This Dogmatics course is taught by Davenant Teaching Fellow Ryan Hurd, and will run from September 28 through December 11. View the syllabus here.

This course aims to give the student some understanding of the divine perfections, as understood in classical Christian theism. For this reason the course is a systematic presentation of divine attributes injected with extensive historical ressourcement, involving close readings of Thomas Aquinas (in English), augmented by discussion of high medieval theologians (e.g., Aquinas and Bonaventure), neo-scholastic Catholic theologians (e.g., Cajetan and Banez), and the best of the Reformed orthodox (e.g., Polanus and van Maastricht). Main topics will include: divine simplicity, perfection, infinity, divine presence, immutability, eternity, and special issues related to the divine names (this last serves as preparation for the “communicable” attributes covered in God: Essence and Attributes II).

Through this course, the student will gain a better understanding of the boundaries of orthodoxy, the appropriate methodologies, and the most common answers to critical questions in this most fundamental and challenging locus of theology. The goal will be to equip students with a methodological compass that will enable them to labor through other divine attributes and speak well of God generally in the practice of divine praise, in the spirit of St. Augustine: “What are You to me? Have mercy, that I may speak.”