Download - RELS 160 Intro Lecture
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RELS 160 A
Introduction to Theology
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Todays Agenda
Self-introductions
Introduction to the course and expectations
Introduction to the course authors
Theology and the new atheism
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Introduction to Theology
An introduction to the field of theology. Discusses issues of theolog
method and the historical development of some major Christian doc
and relates them to theological issues today.
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Underlying Questions
What distinguishes theological thinking from other kinds of thinking
and where does theology have an application in ordinary life?
How do theological claims relate to Biblical and other forms of reve
In what sense are theological claims supposed to be true? What do
seeking understanding mean in a so-called secular age?
Should our theology determine our experience of reality, or the othe
around? How have others in the Christian tradition addressed these a
other matters?
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G. K. Chesterton
18741936
The Catholic C. S. Lewis
An apologist of a different stripe
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Augustine
354430
Church Father
Claimed by all branches of Christianity
Integrates Greek and Biblical wisdom
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Rowan Williams
1950
Retired Archbishop of Canterbury
Academic and pastoral theologian
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
19061945
German Lutheran pastor and theologian
Nazi resister, believer in costly grace
Executed in a concentration camp
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William Cavanaugh
Theologian and ethicist at DePaul University
Focus on human rights and social justice
Critic of secular reason
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What has 'theology' ever said that is of the smuse to anybody? When has 'theology' ever saianything that is demonstrably true and is notobvious? What makes you think that 'theology
subject at all?
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Religion drives otherwise sensible people incelibate monasteries, or crashing into New Yoskyscrapers. Religion motivates people to whtheir own backs, to set fire to themselves or th
daughters, to denounce their own grandmothwitches, or, in less extreme cases, simply to stkneel, week after week, through ceremonies ostupefying boredom.
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Of course Jesus was a theist, but that is the leinteresting thing about him. He was a theistbecause, in his time, everybody was. Atheismnot an option, even for so radical a thinker as J
What was interesting and remarkable about Jewas not the obvious fact that he believed in thof his Jewish religion, but that he rebelled agamany aspects of Yahweh's vengeful nastiness.
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Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuevade the need to think and evaluateevidence. Faith is belief in spite of, evenperhaps because of, the lack of evidence
I am against religion because it teachesbe satisfied with not understanding theworld.
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Paranormal phenomena havehabit of going away wheneverthey are tested under rigorous
conditions.
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In what sense can the world ever be underst
Is human experience ultimately subject to a circle of logic?
Do Dawkins views fail to account for tempora
uncertainty?
Is the world like a logical argument, or more lpoem?
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Does the poetic nature of religious language mit too otherwordly, or does this world, the wo
we actually live in, call for something more pothan the new atheism allows?
Terry Eagleton says Dawkins is rather like aperson who thinks a novel is a botched piece sociology. What is the significance of this cla
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Chesterton, Orthodoxy, chapters 1, 2, 4, a
What makes Christian theology realistic
How might Chestertons view of the worl
strangeness change how we think in othedomains too?