status update

We are now a week into our second term, and I thought a quick status report would be helpful. As you know, we are reading Aquinas's Summa Theologiae cover-to-cover over the course of this year. The edition I am reading is split into five volumes, and we are just about to finish the second. Well, to be precise, we are scheduled to finish the second volume next week, but I'm a bit behind. I'll explain why in a bit. The first volume discusses the nature of God, the Trinity, creation, man and angels. The second volume covers human acts in general - the nature of happiness, right and wrong, virtue and vice, decision making and emotions, and law and grace. All that in the first two volumes!

So that is what we are reading. When we meet in seminar - Tuesday, Friday and sometimes Wednesday - we are moving at a slightly slower pace. The Summa is divided into questions (topical sections). We have read through about 200 questions, and in seminar we are still working on the fifth question. Of course we all knew we wouldn't get to cover everything in discussion, there is just too much. The quality of the seminars (the more important aspect) has been outstanding. The professor leading the seminar lectures and leads the discussion. He has forced us to really grapple with Aquinas's claims, not only to understand what it is Aquinas says, but to make it our own. This has been a challenging and rewarding process.

Finally, last term I decided to apply to a Masters in theology program here at Cambridge. Putting the application together required a lot of work (which is why I got behind in reading over break), the most painful part being the GRE (Graduate Record Exam). This is a standardized test that operates for graduate students the way the ACT or SAT do for undergraduates. I took the exam on Dec 30th and did fine, so now we are just waiting to hear back from Cambridge. The program I applied to is an MPhil in Theology and Religious Studies. I would be taking the philosophy of religion course. Hopefully we know something in the next month or so.