President Bielfeldt Gives Paper at International Luther Congress

President Dennis Bielfeldt recently gave a paper during the 14^th International Luther Congress to the seminar on “Luther and Philosophy.”

The Congress, which meets every five years, convened from August 14-19 in Thousand Oaks, California. Dr. Bielfeldt’s paper focused on the influence of Martin Luther on the young Martin Heidegger, an influence that some scholars say was so determinative of Heidegger’s thinking that one must regard all postmodern theology descending from Heidegger to be “deeply Lutheran.”

Bielfeldt’s paper, which will be published in Dialog, attempts to use elementary model theory to help clarify the different meanings that Heidegger and Luther had in mind when using the same expressions, and it suggests that Heidegger’s phenomenological ontological project would have been of little interest to the Reformer who ultimately was more concerned with the things that God had done than in human be-ing as it is “positioned” before God.

Bielfeldt has a number of publications on Martin Luther, as do a number of Christ School of Theology faculty and fellows: Dr. Paul Hinlicky, Dr. Jack Kilcrease, Dr. Mark Mattes, and Dr. Dennis Ngien.