Lutheranism and the Classics V: Arguing with the Philosophers
September 27-28, 2018
St. Paul exhorts the redeemed not to be made captive by philosophy and vain deceit in accordance with human tradition (Col. 2:8, 1 Tim. 6:20; Eph. 5:6 and Matt. 15:2), and it has been assumed that Dr. Luther loathed Aristotle and Scholasticism. Or did he? A closer look reveals that Luther and the reformers actually knew quite a bit about the ancient philosophers and made ample use of them. These and other matters will be discussed at the conference to be hosted by Concordia Theological Seminary under the theme, “Arguing with the Philosophers.” The conference features three plenary papers, a banquet address, and 20 sectional presenters on such themes as Ciceronian impulses in Luther’s approach to natural law, Aristotle and Cicero in Luther’s Tischreden, the medieval culture of disputation, what Christians can learn from Plato in godly repentance, how Christian children might learn Logic, and the use of Greek and philosophy in modern alumni relations. Latin will be used in three worship settings. Three pedagogical papers in the final session are designed especially for Lutheran teachers, classical educators and homeschoolers. A discount shall be given to registrants who belong to the Consortium of Classical Lutheran Educators (CCLE). The conference celebrates Lutheranism’s engagement with the philosophers of the past, and contemplates their value for the propagation of the faith to present and future generations.
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Keynote Speakers
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Dr. Sarah Byers
Dr. Angus Menuge
Dr. Christian Kopff
Rev. Dr. Roland Ziegler
Dr. Sarah Byers
Sarah Byers is an associate professor in the Philosophy Department at Boston College, where she has been tenured since 2013. She teaches courses on Ancient Greek Philosophy, Hellenistic Philosophy and Augustine. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, and a B.A. in philosophy and literature from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. In addition to her monograph, Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine: A Stoic-Platonic Synthesis (Cambridge: 2012), she has published articles on the reception of ancient philosophy (Stoicism, Aristotle, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism) in the early Christian and early modern periods.
Dr. Christian Kopff
E. Christian Kopff holds a B.A. from Haverford College and a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder since 1973, and as associate director of the Honors Program since 1990. From Fall 2004 to 2011 he served as founding director of the Center for Western Civilization. A fellow of the American Academy in Rome, he has edited a critical edition of the Greek text of Euripides’ Bacchae (Teubner, 1982) and written articles and reviews on scholarly, pedagogical and popular topics. For ISIBooks he wrote The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition (1999) and translated Josef Pieper, Tradition: Concept and Claim (2008). He studies and teaches texts and traditions, from science to Sophocles, that arose in the ancient world and remain important today, including science, democracy and the religion of the Bible.
Dr. Angus Menuge
Angus Menuge was raised in England and became an American citizen in 2005. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Warwick University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is author of Agents Under Fire (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) and many articles on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and Christian apologetics, and editor of several collections, including Reading God’s World (Concordia Publishing House, 2004), Legitimizing Human Rights (Ashgate, 2013), Religious Liberty and the Law (Routledge, 2017) and, with Jonathan Loose and J. P. Moreland, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism (Blackwell, 2018). He is the current president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.
Dr. Roland Ziegler
Roland Ziegler serves as the Robert D. Preus Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Confessional Lutheran Studies at Concordia Theological Seminary (CTSFW), Fort Wayne. He studied at the Universities of Tübingen and Erlangen, received the M.Div. from the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Oberursel (1993), and received the Dr.theol. from the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in 2011. Before coming to CTSFW, he served as a pastor in Konstanz (1997–2000). He has been serving on the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod since 2010, and conversations between the International Lutheran Council and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Union since 2015. He is the coeditor of Hermann Sasse, In statu confessionis III: Texte zu Union, Bekenntnis, Kirchenkampf und Ökumene (Göttingen: Edition Ruprecht, 2011) and author of Das Eucharistiegebet in Theologie und Liturgie der lutherischen Kirchen seit der Reformation. Die Deutung des Herrenmahles zwischen Promissio und Eucharistie (Göttingen: Edition Ruprecht, 2013). He is on the editorial advisory board of Encyclopedia of Martin Luther and the Reformation (Cascade Publishers, 2017).