Samford University's Beeson Divinity School professor Piotr Malysz is spending part of his sabbatical at Denmark's Aarhus University's LUMEN Centre working on a project detailing what he tentatively called Martin Luther's "ontology of the promise."

Malysz, a Polish-American Luther scholar told the centre he is interested by the "interpersonal dimension of Luther's thought."

"What I mean by this is not only the ethics of service to the neighbor, but rather a fundamental ontological dimension that underlies much, if not all, of Luther’s theology," Malysz said. "Who is the Christ whose very being is, at long last, a promise to me? What must be true of Christ as the promise’s divine-human embodiment—if faith is to rest in Him, if I am to rest myself in Him through faith? As I seek to answer this question, I argue among other things that Luther’s Christological innovations have to do with securing the being of the promisor, which summons me to faith, and his pigheaded theology of the Lord’s Supper is inseparably connected with Luther’s promise-driven Christology.”

The LUMEN Centre "aims to develop an ambitious and innovative interdisciplinary platform for the study of confessional and cultural characteristics in the Lutheran Reformation and its influence on theology, mentality, culture and society – particularly in the Nordic countries."

Malysz will stay in Aarhus through November, funded by a guest scholar stipend from Aarhus University Research Foundation.