Systematic Theology Section

This thematic platform concerns the examination of human existence with regard to existential topics such as anxiety, doubt, shame, guilt, desire, courage, faith, and hope. It implies approaches to subjectivity as embodied, socially situated and embedded in nature and includes examination of experiences of social change and transformations related to difference and community, solitude and communion.

It concerns approaches to human conflicts and crises not least the theological conceptions of death including evil and suffering. It implies an investigation of concepts of dialectics, paradox, repetition, recollection and anticipation and a concern for the challenges of gender, race and class. Thus included in the examination of existence are approaches to confession and formation of identity, alterity and sexuality.

Core expressions of existence such as care, resentment, trust, recognition and compassion are explored alongside expressions such as prayer and praise, also in the context of various life phases and conditions of life. Questions of self-understanding and lifestyle are explored in the context of contemporary challenges suchs as e.g. weight and stigmatisation, stress, and environmental issues.

This thematic platform concerns the examination of ethics within the context of human existence in its social and natural frameworks. The perception of ethics implies philosophical and theological approaches to normativity as broader than questions of concrete ethical dilemmas and theoretical conflicts. Ethics thus assesses and examines claims of universal normativity in the light of ambivalences of subjectivity and alterity, convictions and inescapable conditions of life.

These ethical investigations reflect the limits of norms and morality in the perspective of fallibility and tragic conflict and, a “second ethics” i.e. an ethics that carries action in the awareness of ambivalence. This implies ethics as formation and regeneration of human capacity. The field ethics encompasses questions of power, empowerment, and liberation as well as of forgiveness and atonement.

It concerns critical questions of legitimacy and justice, including dilemmas and ambivalences of politics and social institutions. In regard to convictions and politics, questions of ethics are explored by attending to contemporary challenges such as philosophy of health and psychiatry, bioethics and issues of climate change.

This thematic platform concerns the examination of the acquisition of truth and knowledge in the broad context of contemporary philosophical and scientific discussions on rationality, including classic questions of epistemology and metaphysics. It implies in particular an examination of phenomenological and hermeneutical accounts of knowledge also with regard to metaphysical and post-metaphysical theories of truth, forms and limits of knowledge including the distinction between faith and reason. Explored in detail is the relationship between truth, revelation and experience. It is an investigation of theoretical conceptions of knowledge and cognition, in the context of practices and experiences of understanding, alienation and participation.

This thematic platform concerns the examination, critique and construction of the concepts and contents of religion in the broad context of philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics and language of religion(s). It explores constructions and criticisms of religions, the religious and confessional differences as well as conflicts and coorparations between lived religions and their associated practices. This implies the exploration of notions of secularization and the  post-secular, spirituality, and non-organised religiousness. This field encompasses also public theology, including the subfields of law and religion, church and state, and the role of the natural sciences in contemporary religious and Christian self-understanding.

This thematic platform concerns the examination of Christianity and Christian churches in their broadest communicative, conceptual and institutional contexts. It implies a conceptual as well as empirical dimension of research and a distinction between the visible and invisible church.

To the exploration of this field belongs the examination of Danish churches, the Danish Lutheran Church, and churches of other denominations. To the examination of the Danish Lutheran Church comes the critical and constructive exploration of confessional writings and forms of practice including the application of disciplines of communication within liturgical studies, hymnology and homiletics. This is done with respect to the historical sources as well as the contemporary context of digitalization, social media and big data. 

The vision of the Systematic Theology Section is to explore and examine contemporary Theology through the disciplines of Dogmatics with Ecumenical Studies, Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, and Practical Theology. It is the ambition of the section to present contemporary contributions of the systematic disciplines in their internal and external relationship to other theological disciplines and to non-theological academic fields, while addressing current issues in church, culture and society.

For the discipline of Dogmatics this implies analysis, interpretation and conceptual clarification of classical Christian topics such as the Trinitarian doctrine of God, theological anthropology, the theology of creation, soteriology and eschatology. With an emphasis on Reformation theology, liberal theology, dialectical and post-dialectical theology including Ecumenical Theology and the Theology of Religions, Dogmatics integrates critical and constructive approaches.

The vision of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion is to analyse, interpret and conceptualize ethical, religious, and philosophical aspects of modern and contemporary thought. Focus is on religion and critique of religion in the trajectory of Enlightenment, identity and narrativity, existence and normativity, selfhood and sociality, and Kierkegaard Studies. The methodological approach is primarily influenced by phenomenology and hermeneutics with interdisciplinary outlooks to disciplines such as aesthetics, literary studies and psychiatry.

The vision of Practical Theology is to explore Christian practices in rituals, liturgies, sermons, hymns, pastoral care, and congregational life, including diaconia and mission. Combining classical and empirical approaches, the research area includes Grundtvig studies, studies of the relationship between society and church, church and media, and the relationship between church and culture and cultural heritage.