Doctoral Colloquium 2025 – Wednesday, September 3rd
< Go back to overview page Doctoral Colloquium 2025
| 7:30 – 8:00 | Breakfast |
| 8:15 – 8:45 | Chapel (R. Ghobrial) |
| 09:00 – 09:45 | Student Presentations
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| 09:55 – 10:40 | Student Presentations
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| 10:40 – 11:05 | Coffee Break |
| 11:05 – 11:50 | Student Presentations
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| 12:00 – 13:00 | Faculty Presentations
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| 13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Colloquium Photo Session (dining hall) |
| 14:30 – 16:00 | Debate (SR)
This will be an engaging, friendly debate on Paul Tillich’s method of correlation and how it relates to God’s revelation and human knowledge. This will be of interest and applicable to students and faculty from all departments. After a brief interchange between our two panelists, there will ample time for lively discussion, input, and questions from the audience. |
Doctoral Examinations (closed meetings)
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| 16:00 – 16:30 | Coffee Break |
| 16:30 – 18:00 | Possibility for appointments |
| Meeting Candidate Promovendi 2025-2026 at room LCCS 0103 | |
| 18:30 – 21:30 | Faculty & Students Formal Dinner at ‘t Oud Gasthuys (Brusselsestraat 63, 3000 Leuven) |
| 21:30 | Leuven by night (free time) |
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Abstracts
Student Presentations
D. Bottesch (NT): On the Soteriological Significance of the Death of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels
Within the fields of New Testament theology and exegesis, the question of how the death of Jesus is to be understood soteriologically remains both extensively studied and vigorously debated. This is hardly surprising, since—in Jörg Frey’s words—it concerns “nothing less than the very center of the Christian faith.” On this matter the biblical evidence has been examined through a variety of interpretive frameworks: is Jesus’ death presented primarily as a sacrifice or as a ransom, as an act of substitution or atonement, or as the absorption of divine wrath?
This dissertation seeks to contribute to the theological and exegetical discussion of the soteriological meaning of Jesus’ death in the Synoptic Gospels. In my first presentation at ETF Leuven I will give an preliminary outline about the project, including a (1) survey of the current state of research in the field, situating the project within a broader scholarly context; (2) an overview of key sources, data, and materials from the New Testament, the Old Testament, and extra-biblical literature, which serve as the foundation for further analysis. (3) I will identify in broad strokes indications of a potential gap in the existing research, which revolves around a narrative approach with a special focus on the framework of substitution
T. Kräuter (PT): “Bringing the Gospel to the City together”: Interconfessional Cooperation in Missionary Church Development in Vienna
An essential task of practical theology and church theory is to reflect which ecclesial social forms best promote the communication of the gospel in a given context. In the wake of the socio-religious change of Western European societies and the accompanying liquidation of church, new ecclesial forms beyond traditional churches and free churches are gaining significance in church theory. Almost everywhere, there are diverse new forms of non-parochial churches emerging, such as Fresh Expressions, Pioneering Places, church plants, and house churches.
However, these have not yet received sufficient attention in practical theological research. To date, there is no Western European study that covers and examines all new church forms in one place in an ecumenical context regarding their missional practice. In Austria, this topic has been completely ignored in theological research, despite numerous practical examples.
My dissertation project aims to close this gap with an empirical study in Vienna. From the perspectives of the sociology of religion, practical church theory, and missional theology, it will examine which new forms of church community exist in Vienna and how they shape their practice against the backdrop of the changing socio-religious context. In this way, it aims to contribute to a richer understanding of the communication of the gospel in new forms of church in Western European cities, rooted in lived church practice, and in turn provide valuable insights for church practice.
D. Vassen (ST): Critical Realism, Spirituality and Theological Method
Roy Bhaskar has developed his critical realist philosophy in three main stages, and he describes the final stage, the philosophy of metaReality, as the spiritual turn of his project. Bhaskar’s introduction of the topic of spirituality elicited mixed reactions: some members of his movement rejected the spiritual turn, while others developed a more Christian interpretation of it.
Meanwhile, the topic of spirituality, its nature, practice, and relevance for academic theology have become a matter of debate within scholarly theology itself. My presentation will introduce you to various aspects of the discussion within academic theology and Roy Bhaskar’s movement. In particular, I will show how the insights of Bhaskar’s critical realism support the integration of spirituality into theological method within evangelical theology.
