KOG: INNATE HUMAN SENSE

Question 1

What is general revelation?

Answer 1

The way that God is revealed constantly through his creation. It is available to everyone at all times in all places.

Question 2

What is natural theology?

Answer 2

Theology done on the basis of general revelation using our reason to work out things about God.

Question 3

What did Aquinas use natural theology for?

Answer 3

Constructing his arguments about God and Creation.

Question 4

What were the three ‘eyes’ of Bonaventura?

Answer 4

• the ‘eye of the flesh’.
• the ‘eye of reason’.
• the ‘eye of contemplation’.

Question 5

What did Polkinghorne argue from Bonaventura’s eye analogies?

Answer 5

Wrote about what he deemed ‘binocular vision’.

Question 6

What did Polkinghorne argue he could see through the one ‘eye’?

Answer 6

He sees science which shows him the physical world and the laws and process behind it.

Question 7

What did Polkinghorne claim he could see through the other ‘eye’?

Answer 7

Truths about God, which showed him purposefulness and the world in the context of the creation of God.

Question 8

What did Polkinghorne argue about these two ‘eyes’?

Answer 8

It is foolish of some religious people to deny science, just as it is foolish for some scientists to refuse to engage in the possibilities of God.

Question 9

What did Boyle write in terms of?

Answer 9

‘two great books’.

Question 10

What did Boyle argue about these ‘two great books’?

Answer 10

The natural world and the Bible, were both created by the same author.

Question 11

What part has natural theology played for most Christian thinkers?

Answer 11

An important part in forming and supporting belief.

Question 12

What did Paley state about natural theology?

Answer 12

The natural world presented clear evidence of God.

Question 13

What is written of natural theology in Psalm 8?

Answer 13

“Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”

Question 14

What did Paul express about natural theology in his letter to the Romans?

Answer 14

Expressed the view that human experience and human reason easily lead to knowledge of God.

Question 15

What did Paul state in his letter to the Romans about natural theology?

Answer 15

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people.”

Question 16

What did Aquinas seek to demonstrate about natural theology?

Answer 16

Important in demonstrating that Christian belief was reasonable.

Question 17

How did Aquinas go about proving his demonstration?

Answer 17

Claimed Christianity was not in opposition to reasonable common sense, but that reason and observation could be employed in support of Christian beliefs.

Question 18

What did Swinburne argue about reason and observation?

Answer 18

Human reason and powers of observation provide us with solid grounds for supporting the probability that there is a God.

Question 19

What example did Swinburne give for the grounds of reason and observation?

Answer 19

We have good reason to think that the world shows signs of order, regularity and purpose.

Question 20

What did John Calvin claim in ‘Institutes’?

Answer 20

That we have a sense of ‘senses divinitas’ (‘seed of dignity’), an innate sense of God.

Question 21

What did John Calvin write about this innate human sense of God?

Answer 21

“There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity.”

Question 22

What did Calvin believe about ‘census divinitas’?

Answer 22

He did not think that this was restricted to Christians, but believed that it is universal to all human beings.

Question 23

What did the ‘census divinitas’ mean everyone was aware of according to Calvin?

Answer 23

Everyone universally is aware of God.

Question 24

How is the ‘epistemic distance’ attributed to God?

Answer 24

Claims he deliberately makes himself obscure to people in order to preserve their free will and choose whether or not to have a relationship with him.

Question 25

What has the idea of people being made in the ‘image of God’ led supporters of natural theology to claim?

Answer 25

We are made in such a way that we can appreciate and understand beauty and goodness in the world.

Question 26

What do thinkers such as Butler and Newman state about this innate human sense?

Answer 26

We all have feelings of guilt when we do something wrong, even if no one else sees us.

Question 27

What does Bonaventura mean by the ‘eye of flesh’?

Answer 27

Incorporates sense perception: the empiricism of science.

Question 28

What does Bonaventura mean by ‘eye of reason’?

Answer 28

The way of knowing that lets us work out mathematical and philosophical truths.

Question 29

What does Bonaventura mean by ‘eye of contemplation’?

Answer 29

Allows us to come to a knowledge of God by going beyond the scope of both sense experience and reason.