SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY

Catalog description

The seminar pursues historical, dogmatic, and systematic aims. Historically, we will read a relatively comprehensive introduction to 2000 years of sacramental theology, The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology. Dogmatically, both the Tridentine teaching and the teaching of the Second Vatican Council will be presented. Systematically, the seminar privileges the achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas as understood by T. J. W hite and B. -D. de La Soujeole. Because the historical scope of the seminar embraces Protestantism, and because many of the contributors to the Handbook are Protestant, there is a natural tendency in the Handbook to focus on Baptism and the Eucharist. There is in this way an invitation to focus on ecumenical issues. But seminar papers are not restricted to this, nor to Baptism and the Eucharist.