JPI 510Theological Anthropology: History and Method Beginning with an examination of the problem of anthropology in modernity, this course will examine the main theses of a theological anthropology which include: predestination (of Jesus Christ and of men in Jesus Christ); creation (in Christ); the relation between nature and grace; man as imago Dei (ad imaginem) both in his personhood and in sexual difference; original sin; and justification.
JPI 513 Modernity and Humanism This course examines, from a philosophical perspective, the dynamics of the process of modernization that has continued from the late Middle Ages to today in Western culture and is making its impact felt throughout the world. The course’s focal point is upon the impact of the Enlightenment, which summed up and crystallized the shape of modernity in Europe and elsewhere.
JPI 515 Domestic Church: Biblical Foundations John Paul II has stated that the future of humanity passes by way of the family. The purpose of this course is to construct a theology of the domestic church. This task requires a) the development of a hermeneutic for the recovery of a Scriptural view of reality; b) an analysis of the biblical basis (from both the Old and New Testaments) for this doctrine; and c) an examination of the appropriation and development of these key foundational Biblical constructs within early Christianity and their sudden reappearance in modern times, particularly in magisterial teaching. Thematically, the course treats of the structure of creation, the role of family within the Abrahamic covenant, the family as locus of the Hebraic cult, the educative role of family in the Scriptures, and its place and meaning within the Christian reality.
JPI 517/817 Jesus Christ: Revealer of God and Man This course seeks to give students an introduction to Christology that will help them to deepen their understanding of the Christocentric approach to anthropology that characterizes the pontificate of John Paul II. The course thus seeks to impart familiarity with the development and significance of key ideas in Christology. The first part of the course presents Christ’s self-revelatory method, examining what he reveals of God and how this revelation occurs. The second part of the course studies the major controversies surrounding the person and mission of Jesus Christ and the thinkers who played a decisive role in these controversies. Attention is paid to the patristic era and to the gradual development of the understanding of the crucial concepts of nature and person. The sense in which Christ reveals man to himself is elucidated in the last part of the course, which treats texts by Maximus the Confessor, John Paul II, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
JPI 518 Theology of Mary This course will deal with the theological significance of the Virgin Mary, which can only be understood if presented in the wide horizon of God’s plan: to establish a communion of persons with the human being. That means that we will consider Mary, following the guidelines traced by the Second Vatican Council, in the mystery of Christ and of the Church. Only the light of Christ can disclose to us the importance of His mother’s person, ad Mariam per Iesum (cf. GS 22, RM 4): In her unique relationship with Christ she appears as fulfillment of the nuptial covenant of God with the people of Israel and, at the same time, as the living and concrete image of the pilgrim Church. According to a sort of circularity, Mary offers then a point of view that allows us to contemplate rightly the work of Christ, ad Iesum per Mariam. The structure of the course follows a historical thread: the mysteries of the life of Mary. All the traditional topics of Mariology (Immaculate Conception, Virginity, Divine Motherhood, Assumption, collaboration in the redemption, etc.) will be covered as we consider Mary’s course of existence (from her Old Testament roots to the final Parousia). Her pilgrimage in faith will give us the key to contemplating the whole life of Jesus as a mystery, that is, as the revelation and action of the Triune God in the middle of human history. In this way, our study of the Virgin Mary will contribute to the understanding of man’s vocation in Christ (adequate anthropology) and to a better contemplation of the nuptial mystery. JPI 519/754Faith, Philosophy, and American CultureThis 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).
JPI 531/703 Virtue and Human Action This course studies the place of virtue, deliberation, choice, character, friendship, ends and purposes, and other elements in moral action. It examines the active and the theoretical life and discusses various forms of goodness and badness in moral conduct. Half of the course deals with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the rest with Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Mill’s Utilitarianism, Simon’s A General Theory of Authority, and selected passages from Thomas Aquinas. The aim of the course is to provide a range of categories that are essential to moral thinking.
