JPI 511/731
Faith and American Culture
This course consists of two parts. The first part (I) introduces the nature and concerns of philosophy. It proceeds (1) by reflecting on the fundamental “questions that pervade human life” (Fides et ratio, 1), in the context (2) of showing how philosophy and theology, especially theological anthropology of the kind studied at the Institute, are related. The purpose, further, is (3) to reflect on how the vision of Pope John Paul II embodies and develops the great tradition of Christian philosophy. Finally, these three purposes are carried out (4) by making an argument that extends through the entire first half of the semester, and the burden of which is that being is most properly understood as gift and gratitude.
The second part of the course (II) continues the above set of reflections in terms of American culture, (1) by examining some main assumptions of the culture as articulated by formative authors in and of the American experience, and (2) by examining how Catholic figures such as Leo XIII (Testem Benevolentiae, 1899), as well as American theologian John Courtney Murray and other representative American Catholic thinkers have dealt with these main assumptions (as expressed in Anglo-American liberalism).
