Level 6

This module engages with the ways in which theology is constructed and how the great themes of Christion thought inter-relate and impact on one another. The aim is to develop skills in systematic and synthetic thinking and to provoke creativity in theological engagement with contemporary modes of thinking. The module will open with lectures on the development of theological method from early symbol to the medieval syntheses and on to modern systematics. Then it will examine the theological geography of current postmodernity with its focus on diversity, ambiguity, fragmentation, openness and play.

Week by week the module will focus on a major theme e.g. Creation, Fall, Redemption, Christology, Trinity, Grace, Ecclesiology, Eschatology etc. Each theme will be addressed by the tutor in a formal lecture followed by a seminar in which the same theme will be addressed by students who have prepared short 10 minute expositions of key thinkers from different periods on the same theme. The seminar will then identify and explore the issues which would affect any satisfactory statement of the same theme today. Throughout attention will be paid to how developments on one area of thought inevitably effect the development of thought in another e.g. the effect of modern science and of ecological issues on the doctrines of Creation and of theological Anthropology.

The module aims through the critical exploration of the constructive nature of theological work to relate creatively the various areas of theological knowledge covered in the student’s degree to the contemporary search for meaning and understanding.