Part of the Wittenberg Summer Course are presentations by the Student Fellows. Andreas Bergman (University of Helsinki) introduced the group to his research project on ‘Martin Chemnitz and the certainty of salvation’. It is a crucial problem of Lutheran theology to explain how salvation becomes personal belief. Chemnitz, who is also called the ‘second Martin’ of the Lutheran church, offers a interesting approach to this problem. He takes takes up ideas developed by Philip Melanchthon, the humanist reformer.
The relationship between Reformation, Renaissance und humanism was the topic of the presentation of Alexander Batson (Yale University). He made clear that the developments of humanism and Reformation are closely intertwined. Melanchthon’s publications show that the Wittenberg reformer always had a double focus on promoting Reformation theology and disseminating humanist scholarship.
