Graduate Level Theology Course Descriptions

Below is a sampling of typically offered courses for Spring 2006.

THEO 60-102 : New Testament Introduction

Instructor: Mary Rose D'Angelo
CRN: 25248
Time: M W 11:45-1:00
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course provides an overview and critical study of the New Testament in its historical, literary and theological context. The focus will be on reading and gaining an informed understanding of the New Testament text, and tools for further work. Special attention will be paid to the christologies of the writing and the role of the spirit in earliest Christianity; issues of contemporary theology will also be addressed, as will development of the canon. Extra-canonical texts (Qumran texts, extra-canonical gospels) will help in locating it the rich religious and cultural world of the later Hellenistic era and the early Roman empire. The course is designed to prepare students both for doctoral work in biblical studies and other areas of theological study,
and for intelligent use of the Biblical text in pastoral or educational settings.

Requirements: MTS: one short (5 pages-1500 words) and one longer exegetical paper; M. Div. three short papers, one of which must be a homily preparation.

 

THEO 60-110 : Dead Sea Scrolls

Instructor: James VanderKam
CRN: 25249
Time: T H 2:00-3:15
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The course will provide an overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including discovery, content, historical setting, and relation with the community at Qumran. There will be analysis of key texts in translation and consideration of their importance for study of the Bible and Early Judaism. There will be a midterm exam, a paper, and a final exam.

THEO 60-113 : Gospel of John

Instructor: Jerome Neyrey
CRN: 25250
Time: M W 3:00-4:15
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course invites students to join a process in which we will read each chapter of John in sequence. By "read" we mean: 1. attending to the typical literary forms in which events are cast (miracle story, trial, call narrative, encomium), 2. learning the themes and buzz words favored in the gospel ("my hour," "true," "remain," "love"), 3. appreciating the symbolic and representative nature of the dramatis personae, 4. becoming aware of the awesome hostility that emerges as the Jesus group separates from the synagogue, 5. noting how the acclamation of Jesus develops over time and is influenced by the historical events experienced by the Jesus group. All of this is typical biblical criticism, to which we will add materials from the world of sociology and cultural anthropology because we want to understand Jesus and John as the Mediterranean peasants they were.

 

THEO 60-210 : The Formation of Christian Empire

Instructor: Robin Darling Young
CRN: 25251
Time: T H 12:30-1:45
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: It is a historical exploration of the development of empire and the religious polity in antiquity and late antiquity, beginning with the idea of the Davidic monarchy in the Jewish tradition and divine kingship in Graeco-Roman tradition, but concentrating upon the Christian adoption and combination of these ideas and their adaptation in the Roman empire and successor states in Europe to the Carolingian period. It investigates primary theological, political and philosophical sources as well as classical and recent secondary treatments of the matter.

THEO 60-403 : Christian Initiation

Instructor: Michael Joncas
CRN: 22926
Time: F 9:35-12:35
Credit: 3.0
Area: LS
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course will trace the historical development of the liturgies and theological interpretations of Christian Initiation in East and West from the New Testament through contemporary ecumenical conversations. In light of this historical and theological investigation, contemporary forms of Christian Initiation will be considered with an eye toward pastoral appropriations and implications.

THEO 60-405 : Liturgical Prayer

Instructor: Nathan Mitchell
CRN: 26166
Time: T H 3:30-4:45
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: Liturgical Prayer is not only public and communal, it is also ritualized, symbolic, and "polyphonic" (i.e., it speaks several "languages" simultaneously). This course explores Christian liturgical prayer in a postmodern context by focusing largely (though not exclusively) on two principal components: RITUAL (ritual's roots, its roles and risks, its function in "rehearsing" the Reign of God, its realm or "world"); and LANGUAGE (how liturgy uses "the book of the body;" how ritual speech employs the logic of metaphor; how the liturgical assembly is constituted through the media of ministry, participation, and sacrament). Special attention will also be paid to the relation between Christian liturgical prayer and Jesus' own approaches to public cult and personal prayer, insofar as we can reconstruct these from scriptural sources.

