Otter's Rock

For those of you non-seminarians out there, "systematic theology" is where you take one central theme/belief/focus and turn it into a logically consistent overarching "system" of theology, where everything works and fits together. (Yeah. It works a lot better in the classroom than it does in real life, which doesn't normally fit into coherent and consistent systems, but it's still a good exercise because it forces you to clarify and examine your ideas about God, about humankind, about creation, etc.) To give you an example, one of the books we're reading for the class is called "The Apostles' Creed" by Pahnenburg, and it's a whole book exploring the meaning of the Apostles' Creed and what it means to us today in light of modern questions, all laid out logically and in order (he spends 15 pages on the first two words, "I believe," and goes on from there).

But the class isn't just about reading other peoples' theologies, it's about helping us develop our own system. So we're supposed to take apart the Nicene Creed and write three one-page papers of how we interpret it, one for each article (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Obviously, one could write much more than a single page, but that would take too long to go over in class and the idea is to get us thinking, not to get us the answers, so one page it is. For those of you curious about my beliefs: here we go.

( The Nicene Creed )

( Here's my interpretation of the first article. )

As promised, here's my take on creation and evolution. (Keep in mind that I haven't even begun seminary yet, so it's not like I've spent a huge amount of time studying the question or anything.)  It is taken from an exchange on forum.gateworld.net, in which GateGypsy asked the following questions:

( Read more... )

That's my take on the whole creation/evolution debate.  I hope this has been helpful to anyone who reads it.