First Week of Class & An Invitation

Classes at the DSPT commenced last Tuesday. Because of the way my class schedule shakes out, that meant that all but one of my classes only met once last week. Still, it was enough to get an idea of what the classes will be like this semester.

For starters, class sizes are in the 15-20 person range here: nice and intimate, the kind of setting where the professor has a chance to actually learn your name within a reasonable amount of time, and where something resembling a discussion could potentially take place. I’m a fan of that.

Secondly, being that the school’s classrooms are all in one moderately sized building, one could theoretically take a leisurely pace moving between classes, as opposed to sprinting half a mile to make it to the next class on time. In practice, this works out even better for me, since I have at least an hour and a half between class periods, so I could do a little homework, have a cup of coffee, shoot the breeze with my classmates… and still have 20 minutes to kill before the next class begins. I’m a fan of that, too.

Thirdly, after the first week, I’m even more excited for my classes. To remind you, they are:

Philosophy of Nature
History of Ancient Philosophy
Aristotelian Logic
Introduction to the New Testament

Now, I’m sure that some, if not most, of you will imagine those classes to be slightly less exciting than listening to Ben Stein do a play-by-play of paint drying. Well, good thing I’m here and not you, then! But I do think you’d find many things from these classes interesting. I hereby set out a goal that once a week I will write about one interesting thing I’ve learned in each class period. That’s a little hard to do for this last week, because we haven’t really dived into the material yet. In lieu of that, I’d like to make y’all an offer.

It’s my goal someday to teach theology, so as to help people know their faith better and thereby come to a deeper relationship with God. The way I see it, there’s no reason I can’t start that to some degree now. So, I’m inviting you, dear readers, to submit to me, via the comments section of the blog, any question you’d like me to answer about the Catholic faith, and I’ll do my best to provide an answer that is clear and concise and doesn’t require years of studying theology to be understood. If I’m inundated with questions by all four of you who read this blog, I won’t be able to get to all of them, but I’ll do what I can.

One warning: the option to make comments anonymously is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it provides people who may be sheepish about asking what they’re afraid might be a “dumb question” the opportunity to ask without others knowing who asked it (though I will say that the only dumb question is the unasked question, and that odds are if you’re wondering about it, so are at least five other people); but the anonymous option also provides jerks the opportunity to spout garbage without fear of accountability. Please do make use of the anonymous option for the first use. Don’t use it for the second; the only result will be that I delete your obnoxious post. (This warning is not intended for any of my family or friends, who I know would not do such a thing, but rather for the wandering Internet ruffian who has nothing better to do than post obscenities on the web pages of total strangers.)

On that note… fire away! And do look forward to descriptions of Interesting Things Nick Is Learning Which You May Be Surprised to Find You Also Find Interesting.