JPI 532/811 Biblical Theology of Marriage and Family: Old Testament This course’s goal is twofold: to provide the student with an adequate understanding of how the Word of God to Israel instructs us in regard to marriage and family, and to deepen the process by which we can appropriate a biblical vision of reality. The course begins with an introduction to the hermeneutical question and an examination of “symbolic realism.” There will be a consideration of the historical and cultural aspects of marriage and family in Israel, including a brief comparison of Israel and its neighbors. The course then analyses critical Old Testament texts which touch on both marriage and family. Among the texts considered are the early chapters of Genesis, the Prophetic teaching on marriage itself and the relation of God and Israel in terms of a marriage covenant, and the teaching of the Wisdom tradition on marriage and matrimonial symbols including the Song of Songs.
JPI 535 Biblical Theology of Marriage and Family: New Testament This course builds on the Old Testament course and provides an introduction to the New Testament with a focus on issues related to marriage and family. The notions of the human person, marriage, and procreation established by God at Creation are mediated through Jesus Himself, His teachings, and the apostolic traditions of the early Church. The course discusses the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Gospel of John, and finally select letters of the apostle Paul. The course concentrates on the exegesis of key passages with a view to some fundamental questions that include: how do we be both good family members and good disciples of Christ? What does the New Testament say about the call to holiness and states of life? What exactly does Jesus teach about the nature of marriage? What does the evangelist John in particular reveal about the nature of the Christian community and the role of the Trinity in that community? What contributions does Paul make to the Christian understanding of marriage, consecrated life, and related moral issues?
JPI 539/840 The “Nuptial Body” in Historical–Theological Perspective This course studies John Paul II’s The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan—his “Wednesday catecheses”—through a reading of the text and a discussion of his scriptural, theological, and philosophical methodology. It shows how the dual unity of man and woman and their interpersonal communion, even in the body, image divine trinitarian life. The explanation will follow a historical thread, from Creation to the final resurrection of the flesh. A chapter devoted to the redemption of the body brought about by Christ through his death and resurrection will be added, in order better to grasp the theological unity of the proposal. John Paul II draws from this christological anthropology the nuptial nature of reality, which is expressed differently in marriage and consecrated celibacy, thus expressing the vocation of the Church as spouse of Christ. Special emphasis will be made on the foundations of the Theology of the Body in the Christian tradition. The course will draw also on other works by John Paul II that deal with marriage and the family, such as The Jeweler’s Shop, Love and Responsibility and Roman Triptych.
JPI 548/748 Fundamental Moral Theology: Freedom and Human Action This course takes up themes arising within fundamental moral theology. In what sense is moral theology really a theology? How can we relate the need for a moral “universality” of the humanum to the “particularity” of faith? What role do desire, fulfillment, love, truth, beauty, and the invitation to communion (cf. Veritatis splendor, ch. 1) play in our grounding of moral theology? The course takes up the issue of the relationship between “norm-based” and “virtue-based” moral theology, as well as the different understandings of freedom and moral action that tend to arise, given these different starting points. The course also addresses the specific themes raised by Veritatis splendor with regard to recent moral theology: freedom and truth, conscience, fundamental option, proportionalism, the ecclesial setting for moral action, and the role of Church teaching. Readings include Veritatis splendor and texts drawn from St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Kant, H. U. von Balthasar, S. Pinckaers, M. Rhonheimer, and L. Melina.
JPI 549/752 The Theology of Marriage and Virginity as States of Life This course considers the concept of a “state of life” as a specification of the human vocation to love (Familiaris consortio, 11). The tradition has often stated that marriage and virginity are complementary rather than fundamentally opposed to each other. At the center of this complementarity is each state’s analogous realization of the interior “form” of the vocation of human nature itself as revealed in Christ. The course explores the foundation of the two states in creation ex nihilo and their eschatological destiny, whether and in what sense we might call marriage a “state of perfection,” and the relation of the two states to the human person’s most fundamental and interior level of freedom. Readings include texts drawn from the writings of John Paul II, H. de Lubac, H. U. von Balthasar, St. Thomas Aquinas, A. Scola, M. Ouellet, and E. Schillebeeckx.
JPI 550 Gender/ The Sexual Difference This course considers the question of the sexual difference (gender) in terms of its theological and ontological foundations, and in light of issues raised regarding this question in the current cultural situation. Readings are drawn from Aristotle, John Paul II, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and a variety of contemporary authors (e.g., biologists, psychologists, theologians, cultural critics, American or French feminists).
JPI 602 Biotechnology and Ethics This course begins by reflecting on the notions of bios (life) and techné presupposed in the dominant theories and practices of bioscience/technology, asking whether these notions are “premoral”: that is, whether (in what sense) they are “neutral” toward the (ethical-human) good. The course then examines such issues as the new reproductive technologies, abortion, experimentation on human subjects (including stem-cell research and genetic therapy), concluding with issues regarding care of the dying, euthanasia/assisted suicide, determining when a person has died, etc. Readings include the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's " Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation" (Donum Vitae). The course will be taught by several professors, in philosophy, the biosciences, and moral theology.
JPI 620/813 Communio Personarum: Trinity and Church This course seeks both to introduce students to trinitarian theology and ecclesiology and to deepen their awareness of the import of the twentieth-century renewal of the doctrine of the Church that culminated in the Second Vatican Council. Taking the communio personarum as its guiding thread, the course first discusses the role of the notion of communio in the renewal of twentieth-century ecclesiology. It then goes on to explore the ultimate source of this communio through a substantial introduction to some of the principal figures in trinitarian theology, such as Athanasius and the Cappadocians, Augustine, Richard of Saint Victor, Aquinas, and von Balthasar. Finally, it offers a systematic account of the nature of the Church as participation, through the missions of Christ and the Holy Spirit, in the communion existing among the three divine Persons. In this context, the course also seeks to unfold the “missionary” implications of the Church as sacramental realization of mankind’s universal destiny to share in the trinitarian communio.
JPI 622/822 Redemption of Sexuality This course presents the understanding of human sexuality and of sexual morality as developed in the continuing Catholic tradition, contrasting it with the understandings of human sexuality and sexual morality current in contemporary culture. It begins with an investigation of the meaning of human sexuality and of the complementarity of man and woman. It then reviews the development of Catholic teaching on sexual morality, focusing on the issues of contraception and homosexual activity to illustrate the profound differences between a Catholic and theologically/philosophically sound understanding of sexual morality and contemporary understandings, advanced either by secular writers or revisionist Catholic theologians. A major aim of the course is to show the truth of Pope John Paul II’s claim in Familiaris consortio 32 regarding the profound difference, anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle, a difference ultimately rooted in irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. This course integrates thoroughly the understanding of human sexuality developed by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II in Love and Responsibility.
JPI 634/826 Sacramentality of Marriage This course offers a systematic discussion of the sacrament of matrimony, addressing both the concept of sacramentality generally and its relationship to marriage in particular. The course consists of three parts. The first part of the course examines the main elements needed for an elaboration of nuptial sacramental theology. In the second part, the history of the doctrine of marriage’s sacramentality is examined, with attention to the main criteria elucidated in the first part and to the development of the doctrine on sacramentality. This middle part examines readings taken from Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure, the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent, Vatican II and the writings of Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John Paul II. The last part of the course proposes a theology of the sacrament of marriage in light of the theology of gift presented in the Second Vatican Council and developed by John Paul II.
JPI 641/841 Marriage and Family in Patristic Theology This course provides an introduction to the study of marriage and family in the early Church through a reading of representative patristic texts that situates them within a particular literary and historical context. Early Christian views of the Incarnation, revelation, and salvation invoke elements of Christian anthropology that relate to marriage and family, e.g., competing concepts of the physical body, life, and death in the ancient world necessarily raised questions as to whether Christians should marry and bear children or practice celibacy. Issues of marriage and family were also important in the Church’s efforts to combat heresy, since many groups identifying themselves as “Christian” discounted the need for marriage and procreation.
JPI 645/845 The Social Ethics of John Paul II This course attempts to locate John Paul II’s social ethics within his broader theological vision. The course therefore begins with a consideration of John Paul’s “trinitarian encyclicals” as the starting point necessary to understanding the teaching of his “social encyclicals” and other writings. Readings in John Paul’s writing are supplemented by the works of other authors. Issues addressed in the course include the relationship between so-called “private morality” and “social ethics,” the question of whether magisterial social teaching is an “ideology,” the nature of “freedom,” and the role of marriage and family—given their status as both the “domestic Church” and the “fundamental cell of society”—in the generation of a “culture” or “civilization of love.”
