Pug, Jimmy, Or? on Golden State School of Theology

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Mike

Your case exemplifies what I have said here. Our interests , ambitions, and needs change. As we do not know the future, we cannot have confidence that accredited studies might not better serve our future than unaccredited.

We all wish you the best,

 

Re: Re: Bill, you emailed me?

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get it?

 

Indeed. Best wishes to you, Mike.

 

Hi everyone. Couldn't post at all today...had one of those days at the office where everything under the sun was falling apart right before my eyes! Anyway...

Regarding the post from Kansasbaptist: I'm glad to hear that you've learned a lot in the two years you have studied with GSST. As I have said earlier in this thread, I don't feel qualified to speak on the quality of the graduate programs. Even if the MMin program is substandard (and it may be) you have said several things that should put to rest the issue of GSST being a mill:

1) it's taken 2 years to earn 45 hours of credit. That's certainly not a mill pace. 2) The mentors respond quickly and are helpful. 3) Every assignment is graded with comments.

Regarding transfer credit: I hope you are able to find a school that accept the credit you have earned. I like Bill's idea. At the undergraduate level I found it rather easy to find accredited schools that would accept transfer credit from GSST. Not all of it transferred mind you, but much of it did.

As to the format of the study guides, the existing format is intended to drive the student into the text and to ensure a thorough reading of it. The small writing assignments (the "summarize what you have read and what you understand it to mean assignments) are to ensure comprehension of the text. The internet assignments are designed to develope the student's ability to research a given topic. The final paper is designed to spark thought and analysis while developing the student's ability to articulate written argument. At the undergraduate level this is, in my opinion, very comparable to accredited programs.

Bill, yes, I received your PM. I tried to respond but it said your mailbox was full again. What gives?

Pug

 

Pug

OK. I just PM'd you twice with my email. The correct is the second one with a "g", no "q".

 

Bill,
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote here.

As far as the Gospel of John syllabus goes...you'll just have to take my word that I never had anything close to being that easy. Most of the courses I took (graduate courses) required at least 80 pages worth of research papers and sometimes more. The questions for each course are definitely "textbook driven" just like the courses at ACCS.

BLD

 

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Barry

I will take your word on most anything except that Ford trucks are better than Chevy's , the "wisdom" of Arminius about the essentiation of the Son, or that Erickson's is smart in depriving the incarnate Son of the independent use of the divine attributes.

What most troubled me about the John syllabus was that grad students would do more, NOT different, assignments. Reminiscent of TTS??

The issue that I began to broach in the above post was my own belief that it is not mere volume , as you describe, that constitutes rigor. It is the scholarly two way "dialogue " between the student and the prof. using as the context of this interaction the student's carefully done submissions, the professor's extensive and scholarly insights and probing evaluation of student work, AND the student REQUIRED reactions and responses to those probes. Mike affirms that is lacking in his GSST experience!

The process I envision, but which I never much experienced myself at TTS or ACCS , should yield significant gains in student learning. Learning should be better than skimpy prof remarks and interaction on a topic ending when a paper is first given a grade.

Basically I do not envision the work of a DL prof to be that of a clerk checking off assignments!

My suggested process is:

1-Student papers/exams etc --50% of grade
2-Student written responses to prof probes on papers / exams--50% of grade.


That system ,of course, requires much more time and effort from a student to become scholarly and much more time and effort from a prof to act scholarly. Perhaps the cost simply would be too high? But no one should doubt the superiority of it.

 

I don't want to leave the impression that I am being highly critical of the GSST programs. The work is substantial, the topics are covered thoroughly. My issue comes in the substance of the topics covered, not the volume of work covered.

I am currently in my second class on the Ancient Near East. I have done numerous small papers, thousands of pages of reading, one large research, and answered over 1200 questions from the text book. But other than the final term paper, I have been asked to regurgitate information rather than formulate associations about the information.

In other words, I am expected to know who was king when, what boundries were in effect, lots of questions about culture, religion, geography, etc. but I am not asked, for example, if the Assyrians (or any specific king) rise to power was a divine part of God's plan for discipling Israel, or what effect the constant battles within Mesopotamia had on the growth of Israel, or how did pantheon in Mesopotamia effect the development of religion in Israel.

