Course Catalogue 2025-2026

This course explores the theological, philosophical, and historical contributions of Maximus the Confessor. Students will engage with Maximus’s theological and philosophical sources, his historical context, and examine his influence in the Christian theological tradition. Through critical analysis of texts and discussion, participants will gain a deeper understanding of Maximus’s role in synthesizing prior Christian authors and shaping subsequent Christian theological discourse.

The prophetic book of Isaiah has been enormously influential in shaping Judaism and Christianity. The course considers the various ways in which the role of prophecy evolved in the post-exilic period, with Isaiah as a test case. The course will focus on the exilic and post-exilic expansion of the book of Isaiah and the deployment of Isaiah traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. Several questions will provide a central focus: How is authorship, whether written or oral, related to prophecy during the Persian and Greco-Roman eras? How do understandings of the figure of Isaiah change over time? What difference does it make whether Isaianic discourse is cited explicitly as opposed to alluded to implicitly? Which aspects of Isaiah made it particularly popular at Qumran and in the New Testament?

Explores Christian Kenosis as an expression of the unconditional love of God made known in Christ. Here the mutual relations of self-giving in the Trinity may be reflected in the lives of human persons. Of key significance is Hans Urs von Balthasar's appreciation of the paschal mystery. Also in dialogue are: Sarah Coakley, John Paul II and Thomas Merton.

This course examines questions of gender, sexuality, embodiment, and power in the Hebrew Bible and texts from Second Temple Judaism. Several biblical and Hellenistic-period texts are used to explore these epistemological and methodological questions. Students will learn various theoretical approaches such as feminist, womanist, masculinity studies, and queer theory, from scholars both inside and outside of biblical studies. These approaches will be paired with a close reading of a variety of texts from the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish literature. Collaborative and decentering frameworks will be front and centre in both course material and pedagogy.

This course will examine how Christians and Christian traditions have understood and justified the first “mark of the Church”, her unity. This will include an examination of the historical constraints on such understandings. Key writings from the early Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Western traditions (Catholic and Protestant), and ecumenical authors will be read. In addition, some political and philosophical discussions of the nature of consent and consensus will be covered.

This seminar will introduce students to the thought of Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson, whose work is marked by a peculiar combination of scriptural depth, speculative power, and ecumenical scope. Students will explore Jenson’s major theological and philosophical influences, including his early formation in the school of Bultmann and his decisive encounter with the thought of Karl Barth. Particular attention will be paid to Jenson’s revisionary metaphysics, by which he sought to overcome the “unbaptized god” of Hellenism with the radically temporal God of the gospel. Other topics to be considered are Jenson’s views on the sacraments; his ecumenical engagements, grounded in his “evangelically catholic” understanding of the Reformation; and his late turn toward the figural and allegorical reading of Scripture. The primary text for the course will be Jenson’s two-part Systematic Theology, with occasional forays into his early writings (especially Story and Promise and Visible Words) as well as his commentaries on Ezekiel and the Song of Songs.

This is a doctoral seminar in which we read four seminal texts in the Moltmann corpus, namely Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, and The Trinity and the Kingdom of God. By the end of the seminar students will have a thorough introduction to Moltmann’s theology, its problems and possibilities, and its significance for contemporary Christian faith and life.

This course will introduce students to the study of conversion in ancient Mediterranean traditions, with a particular focus on understanding conversion in early Christianity. Students will read and discuss a range of primary sources from within Judaism, including both biblical texts and those from the Second Temple era (e.g., Joseph and Aseneth), from Graeco-Roman religion and philosophy (e.g., Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, biographies of philosophers), and from the New Testament (case studies from the Gospels, Acts, and Paul). This comparative approach will allow students to set conversion in early Christianity more fully in its ancient context. It will also enable them to relate the primary sources explored to methodological issues in the study of conversion as it has developed in the social sciences in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (e.g., does conversion exist in all traditions or only some? Is it essentially the same in different contexts or does conversion itself change? Is conversion primarily an individual or social phenomenon? Are converts primarily active or passive?). In addition to this inter-disciplinary dimension, the exploration of a range of New Testament case studies will raise theological questions about the nature of conversion within Christianity (e.g., are there normative elements in Christian conversion?).

This course will explore the extent and nature of the theology of the Church Fathers in that of the Reformation theologians, Lutheran, Reformed (including Anglican) and Catholic, up to the early 17th century. There will be eight topics covered: 1. Method issues: Renaissance, language and scholarship of the Fathers and the bible, including the question of 'sola scriptura ; 2 Key figures: lrenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ratramnus; 3. Issue 1: Atonement, Justification and Sanctification; 4. Issue 2: Eucharistllord's Supper; 5. Issue 3: Predestination. :6. Issue 4: Trinity and Christology 7; Issue 5: the Church; 8. Conclusions and Presentations. The course will aim to instruct in patristic theology in context and in the context of its appropriation by Early Modern writers. Thus, there will be a consideration of a 'triangular' relationship between Reformation theology, the Church Fathers and the biblical texts. This will proffer a truer picture of how the Church Fathers have worked on Western theology in Modernity and what has been missed in this translation.

Central ideas in the Kierkegaard corpus and their relevance to contemporary theological and philosophical concerns.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to representative examples of major approaches to theological study in the contemporary world, engaging the categories of overall systematic outlook, historical change, Scripture, the theological discipline, ecclesial reality, cultural specificity, and mission. We will probe these themes through a careful reading of select texts by major contemporary theologians, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. Among the issues to be addressed are: how have the Enlightenment and other aspects of modernity exerted pressure on theologians to clarify their method? What is the relation of methodological reflection in theology to the being/character of the triune God? Does every method have its corresponding metaphysics? How shall theology and philosophy be related? What role does Scripture play in the process of theological reasoning, and how does it relate to the doctrines and tradition(s) of the church? By the end of the course students will be able to describe accurately some of the many and complex senses of theological “method”; relate these to matters of substantive Christian teaching; and be better equipped to confidently articulate their own theological visions, which they will do in a preliminary fashion in the final assignment.

This course examines methodological features of constructive theological reflection, focusing on hermeneutics as a strategic way of thinking about the role of texts, traditions and social location in doing theology. Taking a broadly historical approach that focuses on modern and contemporary periods, attention is given to philosophical and contextual interpretation theories in conjunction with liberal, postliberal, liberationist, feminist and other theological methodologies. The aim is to better understand how theological sources, processes, criteria, and aims are determined and become reflected in specific theological formulations, for instance, regarding the character of faith, authority, revelation, role of philosophical reflection, social justice, cultural contexts, intercultural, de/post-colonial dynamics, and religious pluralism.