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My first session of Theology Through the Centuries students today had a discussion of the middle part of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo?/Why Did God Become Human? where we made particular note of Anselm's description of how it is human beings are seen to be "in the image of God." He pointed to two standard items, the first of which was the rational nature ( Read more... )

Kind of a lame couple of days. My vague temptation to tag along on the Marquette bus with my track team student Erynn for her meet at the University of Missouri today was tempered by the fact that I not only had to teach today, but that an inexpensive visit to Emily that way wasn't possible anyway as she was in Portland for the national 18th ( Read more... )

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It is gratifying to have students coming up to me on the street to say that they're signing up for my class next semester, or to have freshman coming up after class, like today, and asking if and how they can get into the course. Especially after my first period today was kind of blah, where I felt like I was pulling teeth to try to get discussion ( Read more... )

Life rolled on in its interesting way this week. I had to stop and go back to the drawing board with my Introduction to Theology course on the two lessons I was scheduled to give this week, selections from Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo? or Why Did God Become Human?, which I discussed in an earlier entry, and a lesson from Thomas Aquinas: ( Read more... )

We had a good pair of sessions on Anselm of Canterbury yesterday. I was still not satisfied with that lesson after having already taught it for two semesters. I just seemed that the students were not really getting the impact of the material, and I had a distinct feeling that the lecture portion of my class was not illuminating and empowering the ( Read more... )

Anselm’s “second” argument/Plantinga’s restatement (largely as presented by Peter van Inwagen)• If we define a perfect being as one that possesses every perfection essentially, and if we suppose that necessary existence is a perfection, then the existence of a perfect being follows from a single premise: that a perfect being (so defined) is ( Read more... )