Friederike Nüssel , Heidelberg University, Germany

While the doctrine of grace and justification can be regarded as the core of the Western Christian tradition and has shaped Western culture in such a way that it can even be traced in secular contexts, it does not play a significant role in public discourses. Even many theologians recognise the doctrine of grace and justification as an issue that should be left to inter-confessional discourse. One of the reasons for this might be that systematic teaching on soteriology does not sufficiently take into account current developments in other areas of theological and philosophical inquiry and scientific research. Therefore, in my project I would like to study and reflect the impact of different approaches relating to the doctrine of grace and justification such as
- new results and debates within Biblical Studies on the understanding of God’s grace and justification, especially the new perspective(s) on Paul and hermeneutical approaches presented by liberation theology and gender studies;
- reductionistic interpretations of human consciousness and free will based upon new results of neuroscience research as a strong challenge to human self-understanding and expectations on human behaviour;
- approaches of public theology trying to elaborate the social and political impact of the Christian understanding of grace and justification for today’s societies.
To discuss these very different approaches explicitly dealing with or implicitly affecting the understanding of God’s grace and to reflect the interrelation of the questions behind might not only promote theological teaching on grace and justification but also ecumenical discourse.

Friederike Nüssel is Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenical Studies and head of the Ecumenical Institute of Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg (Germany). She also is the Ephora of the Ecumenical Student Hostel that belongs to the Ecumenical Institute. Before joining the Theological Faculty of Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg in 2006 she was Professor of Systematic Theology at the Westfälische-Wilhelms-University in Münster. From 1990-2001 she worked as Assistent Teacher and Lecturer of Systematic Theology at at the Ecumenical Institute of Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, together with Prof. Pannenberg and Prof. Wenz. In her first book Bund und Versöhnung (1996) she investigates how the discipline of theological dogmatics was developed during the period of early enlightenment. Her second book Allein aus Glauben (2000) elaborates the subtle connection between the doctrine of justification and the concept of the person of Jesus Christ in early Lutheran Theology. Together with her Roman-Catholic colleague Dorothea Sattler she published a study on the understanding of the Eucharist (2004) and an Introduction into Ecumenical Theology (2008). Furthermore, she is coeditor of a student’s encyclopedia and several journals and series such as Thelogische Literaturzeitung, Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann and Themen der Theologie. Beside her research in systematic theology and ecumenical studies she participates in several ecumenical commissions such as the “Ecumenical Working Group of Protestant and Roman-Catholic Theologians”, the Commission “Churches in Dialogue” of the Conference of European Churches, the Joint Working Group of the WCC and the Vatican and the International Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission.