The Dominican House of Studies

Course Learning Objectives

Introduction

Learning Objectives for Theology Courses in the Baccalaureate of Sacred Theology, Master of Divinity, and Master of Arts (Theology) Degree Programs:

Approved by the Council of the Faculty on November 17, 2014.

Syllabi information can be found here.

Sacred Scripture Courses

SS 611: Pentateuch [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Discuss critically the five books of the Pentateuch and elaborate on their literary characteristics as well as their historical and geographic contexts.
  2. Identify and explain some major theological themes of the Pentateuch, especially creation and election
  3. Articulate approaches to interpreting some of the texts of the Pentateuch appearing to advocate violence and which therefore present obstacles to evangelization.
  4. Identify reliable scholarly literature and reference works useful for teaching and personal study.
  5. Interpret the Pentateuch in harmony with the living magisterium of the Church.

SS 621: Prophets of Israel  [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Discuss prophecy in Israel and its relation to the law and monarchy.
  2. Identify and explain some of the major theological themes of the Prophets, especially knowledge of God, and authentic conversion.
  3. Comment on the continuing relevance of Old Testament teaching on vocation and on the prophet as mediator, teacher, and watchman to contemporary Christian life.
  4. Demonstrate familiarity with recent literature on the prophets that will prove useful for teaching and personal study.

SS 632: Wisdom Literature [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Discuss critically the distinct books that comprise the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament and elaborate on their literary characteristics and historical contexts.
  2. Identify reliable scholarly literature and reference works useful for teaching and personal study.
  3. Demonstrate familiarity with Old Testament teaching about fear of the Lord, suffering, and the personification of Wisdom.
  4. Describe the principal features of biblical poetry and the forms of speech characteristic of Wisdom literature.

SS 640: Synoptic Gospels [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Demonstrate familiarity with critical methodologies for interpreting the synoptic gospels and to assess those methodologies within the living magisterium.
  2. Understand the synoptic gospels in their theological, literary, and historical contexts.
  3. Interpret specific passages of the synoptic gospels from a Catholic perspective.
  4. Articulate the distinctive characteristics of each synoptic gospel.
  5. Identify reliable scholarly literature and reference works useful for teaching, preaching, and personal study.

SS 645: Johannine Writings [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Demonstrate familiarity with and assess critical methodologies for interpreting the Johannine writings.
  2. Understand these works in their theological, literary, and historical contexts.
  3. Interpret specific passages of the Johannine writings from a Catholic perspective.
  4. Articulate the distinctive characteristics of each work.
  5. Identify reliable scholarly literature and reference works useful for teaching, preaching, and personal study.

SS 650: Pauline Letters [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Demonstrate familiarity with and assess critical methodologies for interpreting the letters of Paul.
  2. Understand Paul’s life and thought in their theological, literary, and historical contexts.
  3. Interpret specific passages of the Pauline letters from a Catholic perspective.
  4. Articulate the distinctive characteristics of each letter.
  5. Identify reliable scholarly literature and reference works useful for teaching, preaching, and personal study.

Systematic Theology Courses

ST 601: Nature and Method of Theology [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Define the chief concepts, sources, figures, movements, and developments in the history of theology.
  2. Articulate the irreplaceable role of philosophy and the centrality of divine Revelation, as given through the modes of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, in the work of theology.
  3. Elaborate upon St. Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of what sacra doctrina is and the Common Doctor’s special contribution to theology (cf. Optatam Totius 16 and CIC can. 252 §3).
  4. Articulate the ecclesial vocation of theologians in light of both their experience and their relationship to the Magisterium.
  5. Offer a critique of various forms of contemporary theology. 

ST 604: Triune God [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Think through carefully the central questions concerning God’s existence, attributes, and activity.
  2. Grasp both the capacity and the limitations of our speech about God.
  3. Develop a familiarity with the key terms used in Thomistic Trinitarian theology.
  4. Be Aware of the theological issues that are at stake in Trinitarian Theology, e.g., in the ancient heresies.
  5. Articulate the key theological distinctions necessary to answer difficult real life questions such as God’s perfect goodness and omnipotence in view of evil, contingency, and human freedom. 

