Course summary

At a time when issues within theology, philosophy, and religion are pulling in divisive directions, the Masters in Theology, Philosophy and Religion offers the unique inter-disciplinary opportunity to examine essential questions about our varied human conditions. This innovative MA draws on our internationally renowned research expertise. It will develop understanding of vital issues from two innovative perspectives. Firstly, a creative focus on hermeneutics – the interpretation of texts - through theological, critical, and philosophical approaches. Secondly, a global approach with a reflective philosophical and theological focus on the devotional, and spiritual wisdom of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, African and Indic traditions. You will examine such vital themes as: being and nothingness; God and the Absolute; the soul, the self, and otherness; evil and suffering; ethics and aesthetics; the mystical and the apophatic. In all of these areas, you will be encouraged to question rigid boundaries between theology, spirituality and philosophy. Through your studies, you will deepen your critical understanding of ways in which texts and ideas critically reflect and shape traditions of wisdom rather than detached intellectual enquiry. This approach affirms the idea that theology articulates rational structures of meaning as much as philosophy undergirds a holistic 'way of life'.