Christianity has touched literally every corner of Human endeavor mainly because it is the progenitor of the University system. Before Christ said all men, women, races and social classes are equal (Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11), there were experts that rose to fame among their people, for certain things, and the rich as well as Kings and Queens went to them for help in medicine, philosophy fighting skills. Knowing all men are spiritual equal they interpolated this to the assumption that all men’s intellects were basically equal and consequently experts could train other experts and they could pass their knowledge on in a common space among numerous people. So, literacy as well as all types of knowledge spread, expanding literacy from about (according to a google AI Overview) 5%-10% in the year 100 AD to about 81% according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in the year 2000 AD.
The first course, seeing some of Catholicism’s influence on philosophy, is entitled “Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition.” The lecturer is Professor Tyler Robers who is a scholar of Western religious thought, and is Professor of Religious Studies at Grinnell College. He was educated at Brown University and the Harvard Divinity School. Professor Robert’s essays have appeared in leading academic journals, including The Journal of Religion and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He is also the author of Contesting Spirit: Nietzsche, Affirmation, Religion.
Disc 1
Lecture 1: Religion and Modernity
Lecture 2: From Suspicion to the Premodern Cosmos
Lecture 3: From Catholicism to Protestantism
Lecture 4: Scientific Revolution and Descartes
Lecture 5: Descartes and Modern Philosophy
Lecture 6: Enlightenment and religion
Disc 2
Lecture 7: Natural Religion and its Critics
Lecture 8: Kant – Religion and Moral Reason
Lecture 9: Kant, Romanticism, and Pietism
Lecture 10: Schleiermacher – Religion and Experience
Lecture 11: Hegel – Religion, Spirit and History
Lecture 12: Theology and the Challenge of History
Disc 3
Lecture 13: 19th Century Christian Modernists
Lecture 14: 19th Century Christian Antimodernists
Lecture 15: Judaism and Modernity
Lecture 16: Kierkegaard’s Faith
Lecture 17: Kierkegaard’s Paradox
Lecture 18: 19th Century Suspicion and Feuerbach
Disc 4
Lecture 19: Marx – Religion and False Consciousness
Lecture 20: Nietzsche and the Genealogy of Morals
Lecture 21: Nietzsche and the Ascetic Ideal
Lecture 22: Freud – Religion as Neurosis
Lecture 23: Barth and the end of Liberal Theology
Lecture 24: Theology and Suspicion
Disc 5
Lecture 25: Protestant Theology after Barth
Lecture 26: 20th Century Catholicism
Lecture 27: Modern Jewish Philosophy
Lecture 28: Post-Holocaust Theology
Lecture 29: Liberation Theology
Lecture 30: Secular and Postmodern Theologians
Disc 6
Lecture 31: Postmodernism and Tradition
Lecture 32: Fundamentalism and Islamism
Lecture 33: New Atheisms
Lecture 34: Religion and Rationality
Lecture 35: Pluralisms – Religious and Secular
Lecture 36: Faith, Suspicion and Modernity
For Architecture we look at the course entitled “The Cathedral.” The lecturer we have seen in another blog. To refresh our memory “Professor William R. Cook has taught thousands of students over the course of more than 35 years at the State University of New York at Geneseo, where he is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History. Professor Cook is an expert in medieval history, the Renaissance and Reformation periods, and the Bible and Christian thought. The Medieval Academy of America awarded Professor Cook the CARA Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Medieval Studies for his achievements.
Disc 1
Lecture 1: What is a Cathedral?
Lecture 2: Early Christian Architecture
Lecture 3: Romanesque – A New Monumental Style
Lecture 4: Vaulting – a look at Roofs
Lecture 5: Romanesque at its best
Lecture 6: Saint-Denis and the Beginning of Gothic Style
Disc 2
Lecture 7: The Urban Context of Cathedrals
Lecture 8: Notre Dame in Paris
Lecture 9: Early Gothic Style – Laon
Lecture 10: Chartres – The Building
Lecture 11: Chartres – The Sculpture
Lecture 12: Chartres – The Windows
Disc 3
Lecture 13: Amiens – The Limits of Height
Lecture 14: Amiens – The Facade
Lecture 15: Reims – The Royal Cathedral
Lecture 16: Cathedrals – Who Builds? Who Pays? How Long?
Lecture 17: New Developments in Gothic France
Lecture 18: Late Gothic Churches in France
Disc 4
Lecture 19: Early Gothic Architecture in England
Lecture 20: Decorated and Perpendicular English Gothic
Lecture 21: Gothic Churches in the Holy Roman Empire
Lecture 22: Gothic Churches in Italy
Lecture 23: Gothic Styles in Iberia and the New World
Lecture 24: Gothic Architecture in Today’s World
For literature we look at “Dante’s Divine Comedy.” (of which the course has the same name) The lecturer, Professor Ronald B. Harzman, is Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the State University of New York, Genesco. He received his Ph.D in English literature from the University of Delaware. He is coauthor of the Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature. Her received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. We have seen Dr. Cooks credentials in other blogs but In 2003 Professor Herzman and Professor William R. Cook won the Medieval Academy of America’s first ever CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching Medieval Studies.