ST 611: Creation and the Human Person [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Articulate central Christian doctrines, problems, questions, and solutions concerning creation, divine providence, evil, sin and human destiny.
  2. Understand the principal implications of the Christian doctrines on the human person as a unity of body and soul as these appear in the contemporary theological, scientific and philosophical discussions.
  3. Demonstrate familiarity with significant writings of important authors as a point of reference for exploring the development of the Catholic Church’s understanding of creation, the human condition and human destiny.
  4. Appreciate the relations between scientific, philosophical and theological accounts of the natural order of the human person.
  5. Appreciate the centrality of the doctrine of man as the image of God in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas.

ST 614: Theology of Grace [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Grasp key principles of a Catholic theology of grace.
  2. Acquire an understanding of Aquinas’s mature teaching on grace as found in STh 1ae-2ae qq. 90 to 114.
  3. Articulate key controversies about grace, especially Pelagianism, Molinism, and Jansenism.
  4. Understand the basic differences between Protestant and Catholic conceptions of grace and justification.
  5. Be aware of recent developments in the theology of grace, especially in the works of Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and their successors.

ST 621: Basic Elements of Christology [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Present fundamental Christology from a Catholic perspective.
  2. Articulate the biblical and patristic roots of Catholic Christology with an understanding of ancient debates and Christological heresies.
  3. Articulate a theological view of Christ in light of modern historical critical exegesis and other related methodologies.
  4. Reflect systematically on the mystery of Christ from a Thomistic perspective.
  5. Understand the shape of modern important Christological debates.

ST 631: Sacraments: Theology and Initiation [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Understand Aquinas’s theology of the sacraments in general, baptism, and confirmation, particularly as exposited in the Summa theologiae.
  2. Understand major historical controversies related to general sacramental theology.
  3. Articulate the principal scientific terms employed in classical sacramental theology (e.g., sacramentum tantumres et sacramentum).
  4. Think through the contemporary rites of baptism and confirmation in the light of the history of those sacraments.
  5. Achieve insight on living, teaching, and understanding the sacraments in pastoral settings, such as experienced in contemporary America by a typical priest or layperson engaged in active ministry.

ST 637: Sacrament of the Eucharist [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Understand from a Catholic perspective the fundamental theology of the Holy Eucharist as sacrament and as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
  2. Identify the biblical and patristic teachings about the Eucharist.
  3. Articulate historical challenges to the Catholic teaching on and practice of the Eucharist, as well as the response of the Magisterium to these challenges.
  4. Reflect systematically on the mystery of the Eucharist from a Thomistic perspective.
  5. Identify ways that the rites of the Mass and the theology of the Eucharist are mutually informative.

ST 635: Sacrament of Marriage: Theology and Canon Law [Required for M.Div]

  1. Know the theology of marriage according to the Catholic perspective.
  2. Articulate the foundations in natural law for marriage as a public institution.
  3. Understand the Code of Canon Law (1983) of the Latin Church regarding the properties of, impediments to, consent and lack of consent in, and properties of the Catholic form of Marriage, as well as important issues of the relationship between Latin and Oriental Codes of Canon Law.
  4. Demonstrate a general knowledge and various types of “dissolution” of Marriage.

ST 636: Sacraments of Penance and Anointing [Required for M.Div]

  1. Articulate a Thomistic theology of the sacrament of penance and of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.
  2. Trace the ways the current rites for these sacraments developed out of a long liturgical history.
  3. Understand the current canonical discipline of the Catholic Church with respect to the practice of the sacrament of penance.
  4. Identify pastoral skills necessary to be a good confessor and a good minister of the anointing of the sick.

 ST 639: Sacrament of Orders [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Identify the history, characteristics, and features of each of the three degrees of the sacrament, namely, the episcopate, the presbyterate, and the diaconate.
  2. Articulate a Thomistic understanding of the ordained minister as an instrument of Christ.
  3. Understand the Catholic balance that includes both the baptized laity and ordained ministers in the one Church of Christ.
  4. Offer a response to some contemporary objections against the Roman Catholic teaching and discipline of holy orders.
  5. Articulate the elements of a spirituality of the ordained minister for the Church today.

