Fall 2025 Christian Studies Course Guide

This list represents courses with substantial content in Christian history, theology, culture, the Bible, and the relationships between Christianity and other religions. These are courses that have been recommended by past Beatrice Institute Christian Studies Fellows and Faculty Fellows. By including courses on this list, Beatrice Institute does not endorse them or take responsibility for their content.

Interested in taking a course at a different university? Through the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education, you can cross-register for one course per semester for credit! Learn more about how this works for University of Pittsburgh students and Carnegie Mellon students.

University of Pittsburgh

Religious Studies 0105 (CRN: 24896)/History 0125 (CRN: 24897): Religions of the West

Asynchronous Online Course
Dr. Joel Brady

This course is a historical introduction to the religious traditions that developed in ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. Our major emphasis is on the history of the religious traditions that emerged in late antiquity in this area and which continue to be major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We focus on key concepts, historical developments, and contemporary issues.

Throughout the course, we also examine interactions among these religious traditions. In the last part of the course we examine the issue of globalization and the spread of these religions around the world as well as the presence of & “non-Western”; religion in the "West." The course also serves as an introduction to the academic study of religion and provides a foundation for further coursework in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. No prior knowledge of any of the religions studied is expected or assumed.

NUR 1014: Happiness and Human Flourishing

TR 9:30-10:45 am
Dr. Grant Martsolf, Dr. David Sanchez, Dr. Ryan McDermott

Aristotle wrote that “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” The modern west, however, is facing a happiness crisis. We are experiencing historic levels of depression, anxiety, and lack of meaning. Cultures around the world and throughout history have had a lot to say about the nature of happiness. In this interdisciplinary class, we explore different conceptions of happiness and work to develop a capacious definition of happiness as “human flourishing.” We then turn our attention to the pre-conditions necessary to promote human flourishing and survey how various disciplines might be oriented toward the flourishing person. We conclude the course by reflecting on the course material to help students reflect on their own lives and how they might construct flourishing lives in college and beyond.

Duquesne University

Phil 229/cath 253: Love & Friendship

MWF 1–1:50 pm
Dr. Thérèse Bonin

We will engage in a joint, sustained, and philosophical consideration of love and friendship, topics we often assume to be too obscure or even sub-rational to allow for such discussion. What exactly is love? What are its kinds? What causes love, and what does love cause? Do opposites attract? Why do we incline more toward one person than another? Is it wrong to love some persons more than others? Is love a divine and life-giving influence or a dangerous illness whose remedies we should know? Where is love found, and what are its signs and symptoms? What of love among animals? Does love extend even beyond the realm of human and animal life? How are love and friendship related? What are the kinds of friendship? Do we need friends? If so, how many do we need? Are there aspects of love and friendship which resist rational analysis? Is love stronger than hatred?

To stimulate our reflection, we will read selected fragments of Empedocles, Plato’s Lysis and Symposium, books 8 & 9 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and the questions on love and hatred from the treatise on the passions in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiæ. Time permitting, we may ponder such texts as Sir Francis Bacon’s essays Of Love and Of Friendship, and also Immanuel Kant’s Lecture on Friendship.

Phil 315w/cath 352w: Thomas Aquinas

MWF 11–11:50 am
Dr. Thérèse Bonin

This course will introduce you to the philosophical thought of Saint Thomas Aquinasthrough his own writings, especially those on God, nature, knowledge, language, the problem of evil, and the relation between faith and reason. Besides learning where St. Thomas stood on these matters, you will be equipped to interpret his writings and thereby to explore the full range of his thought.

Thomas is the thinker of ‘both ... and’: grace, but also nature; the soul and also the body; charity,along with our naturalaffections; both primary and secondary causality;and faith as wellas reason. His contemporaries, like ours, often dismiss one or the other member of each pair or let it be swallowed up in the other. Our goal will be to understand and to appreciate the careful balance Thomas maintains, especially with regard to faith and reason.