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Listed in: Religion, as RELI-278
Andrew C. Dole (Section 01)
The nineteenth century saw developments within Western scholarship that profoundly challenged traditional understandings of Christianity. Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy had thrown the enterprise of theology into doubt by arguing that knowledge of anything outside space and time is impossible. During the same period, the growing awareness of Christianity’s history and the emerging historical-critical study of the Bible brought into prominence the variability and contingency of the Christian tradition. Particularly in Germany, Christian intellectuals were to wrestle intensely with the problem of knowledge of God and the authority of tradition during this period. Should Christians adapt their understandings of fundamental points of Christian doctrine to advances in historical scholarship? Did developments within philosophy require the abandonment of reliance on claims about the nature of reality, and of human existence, which had been seen as essential to Christianity? This course will be devoted to tracking these discussions. Some of the authors to be treated are Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Strauss, Kierkegaard, Newman, von Harnack, and Schweitzer.
Classes will meet in person on campus. Remote students will either attend class sessions by videochat or will have access to audio recordings of class meetings. All students, local and remote, will have access to pre-recorded video content; all students will contribute to class discussion via posts to Moodle. Local and remote students may be asked to prepare brief presentations on assigned readings to be delivered either in person or by prerecorded video.
Fall semester. Professor A. Dole
How to handle overenrollment: null
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Close reading and analysis of unfamiliar texts; brief written reflections; classroom discussions and presentations; formally written papers.