Course Catalogue 2026-2027

In this seminar students will read, present questions, and discuss Karl Barth's commentary in the Church Dogmatics on "The Holy Spirit and the Gathering...Upholding...[and] Sending of the Christian Community".

This course will examine the two sections Barth wrote for his planned volume of the Church Dogmatics IV/4 on Reconciliation Ethics; namely, "Baptism as the Foundation of the Christian Life" and "The Christian Life According to the Guidance of the Lord's Prayer". Topics examined will include: Ethics as a task of the Doctrine of Reconciliation, The Central Problem of Special Ethics, Spirit Baptism and Water Baptism, Divine Agency and Human Agency, Baptism in Church History, Invocation, The Known and Unknown God, The Precedence of the Word of God, The Struggle for Human Righteousness, The Revolt Against Disorder, The Lordless Powers, Fiat lustitia.

A seminar course in which "Church Dogmatics III/2" will be studied. The topics: the human in the cosmos; the human as an object of theological knowledge; the human as a creature of God, and as the covenant partner of God; the human as body and soul; the human in time. Weekly readings, class participation; an in-class presentation; an oral examination.

A close reading of Barth’s CD III/1 in which Barth describes the bases for the knowledge of God as Creator and heaven and earth as God’s creation; explicates Gen 1 and 2 under the rubrics of creation as the external basis of the covenant and the covenant as the internal basis of creation; and explains creation as benefit, enactment and justification.

This seminar course will study the role that religion plays in psychological well-being, coping and adjustment. The approach will be both developmental and clinical. Religion's relationship to mental disorder, biologically, psychologically and socially, will be discussed. Religion's contribution to general adjustment, and its role in psychological intervention will be explored. Weekly written contributions to the seminar and final essay.
 

This seminar course will study the role that religion plays in psychological well-being, coping and adjustment. The approach will be both developmental and clinical. Religion's relationship to mental disorder, biologically, psychologically and socially, will be discussed. Religion's contribution to general adjustment, and its role in psychological intervention will be explored. Weekly written contributions to the seminar and final essay.

This course is a 5000-level seminar focused on the final published volume of Barth's Church Dogmatics (CD 4.4, the doctrine of Baptism) as well as the posthumously published fragment titled The Christian Life. Together with an unwritten treatise on the Lord's Supper, these works would have crowned Barth's massive Doctrine of Reconciliation with a treatment on how Christians should live in light of Christ's achieved act of atonement. The seminar will consist primarily of close reading of the relevant texts, along with student presentations and occasional lectures. Topics to be discussed will include: Barth's ethics of divine command and its relation to other ethical models, e.g., virtue ethics; his changing views on sacraments, and his mature account on Baptism and the Lord's Supper as non-mediating human acts of witness; his teaching on the "principalities and powers," especially in light of the Church Struggle of the 1930s and post-World War II political developments, and his views on the church's responsibility to the nation-state; the theology of prayer, and Barth's specific exegesis of the Lord's Prayer as a framework for the Christian moral life.

A seminar course in which Chapters 66 to 68 of the Church Dogmatics will be studied. The topics will be: Justification and Sanctification, Discipleship, Conversion, the Church, Christian Love. Requirements are: weekly readings, class participation, an in-class presentation, an oral examination.  Seminars, readings. Class participation, in-class presentation, oral examination.

Textual reading and discussion of Lonergan?s Method in Theology with a view towards addressing an array of issues concerning method in the contemporary study of theology in the university setting. Examination of the foundations for theology and the various methodological disciplines and collaboration. Topics include: methodological relationship of subjectivity/objectivity, roles of research, history, criticism (dialectic), systematic theology, doctrines, interpretation (normative authority of certain texts), praxis, communication (scholarly reporting) meaning, culture, religion each as they pertain to method for theological reflection. Satisfies the method course requirement for the PhD.

Textual reading and discussion of Lonergan?s Method in Theology with a view towards addressing an array of issues concerning method in the contemporary study of theology in the university setting. Examination of the foundations for theology and the various methodological disciplines and collaboration. Topics include: methodological relationship of subjectivity/objectivity, roles of research, history, criticism (dialectic), systematic theology, doctrines, interpretation (normative authority of certain texts), praxis, communication (scholarly reporting) meaning, culture, religion each as they pertain to method for theological reflection. Satisfies the method course requirement for the PhD.

The course introduces five aspects of advanced theological research through a critical reading of Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology. Lonergan's methodological approach is exemplified and complemented by rhetorical analysis, genetic analysis, source reading, clarification by contrast and systematic reasoning.

The course introduces five aspects of advanced theological research through a critical reading of Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology. Lonergan's methodological approach is exemplified and complemented by rhetorical analysis, genetic analysis, source reading, clarification by contrast and systematic reasoning. Readings, bulletin board participation, critical book review, seminar, major paper.