The following quote about the course is provided by they great courses website: Professors Cook and Herzman provide you with an illuminating introduction to one of the greatest works ever written. One of the most profound and satisfying of all poems, The Divine Comedy (or Commedia) of Dante Alighieri is a book for life. In a brilliantly constructed narrative of his imaginary guided pilgrimage through the three realms of the Christian afterlife, Dante accomplished a literary task of astonishing complexity. But the full achievement of the Commedia goes beyond anything merely literary. In these twenty-four lectures, as you follow Dante on his journey, you’ll learn how medieval literature offers insights into fundamental questions: What is the quality of our moral actions? How does spiritual transformation come about? What is the nature of good and evil, virtue and vice, sin and sanctity? Why is the world so full of strife? How do we go on when we lose the things we love? You’ll discover why, in the centuries since the Commedia was written, not one of these questions has lost its force. Moreover, you’ll hear Dante address them in a demanding and innovative Italian verse form (terza rima) that makes the Commedia one of the great virtuoso pieces of world literature. With the guidance of these two master professors, you’ll learn invaluable background information on Dante’s life and times; why Dante wrote the Commedia; how to approach the various English editions available; and how each part of the poem is connected to what has come before. But above all, you’ll understand why the Commedia is not a puzzle to be solved or a book to be read and put aside-but a mystery whose beauty and richness is to be constantly savored.
Disc 1
Lecture 1: Reading the Poem – Issues and Editions
Lecture 2: A Poet and His City – Dante’s Florence
Lecture 3: Literary antecedents, I
Lecture 4: Literary antecedents, II
Lecture 5: “Abandon Every Hope, All You Who Enter”
Lecture 6: The Never-Ending Storm
Disc 2
Lecture 7: Heretics
Lecture 8: The Seventh Circle – The Violent
Lecture 9: The Sin of Simony
Lecture 10: The False Counselors
Lecture 11: The Ultimate Evil
Lecture 12: The Seven-Story Mountain
Disc 3
Lecture 13: Purgatory’s Waiting Room
Lecture 14: The Sin of Pride
Lecture 15: The Vision to Freedom
Lecture 16: Homage to Virgil
Lecture 17: Dante’s New Guide
Lecture 18: Ascending the Spheres
Disc 4
Lecture 19: An Emperor Speaks
Lecture 20: The Circle of the Sun – Saints and Sages
Lecture 21: A Mission Revealed – Encounter with an Ancestor
Lecture 22: Can a Pagan Be Saved?
Lecture 23: Faith, Hope, Love, and the Mystic Empyrean
Lecture 24: “In My End Is My Beginning”
Finally for science we have the course entitled “Science and Religion.” The following is an overview quoted from the website:
What is the nature of the relationship between science and religion? When do they conflict? And how do they influence each other in the pursuit of knowledge and truth? While conventional wisdom says that science and theology must perpetually clash, they have actually been partners in an age-old adventure. These 12 engaging lectures cover both the historical sweep and philosophical flashpoints of this epic interaction. You’ll encounter a surprisingly cooperative dynamic in which theologians and natural scientists – from St. Augustine to Sir Isaac Newton to contemporary thinkers – share methods, ideas, aspirations, and a tradition of disputational dialogue. Moving from the early centuries of the Christian era and the Middle Ages to our own day, Professor Principe examines St. Augustine’s profound ideas about reason and faith, and he follows St. Thomas Aquinas’s exploration of miracles – the need to identify them is one example of how scientific and theological inquiry overlap. You’ll meet a 19th-century writer whose anti-Catholic diatribe spread myths that persist today, and you’ll learn about the courage (and stubbornness) of Galileo, the unexpected rationality of his accusers, the inspiration of Darwin’s natural selection, and the religious implications of Lemaître’s big bang theory. The solution to modern conflicts is the study of history. Such study will equip you to join that partnership with ideas and a clear, historical perspective on the science/religion relationship. These tools will help you participate more effectively in a dialogue that is as thought-provoking today as it was hundreds of years ago.
On the lecturer (also quoted from the website)
Dr. Lawrence M. Principe is Drew Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. Professor Principe earned a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Delaware. He also holds two doctorates: a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Johns Hopkins University. In 1999, the Carnegie Foundation chose Professor Principe as the Maryland Professor of the Year, and in 1998 he received the Templeton Foundation’s award for courses dealing with science and religion. Johns Hopkins has repeatedly recognized Professor Principe’s teaching achievements. He has won its Distinguished Faculty Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award, and the George Owen Teaching Award. In 2004, Professor Principe was awarded the first Francis Bacon Prize by the California Institute of Technology, awarded to an outstanding scholar whose work has had substantial impact on the history of science, the history of technology, or historically-engaged philosophy of science. Professor Principe has published numerous papers and is the author or coauthor of three books, including The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest.
Disc 1
Lecture 1: Science and Religion
Lecture 2: The Warfare Thesis
Lecture 3: Faith and Reason – Scripture and Nature
Lecture 4: God and nature – Miracles and Demons
Lecture 5: Church, Copernicus, and Galileo
Lecture 6: Galileo’s Trial
Disc 2
Lecture 7: God the Watchmaker
Lecture 8: Natural Theology and Arguments from Design
Lecture 9: Geology, Cosmology, and Biblical Chronology
Lecture 10: Darwin and Response to Evolution
Lecture 11: Fundamentalism and Creationism
Lecture 12: Past, Present, and Future
The courses should be a taste of how the Catholic church influenced the world around it, especially through its creation of the very first university system (as opposed to local experts which you could go to learn from, usually if you were rich or powerful, for example Alexander the Great and Aristotle) and its appending elementary school, mostly free, as I understand, offerings.