ST 641: Liturgiology [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Articulate a scientific definition for the liturgy of the Catholic Church.
  2. Demonstrate appreciation for the meaning and function of symbol, rite, music, liturgical environment, and their function in the celebration of liturgy.
  3. Trace broadly the history of the various liturgical families in the East and the West.
  4. Identify aspects of the classical Dominican Rite.
  5. Understand the current discipline of the Church relative to the celebration of the sacraments.
  6. Communicate the riches of the liturgical life and tradition of the Roman Catholic Church in encounters typically found in an American pastoral setting.

ST 664: Ecclesiology [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Articulate a systematic view of ecclesiology in light of Lumen gentium.
  2. Appreciate the connection of ecclesiology to other topics of systematic theology.
  3. Identify essential elements of biblical and historical ecclesiology.
  4. Think through the pastoral ramifications of ecclesiological claims.
  5. Understand the foundation for discussing the relationship between the Church and the world.

Moral Theology Courses

MT 601: Principles of Christian Moral Life I [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

    1. Expose main lines of the moral teaching in the Old and New Testaments, particularly on Torah and covenant, and Jesus and the establishment of the reign of God, as well as the moral teachings of John and Paul.
    2. Highlight salient features of patristic moral reflection.
    3. Discuss intelligently the main features of moral theology in the high middle ages, particularly as found in the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologiae.
    4. Appreciate and discuss the effects of nominalism on the later moral manuals, the development of the moral systems of probabilism, and the connection these have with the proportionalism.
    5. Discuss intelligently the origins and most salient characteristics of moral discourse as is it engaged in the contemporary secularized world.

MT 602: Principles of Christian Moral Life II [Required for S.T.B., M.Div., M.A.]

  1. Explain St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching that the human person is made in the Divine Image and is destined, through the medium of grace, the virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to return freely to God, who is the only true happiness.
  2. To locate and describe in detail variously persuasive  “final ends” that capture the hearts of human beings and show why any last end other than God necessarily fails to satisfy.
  3. Expose the essential characteristics of free and voluntary action, and explain the moral relevance of the distinctive states of human action.
  4. Analyze the difficulty relationship between the intention, the object, the end, and the circumstances of human action.
  5. Articulate ways the moral law serves the virtuous life. 

MT 611: Theological Virtues [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Trace the relationship between beatitude, growing in the divine image, and possessing the theological virtues.
  2. Provide a relatively detailed structural outline of St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of each of the theological virtues.
  3. Articulate and defend a position on perennial problems in moral theology such as the necessity of faith for salvation, the relationship between faith and lived experience, and formal theology and the teaching of the Church.
  4. Recognize and provide a theological evaluation of contemporary cultural expressions of hope and despair.
  5. Explain the relationship between love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor.

MT 612: Cardinal and Moral Virtues [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Navigate the complex relationship of character and action.
  2. Articulate the possibilities and the limitations of practical reason in the moral life.
  3. Understand prudence as a virtue of right reason and right appetite.
  4. Explain the irreducibly distinct forms of justice detailed in the Summa Theologiae and explain why it is essential that they not be conflated.
  5. Discern the relationship between various symptoms of the spreading “culture of death” in the Western world and the collapse of the virtues of fortitude and temperance.

MT 622: Catholic Social and Sexual Teaching [Required for S.T.B. and M.Div]

  1. Articulate the place of sexual activity with the moral vision of family using virtue theory, the natural law, and the teachings of the Church.
  2. Respond to the contemporary challenges posed to Catholic sexual teaching by identifying the sources and rational of these arguments as well as the human good that is in question.
  3. Articulate the principles of Catholic social doctrine and demonstrate the principles at work to preserve human dignity.
  4. Articulate Catholic social doctrine on economic life, the political and international community, and care for the environment.
  5. Develop a general understanding of how Catholic social doctrine has developed historically, especially during the past two centuries.