JPI 655/855 Constitutional Law and the Family: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives This course examines American constitutional and civil law treatment of marriage and the family, particularly in relation to the nature of marriage and family itself, and to the closely related issues of procreation, abortion, adoption, and euthanasia. The course begins with classical texts (Aristotle, Thomas) regarding the nature of law and its role in society and the relation between natural and positive law. The class then examines early United States Supreme Court decisions that established and set the terms of the relationship between the person and society/culture. The nature of the person and liberty are given an in-depth treatment. In particular, the course considers the shifting notion of “rights” in constitutional jurisprudence. In this context, the course tracks the development of, and critically examines, the “right to privacy” which has become so fundamental to constitutional law’s treatment of the person in relation to all others in society. Readings include United States Supreme Court and other court opinions, as well as other legal materials and law review articles.
JPI 660 Neurological and Psychological Dimensions of Gender and Family Pope John Paul II stated, “Only a Christian anthropology, enriched by the contribution of indisputable scientific data, including that of modern psychology and psychiatry, can offer a complete and thus realistic vision of humans.” This vision will guide the exploration of the neurological and psychological discoveries regarding male and female gender. Topics to be covered also include divorce, sexual and physical abuse, homosexuality, abortion, psychotherapy, marriage counseling, family therapy, and pastoral responses to these issues.
JPI 714 Veritatis Splendor and Contemporary Moral Theology After a detailed presentation of the teaching of John Paul II in Veritatis splendor, this course will examine in depth representative texts from revisionist and nonrevisionist theologians on the following issues central to Veritatis splendor on which they are sharply divided: (1) the relationship between faith (or the order of salvation) and morality; (2) the relationship between personal conscience, the moral teaching of the Church, and the question of dissent; (3) natural law, morality, and magisterial teaching; (4) fundamental option and specific free choices; (5) making true moral judgments and good moral choices (the morality of human acts and the question of moral absolutes). The course will next examine representative texts from nonrevisionist theologians to see how they differ among themselves in their thought on matters of great importance, specifically, on the Christocentric character of the Christian moral life, and the role of virtues and of the beatitudes in that life. Finally, Veritatis splendor will be revisited and important reactions to it by revisionist and nonrevisionist theologians will be examined. Of authors to be studied are: Joseph Fuchs, Richard McCormick, Charles Curran, Louis Janssens among revisionists; and Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Livio Melina, Servais Pinckaers, and Carlo Caffarra among nonrevisionists.
JPI 715 Covenantal Reality: Creation and Relationality Covenant is at the heart of God’s relationship to his people. This course will examine the numerous covenants and their constitutive structure within the Old Testament and their relationship to each other. The meaning of covenant, its development within the canon, its relationship to its ancient Near Eastern context, and the trajectory it takes within the prophetic and messianic texts will be explored. Fundamental to this course are the critical questions of a) creation as a covenant, b) the role of human response and freedom and c) how Israel’s view of marriage was affected by their understanding and experience of covenant. Scriptural texts which deal explicitly with covenant and those which are implicitly structured on covenantal terminology will be studied with special reference to Hebrew and Greek terminology. Finally, the complex question of how the Old and New Covenants are related will be examined, including a critique of covenantal nomism.
JPI 725 Theological Meaning of Love and Sexuality This course will begin with a consideration of the affective dimension of human love through an analysis of the Thomistic doctrine of connaturality (amor naturalis) and the passion of love. The course will then move to an examination of the specifically human love (amor rationalis) in its two basic manifestations, (“love of concupiscence” and “love of friendship”). Such distinctions (which also include that between selfishness and the proper love of one’s own good) will introduce the thorny problem of the relation between the desire for happiness (fulfillment) and the requisite love of another “for his own sake,” and its attendant problem of the “order of love” between love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor. The contemporary debate about the compatibility of eros and agape will then be considered. Finally, the course will end with a look at the essential features of a theology of sexuality, and how, in particular, the “dual unity” of man and woman bears on the aforementioned classical distinctions.
