Karl Heim, the German theologian, was born at Frauenzimmern in Württemberg. He studied at Tübingen and was professor of theology at Münster (1914) and at Tübingen from 1920 until his death.

Heim's work has philosophical interest insofar as he was concerned all of his life with the problem of restating Christianity in a form that would be credible in the scientific age. His early work explored the epistemology of religious faith, and his developed account draws on the I–thou philosophy of Martin Buber and also on some of the concepts of modern science. Heim's fundamental point was that the experiencing subject cannot itself become an object and so cannot be brought under the objectifying categories of scientific thought. Thus we have a way of breaking out of, or transcending, the objective world of science, for there is open to us also...