Midterm exam section B

Question 1

Identify and briefly explain four of the six functions of a worldview, as explained by Hiebert.

Answer 1

WVs are a plausibility (how likely it is to be true) structure providing answers to ultimate questions.
→ Nature of the world (Where are we?)
→ Human Nature (Who are we)
→ Interpretations of certain meanings of central challenges, nature of evil etc… (What’s wrong?)
→ How to cope with challenges? (What is the remedy?)

WVs give emotional security.

WVs validate deepest cultural norms.
→ Makes some sense in what is and should be, guides the behavior we have towards it.

WVs integrate culture.
→ Living in one unified world, people from a culture, adopt some parts of another culture.

WVs monitor cultural changes.
→ Selecting cultural elements that fit with our society, reject the others

WVs offer psychological reassurance that we are at home in the world
→ Their world views match with the world views of their reality. If not, their could be a worldview crisis.

Question 2

Identify and briefly explain three of the evaluative themes/counters themes from the course slides.

Answer 2

Emotional expression vs. emotional control: does your culture value expressing your emotions or keep them for yourself control your emotions.
Group centered vs. individual centered: are you focused on the good of the community or the good of yourself.
Hierarchy is right vs. equality is right: it is a good thing for us all to fall in social class and follow your class (poor marries poor), or hierarchy is bad you can marry who you want.
Description of reality depending on different cultures.

Question 3

Give Hiebert’s definition of a worldview.

Answer 3

Hiebert believes that a worldview is a fundamental cognitive (belief), affective (atmosphere dimension) and evaluative (Value dimension like freedom and love) assumption a group of people make about the nature of things. These assumptions are used to add clarity and order in their lives.

Question 4

Briefly explain what is meant by saying that Christianity is the synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem.

Answer 4

Christianity belongs to Jerusalem because it rests upon God’s word but it also has a Greek influence.
→ Greek side: reason, precise concepts, definitions, deductive reasoning, understanding the world with mind alone.
→ Hebru tradition: God is not a personal being, dependance on God, obeying him and listening to him

Question 5

With reference to the book of Genesis, explain the Christian doctrine that pride is sinful.

Answer 5

The serpent tempts Eve by suggesting to eat an apple that comes from the tree of knowledge that will make her like God. The act of trying to elevate oneself to God’s level illustrates pride as a fundamental sin. In Christian thought, pride is often seen as the root of other sins, as it places the self above God and His commandments.

Question 6

Briefly explain why Plato holds that the divine must be unchanging.

Answer 6

Greek philosophy: Gods are changing, metamorphosing.
Plato:
→ The divine is perfect, if it changes, it is either from external influences or within itself. → Outside: no, because things are better when they resist the outside influence.
→ Himself: no, because if he is perfect, any change will weaken him and would lead him to deviate from perfection.

Question 7

Identify and briefly explain the main elements of Plotinus’ neo-Platonism.

Answer 7

Taking his lead from his reading of Plato, Plotinus developed a complex spiritual cosmology involving three foundational elements: the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul. Hierarchy.

The One (or the good): It is a being beyond being who provides a foundation and location for all existents. A lot of goodness; is infinite and abundant. Makes the intellect.
The intellect: It is at one and the same time thinker, thought, and object of thought; it is a mind that is perfectly one with its object. Pure internal forms. Definite concepts in thievery complex system of relationships.
The Soul: It is movement, which is the cause of all other movements. Needy desire to get to the One.

Question 8

Briefly explain the evolution of Augustine’s conception of God.

Answer 8

→ Believed God was incorruptible, unchangeable and uninjurable, and he thought of God as being in space, whether infused into the world, or diffused infinitely without it. Non anthropomorphic. Not in space and not in time.
→ Manichaeism: He viewed God as a dualistic being, seeing a conflict between good and evil.
→ Late conception: God is the ultimate, corruptible, unchangeable source of goodness and truth.
1: god is unchangeable and not in space or time, non anthropomorphic, material
2: god is a dualistic being, abandons the idea that god is material
3: god is corruptible (can die), unchangeable source of goodness, God is a kind of thing beyond space and time, finally understands when he becomes Christian himself.