JPI 758 Confession: Reconciliation and Communion The communion of persons to which man is called is a process carried forward along several stages. Reconciliation plays therein an important role, as attested to by the place of the sacrament of penance in the Christian life. This sacrament is also called confession because of one of its central parts, which will make the object of our course. The act of confession will be situated in its sacramental context, in relationship with the redemptive act of Christ. After considering the dogmatic foundations, we will continue our analysis by a reading of St. Augustine’s Confessions and the works of other authors of the theological and philosophical tradition (St. Teresa of Avila, Jean J. Rousseau, F. Dostoyevsky, F. Ebner). All this will allow us to understand the place of confession in the dynamism of communion, as the retrieval of that original transparency that is part of God’s plan from the beginning.
JPI 759 Anthropology, Morality, and the Truth of Familiaris Consortio 32 In Familiaris consortio 32 Pope John Paul II boldly declared that "the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle, is much wider and deeper than is usually recognized...and is ultimately grounded in irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality." This course will study literature pro and con regarding contraception from the mid 1960s until after Humanae vitae to show that defenders of contraception have a dualistic understanding of the human person and a consequentialist/proportionalist moral methodology that denies that there are intrinsically evil acts and moral absolutes, whereas those who defend recourse to the rhythm of the cycle as the proper way to regulate conception have a holistic understanding of the human person and unitary being of body and of soul and a moral methodology that recognizes that some acts, specified by their objects, are intrinsically evil and proscribed by absolute moral norms.
JPI 809/928 Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II This course examines, in its first half, the philosophical sources used by Karol Wojtyla, in particular, Kant, Schelling, and Hume. The course’s second part is given over to an analysis of Wojtyla’s philosophical writings, especially the Lublin Lectures, The Acting Person, and several articles.
JPI 930 The Trinitarian Meaning of Human Suffering This course takes as its starting point John Paul II’s encyclicals Redemptor Hominis, Dives in Misericordia, and Dominum et Vivificantem, and the apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris; and it attempts to advance a theological understanding of the meaning of evil and suffering. This reflection is set against the backdrop of the examination in the contemporary situation of the meaning of suffering. Besides the work of John Paul II, the other main authors examined in the course are Plotinus, Aquinas, Hegel, von Balthasar, and E. Mounier. JPI 931 Moral Action, Moral Object This course examines the fundamental idea of moral action as it is present in a number of authors. Discussion centers around each author’s theory of action, the conditions and structure of human action, and the continuities and discontinuities between the various theories. Readings include selections from Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Blondel, and Balthasar.
JPI 932 Theology of the Body and the Development of Doctrine: Irenaeus and Newman The Theology of the Body, as developed by John Paul II in his “Wednesday catecheses,” follows a historical thread, from the beginning of creation to the final resurrection. This development is not accidental: the temporal dimension belongs to the very core of that theology. In order to consider that fact, we will read the work of Irenaeus of Lyon, which moves along the lines of the patient assimilation of the human flesh to the divine Spirit. The temporality of God’s communication in history will then set the foundations for a better understanding of the development of doctrine. The study of Irenaeus, completed with a reading of some works by John H. Newman, will convey to us the most important clues for this task. JPI 936 History of Sexuality and Gender This seminar studies the evolution of historical study of sexuality and gender during recent decades. It pays attention to the historical evolution of the language of sexuality, and the ways in which terminology orders, as well as expresses, experience. It attends to the innovations in historical studies which have resulted from various forms of feminism, gender study, and social history. The course attempts an overview of the history of ancient, medieval, and modern sexuality, focused on the western, European, and American worlds but with some comparative attention to other cultures. JPI 937 Causality and Retrieval of Interiority The course is dedicated to the recovery of a philosophical sense of interiority. It will begin by distinguishing other forms and modes of inwardness: physical dissection, psychological introspection, artistic and literary character depiction, religious mysticism. The appreciation of a properly philosophical interiority has tended to fade out of contemporary consciousness, both in the popular as well as the learned culture, with important consequences for the culture at large. The reflection will be based upon selected philosophical writings.
