The Cosmic Conflict Motif

MA students taking the Biblical Studies pathway gain insights into an unseen battle raging behind the scenes of our everyday lives – a ‘cosmic conflict’ revealed by the Bible.

Ideas are contagious like a virus. They grow in our minds and define us: they make us develop or destroy us. The Book of Genesis tells us how a false idea about God infiltrated human minds. The rest is human history.

In the Cosmic Conflict Motif module, taught in the Biblical Studies pathway of the MA programme, we explore how the conflict focuses on God’s character and features in biblical literature and what pastoral implications it has for the Church’s ministry and mission.

Students get a chance to look closely at the motif (the theme) of the Messiah in the Bible, Judaism and Christianity and the characteristics of biblical covenants and how they impact the theology and structure of individual books found in the Bible. They interpret the most important biblical texts for the development of the cosmic conflict motif and address relevant theological and pastoral issues.

Like other biblical disciplines, Biblical Studies are very important, and good theology is a theology that has an application that speaks to us now. It answers questions people are asking, and one of the most important questions being asked is how to survive the apocalypse.

On completing this module, students will have sharpened their interpretive skills, learning how to critically evaluate the motif of the cosmic conflict that runs throughout Scripture and how it has shaped Adventist thinking and the Church’s understanding of the Great Controversy.