Finding Joy in Learning (Hybrid)

Finding Joy in Learning is the launch course for the MA (Phil) in Educational Leadership program at the Institute for Christian Studies. The course provides students with a motivating vision of Christian educational innovation and leadership by means of immersive learning experiences, presentations of benchmark projects, interviews with lead practitioners, and readings of key texts. Students are coached through their plan for working through the program as a whole. The course starts students on the path toward their project thesis/portfolio by helping them identify and articulate their research interest.

Finding Joy in Learning is a hybrid course consisting of in-person learning experiences and eight weeks of online interaction.

ICSDH 2100AC F18
Dr. Gideon Strauss
Hybrid (Online/In-Person)
October 25-26, 2018

For further details about in-person sessions please contact Dr. Strauss or Elizabet Aras

Religion, Life and Society: Reformational Philosophy

An exploration of central issues in philosophy, as addressed by Herman Dooyeweerd, Dirk Vollenhoven, and the “Amsterdam School” of neoCalvinian thought. The course tests the relevance of this tradition for recent developments in Western philosophy. Special attention is given to critiques of foundationalism, metaphysics, and modernity within reformational philosophy and in other schools of thought.

ICS 1107AC/2107AC F18
ICT3702HF L0101 / ICT6702HF L0101
Dr. Robert (Bob) Sweetman
Thursdays, 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: ICS Boardroom, Knox College

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Nothing Can Separate Us…!: The Dialectical Materialism of Slavoj Žižek

This seminar will map out the Dialectical Materialism of Slovenian philosopher, psycho-analyst, and cultural critic Slavoj Žížek. A communist and atheist, Žižek's thought is an original Lacanian inspired repeat of Hegel that recalibrates Materialism. Žížek's incisive structural insights will be explored even as his faith in the Void as the eternal traumatic Real is contrasted with faith in the steadfast Love of God.

ICS 240908 F18
ICT5704HF 0101
Dr. James Olthuis
Wednesdays, 5:30pm - 8:30pm
Location: ICS Boardroom, Knox College

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Nature, Supernature & Miracle in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas

This seminar examines Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between nature and the supernatural from the perspective of key texts in his Summa Theologiae and its most important parallels. It does so in order to address the phenomenon of miracles and the role they play in his philosophical and theological construction.

ICS 120406/220406 F18
ICH3156HF L0101 / ICH6156HF L0101
Dr. Robert (Bob) Sweetman
Wednesdays, 9:30am - 12:30pm
Location: Classroom 2, Knox College

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Grace as an Aesthetic Concept

For much of the Western art tradition, the concept of grace has been an important critical concept for its ability to capture the often elusive quality of artistic affect. Often referred to as the “je ne sais quoi” of art - that something extra that cannot be explained – grace even supplanted beauty for many writers (from Giorgio Vasari to Friedrich Schiller) as the highest artistic ideal. Often missing from modern analyses of the concept, however, are its theological foundations. This seminar style course will exam the concept of grace within its theological, philosophical, literary, and art theoretical contexts in an effort to understand both its historical significance and its potential usefulness for the philosophy of art today. We will look at a variety of texts (e.g. from Plato, Cicero, the Pseudo-Dionysius, Dante, John Calvin, Alexander Pope, Friedrich Schiller, Martin Heidegger) as well as works of art for which grace is an important and defining aesthetic concept.

ICS 220103 F18
ICH3758HS L0101 / ICH6758HS L0101 
Dr. Rebekah Smick 
Tuesdays, 1:45pm - 4:45pm
Location: ICS Boardroom, Knox College

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Biblical Foundations

This course will explore the Bible as the ongoing story of and for God and creation, paying special attention to the way in which God's story is intertwined with that of humanity and the world. In asking whether and in what way the biblical narrative finds its future in our ongoing narratives, we will attempt to identify which hermeneutical methods and sensitivities might help us discern its significance for present day life, including the academic enterprise. To that end, we shall pay close attention to the shape of gender symbolism in the biblical writings, together with the nature of power, and the call of and to Wisdom.