IMO, at graduate level, one should be expected to go beyond the task of knowing massive amounts of information and into the application of that information.

Am I learning, Yes - Is the work real and substantial, Yes - Has GSST been a good value, Yes. How does it compare to an RA graduate degree, I do not know. That is why I am posting my learning methods so that I might understand from those who have RA degrees how things compare.

Please understand that I am NOT trying to be critical of GSST, only understand (and perhaps share that information) how the program compares and where it could improve.

In Christ,
Mike

 

I agree, but must say that the GSST experience has been the NORM for all distance learning classes that I have taken, even at an RA school. In fact, I had more feedback and dialogue (via e-mail) with GSST than I ever did with JBC (www.jbc.edu) or ACCS combined. And while I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, I know that one of the reasons I did not get into as much dialogue as some other students that I've corresponded with in the same programs is because I did my research so thoroughly that there wasn't much to comment on (at least in a negative way). I know that sounds pretty conceited, but it is simply a fact. I have never turned in a paper without making sure everything was thoroughly documented and up to snuff.

BLD

 

It sounds to me that the question is really one of whether a particular method of study and learning is inferior to another, not of whether GSST's methods are inferior to accredited schools. There are accredited schools that use a "drive you into the text" method with low to moderate interaction with the student, and there are accredited schools that pry and probe the student with heavy interaction. Both systems are good, just different. Both methods have earned NA and RA. GSST utilizes a method shared by not just a few other accredited schools, but by many. If you like method "A" at accredited school "A" you will likely get a lot out of GSST. If you prefer method "B" at accredited school "B" you will likely think GSST is substandard, but you will also likely think that accredited school "A" is substandard.

I can tell you from personal experience that at the undergraduate level GSST is very comparable to accredited schools. In fact, I had more interaction with my GSST mentors than I have had at another accredited schools.

Pug

 

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A 20 page paper that complete? Really.

I guess I'm not making myself very clear at all! Let's say the student does a 20 page graduate paper on the incarnation of Christ.

Has the paper completely interacted with the literature ? Unless the paper evidences an understanding of the incarnational theories of , just to list a few, Apollinarius, Athanasius,Buswell,Strong,Miley, Wiley,Leonitius, non Chalcedonian Orthodoxy(eg Waheeb and Sarkissian),Cyril,McIntire,Pieper, Leo,Gregory of Nyssa, Tertullian,Agatho,Theodore of Mopseustia,Nestorius,Theodoret of Cyprus,John of Damascus,Chemnitz,Shedd, Constantinople, AB Bruce, Warfield,Grudem,Erickdon,Dorner,Baille,Clark, and Hodge, then I think there is lots of room for some comment and probing!

So, the student gets an "A' for the paper ; his 20 page paper is pretty good. But now, the rest of the assignment is to apply with reasoning that learning gained from doing that paper to some new vistas, some new difficulties, some new contexts.


So (speaking now to the student) :

probe 1, Your paper says God incarnated and shed His (God's) blood . Now read and tell me, who has the best arguments , and why , Cyril and Moltmann or Theodoret and Grudem, on the issue of whether God suffered and died in Christ ,

Probe 2: Your paper says a nature is not a Person, Read and tell me who is right, and why, Buswell or Hodge that a nature is an acting entity,

Probe 3: Your paper says Christ has a human will. Miley and Strong, unlike Constantinople, say that two wills in Christ would require two personalities. Read their arguments and tell why yours is the better position.

I could do a bunch more.


Is the paper's exposition replete with interaction with the past exegetes of the classical incarnational text , Philippians 2:6-8 as Chrysostom and Leo, and Athanasius, and Augustine as well the modern writers as Martin (Cosmocrator) , Wallace, Burk, Feinberg, Lightfoot, Wright , Hawthorne , Fee and OBrien? So,

Probe 1: Your paper says the Son did not give up the divine attributes in incarnationg, so , read Lightfoot's argument that the Son gave up equality in the incarnation and tell why your position is better,

Probe 2: Your paper says form of God means equal to God, but read Martin who says equality is only gained at the exaltation and explain why your position is better,

Probe 3, Your paper says that Christ's obedience is our example, but if Christ is God, how could that obedience be any test for Him, and if no test, how any example?

