MLA: God, Nature and Human Nature
For MLA course 619 GOD, NATURE and HUMAN NATURE, I have chosen to require, as our primary reading, this work by the highly respected and immensely learned author-scholar, Karen Armstrong: A History of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1939/94 - pbk. $16.00). It is a very reader-friendly book of about 470 pages, which offers, in 11 Chapters with Introduction + Maps + Glossary + Notes, a thematic study not so much of "the ineffable reality of God itself," but, rather, of how, over the course of millennia, "men and women have perceived ... the One God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims..." (K. A. - Introduction). She also examines Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of Ultimate Reality (Paul Tillich) so as "to make a monotheistic point clearer." Yet "the One God" has not always historically been the identical focus/object/heart of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith-traditions. Her questions illuminate how complex any theological inquiry ineluctably turns out to be - and these very questions will pursue us as we pursue our own investigations: "Is the 'God' who is rejected by atheists today, the God of the patriarchs, the God of the mystics or the God of the eighteenth-century deists? All these deities have been venerated as the God of the Bible and the Koran by Jews, Christians and Muslims at various points of their history. We shall see that they are very different from one another. Atheism has often been a transitional state: thus Jews, Christians and Muslims were all called 'atheists' by their pagan contemporaries because they had adopted a revolutionary notion of divinity and transcendence. Is modern atheism a similar denial of a 'God' which is no longer adequate to the problems of our time?" Manifestly, Karen Armstrong's book is challengingly relevant to 21st-century ponderers; her presentation is not at all narrowly dogmatic, yet not lacking in intellectual punch. Our secondary text is Philip Wilkinson's Illustrated Dictionary of Religions: Rituals, Beliefs, and Practices from around the World (IDR). Our class will meet Tuesday evenings @ 6:30-9:00 p.m. in Bridges 267. For a full course-description see the MLA Newsletter MLA Connections Spring 2007. Our exploration of this challenging, profound, and multifaceted topic will lead us, over the centuries and across the globe, into the roots of what Karen Armstrong calls a "4,000-year Quest." She /we will read about "the One God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims" - that is, the world's principal monotheistic faiths, and she/we will also examine other religious traditions, both ancient and modern, looking for parallels and contrasts in order to achieve intellectual balance and oecumenical objectivity. And so, we, with both KA and PW as our authoritative guides, will engage in seminar-dialogues focussed on a variety of conceptions of and beliefs in Transcendence, however named (Allah, Yahweh, Krishna, Christ, ...), as well as the interrelationships/interconnections/interweavings among the Holy/Sacred/Divine realms and figures, the Natural world, and the Human values integral to socio-cultural systems developed by humankind over the centuries.
WEEK I: T 8/28 - Introduction to our course: Names & Syllabus, with comments on Requirements. Please glance at the maps in AHG and peruse its Glossary on pages 401-407, and READ pp. xvii-xxiii: KA's Introduction. + IDR: pp.6-15: PW's Introduction & pages 120-121: General Terms.
WEEK II: T 9/4 - AHG: Ch. 1: 3-lower34 up to "... in logical terms." + IDR: 16-21: Ancient Religions - Egypt, ...
WEEK III: T 9/11 - AHG: Chs. 1 & 2: 34-lower65: "... Enoch and Daniel." + IDR: 22-25: Greece, Rome, ...
WEEK IV: T 9/18 - AHG: Chs. 1 & 2 & 3: 65-bottom94: "... radically displaced." + IDR: 26-31: Primal Religions
WEEK V: T 9/25: AHG: Chs. 3 & 4: 94-lower125: "... entirely reasonable." + IDR: 32-43: Hinduism
WEEK VI: T 10/2: AHG: Chs. 4 & 5: 125-lower155: "... to God himself." + IDR: 44-49: Jainism
WEEK VII: T 10/9: AHG: Chs. 5 & 6: 155-bottom186: "... rationalistic method." + IDR: 50-53: Sikhism
WEEK VIII: no class on T 10/16 - Non-Instructional Day
WEEK IX: T 10/23: AHG: Chs. 6 & 7: 186-lower217: "... of ultimate meaning." + IDR: 54-63: Buddhism
WEEK X: T 10/30: AHG: Ch. 7: 217-upper247: "... mystery of God." + IDR: 64-69: Buddhism in China, Tibet and Japan & Confucianism
WEEK XI: T 11/6: AHG: Chs. 7 & 8: 247-top279: "... sought to replace." + IDR: 70-73: Chinese Taoism and Japanese Shinto
WEEK XII: T 11/13: AHG: Chs. 8 & 9: 279-mid313: "... emergent atheism." + IDR: 74-85: Judaism
WEEK XIII: T 11/20: AHG: Ch. 9: 313-345 + IDR: 86-99: Christianity
WEEK XIV: T 11/27: AHG: Ch. 10: 346-mid373: "... sense of the word." + IDR: 100-113: Islam
WEEK XV: T 12/4: AHG: Ch. 10: 373-399 + IDR: 114-119: New Religions
WEEK XVI: T 12/11: Participatory RETROSPECTIVE of our seminar-journey, with presentations by our seminar-members of their Final-Essay topics. The typed paper (more on this later) should be submitted to me by Friday 12/14.
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I have typed the above today, Monday, July 29th. I expect to have additions subsequently, but the basic reading-schedule won't change. There will be Hand-outs as well as xeroxed extracts from Sacred Scriptures to illustrate the theological beliefs and ethical values of different religious traditions.