Four things on the agenda today:
I'm about to register for spring semester classes. It's been a tricky choice, mostly because there is so much to choose from, and Th.M. studs can do whatever they want (I hope). Registration for classes is online and provisional, so if I change my mind over the first week or two, switching classes is possible.
My overall experience here first term means my choice is totally different to what I'd planned in September. (I'd anticipated choosing classes for the whole year in October.)
I will now not be taking the Jonathan Edwards class. One reason for this is simple - I find Edwards difficult reading. I know he's the bees knees, and all that, I just struggle with him, more than I struggle with Owen and some of the Puritans. I've also decided to drop the idea of Scottish Philosophical Tradition - too niche, and too close to home.
I've realised that I'm on track to be a pastor/minister, and the day looms when that's what I'll be about - so...
Here are my choices: The Devotional Lives of Great Saints of the Church; Pastor as Person; and, The Minister and Mental Illness. All these themes are important in themselves, regardless of the quality of the teaching. And, I will have 3 days a week off! 3 days to work on my thesis, do occasional things at Witherspoon church, and explore parts of the East coast.
So, no theology in my second semester of a Th.M. Controversial!
Today, I'm also giving a short presentation (5 mins) on the state of the church in Scotland. I'll try not to be too pessimistic... Later in the day I head to NYC to hear Damien Rice in concert.
Between times I'm working on my paper on Shedd and the atonement. Shedd, with his traducianism, believed that Christ's human nature existed in an unindividualised form all the way back to Adam and Eve. I might reflect on what, if anything, this means for the atonement - I doubt Shedd takes it anywhere, because he argued that the Holy Spirit effectively justified and sanctified Christ as an Old Testament believer in the moment of his (human) conception.
Taxing stuff for a no brain-er like me to think about - these days, I'm glad if I remember the basics of grace. Why do we forget so easily?
2 comments:
I'm sad to hear that you won't be taking the Edwards class. It might help improve your reading of him!
I took a course on Edwards under Michael Haykin and greatly profited from it.
I have heard that the Pastor as a Person class is excellent. I have toyed with taking it myself and it'll probably be first on my list if I decide to drop one of my other classes.
I think the Jonathan Edwards class will be huge. (thus, in my mind, unworthy of taking)
When you started here you wanted to do a PhD?
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