I could do a bunch more.

I would really like to see a 20, or a 100, page paper in Theology that precluded all comment.

I should again say that this is not something I've experienced in any DL courses except with my UZ supervisor. So, it is no particular criticism of GSST. But IMO DL is exactly where it should occur as there are often no class discussions which facilitate such probes. If I ever DL teach, that's the ONLY way I'd do it!

 

Bill,
I doubt that any 20 page, or 2,000 page paper completely deals with all the literature and all possible interpretations and interactions. I think you know what I meant.

The ONLY time I've had any interaction like you use as an example was in my undergraduate program. My bachelor's degrees offered more substantive research and interaction than any other degree. They say that graduate school is what stretches you, but my undergraduate program did a lot less spoon feeding and allowed for much more freedom to research, disagree, and debate.

BLD

 

Indeed!

 

<I should again say that this is not something I've experienced in any DL courses except with my UZ supervisor. So, it is no particular criticism of GSST. But IMO DL is exactly where it should occur as there are often no class discussions which facilitate such probes. If I ever DL teach, that's the ONLY way I'd do it!>>


I tend to agree that a weakness of DL is the lack of interaction, not just with the instructors but with the other students. BUT it doesn't have to be! Some schools have posting boards where subjects are discussed and debated by both the students and the faculty. There are also theology forums that a student can use to supplement the interaction at school. The type of interaction you referenced in your post would, in my opinion anyway, be more beneficial if it took place not on a 1-on-1 basis but in a group setting. That way it's not just the opinion of 1 student and 1 teacher that is being reviewed and probed, but of many students and 1 teacher.

Pug

 

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Barry

I wrote again last time with those examples of probes because it was not apparent to me that you understood what I was trying to express. I was talking about probing the ideation of a paper not merely expressing praise or criticism of a paper. I am looking at the paper as a starting point, not an ending point. So when you said that you researched in doing a paper so thoroughly that there was room for little dialogue, it seemed to me that you were addressing the issue I had just raised. It seemed to me that you were suggesting that a well written paper would not require such.If that is not your position, then I'm glad.

I am comparing two methods of instruction of Theology. Keep in mind that there are many sources available to all on the web which can be searched. There are others as First Search or Questia where for a fee one can also research. IMO someone doing DL studies in grad Theology needs to be able to research.I really do not see how one can do work in Theology at the master's or the doctoral level and not interact with the ideas and opinions on the topics studied. IMO it is the duty and function of the prof to see that that is done. It is not just the duty and function of the prof to see that the assignments are completed.



So here's, indeed, one way to teach Theology:

Th 601, The Doctrines of God

Assignments:

I. Read Chafer's Systematic Theology covering God , The Person and Work of Christ, and The Holy Spirit , pages 105-415, chapters 5,6,7,8. For each chapter write a 250 word summary. 1/4 of grade

[prof comment on submission:" Nice work!"]


II. Answer 100 questions on Chafer one sentence each . You must use complete sentences. 1/4 of Grade.

[ prof comment on submission: "Good job!"]


III. Submit a startement that you have read 500 pages of collateral reading. 1/4 of grade.

[prof comment on submission: "Excellent choices"]


IV. Write a paper of 20 pages on a topic covered in Chafer .

Student chooses: Spirit Baptism and writes,

"As Chafer teaches the Holy Spirit baptizes all Christians into the Church at the time of conversion according to 1 Cor 12, Rom 6, Gal 3, and Col 2 and there are no experiential effects of that yadayadayada............"