E.J. Broekhuizen (ST): “Where Art Thou?: The Attribution of Responsibility in Technological Developments through Moral Communities”
New technologies have a revolutionary character that pose both promises and threats to life and societies. New ethical models are needed to address the challenges of these new technologies. This presentation highlights the choices made in the wording of the Central Research Question (CRQ) for my dissertation proposal: “How can moral communities, contribute to the attribution of responsibility by engineers, in their practice of (re-)designing new technologies?” Exposition of the CRQ will show the promise of responsibility as a new paradigm for an ethics of technology. Especially through the incorporation of moral communities. Moral communities are a necessary aspect of responsibility and they show a promising potential for a positive guidance of technological developments through the attribution of responsibility. However, they are only alluded to in the current field of the ethics of technology. The CRQ will be leading in the structure of the presentation. Therefore I will first elaborate how the ABC-model of Wisse et al. is applied to compose the CRQ. Thereafter I will explain how choices made in the CRQ support research on a public theology that contributes to the challenges faced in the current field of ethics of technology.
S. van der Wielen (OT): The composition of Num 16–17 in light of YHWH’s legal response in Num 18
The rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Num 16–17 is considered a key text in theories on the composition of the Pentateuch. It is supposed to present a composite narrative of at least two threads: the Reubenites Dathan and Abiram accuse Moses of failing to provide their inheritance of land and the Levite Korah rebels with a mixed group against the priesthood of Aaron. Most scholars conclude that the older Dathan-Abiram thread became subsumed under dominant priestly concerns, yet without consensus about its historical process.
This paper takes a literary-critical approach, using a model that integrates verbal, formal and conceptual levels of literary structure. It establishes the literary unity of Num 16–18 in which Num 18 functions as YHWH’s legal response to the preceding rebellion. Num 18 responds to the Reubenite thread too, however, in terms of the lack of land inheritance of Levi. This corresponds to the exchange between the Levites and Israel’s firstborn as the overarching rationale of the book of Numbers, and it challenges a classical clear distinction between priestly and non-priestly textual threads.
P. Wijnberger (HT): The Theology of the Unction of Christ
This presentation will introduce the argument of the publishable article intended for Leven two of the Examiniation Phase. One of the main concepts in Franciscus Junius’s Theologia vera is the theology of union. According to Junius, revealed theology is first of all revealed to Christ as the God-man, which explains his use of the term “theology of union”. Junius further argues, that Christ receives this theology through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Some Reformed theologians emphasize this pneumatological perspective. Notably, Johannes Wollebius introduces the term “theology of unction” for this pneumatological perspective.
The presentation will address the following research questions:
1) What is the early development of the concept of the “theology of unction”?
2) Which sources contributed to its formulation?
3) What theological purposes did this concept serve?
4) Why did other Reformed theologians refrain from adopting this terminology?
L. Fabrycky (ST): The Problem of the “Self” in Political Theology: Autoethnography, Political Phenomenology, and the Notion of Self-Appropriation for Bernard Lonergan and Eric Voegelin
One difficult aspect of theological method, what methodology tries to account for and manage in general, is the self: where to “put” it, and how to deal with it. The self – including the vulnerable, deceivable self/selves of inquiring researcher(s) — tends to be highly managed in academia, including in theology. This presentation will look, first, at two methodological approaches, autoethnography and political phenomenology, in political theology, both of which foreground the self and attend to first-person perspectives and experiences. Autoethnography is a research method that foregrounds the self in cultural analysis and interpretation. Political phenomenology is a growing subdiscipline of phenomenology that attends to political questions phenomenologically, including oft-occluded first-person experiences within political systems. The presentation concludes with the notion of self-appropriation, as understood by Bernard Lonergan (as authentic, including intellectual conversion) and by Eric Voegelin (as meditation, as theophanic event), as the gift and responsibility of an inquiring self.
T. Loose (OT): Observations and classifications of theologically significant differences between MT and LXX in the Book of Daniel based on selected texts
In this presentation a brief introduction to the tradition of the LXX in the Book of Dan-iel and the current state of research is followed by some concrete text examples from individual chapters of the Book of Daniel in which the LXX manuscripts (both according to the OG version and the Theodotion version) differ from the (Pro-to)Masoretic text. In doing so, only those differences are examined that are of theo-logical significance and whose origin cannot be easily explained by unintentional er-rors (dittography, haplography, etc.) from a textual criticism perspective, as theologi-cal evaluation is not appropriate in such cases. The text examples selected accord-ing to these criteria are then discussed with reference to numerous hypotheses and suggestions from research in order to draw conclusions about the presumed theolog-ical convictions of the LXX translators and their skopos (translation style). This presentation is comparable to a workshop report on my doctoral thesis, which I be-gan in October 2024 and which is a joint dissertation project of the ETF Leuven (Bel-gium) and the FTH Giessen (Germany), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Koert van Bekkum and Prof. Dr. Carsten Ziegert. In the spirit of a workshop report, all results to be presented are still preliminary and open to discussion by the audience regard-ing their validity.
