“Gratitude as a middle term between grace and striving:” Koert Verhagen at LATC 2025

Q: LATC 2025’s theme is Receiving Redemption, and it focuses on how salvation is received by human persons and communities. Why did this aspect of soteriology catch your attention and make you propose a paper on it?

A: The intersection of doctrine and ethics is one that especially interests me, and many of the questions surrounding our reception of salvation push on some abiding tensions in Christian theology. Insofar as those tensions create obstacles that make it harder to see how the Gospel inducts us into a particular way of being in the world, I want to try and help the church navigate those obstacles where and when I can.

Q: The title of your paper is “Being in Response: The Role of Gratitude in Reconciliation”. How will you be approaching the conference theme in this paper?

A:  Søren Kierkegaard writes in a journal entry that Christianity is “Infinite humiliation and grace; then striving born of gratitude.” In my paper, I pick up on how he locates gratitude as a middle term between grace and striving, and take it as a challenge to supply a thicker theological treatment of gratitude than virtue-based or psychological approaches typically allow. Toward this end, I am especially reliant on the work of Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, and Helmut Gollwitzer, all of whom assume the basic anthropological significance of gratitude. I conclude by suggesting that if they are right then gratitude stands at the fountainhead of reconciled existence and should play a basic role in how we pursue truth, beauty, and goodness.

Q: Can you describe how this paper fits in with your previous theological work, or with your recent scholarship?

A: My previous theological work has largely focused on the moral and anthropological implications of justification by faith. In some ways, this project is an extension of that work, moving from the provenance of passivity and grace to that of activity and gratitude.

Q: What are you looking forward to at the conference? Are there any papers or theological issues that have especially caught your eye?

A: Well, coming from midwestern tundra, I’m looking forward to some LA warmth. Of course, the real highlight of these conferences is always the conversations and the people—a lovely affirmation that community and theology go hand-in-hand. When it comes to the papers, it is a cop-out to say all of them, but I’ll say it anyway! I’m excited to learn from friends new and old about a cluster of topics that have really been at the forefront of my mind lately.