And the award for favourite subject of first term goes to...

... Doctrine 1.

Sound boring? I'll give you an example of what a typical doctrine lecture might be spent thinking about.

Let me ask a question. It's a question of significance to the entire human race: What does it mean if God has revealed who He is - his mind, his will - by speaking? The Bible's basic assertion is that God has opened-up what He thinks to us in words. That is, the Bible is God's word to humanity. So what's that mean for people in this world?

Surely the first thing it means is this: the right way to relate to God is first of all to hear and heed. If the Creator has spoken, then the creature must be a listening creature.

In a sense, this touches on questions like - How can anyone claim to know God? How can your efforts to know God be more effective than anyone else's?

The Christian claim is that it's not related to how hard we try or what technique we use to figure God out... it's a question of whether we're listening to what He has said and is saying. It turns the popular conception of spirituality on it's head: that each person can figure-out God in their own little way.

So there are two questions for us:

1. Has God really spoken?
2. Are you hearing and heeding?

Some highlights of Doctrine 1 in term 1 :

• The lecture on what, if anything, we can know of God from looking at the world. ('General Revelation' and 'Natural Theology').
• Anything John Woodhouse says. He is genuinely that interesting. (John's the lecturer).