Sample Three Courses

This course analyzes the major literary, historical, and theological issues involved with the study of St. Paul’s letters. Special attention is given to the Apostle’s identity as a first-century Jew, his faith in Christ the Lord, and to the way the scriptures inform his theology. Students will learn how to explain and synthesize key aspects of his theology, including his Christology, ecclesiology, soteriology, and eschatology.

Dr. Michael Patrick Barber, Professor of Scripture & Theology, is the author of numerous scholarly articles and publications, including, The Historical Jesus and the Temple: Memory, Methodology, and the Gospel of Matthew (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Paul, A New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology (Eerdmans, 2019), co-written with Brant Pitre and John Kincaid.

In this opening lecture, Dr. Barber introduces the life of St. Paul the Apostle and proposes the question: Why study St. Paul’s Letters? Drawing upon the wisdom of the Catholic Church, he highlights how scripture is inspired by God and that the study of scripture must be the soul of Sacred Theology (Dei Verbum 24).

This course offers a synthetic introduction to the Christian faith through its central mysteries, in which “God has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:2), and their sacramental, liturgical, moral, and spiritual fullness in the life of the Church. Students will read from the whole Catechism of the Catholic Church, alongside the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

Professor Christopher Mooney, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, is a historical theologian specializing in Augustine and the Augustinian theological legacy, particularly regarding the nature of faith and grace.

Why is it fitting that the Trinity has three persons united in love? In this short segment from one of his lectures, Dr. Mooney introduces Richard of St. Victor’s analogy of the Trinity and walks students through how God has perfect love within Himself.

This course explores the main features of St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on the person of Jesus Christ and what St. Thomas calls his “actions and sufferings in the flesh”. In this class, students focus on St. Thomas’s method of contemplating Jesus Christ as Sacred Scripture presents him and as the Church has received Scripture’s presentation through time.

Dr. David Moser is a theologian whose research interests include medieval scholastic theology, the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, the doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, and sacramental theology, particularly the Eucharist. He recently published The Humanity of Christ as Instrument of Salvation: A Study in Thomistic Christology (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
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Faith informs us that the Son of God became incarnate for the sake of our salvation. But was the incarnation fitting? That is, was it fitting that Christ took on our human nature? Dr. Moser explains how Aquinas sees the fittingness of Christ’s Incarnation in the fact that God communicates himself to others precisely because he is Good.