APPL 582
The Uses of Scripture in Theology: Examining Slavery, Sexuality, and Male-Female Relations in Light of Divine Love
This course is also offered as THEO 582
Why do Christians professing a high view of Scripture appeal to biblical texts and arrive at conclusions widely at variance with one another--sometimes even irreconcilable positions? What accounts for such disagreements?
The central concern of this course is learning how to clarify and do theological justice to “the logic of scriptural discourse” (David Yeago) as the Word of God, the written word attesting to the Living Word, who addresses and directs God’s people in the life of communion in holy love as the Spirit speaks with the Word and enlivens them. We will see how readers’ pre-understandings and hermeneutical practices (how they regard and weigh Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience) influences their theological reasoning, in ways that either serve or disserve the integrity of the canon as a whole: divine authorial discourse conveying good news about the Persons-in-relation, character, ways, and will of the Triune God with his people, for their good.
Thus, while the sub-topics of slavery, sexuality, and male-female relations will receive attention in turn, our focus is not Christian ethics as such. Also, obviously, it lies outside the scope of this course to treat the full range of human practices and theories pertaining to these areas in ancient and modern societies (e.g., we cannot engage in extensive comparison of types of unfree labor within different socioeconomic systems; address the plethora of issues associated with sexuality in its multidimensional complexity; or consider the varied visions and forms that male-female partnerships in marriage, work, and vocational ministry have taken or might take). Rather, the assigned readings present paradigm cases: the disparate arguments serve as instructive exemplars of biblical interpretation and theological reasoning. Assessing them for depth, breadth, and coherence–and discerning where genuine similarities and dissimilarities exist between them–helps to lay the groundwork for further exploration of such issues according to students’ research interests, both during the course–in the Class Presentations (from which all students will benefit) and the Research Papers–and beyond.
By engaging these matters with these materials, the course aims to equip students by (1) raising self-critical awareness of personal and communal interests, biases, and blind-spots as they approach Scripture; (2) introducing several multi-dimensional theological frameworks and hermeneutical criteria guiding the appeal to tradition, reason, and experience in a way that is commensurate with “the logic of biblical discourse”; (3) facilitating development of a nuanced understanding of the particularity, diversity and unity of concretely situated biblical texts; (4) providing a foundational framework and a general overview with and from which students can continue their own study and formulation concerning the paradigms examined in the course; and (5) fostering a posture of epistemic humility and active listening and learning from within the historic, global Church, in part by submitting their interpretations to testing by Christian communities unlike their own. The ultimate goal is to aid students’ growth in genuinely Christ-like integrity and discernment as hearers, doers, and ministers of the Word, coram Deo (“before God”).
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Credit Hours:
2 - 3
Audit Hours:
2
Prerequisites:
There are no prerequisites for this course.
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