Key terms Flashcards
Rationalism
Human reason is the primary source of knowledge / truth
Empiricism
All knowledge / truth from the senses alone
Revelation
knowledge is revealed to humanity through encounter with god
Theory of the forms
Plato’s Theory of two worlds, reality and appearance
Form of the good
The highest of all the forms; the source of knowledge
Concept / ideal
The innate, ideal of an object eg. its cattiness
Phenomena / particular
An object in the material world reflecting the forms. eg a cat
Form (Aristotle)
What makes something recognisable, its shape or structure
Material cause
What is the object made of (matter)?
Efficient cause
Who made the object? Who brought it into existence?
Formal cause
The shape, structure and characteristics of an object.
Final cause
The purpose (telos) of an object
Prime mover
The unchanging final cause of all that exists
Telos
end, result, purpose
Body / soul distinction
The issue of personal identity - who am I?
Dualism
The belief that humans have two elements - body and soul
Substance dualism
The two elements (body and soul) are wholly different substances
Monism
The view that humans are one substance, not two
Materialism
The only substance is a material one
Identity theory
All mental activity is centred in the brain and is purely physical.
Theistic monism
‘We are an indissoluble psycho-physical unity’ (Hick). Also known as soft materialism
‘Soul one’ (Dawkins)
Non- material life force (‘mystic jelly’ - Dawkins); an ancient idea being killed by science
‘Soul two’ (Dawkins)
Intellect, reason or consciousness
Category error
Incorrectly assuming that two terms (mind and body) are of the same logical type.
A posteriori
An argument for god based on sense experience and observations and evidence.
Teleological argument
An argument for the existence of god starting with observed design or telos
Cosmological argument
An argument for the existence of god starting with observations from the existence of the universe.
Infinite regress
A chain of events going backwards forever
Aquinas’ Three ways
Way one - Motion; way two - cause; way three - necessity and contingency
Contingent
Depends on something else for its existence; can cease to exist
necessary
Must exist, cannot not exist. Holds the reason for being within itself
Design qua purpose
Design ‘as relating to’ purpose
Design qua regularity
Design ‘ as relating to’ the regular cycles and and natural laws of the world
Evolution / natural selection
The process in nature where the organisms best adapted to their environment survive and pass on their genetic characteristics while those less adapted tend to be eliminated.
Epicurean hypothesis
Given infinite time, an infinite number of particles could produce order
Fallacy of composition
What is observed about the parts cannot be assumed to be the same for the whole
A priori
An argument based on reason alone (before sense expierence)
Ontological argument
An argument for the existence of god starting with reason
Principle of sufficient reason
The complete and full explanation (Leibniz)
Analytic
A statement that contains the truth needed to verify it within the statement itself
Synthetic
A statement which needs external evidence to verify if it’s true/false
Logical Fallacy
An error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid
Predicate
A quality or property of an object / subject in a sentence
Conversion experience
A change of heart and turning around of one’s priorities, following a new direction in life
Corporate religious experience
A religious experience shared with any people
Numinous experience
(Otto) - the experience of the ‘wholly other’
William James’ definiton
‘the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may call the divine’
Principle of credulity
Things are as they seem to be unless we have evidence to the contrary
Principle of testimony
We should assume people are telling the truth, unless we have good reason to believe otherwise
Passive
Not in control of the experience; feeling of being taken over by a more powerful being.
Noetic
Provided new knowledge or insight
Ineffable
Cannot be described / difficult to put into words
Transient
Experience does not last long but its significance is out of proportion with its duration
Pragmatism
(James) the effects of an experience are most important and show it holds value for the individual
Pluralism
One of James’ conclusions - all religions are valuable and hold truth
Volitional conversion
(Starbuck) gradual change and slow development of new moral and spiritual habits
Mystical experience
An experience of something beyond normal awareness
Self-surrender conversion
(Starbuck) a sudden, pivotal or crisis experience followed by a change of life
Privation
A lack of essential characteristic or property e.g Blindness is a lack of sight
Theodicy
The justification of God in the face of evil and suffering
Inconsistent triad
God cannot be omnipotent and omnibenevolent or evil would not exist
Epistemic Distance
The knowledge of God’s existence is not obvious to humans in order to allow free will
Eschatology
The end times or last days of the Universe; often a reference to the after life
Soul-making
Hick’s phrase referring to growing from the image into the likeness of God
Soul-deciding
Often used of Augustine’s theodicy - the individual decides where their soul will go depending on their response to Jesus.
Moral evil
Evil and suffering caused by humans e.g war
Natural evil
Evil and suffering caused by natural events e.g Tsunami
Dysteleological evil
Evil and suffering that does not seem to have a purpose
Logical problem of evil
How can God be all powerful and all loving yet let evil exist?
Evidential problem of evil
The sheer amount of evil in the world
Paradox
A situation where two contradictory statements both appear true
Eternal - timeless
God is outside of time and sees all events as an eternal present
Eternal - everlasting
God is within time and moving through time; ‘ backwardly… and forwardly eternal’ (Swinburne)
Process theology
God moves through time with his creation and is affected by this interaction; God is powerful but not omnipotent
Middle knowledge
God knows all the possibilities of your free choices
Schleiermacher and Omniscience
God’s knowledge is like that of close friends - can predict our future choices but free will is retained
Eternal - Boethius
‘Eternity is the simultaneous possession of boundless life which is made clearer by comparison with temporal things’
Simple necessity
The necessity of nature acting according to the natural, physical laws of the universe.
Conditional necessity
Dependent on the free choices made; ‘the addition of the condition’
Euthyphro dilemma
Is an action good because god commands it or does god command what is good?
Following necessity
The moment of free choice is known in God’s eternal present; God is with us as that moment is in god
Preceding necessity
Refers to no free agent of choice; e.g God’s knowledge of laws and nature
Anslem’s four-dimensionalism
All times and places are equally real and present to god
Presentism
Only the present exists, the past and future do not exist.
Univocal
The word has exactly the same meaning at all times e.g ‘boy’
Equivocal
The same word is used with two completely different meaning e.g ‘cricket’ (a game or an insect’
Cataphatic way
Uses positive language to describe the qualities and nature of god
Apophatic way
The via negativa - the negative way - the only legitimate way to talk about god is to say what he is not
Analogy of attribution
A way of talking about god through attributing characteristics of the created to the creator.
Analogy of proportion
A way of talking about god by comparing limited human concepts with a proportionally much greater idea.
Sign
Points to something outside itself
Symbol
Participates in that to which it point and conveys a depth of meaning often at an emotional level
Cognitive
A statement that is subject to being true or false
Non-cognitive
A statement that is not subject to truth or falsity
Tautology
A logical statement true by defintion
(Strong) verification principle
A statement that is only meaningful if it can be verified by an actual experience or is a tautology
(Weak) verification principle
A statement is meaningful if it is a tautology or it can be verified in principle
Eschatological Verification
(Hick) Religious statements will be verified at the end of life’s journey
Synthetic Statement
A statement that needs external evidence for it to be proved true or false
Falsification principle
A principle for assessing whether statements are genuine scientific assertions by considering whether evidence could disprove them
Blik
(Hare) a world view that can be sane or insane; beyond judgement and reason
Language gamnes
(Wittgenstein) - Words only have a specific meaning within the context of their own ‘form of life’.
