A Semester of Augustine

Per usual, good intentions to blog have met their fate at the unyielding hands of newly inked classroom syllabi.  I am currently two weeks into class (though unfortunately illness has caused me to miss a few already, and I am currently battling the flu).  This semester is exciting for me, both because I am officially beginning my second Masters degree (a Th.M in Historical Theology) and have (finally!) completed my first Masters, an M.Div. T.S. (Masters of Divinity in Theological Studies: the "theological studies" modifier means that the education program was less pastorally oriented--as most M.Div's are--and more research and academically focused.)  It has been a long (and painfully expensive) road (that stretches on as I intend to get my Ph.D after this), as Im sure many of you can sympathize.  It is a relief to feel I have accomplished something; every time I take out more student loans for class I often feel like Goethe's Faust making a deal with Mephistopheles, but without the immediately discernible upside.

At any rate this semester is also exciting because of the classes (which I'll love to attend whenever I get to feeling like a human again...) I'm starting Latin, which has been great so far (so much better than Hebrew, which I have never had a taste for).  I am also taking a very interesting class called "The New Testament use of the Old Testament," which is an in-depth analysis of, you guessed it, how the New Testament authors quote the Old Testament texts.  The class is set up in a fantastic way, and in the first two weeks we've read an array of different journal articles outlining major views--from Craig Evans to Richard Longenecker to Walter Kaiser to Douglas Moo to Raymond Brown and others.  It is both a fascinating and, admittedly, bewildering topic.

Another great class is a Th.M seminar called "Contemporary Issues in Theology," that is heavily focused on methodological issues in theology.  We started out reading Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrine (which I have already read so it has been a relatively labor-less class thus far).  After we finish this week we move on to reading selected portions of Vanhoozer's Drama of Doctrine (our selected sections add up to about 3/4 of the book, but in essence make up 100% of the content given Vanhoozer's singular ability to repeat himself) and then Douglas Harink's Paul Amongst the Postliberals, Clark Pinnocks Tracking the Maze and T.F. Torrance's The Mediation of Christ.  In addition to this we have two paper/presentations we select and prepare for: one on a topic that is currently an issue amongst Evangelicals (my affiliation) and a second very lengthy (30 page) research paper on a topic of debate amongst Continental theology and philosophy.  For my Evangelical paper I am going to present on the use of the Trinity in the Complimentarian/Egalitarian debate.  To put my cards on the table I think the whole thing is ridiculous and agree very much with what David Congdon of Fire and the Rose has recently written on the topic (and by extension what McCormack has spoken on in his recent Kantzer lectures).  I am not really a "Barthian" per se (though obviously I appreciate Barth immensely whatever my disagreements on this or that) and so my approach will be slightly different than David's or Dr. McCormack's (I am much more sympathetic to the Patristic and medieval traditions than I think they might be, though I of course don't want to put words into their mouths) but our conclusions (I believe) will be largely the same.  Namely that immediate application of the Trinity to any type of social or ecclesiological schema is absurd and cannot be done (pace for example Moltmann or Volf).  As for my second paper I have not really settled on anything yet, though I am thinking of rounding out my initial foray into that complex world of Radical Orthodoxy.

What I am most looking forward to, however, is an independent study that my friend Patrick and I are taking under Patristic scholar Jon Robertson.  Patrick and I are both Patristic/Medieval theology buffs and always make a point to have some independent study or other with Dr. Robertson, who is a walking encyclopedia of church history and doctrine.  This class in particular is focusing on Augustine's trinitarian theology and contemporary scholarship on it and the implications for systematic theology.  To this end we are primarily focusing on going through de Trinitate with a fine tooth comb; in addition we are reading a huge array of secondary works: Bradley Green's Colin Gunton and the Failure of Augustine, Lewis Ayres' Augustine and the Trinity, Orthodox Readings of Augustine ed. by Aristotle Papanikolaou and George Demacopoulos (which has a staggering number of big names: essays by Lewis Ayres, John Behr, David Bentley Hart, Joseph Lienhard, Brian Daley, Andrew Louth, and even Jean-Luc Marion, whose essay essentially vindicates Augustine of essentialism and onto-theology, is perhaps the unexpected gem of the bunch), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium ed. by Stephen Davis, Daniell Kendall, and Gerald O'Collins, and one of Dr. Robertson's acquaintances, Khaled Anatolios, and his book Retrieving Nicaea, alongside a smattering of journal articles by Michel René Barnes.

Anyway, for those interested that is my semester.  I will hopefully in this next week have become somewhat adjusted to my schedule and will resume normal blogging (and completing some series like The Myth of Religious Violence and My Summer With Darwin).  If you are still checking in despite my lack of posts, I thank you for your patience!  Things will, hopefully, get back to normal soon.