2022- to current:
- Christian Spirituality (BA third years):
This module aims to give a general introduction to the Christian spiritual tradition, linking this to different ways of praying and understanding prayer regarding personal development and spiritual direction. In addition, it will relate understanding of Christianity to other spiritual traditions. Key learning aims, therefore, include: To understand the concept of ‘spirituality’ in a historical and contemporary context. To understand the development of Christian spirituality to understand the importance of mystical thinking in the Christian concept of God and the history of Christian thought, to work with classic texts of spirituality in a critically contextual fashion, To appreciate the relationship between Christianity and other spiritualities.
- Christian Anthropology and Ethics: Human Beings and Action ( Masters 1st years)
This course has been designed to allow students to reflect theologically, philosophically, historically, and holistically on what it means to be human in relation to ethics and morality. It focuses on human action (what we do) and how it is grounded in ontological and metaphysical questions (what we are). It has a focus on Christian Anthropology.
Students will learn about the different theological and philosophical conceptions of what it means to be a human person. This will explore different ethical standpoints that arise from such formulations—deontological, teleological, natural moral law and virtue theory. Finally, learners will be expected to explore, discuss, analyse, and evaluate these arguments in relation to modern ethical dilemmas presented in:
- Spiritual Direction, Psychology and Spiritual Formation (Masters 2nd years)
This course will examine historical notions of self, psyche and soul and relate them to understanding spiritual formation and development in the Christian tradition, especially regarding spiritual direction. As well as giving a historical framework to terms such as ‘soul’, ‘psyche’ and ‘spirit’, it will present students with the key schools of thought that have shaped contemporary forms of spiritual direction. The course will also investigate these terms in pastoral settings and relate the theoretical to the practical application of insights in spiritual direction and formation. The material covered will include Origins of the terms ‘soul’, ‘psyche’ and ‘spirit’ in classical and early Christian usage; spiritual direction in the Desert, medieval and early modern contexts; Freud, Jung, and the 20th Century psychoanalytic schools; contemporary psychological understandings; spiritual direction and its relationship to psychoanalysis and counselling; the discernment of spirits and the re-emergence of ‘soul-language’ in modern psychology.
2021-2022:
- Metaethics ( BA Third-years)
This module will introduce you to some of the high-level debates in metaethics. The module will largely be student-led, with the students primarily teaching each other the different topics. The lecturer will guide the students through the technical terms and trickier concepts. Finally, the module will examine Moore’s monumental impact and how it fundamentally reshaped the metaethical landscape by working through Miller’s Contemporary Metaethics: An Introduction. At the end of this module, you will not only understand high-level metaethics but also possess the skills and confidence to pick up an academic book on metaethics and work your way through it. This will unlock a world of scholarly literature for you to enjoy for the rest of your life.
- Religion and Reason (BA First years)
Can we justify belief in the existence of God, the afterlife, or other related doctrines purely using reason and argumentation (as opposed to scripture and revelation)? Conversely, can we disprove the existence of God? Throughout history, philosophers and theologians have used highly sophisticated arguments to justify their belief in theism, atheism, miracles, the afterlife, and everything in between. This field is known as the philosophy of religion (when done by philosophers) or natural theology (when done by theologians). In this module, we will examine some of the most important arguments in this field.
2020
- History, Philosophy and Ethics of Chinese Martial Arts. A five-day BA module was given at Masaryk University. September 2020 Masaryk University.