K. Patring (RM): Integral mission and FORB – navigating the new Swedish political landscape and its consequences at home and overseas
There is currently an ongoing renegotiation of the social contract between the Swedish state and civil society which since 2022 has included major reforms in the Swedish state’s relations with religious minority denominations and as well as its cooperation with civil society (including faith-based actors) concerning international development. The policy shifts are characterised by budget cuts in state funding, increased contradictory approaches towards religion as both risk and resource and policy priorities rooted in “Swedish interests”. This raises questions about what mitigations strategies a select number of Swedish Evangelical, Pentecostal and Ecumenical faith-based organisations (FBOs) apply as they attempt to resist state instrumentalisation and strive for organisational resilience; while remaining committed to integral mission and Freedom of Religion or Belief (FORB) at the same time as they continue their cooperation with the Swedish state. My presentation provides the preliminary results of eight problem-centred expert interviews with key persons within the national leadership of the selected FBOs focusing on instrumentalisation risks, risk mitigation strategies and organisational resilience in light of integral mission in Sweden and abroad.
Faculty presentations
N. den Bok (ST): Humble at Heart: How the Humility of Jesus Points to the Better Doctrine of the Trinity
Is humility a divine attribute? In some recent trinitarian theology it is embraced as the key to God’s inner life while safeguarding against tritheism. As the Father gives his entire being to the Son, and together with the Son to the Spirit, this being is what the divine Persons share without reduplicating it. Balthasar, for instance, states that in God the joyful self-emptying of each Person makes the other Persons exist. But this view is deeply problematic, since for ‘giving oneself’ to another person one must have a will that cannot be given away itself. What prevents a ‘kenotic Trinity’, as corrective of a ‘social Trinity’, to be a community of three Gods annihilating and regenerating themselves? However, when we turn to the alternative developed in mainstream Western trinitarianism, assuming that the Trinity is a feature of the one supreme mind or spirit, we run into another fundamental problem. Augustine already realised that a person is not a mental power (like the will), but the subject of all mental powers. If God has one will, one mind, he must be one Person, not three Persons. Nevertheless, with the notion of God as one incorporeal Person we are closer to a solution – if we follow the lead of the Gospel and see how Jesus’ humility (Mat 11:29) takes us to God’s trinitarian character. That is what I hope to show in this Faculty Lecture.
T. Kopaleishvili (RM): Religious Freedom at the Crossroads of Post-Soviet Geopolitical Rivalries
This paper examines how geopolitical orientation shapes the quality of religious freedom and other fundamental rights in the post-Soviet space, with particular focus on countries caught in geopolitical crosscurrents. Drawing on Georgia as a primary case study while incorporating comparative analysis with Ukraine and Moldova, we investigate how regionalisation processes affect the extend of religious freedom. We aim to demonstrate it by looking through three lenses: the role of traditional religious institutions in nation-building and impact on the minorities, the recognition policies and state mechanisms for managing religious affairs. By using Georgia as a primary case study, we demonstrate how geopolitical orientation—whether toward Russia or the West—fundamentally shapes religious freedom outcomes. We will conclude, that in countries with stronger Western orientation, religious freedom tends to be balanced with equality and non-discrimination principles, while those in Russia’s orbit often prioritize traditional religious authorities at the expense of religious minorities and other fundamental rights. Most notably, in “in-between” countries with divided geopolitical allegiances, these tensions create uniquely problematic situations where religious freedom becomes instrumentalized in broader cultural and political conflicts. This study contributes to understanding how competing rights claims are reconciled—or left in tension—according to geopolitical factors, demonstrating how constitutional frameworks and policy approaches to religious freedom reflect broader struggles between competing visions of state, society, and individual rights.
S. Riecker (OT): Disturbing Cruelty and a Primitive God? Some Critical Inquiries in the Sacrifices of the Old Testament
Criticism of the Israelite sacrificial cult is part of a long tradition. This lecture focuses on some modern critical questions of practical interest: Aren’t sacrifices something deeply pagan? Aren’t blood rites primitive? Doesn’t the criticism of sacrifice in the Old Testament itself show that God doesn’t actually want any sacrifices? Is God offended or does he need to be appeased? Why does God need sacrifices if people can forgive just like that? It is shown that the Old Testament sacrifices have a fundamental value for Christian theology and preaching, notwithstanding all modern questioning.