As is our practice, at the last meeting of 2023, the students discussed what future topics they wanted to discuss in Spring 2024. Here are the broad categories.
Arguments for God’s Existence – people in general do not easily connect the historical, scientific, philosophical, and ethical data to the claim that an all-powerful, uncreated, personal, and morally perfect God exists. So we will always include this topic. We will make the case for God’s existence (Positive Apologetics) and will answer challenges to the claim (Defensive Apologetics).
The Bible – our students are interested in the Bible. What are the historical supports and difficulties with the Bible? How have Christian theologians dealt with the troublesome passages in the Bible? And in a modern world, how can the Bible’s moral and ethical standards be lived out in reality? What does the Bible teach us about our identity?
Big Curiosities – Along with these questions are several that will take a whole discussion meeting to address, such as Supernatural beings (Ghosts, Angels, Demons), Heaven (and Hell and Purgatory), and Miracles.
War – with the news of war in Ukraine and Israel, and the likelihood of war in other places we thought it would be good to explore the philosophical and theological framework called “Just War Theory”. Many are unfamiliar with this topic, yet, they instinctively know many of its tenets, such as the goal of avoiding non-combatant casualties.
Love and Judgement – the group also wanted to explore the concepts of love and judgement. Is love purely open-ended? What is “tough” love? Does love ever have uncomfortable elements? If so, what are they?
And there are a few slots open in the semester. We don’t lock down the topics to the calendar. At the end of the meeting we typically decide what to do next. Show up and add YOUR voice to the discussion and the plan.
We meet on the SHSU Campus in the Chemistry and Forensic Science building, Room 123 at 5:30 PM every Monday night. We wrap things up at 7 PM so you can get back to studying. 😉
See you there!
DW
Ratio Christi at Sam 