Schwäbisch Hall, prelate and general superintendent of Heilbronn, and from 1890 court preacher in Stuttgart; he was ennobled in 1889 as Rudolf von Schmid. Tübingen gave him an honorary doctorate in 1897, and he answered it in 1906 with "Das naturwissenschaftliche Glaubensbekenntnis eines Theologen" ("The Scientific Creed of a Theologian"), a second attempt at understanding between natural science and Christianity.