In the Belly of the Beast

Well, welcome to the week of second year dubbed 'The Week of Death'. Why 'Death'? Well, today I handed in my Doctrine essay - a real monster of an assessment, and worth heaps of our mark. And I now have until Friday to cram Hebrew into my head.


Just to get you into the feel of my week, here's the question I chose for my Doctrine essay:

'Discuss the doctrine of original sin in the light of this observation: "The heart of the modern matter is the doctrine of autonomy, which broadly speaking teaches that anything that is not in its entirety the undetermined act of the agent is, to the extent that it is not, a denial of the agent's integrity" (C. Gunton)'

Exactly.

Anyway, it was hard. But in reality I learned heaps. Essays are excellent for that. I reckon the doctrine of Original Sin is one of the trickier little suckers, and yet it's so practical in that it's just talking about our common plight as humans before God. As for autonomy, well, everyone likes to think they're calling the shots, don't they.

Perhaps one highlight of my research was discovering that Kant's Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, and Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism really are pretty readable. Oh yeah, the other highlight was Calvin... that guy is amazing. I think the thing that he really reminded me of is our desperate need for God's kindness to enable us to please Him. Far out.

Back to Hebrew for me. I'll leave you with the picture that was emblazoned upon Noah's party bags (Yes, there were party bags!) last weekend. Rrroooaarr!!