ICS 1108AC/2108AC F18
ICB2010HF L0101
Instructor: Dr. Nik Ansell
Mondays, 1:45pm - 4:45pm
Location: ICS Boardroom, Knox College

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

World-Viewing: An Introduction to Worldview Studies (Distance)

Who am I? Where do I belong? What is the world and what do I believe about it? What do I love? What opportunities and constraints do I face in my particular context? What am I to do with my life?

View five significant recent movies. Consider the responses to these movies by thoughtful critics. Read and talk through a short list of insightful writings. Reflect on your own lived experience. Explore and reconsider how you view the world in relation to these movies, writings, and reflections.

World-Viewing: An Introduction to Worldview Studies serves as a touchstone course for the Master of Worldview Studies program as a whole, providing students with an overview of the program, an initial set of frameworks and tools for finding their way through the program, and a selection of readings (about 1,250 pages) that will prime students for reflecting on the six inter-related wayfinding questions listed above. The course also introduces students to the Christian worldview tradition out of which the Institute for Christian Studies emerged.

This is a thirteen-week all-online course, starting in the week of September 10, 2018 and finishing in the week of December 10, 2018. There will be no assignments due during ICS’s reading week, October 22-26, 2018. For participants doing the course or credit all outstanding work will be due by no later than January 25, 2019.

ICSD 132505/232505 F18

Dr. Gideon Strauss

Distance (Online)

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

The Observant Participant: Applying Research Craft to Professional Practice (Hybrid)

Learn to apply tools and frameworks from contemporary qualitative research craft to your professional practice. Become a more observant participant and strengthen your capacity as a reflective practitioner. Read Sarah Ahmed on how our bodies dwell in the world, Ruth Behar on being a vulnerable observer, Dara Culhane on imaginative research practices, Natalie Wigg-Stevenson on studying one’s own lived experience… and more!

While the focus of this course is on applying research craft to professional practice, the course is also a solid introduction to graduate level qualitative research and key perspectives from phenomenological philosophy. The Observant Participant will be a very active workshop-oriented learning experience for participants, rather than a more passive lecture-based experience. It will be presented in a hybrid format consisting of in-person sessions during the Fall 2018 term, along with weekly online interactions and written assignments throughout the term.

ICSDH 132501/232501 F18
Dr. Gideon Strauss
Hybrid (Online/In-Person)
October 25-26, 2018

For further details about in-person sessions please contact Dr. Strauss or Elizabet Aras

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

World-Viewing: An Introduction to Worldview Studies (Hybrid)

Who am I? Where do I belong? What is the world and what do I believe about it? What do I love? What opportunities and constraints do I face in my particular context? What am I to do with my life?

View five significant recent movies. Consider the responses to these movies by thoughtful critics. Read and talk through a short list of insightful writings. Reflect on your own lived experience. Explore and reconsider how you view the world in relation to these movies, writings, and reflections.

World-Viewing: An Introduction to Worldview Studies serves as a touchstone course for the Master of Worldview Studies program as a whole, providing students with an overview of the program, an initial set of frameworks and tools for finding their way through the program, and a selection of readings (about 1,250 pages) that will prime students for reflecting on the six inter-related wayfinding questions listed above. The course also introduces students to the Christian worldview tradition out of which the Institute for Christian Studies emerged.

This version of the course will take a hybrid format, with five bi-weekly in-person classroom sessions as well as weekly structured interactive online forum discussions in response to reading assignments.

ICSDH 132505/232505 F18

Dr. Gideon Strauss

Hybrid (Online/In-Person)

Mondays, 6:00pm - 9:00pm (September 24, October 15, November 5, November 26, December 10)
Location: ICS Boardroom, Knox College

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

The Observant Participant: Applying Research Craft to Professional Practice (Distance)

Learn to apply tools and frameworks from contemporary qualitative research craft to your professional practice. Become a more observant participant and strengthen your capacity as a reflective practitioner. Read Sarah Ahmed on how our bodies dwell in the world, Ruth Behar on being a vulnerable observer, Dara Culhane on imaginative research practices, Natalie Wigg-Stevenson on studying one’s own lived experience… and more!

While the focus of this course is on applying research craft to professional practice, the course is also a solid introduction to graduate level qualitative research and key perspectives from phenomenological philosophy. The Observant Participant will be a very active workshop-oriented learning experience for participants, rather than a more passive lecture-based experience.