THEO 60-601 : Foundations of Moral Theology

Instructor: Paulinus Odozor
CRN: 21386
Time: T H 3:30-4:45
Credit: 3.0
Area: MT
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The aim of this course is to introduce the student to the study of the basic elements of Christian moral experience and understanding as well as to the criteria of Christian moral judgment and action. The texts, which have been chosen of this course, cover areas related to nature and history of moral theology, the sources of Christian moral knowledge, moral agency, and the resources and methods for moral decision-making. The course concludes with a study of the moral teaching of Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor.

THEO 60-614 : Catholic Social Teaching

Instructor: Margaret Pfeil
CRN: 24388
Time: T H 8:00-9:15
Credit: 3.0
Area: MT
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the tradition of Catholic social teaching with a view to developing skills for critical reading and appropriation of these documents. We will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document in its proper historical context.

THEO 60-806 : Ecclesiology

Instructor: Richard McBrien
CRN: 20575
Time: T H 9:30-10:45
Credit: 3.0
Area: ST
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: An examination of the nature and mission of the Church, with special emphasis on the Second Vatican Council – its theological and doctrinal antecedents and post-conciliar developments.

THEO 60-808 : Mystery of God

Instructor: Cyril O'Regan
CRN: 23770
Time: M W 11:45-1:00
Credit: 3.0
Area: ST
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The general aim of the course is introduce to the student to the Catholic tradition of reflection on the triune God who always remains mysterious even in, or precisely in, his revelation in history and in our lives. The pedagogic aim is familiarity with the tradition that is the Church’s common possession. The hope I entertain, however, is that this tradition might be truly appropriated, its meaning and meaningfulness embodied, and its truth witnessed. The course necessarily will have a historical bent. It will commence with the patristic period, and move from there to the contemporary period of reflection on the triune God through the medieval period. My interest, however, is not ultimately that of a chronological sketch. In the patristic section of the course, my major concern is with the formation of Trinitarian doctrine, with how and why Christians eventually made their conviction of God’s triune an article of faith. Undoubtedly, one will find in the formation of doctrine a good amount of intellectual sorting out, but I will try to draw attention to the more holistic environment in which intellectual reflection was one thread in a complex tapestry that included liturgy, biblical interpretation, and the ethical practices of the community. In the section entitled ‘the classical tradition,’ I want to explore the tradition of reflection on the Trinity from a number of different points of view. I want to indicate that the Nicaean creed did not bring and end to theological reflection, but promoted it, as the Trinitarian doctrine had to meet new and complex challenges both from within and without the church. The examples of Augustine and Bonaventure are crucial here. Equally I want to underscore that the theological tradition did not simply regard the doctrine of the Trinity as something that engages the mind, the most challenging kind of intellectual puzzle. I do this by emphasizing how in the East as well as the West the triune God is the goal as well as origin of the mystical life. The section on contemporary Trinitarian thought features the work of Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Both of these theologians are conscious of the marginalization of the Trinity in modern piety and theological reflection, and strive to reverse the fortunes of Trinitarian thought and reflection. They argue for a holistic understanding of the Trinity that reflects the fact that doctrine itself represents an interpretation of God’s activity in history and in human life. A contemporary issue in Trinitarian thought that will receive particular attention is the issue of whether the triune God suffers, and if so in what way. This remains, as we will see, an open question.

 

Required Texts:

Augustine, De Trinitate

Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ

Karl Rahner, The Trinity

William Rusch, The Trinitarian Controversy

Course Packet

Texts Recommended:

Edmund Hill, Mystery of the Trinity

Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

J.N. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines

Catherine LaCugna, God For Us

John O’Donnell, The Mystery of the Triune God

THEO 60-817 : Myth and Story

Instructor: John Dunne
CRN: 25252
Time: T H 2:00-3:15
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description:

