DESCRIPTION: This course, offered as a doctoral seminar, is open to master's level students with permission of the instructor. Every preacher makes knowledge claims. This course will examine claims of theological knowledge that are intrinsic to preaching and, by extension, to the congregation. Various historic, modern, and postmodern claims of theological knowledge, examined and unexamined by preachers, and their relation to the ministry of preaching will be discussed.

SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: The gospel of Jesus Christ presents the claim that human beings can come to know the triune God. This central affirmation about theological knowledge converges and collides with all the historical and contemporary debates about the nature of knowledge and affects both preachers and hearers. Effective and confident preaching and discipleship benefit from a maturing grasp of these issues and their implications.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Students will (1) grow in their understanding of the varying claims of theological knowledge that preachers make and the philosophical implications and issues that such claims raise; (2) grapple especially with the way that cultural debates about the possibilities of knowledge per se, not least theological knowledge, undermine and challenge the ministry of preaching; (3) attempt to define their understanding of the knowledge claims they affirm and trust for a preaching ministry.

COURSE FORMAT: Class will meet weekly for three hours in the doctoral seminar model. Students will read and discuss core material, look at additional material related to their research interests, prepare in-class presentations on their research, and write a final paper on a topic related to a particular theory of knowledge and its implications for preaching. Guest presenter Dallas Willard will lead two consecutive weeks' seminars based on his book on this subject.

REQUIRED READING:

Cooper, David. ed. Epistemology: The Classic Readings. Blackwell, 1999 (304 pp.).

Geivett, R. Douglas, and Brendan Sweetman. Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology. Oxford Press, 1993 (368 pp.).

Lash, Nicholas. Holiness, Speech & Silence: Reflections on the Question of God. Ashgate, 2004 (93 pp.).

Newbigin, L. Truth and Authority in Modernity: Christian Mission and Modern Culture. Trinity, 1996 (83 pp.).

___________. Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth. Eerdmans, 1991 (90 pp.).

Willard, D. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. HarperOne, 2009 (212 pp.).

Fifteen sermons by a patristic or sixteenth-century preacher and fifteen sermons by a twentieth- or twenty-first-century preacher.

Anselm. Why God Became Man: The Virgin Conception and Original Sin. Tran. Magi Books, 1969.

Borg, Marcus J. The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith. Harper San Francisco, 1997.

Fee, Gordon. Listening to the Spirit in the Text. Eerdmans, 2000.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Crossroad, 1991 or 2004.

Kerr, Fergus. Theology after Wittgenstein. Blackwell, 1986.

Torrance, T. F. Reality and Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation. IVP, 1982.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There a Meaning in this Text: The Bible, The Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Zondervan, 1998.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J., ed. The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age: Theological Essays on Culture and Religion. Eerdmans, 1997.