• Describe the stages of love in Bernard of Clairvoyant in his On Loving God. Compare and contrast with your own understanding of love or that of any other author.
• Describe in detail what kinds of positive language God Thomas Aquinas notes in his Summat Theologian (also spelled Summat Theologica), and comment on the value of the idea of analogy.
• Explain the different paths to God found in Bonaventure's The Soul's (or Mind's) Journey to God.
• Show how the dignity of the human person is at the heart of Catholic teaching on social justice in Pacem in Terris.
• Discuss John Paul II's criticisms of socialism and capitalism in his Centesimus Annus.
• Pope Benedict XVI criticizes consumerism (see Vatican website); what does he mean by this?
• Compare and contrast the positions of Stark's The Victory of Reason with Freeman's The Closing of the Western Mind concerning Christianity as help and or hindrance to the intellectual development of the West.
• Give a history of the Catholic Church on the death penalty and note how it has changed over time.
• Recount the Catholic Church's responses to Nazi anti-semitism. Possible Topics with Resources found in the Saint Leo Library:
• Discuss the meaning of mystery, especially as used by Karl Rahner (see Rahner's Theological Investigations, vol. IV, pp. 37-47, 54-55, 71-73 or McCool's A Rahner Reader, pp. 108-120).
• What does Augustine mean by saying the human being is an image of God? (See Augustine's own writings, plus secondary sources.) • Explain the meaning of the soul as image of God according to Bernard of Clairvaux? (See his own writings,
plus secondary sources.)
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• Describe the stages of love in Bernard of Clairvaux in his On Loving God, and the descriptions of love in Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving; comment on the differences.
• What does Bonaventure mean by saying the human being is an image of God? (See Bonaventure's own writings, plus secondary sources, especially by Ewen Cousins and E. Gilson.)
• Describe and discuss the factors that contributed to Augustine's conversion in his Confessions.
• Explain what Bonaventure means when he speaks of God as self diffusiveness of the Good. (See E. Cousins and Bonaventure's own work.)
• Describe and discuss the factors that contributed to Thomas Merton's conversion in The Seven Storey Mountain.
• Discuss the meaning of "anonymous Christian" according to Rahner (see Rahner's Theological Investigations, vol. V & VI, and/or The Rahner Reader). 2
• Discuss the meaning of Christ for Teilhard de Chardin. (See his Christianity and Evolution.)
• How does Teilhard justify placing God/Christ in evolution? • Discuss Teilhard's contribution to tensions between science and religion. (In addition to Teilhard's writing, see Impey, C. and C. Petty's Science and Theology from the University of Notre Dame Press.)
• Is chance compatible with the notion of Divine Providence? (See E. Johnson's "Does God Play Dice? Divine Providence and Chance" Theological Studies, 57 (1996), 3-18, and Haught, John's Science and Religion: from Conflict to Conversation (Paulist, 1995).
• Discuss the theory which sees Christianity as the fulfillment of non-Christian religions (see Knitter and Vatican II).
• What are the two types of suffering described by J. Dunne in his The Way of All the Earth?
• Discuss Panikkar's The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Mankind. (In addition to this book see also the article on him in Karkkaine's Trinity and Religious Pluralism. Ashgate Publishing.)
• Discuss the factors contributing to the relativizing of religious statements as noted by Swidler in his Toward a Universal Theology of Religion.
• Discuss the positions on, or implications of, inter-religious dialog as described in Swidler's Toward a Universal Theology of Religion.
• Apply the criteria of a just war from Catholic documents to the war in Iraq.
• Show how the dignity of the human person is at the heart of Catholic teaching on social justice in Pacem in Terris. (See Pacem in Terris and Hollenbach's Claims in Conflict.)
• Discuss Rahner's understanding of revelation, and its applicability to non-Christian religions. (See his Foundations of Christian Faith and Dulles' Models of Revelation (Doubleday, 1983.)
• Discuss the meaning of revelation in the Documents of the Second Vatican Council (see original documents and commentaries).
• Discuss how the Bible is a norm for the Christian faith. (See G. Baum's New Horizons, pp. 35-50, and/or G. O'Collins' The Bible for Theology.)
• Explain what Dulles means by "the Symbolic Structure of Revelation" in the article of the same name in Theological Studies, vol. 41, pp. 51-73.
• Discuss the meaning of God as treated in the Old and New Testaments (see biblical dictionaries and K. Armstrong's A History of God).
• Discuss the meaning of the word of God as treated in the Old and New Testaments (see biblical dictionaries).
• How does historical awareness affect the interpretation of the Bible and church teaching? (See Brown's Biblical Reflections on Crises Facing the Church, and the writings of B. Lonergan.)
• Why does M. Fox want to de-emphasize the historical quest for Jesus while emphasizing the cosmic Christ in The Coming of the Cosmic Christ?
• Was Jesus of Nazareth omniscient? (See Brown's Jesus God and Man; O'Collins' Interpreting Jesus; Gutwenger's article in Who is Jesus of Nazareth; and The Rahner Reader.)
• Was Jesus an apocalyptic teacher? (See Schillebeeckx's Jesus, or N. Perrin's Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus).
• How may a theologian justify referring to Jesus as an ethical liberator? (See O'Grady's 3
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