Semester Two’s Doctrine, Truth and Pluralism unit is being offered as an intensive unit, running over 5 Fridays in August, September and October, 2023. This makes it an ideal study opportunity for prospective students who may struggle to commit to a weekly lecture-style unit. Preparatory material equivalent to one day’s class will be available online for students to engage at their convenience.

Taken by Geoff Thompson, Doctrine, Truth and Pluralism, the unit will examine issues such as:

“Doctrine divides experience unites.” | “All claims to truth are arrogant.” | “Pluralism is essential for a multi-faith society”.

What kinds of truth claims can, or must, the church make to be the church? Is doctrine an embarrassing relic of a rationalist insistence on belief over practice? How does the church bring its convictions to the almost irreducible plurality of competing, overlapping and sometimes shared visions of life in the contemporary world?

This year special attention will be given to the doctrines of providence (and its connection to racism and colonialism) and the imago dei (and its relation to sex and gender diversity).

How doctrine functions in the church and how it relates to hermeneutics, contextual theology, and denominational diversity will also be studied. Students will come away from this unit with an appreciation that Christian doctrine is a dynamic and imaginative enterprise.

Course code CT3020P/9020P
Instructor G Thompson
Mode of Delivery
Internal – Face to face
and External – Online
Synchronous
Semester 2 4, 18 Aug; 1, 15 Sept; 20 Oct

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