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DO430CE Philosophy for Understanding Theology





The course presents students with an introductory overview of the major historical figures and their principal ideas in the discipline of philosophy. The goal is to make later theological concepts more intelligible by revealing their association with the great philosophical traditions that influenced the writings of the Church Fathers, Doctors and theologians through the ages and into the contemporary world.


Course Syllabus

Course Description

The course presents students with an introductory overview of the major historical figures and their principal ideas in the discipline of philosophy. The goal is to make later theological concepts more intelligible by revealing their association with the great philosophical traditions that influenced the writings of the Church Fathers, Doctors and theologians through the ages and into the contemporary world.

 

Course Objectives and Goals:

  • Know and understand the origin and depth of philosophical and Christian thought, understanding the development of theology from its origins.
  • Acquire a global vision of the main authors, the philosophical currents and the deep problems that have concerned the human being.
  • Relate philosophical theories with the historical, social and cultural framework in which they are raised. Discover one's own cultural and ideological position as heir to a tradition, before which one must be reflective and critical
  • Recognize the importance of the theories of the past for the understanding of current philosophical problems.
  • Become aware of the need for understanding as a condition of possibility of an authentic dialogue.
  • Value intellectual rigor in the analysis of problems. Appreciate the capacity of reason to regulate individual and collective human action.

 

Required Texts and Resources:

  • Philosophy for Understanding Theology, by Diogenes Allen. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985. Copies may be purchased directly or from a number of online vendors including Amazon. Hard cover or paper is acceptable. Either of the two editions is also fine.
  • 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology, by Kelly James Clark, Richard Lints, and James K.A. Smith. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. Purchase the less costly paperback format, not the “kitchen” format.
  • Selected terms and articles will be assigned regularly from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, easily found online and with immediate alphabetical linkage to the terms. These will not be downloaded and printed for the class due to respecting copyright but they are instantly available to each individual.

 

 

Weekly Topics:

  1. Introduction: Definition of philosophy - a science, an art, a religion? Connection to theology. Basic questions on the cosmos, the source of existing things, the fear of change, of extinction, of evil, etc.
  2. Pre-Socratics: Thales, Anaximander, the birth of atomism, Zeno’s famous paradoxes, Heraclitus and Logos, Parmenides and monism, Pythagoras and math, Protagoras and his start with man, not things.
  3. Socrates and Plato: Form/matter, heavens/earth, stability/change, body/soul, dualisms. The story of the cave and the line. Euthyphro and Meno. The three-leveled soul and immortality
  4. Aristotle’s changing of Plato: Substance/accident, essences, genera and species The Unmoved Mover. Living things. Answers to Parmenides. Act and Potency. Knowing by abstraction, not Plato’s recollection.
  5. Augustine and Christian theology: Emerging from Stoicism and Epicurus and the connections with Plotinus and Neo-Platonism. Fallenness, sin and virtue. His predecessors. Plato and Augustine.
  6. Aquinas and his legacy: Heritage from Aristotle. Intellect as existing in each person. Creation as doctrine, not science. Essence/existence distinction. Anselm and his proofs for God
  7. Nominalism and voluntarism and the path to science: Occam, Scotus, Newton. Reaction to Aquinas and scholasticism.
  8. Descartes and rationalism: Spinoza and Leibniz. The famous Beginning of modernism. Mathematics and reason as supreme.
  9. Hume and empiricism: Locke and Berkeley. Sources of materialism, denial of spirit, pragmatism and later language philosophy, as in Ayer’s verification theory. Later atheism
  10. Kant: Reaction to both rationalism and empiricism. Distinction between pure reason and practical reason. The categorical imperative. God, soul, freedom. His critics and follower in Idealism.
  11. Nineteenth Century: Feuerbach from Hegel toward Marx. Kierkegaard’s denial of Hegel and the birth of existentialism. Schleiermacher’s religion as feeling and Nietzsche’s “humanism’.
  12. Twentieth Century: Sartre as atheistic existentialism, Marcel as Christian. Barth’s Protestant rejection of natural theology. De Lubac, Blondel, Lonergan and Rahner – human spirit’s order to transcendence.






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