THEO 60-821 : Modern Theology

Instructor: Matt Ashley
CRN: 26164
Time: M W 8:00-9:15
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: Nineteenth century Christian theologians were challenged both to defend the legitimacy of Christian faith and theology in an increasingly secularized intellectual culture and to develop an authentic response to the dark underside of scientific, technological and economic "progress" that became more and more apparent as the century progressed. In many ways their successes and their failures still set the agenda for theologians today. This course offers a survey of their responses. The guiding theme will be the attempt to grapple theologically with the modern "discovery" of history, which brought with it a sense of the historical particularity of all traditions (including religious traditions) and raised the problem of how properly to locate and to evaluate the continuities and discontinuities that separates any age from its past. The primary figures we will cover are Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegal, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Johann Adam Mohler, David Friedrich Strauss, Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf von Harnack, and Maurice Blondel; but we will also attend to other theologians (or anti-theologians), such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Alfred Loisy. Course Requirements: three exegetical papers, and an in-class final.

THEO 60-823 : Feminist-Multicultural Theologies

Instructor: Catherine Hilkert
CRN: 25242
Time: T H 11:00-12:15
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: An exploration of how the voices of women have helped to reshape theological discourse and to bring to light new dimensions of the Christian tradition. Using the writings of feminist, womanist, Latina, mujerista, Asian, and Third World theologians, the course will focus on the significance of gender and social location in understanding the nature and sources of theology, theological anthropology, Christology/soteriology, the mystery of God, and women's spirituality.

THEO 60-824 : Educating in Faith: Catechesis in Catholic Schools

Instructor: Janice Poorman
CRN: 23472
Time: T H 12:30-1:45
Credit: 3.0
Area: ST
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course is designed to assist current or prospective teachers of religion/theology at the junior-high and high school levels in the catechesis of young adults in Catholic schools. The course is open to Theology Department students at the undergraduate and graduate levels (including those enrolled only for the Summer Session), to M.Ed. students serving in the Alliance for Catholic Education, and to Notre Dame undergraduates with minors in Education, Schooling, and Society. Within class sessions designed to be highly dialogical, interactive, and prayerful, participants will explore both theological and practical/pedagogical dimensions of the process of catechesis. Required readings are drawn from The Catechism of the Catholic Church, from publications of the United States Catholic Conference (notably the General Directory for Catechesis, the National Catechetical Directory for Catholics in the United States, and the Guide for Catechists) and from the works of several theologians and educational theorists who have contributed significant responses to the two central questions addressed in this course: "What is Catechesis?" and "How Do We Engage in Catechesis in the Context of Catholic Schools?". During this course, participants will explore all of the central tasks that constitute the holistic process of catechesis as delineated in the general and national Catholic catechetical directories and other catechetical documents and as adapted for use in Catholic schools: communicating knowledge of the mystery of God's self-revelation; fostering maturity of faith and moral development; sharing and celebrating faith by forming Christian communities of prayerful people; promoting Christian service and social justice; and witnessing to faith through pedagogy and by the example of authentic spiritual lives.

THEO 60-833 : Islan & Muslim Christian Dialogue

Instructor: Gabriel Reynolds
CRN: 26165
Time: T H 3:30-4:45
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: In our course we will consider Christianity's encounter with Islam, from the Islamic conquests of the 7th century to the internet age. The first section of the course is historical. We will examine how varioushistorical contexts have affected the Christian understanding of Muslims, their scripture and their prophet. The second section of the course issystematic. How are Christians today to respond to Islam, in light ofworld events and recent Church teaching? In addressing this question wewill analyze primary sources that express a range of responses, fromrelativism to dialogue to evangelism.

THEO 60-838 : Orders and Ministry

Instructor: David Fagerberg
CRN: 24389
Time: T H 11:00-12:15
Credit: 3.0
Area: LS
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course begins by putting ministry in an ecclesiological context leading to Lumen Gentium. It then examines the forms of that ministry in the Church: ordained priesthood, the lay apostolate, and lay ecclesial ministry. A theology of ordained and baptized priesthood is considered first, the apostolate of the baptized priesthood is treated second, and recent developments in the United States concerning lay ecclesial ministers is studied third. Students will read the relevant official documents coming out of Vatican II. By a format of seminar discussion, they should gain a vocabulary and principles for articulating their own ministerial identity.

