This module traces the development of Christian theology by looking at selected texts and methods from the Reformation to the 20th century. We seek to engage closely with primary texts, and reflect on the ways in which modern Christian theology developed, the reasons why it took the forms it did, and some of its driving questions.
This semester, we will focus specifically on key aspects of the relationship between humans and God: in the 16th to 18th centuries, we will concentrate on that relationship as mediated by Christ and sacraments (directed by Dr S Holmes); in the long 19th and 20th centuries, we will look closely at accounts of will and freedom (directed by Prof. JE Wolfe). The question of human freedom and of the primal force of will are major drivers of modern theology, and shape not only the substance but also the form of theological writing.
After an introduction to the period (week 1, JEW), we will begin by reading Luther and Calvin on human freedom and Christic mediation (week 2, SH), look at the sophisticated debates in Reformed Scholasticism (week 3, SH), and the very different approaches of Menno Simons and the Anabaptists (week 4, SH). We will then transition to the 19th century by studying Friedrich Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation (week 5, JEW), which combines deep Christological devotion with an emphasis on human freedom. We will next read the theological work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (week 6, SH), who was strongly influenced by Schelling and in turn inspired modern accounts of human freedom and creative capacity. We will spend a week on Arthur Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation (week 7, JEW), an enormously influential account of blind will as the driving force of the universe, of which humans are merely a manifestation. We will then read Maurice Blondel’s (week 8, JEW) and Simone Weil’s (week 9, JEW) profound theological responses to this challenge. In the final two weeks, we will read two of C.S. Lewis’s most relevant works, The Abolition of Man (week 11, JEW) and The Great Divorce (week 12, JEW).
Throughout, we will pay attention both to the contents and to the methods of these theological and philosophical writings, which are written in the form of treatises, lectures, letters, autobiographical reflections, and speculative fiction. We will also pair each reading with a film designed to deepen our engagement with the themes of the texts. (We will consult students on the best time for these weekly screenings, with the option of watching them on your own if you cannot make the joint screening.)