This unit introduces students to key thinkers, doctrinal themes, and spiritual practices that characterise the so-called “patristic” period of Christian history. Students will investigate discrete doctrinal themes, attend to social, ecclesial and historical contexts within which leading Christian thinkers lived and worked as well as explore the tensions at play in the relations between orthodoxy and heresy, church and state, east and west, doctrine and practice and creative and inauthentic progress. Progressing historically, and preparing students for critical engagement in other systematic, historical and pastoral theological disciplines, the subject emphasises the Fathers’ commitment to the centrality of the incarnation for knowing the meaning of the universe, the decisive role of Christ’s humanity for creaturely participation in divine life and the primacy of the lived experience of prayer and liturgical communion for integral Christian existence.
Unit code: CT2015C
Unit status: Approved (New unit)
Points: 18.0
Unit level: Undergraduate Level 2
Unit discipline: Systematic Theology
Proposing College: Catholic Theological College
Show when this unit is running1. | Demonstrate basic facility with some of the skills needed to utilise key secondary research tools for studying the first five centuries of the Christian era. |
2. | Comprehend the dynamic relation between select Christian thinkers, doctrines and/or practices and their respective historical, intellectual and cultural contexts. |
3. | Elucidate the progressive character of patristic theology by attending to the ways certain words and concepts developed and changed according to context. |
Learning tasks in this unit will consist in preparatory assisted reading with discussion questionnaires, guided classroom discussions, interactive lectures, and formative and summative written assessment tasks.
Type | Description | Word count | Weight (%) |
---|---|---|---|
Essay | 2500-word essay |
0 | 60.0 |
Tutorial Paper/Seminar Paper | 250-word tutorial paper |
0 | 5.0 |
Tutorial Paper/Seminar Paper | 250-word tutorial paper |
0 | 5.0 |
Tutorial Paper/Seminar Paper | 250-word tutorial paper |
0 | 5.0 |
Tutorial Paper/Seminar Paper | 250-word tutorial paper |
0 | 5.0 |
Essay | 1000-word essay |
0 | 20.0 |
Unit approved for the University of Divinity by John Capper on 4 Sep, 2018
Unit record last updated: 2019-04-04 15:10:58 +1100