THEO 60-849 : Christian Spirituality

Instructor: Lawrence Cunningham
CRN: 25253
Time: M W 1:30-2:45
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course will fall into three parts: (1) A consideration of the nature of Christian spirituality and the ways in which the subject can be studied; (2) a consideration of some classical texts on prayer (Origen, Cassian, Augustine, Teresa of Avila, and Thomas Merton); (3) A study of some fundamental themes in Christian spirituality. Course requirements include regular brief reflection papers on the reading; Two examinations; a research paper of roughly 12-15 pages. There will be a reading packet and three required books in the course.

THEO 60-851 : Black Catholic Theology in Dialogue

Instructor: Jamie Phelps, OP
CRN:
Time: T H 12:30-1:45
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course will provide an introduction to the context, history, development, method, and major themes of a formal Black and Womanist theology in the second half of the twentieth century within the Black Catholic and Protestant communions as these critique and construct a theology from the perspective of the black experience in the United States that is often rendered invisible in dominant theological discourse. It assumes background in Christian theology, but presupposes no prior preparation in Black Protestant or Catholic theology. The course also assumes that theology is both an ecclesial and academic discipline; considers theological thinking as reasoned reflection and articulation of the ultimate and absolute meaning of human existence; identifies theological foundations with critical personal self-appropriation of one's own intellectual operations, moral and religious experience.

THEO 60-947: Liturgical Celebration/Ministry II

Instructor: John Melloh
CRN: 21975
Time: M 9:30-12:00
Credit: 2.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: Theory and practice of ministerial roles at baptism, marriage, anointing of the sick and funerals. Designed especially for M.Div. students, the course will explore the underlying "official" theology of each of the rites, expressed in the praenotanda, prayers and rubrics as well as the "ritual" theology uncovered in the actual celebration of the rites. Additionally, Rite II for reconciliation will be examined, but not celebrated. [There is no additional "lab session" for this course.] Students will prepare a) a brief paper on one theological aspect of the rite (to be divided in class) and b) a brief report on the "ritual theology" of the celebrated event. Required readings will include "The Rites" as well as articles in a course packet.

THEO 60-950 : Preaching III

Instructor: John Melloh
CRN: 20701
Time: W 9:30-12:00
Credit: 2.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: A continuation of Preaching II, with emphasis on the theological and social dimensions of preaching. The main work of the course will be preparation, delivery and review of homilies. Assigned readings to be discussed in class. In addition to preaching and reading assignments, each student will prepare a short paper on a theology of preaching.

    

THEO 60-951 : Reconciliation Ministry

CRN: 21445
Time:
Credit: 1.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: Reconciliation Ministry is designed to: (1) introduce ministry students to the history and theology of the sacrament of reconciliation; (2) provide an initial "confessional experience" (practicum) from which students can benefit from guidance, supervision, and constructive criticism; (3) assist students in understanding the importance of penance/reconciliation in the life and ministry of the Church.

THEO 60-955 : Addictions & Recovery

CRN: 26782
Time: F 1:00-5:00pm, 7:00-9:00pm, S 9:00am-12:00pm
Credit: 1.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: This course will provide ministry students with an overview of the processes of addiction and recovery from addictions. Students will learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of substance abuse and know how to respond, including referral to treatment. Codependence, intervention and the 12-Step model of recovery programs will be explored. The course consists mainly of a workshop Feb. 24-25, 2006. M.Div. students only.

THEO 63-001 : Synthesis Seminar

Instructor: Michael Connors
CRN: 20577
Time: F 1:55-3:50
Credit: 2.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The Synthesis Seminar is both a point of arrival and a point of departure -- arrival, in that it seeks to integrate the course of formal studies with one's theology of ministry, and departure in that it is provisional, leaving one with questions for the journey. Each student chooses a topic that will serve as a focus for synthesis. Synthesis should illustrate both theological and ministerial preparedness. In developing the topic, attention is to be paid to at least three theological areas (Scripture, systematics, history, ethics, liturgy and practical theology...). Oral presentation and major paper.