ICSD 132501/232501 F18
Dr. Gideon Strauss
Distance

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Group Process in Cognitive Modalities in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 course credit hours) explores group dynamics and professional functioning as related to cognitive modalities in psychotherapy, examining experiential and theoretical factors with a focus on CRPO professional competencies. Within a small group context, there will be emphasis on developmental processes, power dynamics, leadership influences and conflict resolution. Attention will also be given to deepening an understanding of cognitive modalities within a therapeutic relationship. The class will function as a learning space in which issues and themes related to group dynamics are examined and processed.

Year Three - WINTER Semester

ICS 152818 W19
Dr. Rick Tamas
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Cognitive Modalities in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 academic course credit hours) will focus on theories and methods related to cognitive-based therapeutic interventions. These include cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), stress reduction (MBSR), self-compassion therapy (MSC), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Attention will be given to the integration of mindfulness practice into the therapeutic relationship. Priority is given to the safe and effective use of self and confidentiality within the therapeutic relationship. This course will be of interest to students preparing for certification in the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.

Year Three - WINTER Semester

ICS 152812 W19
Dr. Rick Tamas
Mondays, 9:00am - 11:50am
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Group Process in Psychopathology and Addictions in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 course credit hours) explores group dynamics and professional functioning as related to psychopathology and addictions in psychotherapy. It examines experiential and theoretical factors with a focus on CRPO professional competencies. Within a small group context there will be emphasis on developmental processes, power dynamics, leadership influences and conflict resolution. Attention will also be given to deepening an understanding of psychopathology and addictions within a therapeutic relationship. The class will function as a learning space in which issues and themes related to group dynamics are examined and processed.

Year Three - FALL Semester

ICS 152817 F18
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Beech
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Psychopathology and Addictions in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 academic course credit hours) teaches the student basic concepts and skills related to a psychotherapeutic awareness of psychopathology and addictions. Areas of study include depression, bipolar, borderline, anger management, and crisis response. Priority is given to the safe and effective use of self, confidentiality, and self-care within the therapeutic relationship. Students gain an awareness of transference and counter-transference through an ethical, clinical and spiritually-integrated therapeutic framework. This course will be of interest to students preparing for certification in the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.

Year Three - FALL Semester

ICS 152811 F18
Dr. Rick Tamas
Mondays, 9:00am - 11:50am
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Group Process in Sexuality and Intimacy in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 course credit hours) explores group dynamics and professional functioning in relation to sexuality and intimacy in psychotherapy. It examines experiential and theoretical factors with a focus on CRPO professional competencies. Within a small group context there will be emphasis on developmental processes, power dynamics, leadership influences and conflict resolution. Attention will also be given to deepening an understanding of sexuality and intimacy within a therapeutic relationship. The class will function as a learning space in which issues and themes related to group dynamics are examined and processed.

Year Two - WINTER Semester

ICS 152816 W19
Dr. Rick Tamas
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Sexuality and Intimacy in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 academic course credit hours) teaches the student basic concepts and skills related to developing a clinical awareness of sexuality and intimacy in psychotherapy. Priority is given to the safe and effective use of self, confidentiality, and self-care within the therapeutic relationship. The course explores sexuality and intimacy in relation to power and privilege, trauma and abuse, cultural diversity, and shame through an ethical, clinical, and spiritually-integrated psychotherapeutic framework. This course will be of interest to students preparing for certification in the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.

Year Two - WINTER Semester

ICS 152810 W19
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Beech
Mondays, 9:00am - 11:50am
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Group Process in Psychodynamic Therapies

This one-semester course (36 course credit hours) explores group dynamics and professional functioning in relation to psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy. It examines experiential and theoretical factors with a focus on CRPO professional competencies. Within a small group context there will be emphasis on developmental processes, power dynamics, leadership influences and conflict resolution. Attention will also be given to deepening an understanding of psychodynamic psychotherapy within a therapeutic relationship. The class will function as a learning space in which issues and themes related to group dynamics are examined and processed.

