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Academic Year 2000/2001

God, Human Nature, and the Moral Order: From Augustine to Nietzsche
COL 105 SP

"If God is dead, then everything is permitted." Was Dostoyevsky's unforgettable deduction in the mouth of his tortured creation Ivan Karamazov a cryptic commentary on the alleged impossibility of justifying moral distinctions in a world that proclaimed God's obsolescence? Without God, there is no such thing as crime, including the parricide that Ivan--succumbing to moral nihilism--ultimately instigates. Good and evil in a secularized, disenchanted, despiritualized and godless world would lose their meaning. In this course we explore notions of evil and human nature and their relationship to divinity, from St. Augustine's indictment of the "radical evil" of human nature itself to Friedrich Nietzsche's indictment of traditional Christian moral values as the product of a life-denying "slave revolt in morality."

MAJOR READINGS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001

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