Denver Seminary Philosophy Program [expanded and corrected]

[While this blog is entirely separate from Denver Seminary and does not represent it any official fashion, I do teach philosophy at that institution. The following letter was recently sent out to many Christian college about our program. Please contact me via Denver Seminary if you are interested in what we have to offer.]

Dear Colleague:

I am happy to tell you of Denver Seminary’s Philosophy of Religion Masters Degree. I hope you will read it and pass it along to the appropriate professors or other staff members at your institution.

In the past few decades there has been a resurgence of evangelical Christians in the discipline of philosophy. I was told as an undergraduate studying philosophy in the 1970s that natural theology had been slain by Kant and Hume long ago and there was no point in trying to revive the corpse. Today, that philosophical program is flourishing, given the work of Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and many others. A host of top-notch philosophers are contributing to contemporary philosophy in ways that commend Christianity as true and rational. The Evangelical Philosophical Society is thriving and produces a stellar journal called Philosophia Christi. It is an exciting time to be a Christian philosopher.

Denver Seminary has a rich legacy of Christian philosophy. Our second president and current Chancellor, Dr. Vernon Grounds, received a doctorate in philosophy when many Evangelicals would have never considered it. Dr. Gordon Lewis, now a senior professor, did likewise a few years later and has left a deep mark on the discipline as a teacher and writer. Denver Seminary began the Philosophy of Religion program in 1981. I joined the faculty in 1993. In the fall of 2008, we gladly welcomed Dr. Troy Nunley as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Missouri, as well as a M.Div. from Nazarene Theological Seminary. He has published in Philosophia Christi and augments the department with his strengths to logic, philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. For the first time, Denver Seminary now has two full-time philosophy professors, a development that deepens our resources considerably.

The Philosophy of Religion program at Denver Seminary is fully accredited. It is known for the personal interaction it offers between students and faculty, as well as its academic rigor and its emphasis on approaching philosophy from a Christian worldview. We take special care to get to know our students and to work with them closely to develop their thinking, writing, and philosophical prowess.

Our program offers a full year’s worth of philosophy classes in addition to the required core classes for all seminary students (biblical studies, theology, and church history). We require a rigorous six-hour comprehensive examination, which covers major philosophical figures and significant philosophical problems. Our required curriculum includes a year on the history of philosophy, as well as courses on religious pluralism, Christian apologetics, and Christian ethics. Students also take two of the following three seminars: Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Philosophical Ethics. Our electives include Philosophy of Religion, Logic, Blaise Pascal, C.S. Lewis, and other topics. A unique emphasis of Denver Seminary’s Philosophy Program is a professional seminar I teach called Writing for Publication, in which students develop a Christian philosophy of scholarship and produce both a book review (which is published in Denver Journal) and a publishable philosophical paper.

Denver Seminary’s Philosophy of Religion Masters program has graduated dozens of students who have gone on to pursue doctorates in philosophy or other avenues of service suited to the skills they developed with us. We have placed students in graduate programs such as the University of Colorado-Boulder, the University of Nebraska, the University of South Carolina, Cornell, Hebrew University, Oxford, and Marquette. Many of our graduates are teaching in colleges in the United States and around the world.

If you would like more information about our professors and our program, please go to our web page at http://www.denverseminary.edu/ or contact me personally by phone, email, or letter. We hope you will refer your students to us.

Sincerely,

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Denver Seminary