Year Two - FALL Semester

ICS 152815 F18
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Beech, Dr. James Olthuis
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Psychodynamic Therapies

This one-semester course (36 academic course credit hours) teaches the student basic concepts and skills in self-psychology and psychodynamic therapies that prepare students to work with clients. Priority is given to the safe and effective use of self, confidentiality, and self-care within the therapeutic relationship. The course includes components of psychotherapy that involve such concepts as empathy, present moment awareness, and a healthy therapeutic alliance, Students gain an awareness of transference and counter-transference through an ethical, clinical and spiritually-integrated therapeutic framework. This course will be of interest to students preparing for certification in the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.

Year Two - FALL Semester

ICS 152809 F18
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Beech, Dr. James Olthuis
Mondays, 9:00am - 11:50am
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Group Process in Systemic and Collaborative Therapies

This one-semester course (36 course credit hours) explores group dynamics and professional functioning in relation to systemic and collaborative modalities of psychotherapy. It examines experiential and theoretical factors with a focus on CRPO professional competencies. Within a small group context there will be emphasis on developmental processes, power dynamics, leadership influences and conflict resolution. Attention will also be given to deepening an understanding of systemic and collaborative psychotherapy within a therapeutic relationship. The class will function as a learning space in which issues and themes related to group dynamics are examined and processed.

Year One - WINTER Semester

ICS 152814 W19
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Beech
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Systemic and Collaborative Therapies

This one-semester course (36 academic course credit hours) teaches the student basic concepts and skills in systemic and collaborative therapies that include family systems theory, attachment theory, interpersonal psychotherapy, narrative therapy and solution focussed therapy. Priority is given to the safe and effective use of self, confidentiality, and self-care within the therapeutic relationship. The course explores power and privilege, trauma and abuse, grief and loss, and cultural diversity through an ethical, clinical, and spiritually-integrated psychotherapeutic framework. This course will be of interest to students preparing for certification in the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.

Year One - WINTER Semester

ICS 152808 W19
Rev. Dr. Lawrence Beech
Mondays, 9:00am - 11:50am
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Group Process in Professional Competencies of Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 course credit hours) examines group process and professional functioning in psychotherapy from the perspective of the CRPO professional competencies. There will be an emphasis on developmental process, power dynamics, leadership influences, safe and effective use of self, and the process of supervision. Attention will also be given to deepening an understanding of professional competencies within a therapeutic relationship. The class will function as a learning space in which issues and themes related to group dynamics are examined and processed.

Year One - FALL Semester

ICS 152813 F18
Dr. Rick Tamas
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Professional Competencies in Psychotherapy

This one-semester course (36 academic course credit hours) teaches basic professional CRPO competencies that prepare students to work with clients in a psychotherapeutic relationship. Priority is given to the safe and effective use of self, confidentiality, and self-care in a clinical setting. The course includes components of psychotherapy that involve such tasks as assessment, record keeping, intake procedures, and closure with clients. Students gain an awareness of such psychotherapeutic concepts as transference, counter-transference and the therapeutic alliance through an ethical, clinical, and spiritually-integrated framework.

Year One - FALL Semester

ICS 152807 F18
Dr. Rick Tamas
Mondays, 9:00am - 11:50am
Location: TCPCE

Syllabus

Vocational Wayfinding (Hybrid)

“What am I to do with my life?” “Who am I?” There appears to be an inextricable connection between the work that we do and our sense of who we are. As the poet David Whyte has suggested, work is for all of us a pilgrimage of identity. It is not, however, a pilgrimage for which any of us are provided with a GPS device, allowing us to navigate in straight lines with comfortable certainty towards clear career objectives that cohere in obvious ways with an immutable sense of our identity. Instead, this pilgrimage is more like the experience of Polynesian sailors, who traversed the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean with the help of the stars, memory, and close attention to the patterns of the waves on the surface of the ocean as these reflected features of the ocean (including far-off islands). Polynesian wayfinding was a way of navigating that required alert improvisation and frequent reorientation from within a perpetually shifting context. Our vocational pilgrimages require of us to find our way in a similar manner.

In this course we will explore particular practices, frameworks, and tools, by means of which we can engage in vocational wayfinding. Prompted by our readings we will consider some of the relationships between work and identity: How does my work prompt my discovery of my sense of self? How do I try out possible selves in relation to whatever in the world is calling me toward particular kinds of work? What am I to do with my life? We will give close attention to those passages in our lives (in particular young adulthood and the middle passage of life) when both our work contexts and our experience of our identity are most obviously in flux. In addition, we will consider how to contribute skilful leadership and insightful mentoring to others as they engage in their own vocational wayfinding, particularly in the contexts of the workplace and educational institutions.

