Objections to Christian Belief (CT2830Y)

Content

Christian beliefs and practices have been subjected to a variety of critiques of varying intensity over the centuries. Christian responses to these objections have themselves taken different forms: from apologetics, through to self-critical theological reflection. This unit critically evaluates a range of prominent objections from, for instance, disciplines such as a variety of sciences, psychology, and philosophy.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

Either an UG level 1 AP or CT unit

Pedagogy

Mixed mode – Face-to-face, online, blended learning, flipped classrooms

Indicative Bibliography

Arendt, Hannah, Love and St Augustine (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Eagleton, Terry, Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009).
Fergusson, David, Faith and Its Critics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Girard, René, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1977).
Gunton, Colin E., The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity. The 1992 Bampton Lectures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Jantzen, Grace M., Foundations of Violence: Death and the Displacement of Beauty (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
Martin, Michael (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press, 2007).
Westphal, Merold, Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Pres, 1993).
Campbell-Jack, Campbell and McGrath, Gavin J. (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics (Leicester: IVP, 2006).

Assessment