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This seminar will be led by Natalie Runkle (Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh).

St. Augustine has become notorious for the (perhaps falsely attributed) claim that non-Christian, "pagan" virtues are no more than "splendid vices." Falsely attributed or not, this seminar considers whether such a claim holds water. We will examine Augustine's own view of pagan virtue, as presented in his City of God, and take a look at virtue from the point of view of some pagans -- namely Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

Reading: Augustine, 354-430. 1950. The City of God. XIX.4, XIX.25, V.15-17.

This seminar will be led by Dr. James DeMasi.

Depends on what we mean by “friend.” I think most people would agree that we ought to be “friendly” with our bosses, pastors, and other people who exercise a legitimate authority in our lives, but I also think that most people would agree with the ancients that true friends–complete and perfect friends–must be equal in all things. As Cicero would have it, a friend is an alter ego–”another self”--and any gross disproportion of state in life might preclude the kind of equality that makes up the context of true friendship. On the one hand, how would the person in authority ever really know if his or her friend was really a friend and not a flatterer? For the person on the other side of the relationship, how would he or she ever feel the freedom to exercise the criticism essential to true friendship? In this seminar, we will examine what a friend is, especially in the classical context. Then, we will examine how the Gospel and the Christian tradition radically upsets what it means to be a friend and provides an alternative to contemporary notions of friendship as a relationship, principally, without a power imbalance.

Reading: TBA

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This seminar will be led by Dr. David Snoke, University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Snoke will discuss basic philosophical arguments for the existence of God, and how ancient Christian philosophers interacted with pagan philosophy (and what that is). Finally, Dr. Snoke will discuss how quantum mechanics is used by neo-pagan philosophers today.

Reading

This seminar will be led by Dr. Ryan McDermott (English, University of Pittsburgh).

What does it mean to read the Bible "morally"? Is this simply a theoretical exercise of discovering moral precepts? In this seminar, Professor McDermott will introduce the medieval practice of turning words into works, of making readers moral agents through the re-narration of Biblical stories.

Readings: The Ordinary Gloss on Jonah and Matthew: 12:38-42

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This seminar will be led by Pastor Eric Andrae (First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church).

Readings: Dorothy Sayers and Augsburg Confession; Athanasian Creed

This seminar will be led by Dr. Elizabeth Cochran (Duquesne University).

What does the good life look like? Should ethics look different for Christians than for everyone else, and what might our answer to this question indicate about the beliefs and commitments important to us? This seminar explores these questions in conversation with the writings of 18th century Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards. Although today many know Edwards primarily as an American revival preacher important to the Great Awakening, the author of the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and the grandfather of notorious duelist Aaron Burr, Edwards was a significant American intellectual who wrote a number of influential philosophical and theological texts. We will explore Edwards’s contributions to contemporary Christian ethics by situating his writings in the broader tradition of what is known as “virtue ethics,” by comparing his understanding of Christian virtue with that of selected other historical thinkers, and by wrestling with some of the challenges his view holds for how Christians today think about grace, free will, and moral agency.

Reading: Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, selections

This seminar will be led by Dr. DeMasi.

In the fourth century, the Christian world was violently divided over the issue of Christ’s divinity. Was Christ coeternal with the Father--of the same substance as the Almighty God? Or was Christ an instrument--created for our redemption-the first born of God’s works? At one point, not only the emperor, but most of the Christian world believed that “there once was a time when he [Christ] was not.” In this seminar, we uncover the reasoning behind this heresy--the Arian heresy--and we look at the response from the fiery, red-haired, very short, Bishop Athanasius, who almost single-handedly defeated the tidal wave of Arian belief.

Reading: Athanasius – Orationes contra Arianos, “Four Discourses Against the Arians,” (Selections).

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This seminar will be led by Dr. James DeMasi.

Is there a distinctively Christian ethics? Often, Christianity is reduced to a simple moral system, and in fact, many who would dismiss religion altogether in the last two centuries would also be careful to preserve what is considered to be a robust moral system in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Famously, Gandhi criticized Christians for ignoring what he considered to be one of the greatest texts ever recorded–Chrsit’s Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. But is this sermon even practical, or is it simply a sentimental ideal? Is it meant to be imitated by all Christians, or is the intended audience simply the spiritual elite?

Primary Reading: Pinckaers, Servais, O.P. The Sources of Christian Ethics. CUA Press. 1995. Selections.

Supplementary Reading: Matthew, Chapters 5-7

This seminar will be led by Dr. James DeMasi.

Last seminar, we discussed the long and complicated interpretive history of the notion of Imago Dei–Human beings as the image and likeness of God. This week, we want to dig deeper into the idea of the soul: what is a soul? How would we go about defining it? What determines whether a being has an immortal or a mortal soul? Do all human beings have souls? When? Using Aristotle’s hylomorphic universe, Thomas Aquinas drilled into the philosophical complexity of what it means to call human beings “Ensouled bodies.”

Reading: Aquinas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. [Selections]

This seminar will be led by Dr. James DeMasi.

Calling the first person of the Trinity “Father” is not one of many names that we call the first person of the Trinity–it is the name for the first of the Trinity, the proper designation of that person. But does it mean to call God “Father”? What is a father? Are human fathers analogous to God the Father, or do we call God “father” because human fathers are a convenient referent? As we will find out, these questions are not new to our inquiry but date back to the early Church. In many ways, Christ was killed for insisting on the paternity of God the Father, and in many ways, understanding what it means to call God “Father” conditions the way we understand calling Christ the “Son of God.” 

Reading: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture VII

This seminar will be led by Dr. James DeMasi.

 In this seminar, we will discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant film, There Will Be Blood, and we will interrogate the question: What makes life meaningful? What does it mean to be happy? In short, what’s the point of it all?   

Link to movie: There will be Blood

Supplemental reading: After Virtue by Alasdair McIntyre

This seminar will be lead by Dr. James DeMasi (Beatrice Institute).

In the second chapter of Genesis, we are told that human beings were created in God’s image and likeness: “Ait: “Faciamus [pl.] hominem ad imaginem et simultudinem nostram [pl.].” What does it mean to say that human beings are made in the image and the likeness of God? Christian tradition has interpreted this passage diversely, but patterns have emerged which variously comment on the nature of human beings and the nature of God, their Creator. We will read a selection from a recent synthesis of the interpretive traditions as well as a selection from Pico Della Mirandola’s famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, the acme of Renaissance humanism and the most bold attempt at a synthesis of classical models of human nature.

Reading: “Perceiving the Image of God in the Whole Human Person” by Mark Spencer.

This seminar will be lead by Dr. Kevin Mongrain (Duquesne University)

 Pseudo-Dionysius’ “Mystical Theology” is one of the most profound texts in the Christian tradition on the unity of spirituality and theology. It lays out very strict protocols for theology based on the mysteriousness and ineffability of God. It summarizes the teachings of the Church Fathers and Desert Fathers on prayer as the root and source of all theology. 

Reading: The Divine names and The Mystical Theology by Dionysius the Aeropagite.