Theology

Theology

Theology is "faith seeking understanding." It is a faithful listening to and a systematic, methodical articulation of the message of the Word of God. This Word was first revealed to Israel and then it was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, himself both the mediator and sum total of Revelation, the word of God. This "dei verbum" is transmitted in the living tradition of the Church.

Admittedly, our Western civilization cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of Christianity, which is both a basis and an integral part of our cultural heritage. The study of theology, however, is much more than an essential discipline in the liberal arts education; it has a higher and more comprehensive aim. In relating humanity and the world to their absolute origin and end, theology imparts an ultimate unity to our understanding of reality and helps us, as no purely human discipline can, to see and fulfill the meaning of human existence.

St. Paul St. Peter St. Thomas

Theology Department Mission and Identity

  • We offer an intellectually rigorous Catholicism:  "always have your answer ready for the people who ask you the reason for the hope within" (I pt 3:15).  Our task is not primarily a catechetical one, but a theological one.
  • Our mission is the recovery and renewal of the Catholic theological tradition in harmony with the Magisterium and in dialogue with contemporary thought.  Since we know who we are, we are especially capable of dealing with the profound questions of modern and contemporary thought.
  • We integrate the four fields of theology:  Scripture, History of Christian Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and Moral Theology.  We treat all topics of these four fields within the living Catholic faith.
  • We read Scripture, and classic writings from Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, de Lubac, and theological writings from classic thinkers such as John Paul II.  In the "UD Core spirit" we focus on original texts. 
  • We are and continually strive to be scripturally and historically rooted, philosophically astute, ecumenical and faithful to Catholic teaching.

News

Professors Awarded NEH Grant to Support Writing Programs

Chair and Assistant Professor of English Debra Romanick Baldwin, Ph.D., and Professor of Physics and recent Interim Dean of Constantin College Sally Hicks, Ph.D., have secured a $299,078 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support writing instruction at UD for the fall 2020 semester.

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You Can Do What with a (Spanish) Degree?

His first step was to enroll in physician’s assistant school at Baylor’s College of Medicine, a career trajectory to which he had aspired since his early childhood. Nowadays, Jonathan Cunningham, BA ’17, is dedicated to the vocational pursuit of comfort and healing at MD Anderson in Houston, among the largest cancer treatment centers in the U.S., where he was once a chemotherapy patient himself.

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History Alumnus Heads National Catholic Bioethics Center

During his Rome semester in 1991, Joseph Meaney, BA '93, with his friends (now Father) Kevin Cook, BA '94, and (now Texas State Representative and UD Trustee) Tan Parker, BA '93, attended a private Mass with Pope St. John Paul II. Several weeks earlier, they had hand-delivered a letter to the Swiss Guards outside St. Peter's requesting the Mass and including their contact information; at last, they'd received the phone call instructing them to be at the Bronze Gates at 5 a.m.

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