Learning Outcomes

Seattle University undergraduate Theology and Religious Studies students should be able to:

• Engage theology and religious studies as fields of academic inquiry with a variety of methodologies.  

• Recognize and critically examine the dynamic interplay between the religious dimensions of life and the other aspects of culture and the natural world. 

• Understand the varieties of religious traditions and to appreciate the internal diversity within those traditions. 

• Interpret religious texts in their literary and socio-historical setting, conscious of the role of social location at each level of interpretation. 

• Explore the ethical dimensions intrinsic to religion, and the relation between ethical discernment and religious traditions. 

• Articulate the basic characteristics of Spirituality as an academic discipline and its relationship to theology and other academic disciplines.

• Understand and demonstrate an in-depth comparative understanding of at least one other major world religion in addition to Christianity in areas such as but not limited to scripture, ethics, rituals, interreligious dialogue and spirituality.

• Articulate both Catholicism’s affirmation of the continuity of meaning within key doctrines and recognition of the influence of historical and cultural context in their formulation and development.