This is a hybrid course with both online elements and in-person sessions. The online elements of the course will start on January 31 and finish on April 25. The five in-person sessions will take place at Toronto District Christian High School (TDCH) from 6 pm to 9pm on each of February 14 and 28, March 21, and April 11 and 25. (Plan to bring your own supper to class on those dates!) March 14 will be an off-week.  For participants doing the course or credit all outstanding work will be due by no later than May 18.

As a credit course Vocational Wayfinding is part of our Wayfinding Master of Worldview Studies program and is a credit level course for MWS, MA and PhD programs. 

Click here for more details and registration information.

Click Here to Register Online!

ICS 132502/232502 W18
Dr. Gideon Strauss
Hybrid
(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Curriculum: Organising the World for Learning

Curriculum is the selection and organisation of experience for pedagogical purposes. The criteria that determine what is selected and how it is organised articulate fundamental values about the nature of the world and our calling in it. This course will encourage critical evaluation of the criteria that are commonly employed and of how the curriculum can be shaped to better reflect a Christian worldview. Curriculum is conceived not as a static collection of materials, but as a dynamic plan that directs the learning process and governs the organically developing relationship between teachers and learners. Teachers are curriculum workers, charged with reflective responsibility as they conduct themselves in their profession. Whether adopting and adapting an externally prescribed curriculum or designing a curriculum from its inception, Christian teachers have a responsibility to ensure that the curriculum reflects a biblical worldview, in structure as well as in content, and that learners are invited to respond from their hearts in obedience to the call of God in Christ, Scripture and creation.

ICSD120307/220307 W18
Distance Education
Dr. Doug Blomberg / Joonyong Um
MWS, MA, PhD

Syllabus

Imagining the Word with Ricoeur: Narrative, Action, and the Sacred in Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Phenomenology

CANCELLED

This course will focus primarily on two essay collections by Paul Ricoeur: From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II, as well as Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. These collections cover (roughly) a period from the early 1970’s to the early 1990’s. Together, they form an excellent introduction to Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology, which he developed as an alternative to those theoretical options, such as psychoanalysis and semiotics, with which he struggled throughout the 1960’s.  In addition to exploring Ricoeur’s evolving thoughts on such topics as textual interpretation, action, imagination, revelation, and a religious imaginary, these essays will also serve seminar participants as an effective springboard into Ricoeur’s larger thematic works, such as Rule of Metaphor, Time and Narrative (Vols. I-III), Oneself as Another, or Memory, History, Forgetting. Beginning with From Text to Action, the seminar will explore the general shape of Ricoeur’s heremeneutical phenomenology, including such themes as text, action, explanation, understanding, ideology, and utopia. With this basic grasp of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology in hand, we will go on to explore his understanding of the disclosive force of religious texts and uses of language in the anthology Figuring the Sacred. Among other things, Ricoeur there ponders how Christian communities might best face the task of appropriating a textual heritage from which time has distanced them, and concerning which they have lost a certain original naivety. This seminar will explore Ricoeur’s recommendation that Christians risk assuming a “second naivety” as they take up the responsibility of receiving and interpreting their religious tradition for a new generation. Imagining the world with Ricoeur, we will discuss how his recommendations on this score might help or hinder our effort to find meaning and inspiration amidst the crises and fragmentations that run through contemporary life.

ICS 220504 W18
Dr. Ron Kuipers
Thursdays 1:45pm-4:45pm
MA, PhD


CANCELLED

IDS: The Legacy of Seerveld, Hart, and Olthuis

This course is designed to consider the living legacy of the thought of Calvin Seerveld, Hendrik Hart and James Olthuis. It does so in dialogue with writings they have chosen as together close to the very heart of their concerns as Christian scholars. The goal is to read them with a view to one's own vocation as Christian scholar in a posture of critical appreciation and with a view to critical appropriation.