THEO 63-802 : From Power to Communion

Instructor: Robert Pelton
CRN: 23264
Time: M W 10:30-11:45
Credit: 3.0
Area: ST
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The premise of this course is that the churches of America are learning from each other, and that all Christians are called to ministry in one form or another. This is leading to a greater appreciation of the role of the laity. The historical context for this course is the Second Vatican Council 1962-65. The key theological issues of Vatican II will be studied carefully in relation to the current challenges to the Church. This will be experienced particularly through what is called the theology of communion. This theology will be studied through the lenses of a series of inter-American meetings: Medellin 1968; Puebla 1979; and Santo Domingo 1992. A special focus will be placed upon the Special Synod for America (Rome 1997), and the Fifth Conference of the Latin American Bishops to take place in Aparaceda, Brazil in 2007. In consultation with the course instructor, students will choose a specific theme to develop a research project. They will work on this project using resources at Notre Dame. During the Spring Break the students will have a "hands on" experiential learning experience in Cuba. In the final weeks of the course, we will reflect further on our experiences and complete the research projects for a public presentation at the Center for Social Concerns.

THEO 65-832 : Field Education I: Images & Models of Ministry II

Instructor: Michael Connors
CRN: 22411
Time: M 9:30-11:00
Credit: 2.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: Field Education is an integral component of education for pastoral ministry. Through field education, students pursue the integration of theological competence with pastoral skill in a developing identity as a public minister. For first year students, the specific goals are to provide initial approaches, of both theoretical and practical kinds to two sets of foundational questions:

What is theological reflection? How is it done? What are some resources upon which to draw for theological reflection in ministry?

What does it mean to be a minister? How does one go about constructing one's self-understanding as a lay or ordained minister today in the Catholic Church? Where is one's place within the larger mission of the Church? What resources might inform, shape, and sustain one's identity in ministry?

The goal is approached through a threefold constellation of learning contexts: field work in a ministry placement, supervision of that work, and the field education seminar. The primary learning dynamic for the seminar is dialogical and includes conversation about assigned texts, as well as shared reflection on field experiences.

THEO 65-934 : Field Education II: Articulating Faith II

Instructor: Janice Poorman
CRN: 22882
Time:
Credit: 2.0
Area: MDIV
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: The goal of the second year of field education is facility in articulating the Christian faith, particularly as understood in Roman Catholic tradition, and in fostering the development of faith with others. In the Field Education seminars, students explore the role of catechesis in ministry and continue to integrate theory and praxis toward collaborative ministry and community building in fostering the reign of God. The goal is approached through a threefold constellation of learning contexts: field work in a ministry placement, supervision of that work, and the field education seminar. The primary learning dynamic for the seminar is dialogical and includes conversation about assigned texts, shared reflection on field experiences, and faith-sharing.

THEO 67-002 : Comparative Religious Ethics: Buddhist and Christian

Instructor: David Clairmont
CRN:
Time:
Credit: 3.0
Area:
Graded: Letter
Level: Graduate

Description: Is religion necessary to live a moral life? If so, are all religions basically the same when it comes to the moral norms contained in them? If not, how do we account for the differences among religious values, norms and principles? How do religions justify their distinctive moral claims in the face of alternative proposals? Can we study the ethical thought of a religious tradition that is different from our own in a responsible manner and, if so, how should we proceed? This course will take up these and other related questions through an examination of ancient and contemporary Christian and Buddhist texts in dialogue with recent theoretical options for the comparative study of ethics. We will begin with an assessment of the importance and distinctive quality of religious voices in moral debate and then look at some of the ways that contemporary scholars have approached the investigation and assessment of similarities and differences in moral world views. The course will end with a comparative consideration of certain Buddhist and Christian options in environmental ethics.

*This course is listed as THEO 40828. Graduate students take it as a directed readings course*