JPI 938 Biotechnology and the Good The purpose of this course is to reflect on the meaning of bios and techné in light of the origin and nature of the (ethical) good. The starting point for reflection is set by John Paul II’s writings regarding the “nuptial body” (what does this notion imply for an understanding of biology?); by Evangelium vitae's understanding of human life (what is its nature and whence arises its dignity?); by Veritatis splendor's rejection of the notion of a "premoral" body and of the detachment of human freedom from "its essential and constitutive relationship to truth." The course will meet twice every other week: a first session (two one-and-one-half-hour seminars) will focus on foundational sources regarding the meaning of bios and techné. Readings for these sessions will be drawn variously from Christian theology (e.g., R. Brague, Maximus the Confessor, W. Pannenberg, H. U. von Balthasar); the "ancients" (e.g., Plato, Aristotle); the "moderns" (e.g., Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Boyle, Huygens, Newton); and alternatives to either (both) the ancients or (and) the moderns (e.g., Goethe, Heidegger, Jonas, MacIntyre, Bohm, Portmann, Monod, Dawkins). A second session (one-and-one-quarter-hour seminar) will discuss the ethical issues raised by biotechnology in the current cultural situation. Readings for this second session will be drawn variously from the writings of B. Commoner, W. Berry, G. Grant, J. Rifkin, L. Kass, the President's Council on Bioethics.
JPI 940 Revelation and the Logic of Christian Experience This course seeks to examine the structure of an adequate concept of Christian experience and its bond with Divine Revelation. The broadly used concept of "experience" is highly problematic in the history of Catholic and Protestant theology. Nevertheless, as the dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum suggests, "experience" remains an indispensable term when faith is understood as the encounter between the whole person and God (DV, 2.8).
The course consists of three parts. It first approaches the structure of human experience in order to discover its relation with Christian experience. Then, in light of Dei Verbum, it elucidates the main elements of the concept of Christian experience as presented in Scripture. The third part of the course examines the objective and subjective dimensions of Christian experience. Since Christian experience springs from the encounter with God, understanding this concept requires examining both the meaning of the spiritual senses, and the roles of reason and freedom as man comes to see and adhere to the Incarnate Logos. Lastly, after having studied the subjective dimension of the concept of experience, the course seeks to elucidate its objective side by approaching the ecclesiological dimension of experience. The main authors treated in this seminar are: John Paul II, Origen, J. Mouroux, F. Schleiermacher, some contemporary feminist theologians, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and L. Giussani.
JPI 941 The Mysteries of the Life of Christ and the Meaning of Time and History A correct understanding of Gaudium et Spes, 22, is crucial for developing the adequate anthropology John Paul II speaks of in his writings. The contemplation of Jesus Christ, who reveals the mystery of the Father and his love, allows us to fully see a new image of man. In this regard, it is important to notice that this section of the pastoral constitution refers to the whole of the life of Christ, from the Incarnation to the Death and Resurrection of the Lord. Christ “has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin”, and that in turn means: He has assumed also human time and a part of human history.
This course focuses on how a consideration of the life of Christ opens a new understanding of human time and history. A theological category will constitute the guideline of our discussion: the concept of Mystery, deemed by Joseph Ratzinger to be the most fruitful term of 20th Century theology. The course will draw from the understanding of mystery in Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, as well as from the Christology of some modern theologians (such as W. Pannenberg, J. Ratzinger, K. Rahner and H. U. von Balthasar), in order to see the fruitfulness of a Christology focused on the mysteries of the life of Jesus. The different mysteries of the life of Christ, understood in their interconnection and development as an exodus of love and as the very dynamic of Jesus’ self-giving (cf. Deus Caritas Est 7; 12), will reveal to us the meaning of human history and the sense of time in human existence. JPI 942 Law, Nature, and the Language of Heterosexuality Is law an expression of wisdom or knowledge about the human person? Is it a language about reality? Modern jurisprudence characteristically begins with a denial of any intrinsic relation between law and nature or truth. Can this position be maintained concretely? Does the thesis contain internal contradictions? What does it suggest about the meaning of the body, the nature of reason, and their relationship in society? One implication might be a tacit rejection of an inherent meaningfulness of the human body, and particularly its sexual differentiation, for the person and for society. But what sort of anthropology does this codify? What does this imply concerning the meaning of freedom and human inclinations, since the latter might be tacitly treated as arising from a body demoted to sub-personal, material reality?