Drs. Robert Sweetman, Nicholas Ansell
ICS 2400AC W18
Tuesday 1:45-4:45 pm

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Vocational Wayfinding (Distance)

“What am I to do with my life?” “Who am I?” There appears to be an inextricable connection between the work that we do and our sense of who we are. As the poet David Whyte has suggested, work is for all of us a pilgrimage of identity. It is not, however, a pilgrimage for which any of us are provided with a GPS device, allowing us to navigate in straight lines with comfortable certainty towards clear career objectives that cohere in obvious ways with an immutable sense of our identity. Instead, this pilgrimage is more like the experience of Polynesian sailors, who traversed the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean with the help of the stars, memory, and close attention to the patterns of the waves on the surface of the ocean as these reflected features of the ocean (including far-off islands). Polynesian wayfinding was a way of navigating that required alert improvisation and frequent reorientation from within a perpetually shifting context. Our vocational pilgrimages require of us to find our way in a similar manner.

In this course we will explore particular practices, frameworks, and tools, by means of which we can engage in vocational wayfinding. Prompted by our readings we will consider some of the relationships between work and identity: How does my work prompt my discovery of my sense of self? How do I try out possible selves in relation to whatever in the world is calling me toward particular kinds of work? What am I to do with my life? We will give close attention to those passages in our lives (in particular young adulthood and the middle passage of life) when both our work contexts and our experience of our identity are most obviously in flux. In addition, we will consider how to contribute skilful leadership and insightful mentoring to others as they engage in their own vocational wayfinding, particularly in the contexts of the workplace and educational institutions.

This is a thirteen-week all-online course, starting in the week of January 8 and finishing in the week of April 23. There will be no assignments due during ICS’s reading week, February 19 to 23.  For participants doing the course or credit all outstanding work will be due by no later than May 18.

As a credit course Vocational Wayfinding is part of our Wayfinding Master of Worldview Studies program and is a credit level course for MWS, MA and PhD programs. 

Click here for more details and registration information.

Click Here to Register Online!

ICSD 132502/232502 W18
Dr. Gideon Strauss
(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Birthpangs of the New Creation: Judgment unto Salvation in the Book of Revelation

In our culture, “apocalypse” typically refers to a cataclysmic, catastrophic ending, real or imagined. Often this meaning, in which fear eclipses hope, is traced back to the biblical tradition. But what if the book from which we derive the term, i.e. the “Apocalypse”—or “Revelation”—of John, refers less to the end of the world than to a transition between the two Ages? What if that transition is characterized as double-edged: as both “the death throes of the old world order” and “the birthpangs of the new creation”?  Attentive to the nature of apocalyptic discourse, this course will seek to develop a key area of systematic theology by exploring the topics of death, judgment, heaven, and hell—the ‘four last things’ of traditional eschatology—as they are portrayed in the book of Revelation. In allowing intertexual and intratextual webs of meaning to emerge, we will pay special attention to the way in which Old Testament echoes, together with the book’s own symbolic coherence and narrative logic, can open up new avenues for exegesis, and for theological reflection.  The topic of Final Judgment will be a special focus. How is this to be conceived in the light of the apocalyptic transition? If the first reference to Babylon in the biblical canon, the Babel narrative of Gen 11, refers to a judgment that does not bring history to an end but opens it up once again to the dissemination motif of Gen 1:28, is it possible to detect a parallel “judgment unto salvation” theme in the final book of the New Testament? Our discussions will explore the interface between biblical studies, the “theological interpretation of Scripture,” and contemporary eschatology. Familiarity with New Testament Greek is an advantage but is not a prerequisite.

ICS 120809/220809 W18
Dr. Nik Ansell
Thursday 9:30am-12:30pm
(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Individuality in the Franciscan Thought of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham

This seminar will examine the doctrine of individuality developed by the Franciscan thinkers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham and the configuration of their thought as one or another form of metaphysical “individualism.”  It does so historically against the backdrop of both Franciscan spirituality and the contested “Aristotelianism” of their university environment.  The seminar is both an illustration of the value in and a critical reappraisal of a problem-historical analysis of philosophy that centres upon philosophical accounts of our daily experience of both universality in the world, i.e., the fact that creatures come to us in kinds, and individuality, i.e., the fact that it is individual creatures that come to us in kinds.  

ICS 220404 W18
Dr. Robert Sweetman
Tuesdays 9:30am-12:30pm
MA, PhD

Syllabus