top of page
Image by Clay Banks

Romantic Theology

C.S. Lewis on Scripture and Romantic Theology

NI-RT Lewis

Northwind Institute

Certificate Course

COURSE DESCRIPTION

As a both a rational scholar and romantic poet, C. S. Lewis approached Scripture and the traditional teachings of the Church as revealed truths to be received and believed with the mind and heart, more imaginatively than propositionally. Lewis’s literary view on biblical inspiration and authority of Scripture encompassed both his rational faculty for understanding and his romantic longing to find a deeper meaning. “For me,” he says, “reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” (“Bluspels and Flalansferes”, Selected Literary Essays, p. 265). Through his “baptized imagination” Lewis championed the creative conjunction of Logos and Mythos (Reason and Story) to produce compelling works of theological fiction. Mythopoetic–-the language of myth, metaphor, poetry and narrative–-for Lewis pointed to primary religious experience and theological truths in aesthetic and concrete ways that engage both the mind and heart.
 

This doctoral level course features pre-recorded video lectures and digital resources focused on Lewis’s literary view of Scripture and his contribution to the Romantic Theology of the Oxford Inklings. It is offered as an individual tutorial (at the student’s on time, place and pace) with optional, periodic group discussions for those taking the course at the same time. As an intensive reading course of independent study, students are expected to have already read 6-10 fiction and non-fiction books by Lewis; and be ready to read more deeply in selected scholarly works focused on Lewis’s distinctive approach to epistemology, mythopoetic, biblical interpretation, and literary criticism as it relates to
Romantic Theology. It is open to students in doctoral, masters, and degree-completion programs at Northwind.

Course Outline & ASSIGNMENTS: See Syllabus

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:
Certificate students: at least two primary and one secondary books 
RT.LEWIS.BOOK.Cambridge.webp
RT.LEWIS.BOOK.CS Lewis on Scripture.webp
RT.LEWIS.BOOK.Intellectual World.webp
RT.LEWIS.BOOK.Collected Poems.webp
RT.LEWIS.BOOK.Fauns Bookshelf.webp
TOPIC ONE VIDEO LECTURES:
TOPIC TWO VIDEO LECTURES:
TOPIC THREE VIDEO LECTURES:
TOPIC FOUR VIDEO LECTURES:
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Copy of TAG4.jpg
Encyclopedia of Arda
Copy of TAG4.jpg
One Wiki to Rule Them All
Copy of TAG4.jpg
Tolkien Gateway
Copy of TAG4.jpg
LotR Project
Copy of TAG4.jpg
The Mythopoetic Society
Copy of TAG4.jpg
The Tolkien Society
Copy of TAG4.jpg
Fourth Age of Middle Earth
Copy of TAG4.jpg
2013 Hobbit Reading Fest
Copy of TAG4.jpg
Tolkienlibrary.com
Copy of TAG4.jpg
Wade Center
bottom of page