{prof comment on submission: " I agree"]


Or, another way to teach Theology would be to probe the student submissions reserving a part of a course's credit for the required student written responses on those probes. In the case of the paper,

probe 1: In regard to 1 Cor 12:13, I notice that you do not in your discussion define "church." Is it local or universal? Examine every occasion of the word "church" in 1 Cor. Using that research write an opinion on what the Corinthians would expect Paul to mean there by "church" and explain how this would be relevant to the issue of what baptism is there meant, Spirit or water?

probe 2: You say based on 1 Cor 12:13 that all Christians are baptised in the manner there described because the word "all" occurs there. But, RA Torrey says that all Christians are not baptised by the Spirit and Mullins in ISBE says no Christians today are baptised by the Spirit. Apply the argument developed in your paper to Torrey's and Mullins's position and explain why they are or are not correct.

probe 3: You say in your paper that there are no experiential effects of the Spirit baptism and you say that Rom 6 references that baptism. But Wiley, as a representative of Wesley's tradition, says that Spirit baptism results in entire sanctification and that Rom 6 shows that it does. Why is Wiley wrong and you are right?

probe 4: Stott teaches that every baptism has four features: Baptizer, Baptizand, Substance, and Purpose. Compare 1 Cor 12:13 with Acts 1:8 and Acts 2:38 and define and contrast between these texts each of the four baptismal features. How do these observation affect the theme of your paper?

I could give a bunch.

Basically what I am saying and trying desperately to represent, as I have strong feelings about it regardless of how RA , GSST, or any schools do it, is that in grad studies in Theology or Biblical interpretation there is much advantage in looking at the student's products as occasions for further learning in a course, before the course is finished, and not as the end of learning. A prof should do more, IMO, than grade papers.

 

As I said this would require more work and would evidence more expertise on the part of the prof. Each submission would have to be intricately examined and weighed. And the probes would have to be particularly lifted out of the profs expansive knowledge of the subject and precisely fitted to each paper and the level of each student. Then the responses to the probes would have to evaluated. Too much work? Too high an expectation? Not if serving God is the motive.

 

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It is the duty of the prof to connect the student with the ideas and the arguments of the experts in the field on a topic. That certainly can be done 1 on 1. This is exactly how research docs are guided! 1 on 1 ! It can also be done 1 on 20. But there, in a class, time constrains economy of its use. The goal cannot be let every one here say whatever he will for as long as he will. The goal must be often for the student to connect his thinking with those deemed to be experts. If this is not done the prof has not done well.

 

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Substantial contribution revealing a breathtaking insight of the issues

 

www.theologyreview.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=92

[Click on the blue chap four. All other chapters are there too plus Bibliography. Take time to visit the rest of TR too.]



Perhaps if I give an actual paper as an example, that would help to make clearer what I am saying.


Here is a paper of mine done while in the ACCS D. Min in Biblical Studies progam. I much appreciate TR posting it. The paper was done for a course on the Gospel of John. You will see there detailed exegesis. For example, lexically I personally look look at every Septuagintal usage of the word the KJV renders "only begotten." To some length I exposit texts which teach Christ is God. I refer to many theologians and exegetes and compare and contrast them and draw conclusions .

There are scores of places where the ACCS prof could interact with the paper and point to possible connections and applications. He could probe and evaluate my responses and grade them. But he made hardly no comments save for several times saying that John was influenced by Aristotle-- which I took to be a very curious remark.

So were I the prof, then, eg, I would probe the writer of this paper as :

1) In chap three you say Hebrews 5:8 limits the Son's obedience to the temporal state, but were the eternal subsistence of the Son not one of submission why would it have been the Son who was incarnate and sent and not the Father or the Spirit?

2) In chapter four you say that John 1:18 which says the Son is monogenes (only begotten) does not refer to a birthing, but if it does not, then why are Christians said to be birthed by God and there the verbal form of the adjective monogenes is used?

3) In chapter five you , unlike Williams, Shedd, and Berhhof, say that generation is not that on which eternal trinal relations is based. But if such is not the basis of the eternal differences in the subsistences existing in the Trinity, then what is the basis for that?

I could do a bunch.

 

Bill, I don't disagree in the methodology of your preferred style of teaching/learning. I question the frequency that this type of interaction, at least to the depth in your examples, actually takes place, even in a b&m classroom. I don't doubt that there is some at an undergard level, more at a grad level, and even more at the p-grad level. But it is certainly not the norm at any school I have attended, UA, NA, or RA.

Pug