All things hold together in Christ

As a Christian university, Trinity Western grounds its work in the historic Christian tradition and “seeks to unite reason and faith through teaching and scholarship” (cf. Trinity Western University Student Learning Outcomes).

Believing that Christ is the light of the world (John 8:21), we pursue academic excellence and human flourishing in rich conversation with the Biblical witness. The joy, freedom, and calling that we find in Christ leads us to address the intellectual, inter-personal, professional, and spiritual needs of our students. We are privileged to offer emerging adults an academically rigorous University education that helps them to flourish in a world created, sustained, and redeemed by the triune God.

Christian scholars and students alike are called to seek understanding and meaning in light of the confession that Jesus is “before all things, and in him, all things hold together” (Col 1:17). Setting faith and learning within the drama of God’s creative and redemptive work, learners are free to engage in the extraordinary discovery of truth wherever it may be found.

Schedule and Resources

  • One of the most significant scholars of World Christianity, Andrew Walls, took up the question: “Is there a Historic Christian Faith?” in a groundbreaking essay, “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture.” This essay will frame our opening discussion of what key features of Christianity do all genuine Christians affirm?

    Reading:
    Andrew Walls, “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture,”

    Mark Husbands, “Christ and the Global Christian University,” 1-4

  • Background:

    Belief in God arises as an expression of both trust and knowledge. However tempting it might be to ground faith in general principles, as if knowledge of God is an extension of pre-determined concepts, the Christian tradition wisely confesses faith in a God who first moves towards us. In Christ, we meet a person, not a principle, the very Word of God, and not simply a word about God.

    Divine revelation is a wonderful and interruptive gift, calling forth not merely faith, but also humility and love. Accordingly, John Webster (speaking of the nature of human reason subject to the reality of God’s revelation) rightly sets reason within the drama of God’s saving work.

    Readings:

    Mark Husbands, “Nurturing Holy Grit: Hope College’s Emmaus Scholars Program”, 185-210


    Karl Barth, “The People of God in World Occurrence” 681-683, in Church Dogmatics, IV.3.2.

    Slide Deck: 1. Thinking Truthfully

  • Background

    John Calvin begins his Institutes of the Christian Religion with these words:

    “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves…In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he “lives and moves” [Acts 17:28]. For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God.” (Calvin, Institutes, I.1.1)

    Assigned Readings:
    Origen of Alexandria, “On First Principles, Bk 1, excerpts 7–9”

    Augustine, “Confessions, Bk 11, excerpts 9–16”

    Slide Deck: 2 Holy Reason & Divine Revelation

  • In its extended reflection on the question of how is Jesus of Nazareth fully divine and fully human, the Church made significant progress by examining the life and work of Jesus in light of the question: “Who is divine?” A question answered in terms of three criteria: creation, sovereign rule, and the forgiveness of sins.

    Readings

    Athanasius, Orations Against the Arians, Bk III (excerpts, 83–101)

    Cyril of Alexandria’s Second Letter to Nestorius, 131–135

    Cyril’s Letter to John of Antioch, 140–145

    Pope Leo, Letter to Flavian of Constantinople, 145–155

    The Nicene Creed

    Andrew Hoffecker, “The Rise of Protestant Liberalism” 1-5

    Christology Lecture Slides

  • Reading:

    Julie Canlis, “Christ: The Ascending One,” in Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension, 89–122”

    Orlando Costas, “Sin and Salvation in an Oppressed Continent” in Outside the Gate: Mission Beyond Christendom, 21-42

  • In 375, Basil of Caesarea writes a groundbreaking treatise on the Holy Spirit, displaying this profound insight: the Spirit is “the source of holiness, an intellectual light for every rational power's discovery of truth, supplying clarity, so to say, through himself.”
 (On the Holy Spirit, 9.22).Our time together will reflect on the riches of the biblical text, seeking to better understand the person and work of third person of the Holy Trinity. In turn, we examine the nature and ministry of the Church as a “creature of the Word.”


    Reading

    Richard John Neuhaus, “The Christian University: Eleven Theses” 1-5

    Orlando Costas, “Epilogue: Outside the Gate” 188–194

    Slide Deck : Salvation: Holy Spirit & the Church

  • Our discussion will focus on the difference between an additive and transformative vision of the integration of faith and learning.

    What difference would it make to teaching and curricular design, for instance, if we re-imagined the entire educational process in light of God’s revelation in Scripture and nature?

    Reading: Glanzer and Alleman, “How Christian Teachers Transform Course Aims and Curricula”

One of the highest callings of a Christian Professor is to invite students to consider the arc of their lives in light of the person and work of Christ. Faculty live out this honourable calling by teaching the professional and liberal arts in ways that advance confidence in the truth of the Bible as God’s Word.

I am honoured to lead the Faculty Faith & Learning Seminar for new faculty. With the goal of equipping Trinity Western University to make intelligible a world created and redeemed by the gracious and eloquent God of the Gospel, we provide new faculty with a year-long seminar designed to help them flourish in their Christian teaching and scholarship at TWU.

Standing in the tradition of Rev. John Harvard, Trinity Western University remains steadfast in the belief that the purpose of education is to know Jesus Christ, and that this goal is achieved by laying Christ as the foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. The goal of equipping students to become agents of renewal and hope in the world is a vital task.

Offering tremendous help and guidance, Mark Noll concludes the first chapter of Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind with this claim: “the great hope for Christian learning is to delve deeper into the Christian faith itself. And going deeper into the Christian faith means, in the end, learning more of Jesus Christ.” To which he adds:

“The light of Christ illuminates the laboratory, his speech is the fount of communication, he makes possible the study of humans in all their interactions, he is the source of all life, he provides the wherewithal for every achievement of human civilization, he is the telos of all that is beautiful. He is, among his many other titles, the Christ of the Academic Road.”
— Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, 22.

In becoming σὰρξ (flesh), God granted immeasurable dignity and value to the material, historical, cultural, and social facets of existence. Human achievement, accordingly, has everything to do with assigning proper weight to the created order and natural knowledge, on the one hand, and the gift of new creation and revelation in Christ, on the other.

Indeed, the resurrection of Christ from the dead is God’s decisive word on the order and purpose of creaturely life. As Paul proclaims, “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor 15:21-22).

For a Christian academic community, renewed commitment to the study of the professional and liberal arts arises from an astonishing and particular reality. As the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz reminds us:

If God incarnated himself in man, died and rose from the dead,
All human endeavours deserve attention
Only to the degree that they depend on this,
I.e., acquire meaning thanks to this event.
— “Either-Or” in New and Collected Poems, 1931–2001 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003), 540.“

In Christ, the order of the world is decisively restored: the order, fullness, and promise of life manifest and recovered in one person, Jesus of Nazareth, the Word made flesh.