We live in a world where technology has become the principal model that shapes our mind, meaning that our most basic experience of life and reality, from the get-go as babies, is often times mediated through the screen and social media. In this context, as human beings we are fast losing a sense of the concrete and imposing presence of the real; of the reality of being; of the sense of our own history and future; of the sense of that in which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

At the same time, human intuition and intelligence objects to the famous bitter reflection we find in Shakespeare’s Macbeth that describes the human person as “a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more” and life as “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. And it is in relation to the question of meaninglessness of life inferred to by Macbeth, and philosophically accompanying humanity since antiquity, that the study of theology becomes once again relevant to a growing number of seekers in the pseudo-modern world.

Theology thus appeals both to seekers searching from an already established faith, and also to those whose faith has dried up but are still left with a quest for the real, the true and the beautiful. It appeals to people who question their faith but still seek the eternal transcendentals that perennially escape our fingertips as we keep searching through our screens.

I actually started studying theology as a result of being at a Gestalt conference in Serbia five years ago. At the conference, I attended a presentation on the Tibetan Bardo Thodol. The presenter said we must do away with the Christian myth of the resurrection and open up to the concrete scientific path of the Bardo. His statement challenged my faith, yet I had no intelligible means nor experience to argue with what he was saying. For this reason, I enrolled to a BA (Hons) in Theology at the University of Malta.

Here I came to concretely discover and understand that the incarnation of Jesus, his deeds, death and resurrection, is no myth. It is actually based on the concrete historical experience of ordinary people, who had come to meet Jesus, live with him and realise who he was, and the new horizons of meaning he offered to humanity. Their encounter gave a new philosophical and anthropological meaning to their life and that of ancient Greco-Roman culture in which the nascent Christianity flourished.

I came to concretely discover and understand that the incarnation of Jesus, his deeds, death and resurrection, is no myth

Thus, in the face of the radical shifts our civilisation is going through, brought about by both climate change and digital technology, in my experience, theology has much to offer for us to regain fresh insight and stability in the validity and universality of the Christian message. The five years spent at the Faculty of Theology were years of self-discovery, passionate debate and excellent academic accompaniment leading to a deeper reflection on the mystery of being, revelation, meaning and life.

Theology may be studied at the university at bachelor or master level, as a main area or with another subject, on a full- or part-time basis. Prospective students for the part-time or postgraduate courses may apply for a bursary or benefit from a tax credit of 70 per cent of the full tuition fees under the Get Qualified Scheme. For more information, call the Faculty of Theology on 2340 2767, e-mail theology@um.edu.mt or visit www.um.edu.mt/theology/courses