This class will address the question of the relationship between theological/philosophical anthropology—in particular the meaning of the body and sexuality for the person—and civil law. Readings may include: Plato, W. Jaeger, Thomas, C. Dawson, Descartes, Hume, Kant, J. S. Mill, L. Strauss, E. Ehrlich, M. Blondel, P. Ricoeur, H.L.A. Hart, R. Dworkin, M. Wittig, M. Foucault, N. Katz. JPI 943The Spousal Relation and the Nurturing Body: Theological/historical PerspectivesArguing from Angelo Scola’s proposition that the nuptial mystery of love, sexual difference and procreation is the analogia princeps of the divine mysteries this course examines how historically distortions in living out human sexuality have impacted doctrine, ecclesiology/mariology, faith and worship and vice versa. Our sexuality includes our masculine and feminine nature as bodily persons: both the unitive and procreative dimensions of sexual intercourse and, for women, maternal nursing. The course examines how, beginning in the late Middle Ages, these distortions have led logically to modern contraception and its attendant dualism. There will be two methodological approaches: (1) Scola’s nuptial mystery will be the overarching context. (2) Key figures and their thought in each period from Bernard of Clairvaux, women mystics and philosophers, Descartes and Calvin to Von Balthasar and John Paul II will be singled out as representative of the age’s distortion or restoration of the nuptial mystery. The course will stress particularly the interplay between the spousal relation and the nurturing body.
JPI 947 Prophetic Vision of Reality and the Nuptial Paradigm The prophetic vision in the Old Testament was given as a corrective to a falsification of the understanding of the covenant which was prevalent in pre-Exilic Israel. The vocation of Israel and its understanding of covenantal reality had become seriously compromised. Consequently, the force of God’s Word had to enter into the human consciousness of Israel and reformulate her basic orientation to God and to those who were members of the divine covenant (berith). One of the central paradigms that particularly developed during the prophetic period was the understanding of the nuptial structure of the covenant itself. This nuptial vision would eventually have a reciprocal effect upon Israel’s understanding of human marriage, particularly after the Exile. This course will explore a) the nature of prophecy within the Old Testament and its specific role in safeguarding the covenant, b) the historical context and the conditions which gave rise to their corrective visions, c) the specific contents of the prophets’ visions and d) the use of nuptial and familial language and constructs which enabled the truth of the covenant to be re-discovered in Israel. Finally, we will examine the Intertestamental period to see what trajectory these ideas follow and how they reach their fulfillment in the Messianic Bridegroom.
JPI 948 Eschatology, Communion, and Secularity Vatican II called upon the lay faithful to work for the coming of God’s kingdom within the structures of the saeculum, of the world. This mandate points to a “third way” between integralism, on the one hand, and accommodation to the surrounding culture, on the other. But, how, precisely, is such a “third way” possible? The present course seeks to answer this question by focusing on the eschatological meaning of “secularity.” The saeculum, and everything in it, has an “ultimate” value—not as an alternative to God, but in the pure relativity to God by which it participates in the pure relativity of love within the Trinitarian communion itself. This indicates the way of the Church’s mission after Vatican II: radical embrace of all people and all things, not in the name of liberal “inclusivity,” but in the name of a truly Catholic communion that challenges and transforms even as it saves.
JPI 949 Modernity in America This course examines the nature of modernization in America—how this process shares in and differs from modernization in continental Europe. The course ponders such matters as human dignity/rights, technology, and God/religion, in light of the distinctiveness of Anglo-American liberalism and claims of American "exceptionalism." Readings will be drawn variously from the Founders (e.g., Madison, Jefferson), "classical" interpretations of America (e.g., Tocqueville, Weber), twentieth-century interpretations of modernity/liberalism (e.g., M. Heidegger, L. Strauss, A. MacIntyre, G. Grant, P. Manent, J. C. Murray, J. Ratzinger), and select papal encyclicals (e.g., Testem Benevolentiae, Veritatis Splendor, Evangelium Vitae, Centesimus Annus, Deus Caritas Est).
JPI 950 Feminism in Theology and Culture With an eye to the “New Feminism” of John Paul II, this course will examine the core aspects of contemporary feminism, in what has come to be its two main manifestations, viz., “equality feminism” and “difference feminism,” through a reading of some of its key texts and a consideration of its theological presuppositions and implications. |