Here are the readings for my course: "After Notre Dame: The Responsibilities of a Lay Theologian." The course is for seniors who have double-majored in Theology and something else and are very likely to take a job in the other field. What happens when they are outside of the Notre Dame bubble?
ANNOUNCEMENT: In honor of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the Lonergan Institute will host two panels discussing the “Prolegomena” of Lonergan’s 1960s work, The Triune God: Doctrines, since published as *The Way to Nicea*. events.shu.edu/event/42170-...
Definitely. I'll send it around.
This looks incredible! I may have to come to listen to these papers.
to adjudicate considerably more claims than they had to in the past, but given no tools to do so, it's not very surprising that they would end up frustrated and mean, turning to tribalism for quick answers -- a kind of cognitional fast food that stands in place of substantial thinking.
I was talking with a friend who's an actual Lonerganian and put forward the idea that so many people are so mean and frustrated because the human mind is driven by a desire to know the truth and yet we give people so little training in how one discovers that. So, in a world where people are asked
Notre Dame is hiring in New Testament: apply.interfolio.com/170876
If you are interested and want to talk to someone who's at ND, please reach out to me!
Just submitted a paper proposal for PMR titled, "It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right: The Pedagogical and Polemical Strategies of John of Damascus’ Contra Nestorianos and De Fide Contra Nestorianos"
I hate to do the Lonergan thing, but it really seems to me that universities are rolling over on AI so quickly because few academics have given much thought to their own cognition and to what learning and knowing actually are.
I think Peter totally counts! And Evaristus is supposed to have been Jewish as well (per the Liber Pontificalis).
I teach History of the Papacy here at
@notredame.bsky.social and there's one thing I know for sure: nobody knows who the next Pope will be. The history of conclaves is a history of surprises and unintended consequences.
"If a teacher settles a question simply by an appeal to authorities, the students will have their certitude that the facts are indeed as stated; but they will acquire no knowledge or understanding, and they will go away empty." Aquinas, Quaestiones Quodlibetales 4, q. 9, a. 3.
The 2024 movie “Conclave” dares to ask the bold question: what if we made cardinals out of people who failed their 6th grade religion class?
On Nazi salutes, I'll quote Aquinas:
It belongs to the virtue of truth to show oneself outwardly by outward signs to be such as one is. Now outward signs are not only words, but also deeds....it is contrary to truth to employ signs of deeds or things to signify the contrary of what is in oneself.
Deus', he must not in any way have held orthodox beliefs about Mary. This seems like special pleading to me.
We read with this generosity because we understand what Augustine is getting at, though he lacks the precise language of later insights. Yet, some will then turn to his statements on Mary and, because he does not write them with the same language used in Pius IX's 'Ineffabilis
Thinking about Augustine and Mary a little more after a convo on X - there's a necessary generosity in reading Augustine's Christology because he uses phrases that, after Neo-Chalcedonianism or Scholasticism, are infelicitous. "Homo Assumptus" caused no small problem among Carolingian authors.
"...plurality without epistemological foundations nearly inevitably produces relativism in the untrained mind."
This remains one of my favorite CLJ essays to date.
churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/tea...
TASL is a program that addresses reaffiliation in the Catholic Church, teaching theology and answering theological questions at the level of our times at the University of Notre Dame. The tremendous good that this program is doing is the work of the grace of God.
Another Take a Second Look class sponsored by
the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame taught by William Mattison on CS Lewis and the problem of evil. This is 7pm on a Monday night and the room is full to bursting.
I take it to be a mark of a learned person that they can entertain ideas with which they disagree, even presenting the very best arguments on the other side. How do we cultivate that in people?
My institute at Notre Dame is hosting a homiletic competition, focused on preaching about Mary. Check it out here:
mcgrath.nd.edu/about/center...
While writing my book on the Apostles' Creed, I'm thinking about the role of error in forcing the orthodox to articulate and clarify what had been previously felt and lived.
"But the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfil the commandments..."
Hilary, De Trinitate, 2.2
In addition to reading the minor prophets, I would recommend people take a look at Augustine's De Civitate Dei as a critique of empire and the sorts of distorted loves that arise in it.
The more relevant Latin theological phrase is not ordo amoris, but libido dominandi - the lust for domination, a favorite phrase of St. Augustine's. Political spite, glee over the despair of others, "owning" others, trolling others, etc, are all born out of this impulse.
Without the humanities, how are people expected to have the concepts and grammar to sort through moral claims? It seems like all you're left with are preferences and what feels immediately satisfying, not values that would cause you to act with a higher purpose.
As an educator, I have been thinking a lot about how little prepared for moral reasoning a lot of folks are. I am not sure what there is to do about it, especially because one of the major solvents of that has been pushing a STEM only model of education.
Did everyone else already know that Jerry Orbach was the voice of Lumiere in the 91 Beauty and the Beast?!
This book is so good so far. A Lonerganian NT book is right up my alley.
