Theology

The Theology Department is ultimately inspired by the conception that sees the highest strata of the human soul and culture--the search and contemplation of truth--as the gradual and organic flourishing of reason, understood as a single potentiality that, rooted in sense-experience, memory and imagination, reaches its highest manifestations in the form of abstract concepts and its relations.

The study of theology, properly the study of God, is fundamental to the growth of all men. Ultimately it is the highest pursuit of the Truth, as God is Truth. It is the attempt to come to know Him who is the origin of all that is. Theology is therefore indispensable to the educational development of man.

All Theology courses at Benedictine are taught in accordance with the Catholic Diocese of Richmond Office of Catholic School’s Approved High School Theology Curriculum and the USCCB published Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework. These are available online in more detail at www.richmonddiocese.org and www.usccb.org.

What do we give our young men?

At Benedictine, we give our young men the tools necessary to begin this lifelong pursuit of the Truth. We begin with a yearlong fundamental examination of the Catholic catechism, including basic doctrines, morality, prayer, and virtue. We move through a year of Biblical and moral studies into a year's intensive study of Christology and ecclesiology, looking for absolutes in a relative world.

All of this leads to sound understanding, often through rational disagreement and development of thought and expression.

Finally, in our final year, we apply these principles to life beyond school, studying how to be faithful in college, how to be good husbands, fathers and citizens, and how to listen to God for that possible calling to the priesthood.

To accomplish this we challenge our young men to think, to consider, to contemplate and to discuss what they believe and what they are learning. We therefore focus on developing skills in logic, philosophy, writing, and reasoning.

Classical Study Learning

In terms of its practical consequences for learning, is that the imagination has fundamental and indispensable role as a mediator between what our senses tell us about the world and what our reason can understand of it.

Abstract concepts, the very tools of science and philosophy, even though based on experience, are not derived directly from it, but from a realm that lies in-between the things that we see, hear, smell, feel, and taste and the ethereal and dry world of ideas and their logical relations.

That realm, in which the many things of the world are summarized into symbols, comprises the entire territory of memory and imagination, with its whole population of stories, images, sounds, and myths that make up the world of the arts. In other words, if man did not have a symbol-making ability, he would never have a concept-forming ability.

Theology Course Offerings