Fall 2000 THEPH 310 001 CATHERINE KELLER X3268 SEM108
CKELLER@DREW.EDU
COURSE WEBSITE: USERS.DREW.EDU/~CKELLER/CKCOURSES.HTML
TOPICS IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY:
THE CHAOS OF CREATION
But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered.
Melville, Moby Dick
...the earth was tohuvabohu and the darkness upon the face of tehom and the ruach elohim pulsing over the face of the mayim...
Gen. 1.2
Moments of flow and exhilaration are the reward for the previous descent into chaos, uncertainty, discomfort, or shock at simply not knowing. The chaos hasn't ended, of course. It's still there, surrounding and feeding the creative activity, like the turbulence fluctuating behind rocks in a river continuously feeding the vortex it has generated.
Briggs & Peat
The doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo has been a linchpin of classical Christianity. With its clean assertion of the total omnipotence and transcendence of the Creator, it solves a number of problems. However, the doctrine is not itself biblical. Indeed, it is the contention of this course
that the entire spectrum of Christian theology shifts subtly, when creation is read differently. We will pursue the mystery of the lost chaos of creation. Why was the complex figuration of Gen. 1.2 never developed theologically? What went missing along with the so-called chaos? What could be found with it now, as we reconstruct our understanding of "in the beginning" at the beginning of
a new millennium?
Theology as (a) practice of constructive interpretation draws on a wide interdisciplinary matrix. In this course, biblical hermeneutics will figure prominently, as will philosophical, ecosocial and scientific perspectives, as they interact with a range of influential theologians. Theology is always
also (b) a critical communal practice, never just an academic discipline or multidiscipline. Thus we reflect at each step on the prior commitments and potential effects of our assumptions. Whether our context is defined in terms of religion or culture, ministry or education, we observe the vortices formed by our language. More, we take responsibility for the difference we make.
Yet we cannot predict or control the process. It requires--a radical trust: pistis. Theology is therefore (c) a spiritual practice. Do we track the lost chaos of the text as a trace of ourselves? Do we trace in ourselves hints of that creative process still pulsing over the face of the water?
The Order at the Edge of Chaos (or, Requirements:)
(1) Participation in one of 4 science/religion presentation teams: choose chaos theory [Gleick or Kauffman]; cosmology [Ferris]; new physics and string theory [Greene] and present a key idea as it resonates with some theme raised by the theological text. Each team will work together to conceive the optimum presentation within the 45 minutes allotted, including open discussion. Each team member will pass to the instructor a one page reflection on her/his own
particular facet. Due at time of presentation.
(2) One interpretive book review. On the basis of one of the required theology texts, write a response. Read it fully, even if only a segment of the volume was assigned for class. Recapitulate only the major contour of the argument, as a stimulant for our own creative response to its view of "creation." Keep this highly crystallized (5 double spaced pages, about 2000 words). Choose Augustine, Levenson, Moltmann, Cobb/Griffin, Hartshorne, either McFague, Berry, or Ruether. Due either 10/17 or 11/14.
(3) Your articulation of a theology of creation, drawing richly upon the assigned texts, with further research welcome. This paper will in some way address the course problematic of creation from chaos vs creatio ex nihilo. It provides an opportunity for you to frame your theological perspective (at this time, in its uncertain and open process, within its concrete social
context) in relation to mainstream tradition, with the help of those interdisciplinary resources most useful to you. 8 pages/7000 words. Due Dec. 19.
(4) With only once a week meetings, more than one absence makes a top grade impossible (unless special arrangements can be made in advance).
(5) Class outing to Rose Center Planetarium Show, American Museum of Natural
History; date t.b.a.
Syllabus of Readings
i 9/5 Beginnings...
ii 9/12 Enuma Elish; Speiser handout; Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of
Evil, Pref+Part I
iii 9/19 Briggs & Peat, Seven LifeLessons of Chaos, Lessons 1-4; skim James
Gleick's Chaos; or B & P's Turbulent Mirror; read bell hooks, Yearning, 103-113 (handout)
+Science report A [Kauffman Intro; B&P Turbulent Mirror]
iv 9/26 Levenson Part II; Bechtel, Boyarin and McKibben handouts
v 10/3 Augustine , Confessions X-XIII
~~~reading week~~~
vi 10/17 Moltmann , God in Creation I-V
vii 10/24 Moltmann VI-XI
+ Science report B [Ferris]
viii 10/31 Hartshorne, Omnipotence or Cobb & Griffin, Process Theology
~~~no class~~
ix 11/14 McFague Body of God or Cobb &Griffin
+Science report C [Gleick]
x 11/21 Berry & Swimme, Universe Story
+Science report D [Greene]
xi 11/28 Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk; or Primavesi, From Apocalypse to Genesis
xii 12/5 McFague, Life Abundant
xiii 12/12 Briggs & Peat, finish
Keller, excerpts, handout(s)
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Additional Meetings for Doctoral Dtudents:
1 9/13 Gerhard May, Creatio ex Nihilo
Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash
2 9/27 David Griffin, Creation from Chaos (essay)
3 10/18 Afred North Whitehead, Portions of Process and Reality
4 10/25 Gilles Deleuze, The Fold
5 11/15 Donna Haraway/ Trinh Minh-Ha / Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions
6 11/29 Paul Tillich, (Options? compare with Process and Moltmann)
7 12/13 Final Reading Week: Panel presentations -- open to other grad students, party.
Requirements:
Do first two assignments above.
For the final paper: an essay on the theme of creation. This will be a research paper, in which you take up the theme of the course from the perspective of your own scholarly concerns. I would suggest you begin to meditate early on the angle of your own engagement. Then you may choose to expand and deepen a particularly textual trajectory from the course in ways most helpful to your own longer term development. Please take initiative to make an appointment with the instructor to consult on the topic and bibliography sometime in October. Use reading week to do enough preliminary research, beyond the assigned readings, so as to determine your own direction.