Question 9

Explain how Augustine uses analogy to illuminate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

Answer 9

God made humans in his image. We resemble him in some way:
Father: We exist, memory, lover
Son: We know we exist, understanding, beloved
Spirit: We are glad we exist, will, love

Question 10

Briefly summarize the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius and its significance.

Answer 10

Pelagianism shaped Augustine’s ideas in opposition to his own on free will, grace, and original sin, and much of The City of God is devoted to countering Pelagian arguments.
→ Pelagius:
Denial of original sin
Human can choose between right and wrong, without grace of God (divine help)
Humans can, then, aim at unlimited perfection (FREE WILL)
→ Augustine: all humans are born corrupt and it is impossible for them to be good without God. They cannot achieve salvation without God. (NO FREE WILL)
→ Impact: The controversy with Pelagius helped shape Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, grace, and predestination and gave rise to some of Augustine’s most significant works. + Christianity

Question 11

Briefly explain Augustine’s understanding of the contrast between the City of God and the Earthly City.

Answer 11

→ The Earthly City: ‘the love of self, even to the contempt of God’ tempted by the material
→ The City of God: ‘by the love of God, even to the contempt of self’
These two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment affects their separation.
They can both exist at the same time.

Question 12

Briefly explain the philosophical problem of future contingents.

Answer 12

The law of excluded middle: the future will show whether that claim is true or not. If it turns out to have been true, then the claim must have been true yesterday as well (p or not-p). IMPLIES FATALISM
“There will be a sea battle tomorrow”: It is true that a sea battle will happen on October 3rd, it was gonna happen and was determined to be true all through time.
Conflict with our intuitions about free choice, we seem to be forced to say this ???

Question 13

Briefly explain how Boethius reconciles divine foreknowledge and human free will.

Answer 13

Events that are defined by God are necessary and fixed. God has a different perspective and we can change the course of some events since he doesn’t have the power to change what has already happened or what is planned.

Question 14

Explain the doctrine of chance given by Philosophy in Boethius’ Consolation.

Answer 14

→ Chance is an unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes where the several factors had some definite end. But the meeting and concurrence of these causes arises from that inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the fountain-head of Providence, disposes of all things in their due time and place.

Question 15

Identify and briefly explain Eriugena’s fourfold division of nature (includes everything that is).

Answer 15

→ Nature that creates and is not created (God as origin)
→ Nature that creates and is created (Forms/immaterial, produced out of God)
→ Nature that does not create and is created (Material world, the world we live in)
→ Nature that does not create and is not created (also God, but at rest, waiting for things to come back to him)

Question 16

Briefly explain what Eriugena means by calling God a ‘seer’ and a ‘runner. → p.154

Answer 16

→ Seer: He sees in himself everything equipped with being. All knowing.
→ Runner: He runs into all things and does not stand still at all, but fills everything by running. He is everywhere at the same time.
God’s running through everything is the same as his vision of everything is made by his seeing as by his running. In other words, God perceives and understands creation not just from a distance but through a continuous, dynamic engagement.
Everything that exists is within God’s vision.
Theos is another Greek word for God.

Question 17

Briefly explain the sense in which God may be said to be ‘nothing’ in Eriugena’s philosophy.

Answer 17

There are no categories that exist in which can be applied to God. God does not exist in that sense. He is a non-being beyond existence, making his character non definite. In fact, as infinite, he cannot be described. He doesn’t apply to any category. He is not an object or entity.

Question 18

Briefly explain Eriugena’s views on the naming or description of God.

Answer 18

God is ultimately ineffable and transcendent, existing beyond all human understanding and language. He is distinguished between positive and negative theology: positive theology speaks of God in affirmative terms, while negative theology emphasizes what God is not. Eriugena believed that true knowledge of God comes through the negation of all attributes, recognizing that God transcends all categories of thought and being. He only describes him by what he isn’t rather than what he is. He doesn’t have definite characteristics: he is simple, eternal and infinite.

Question 19

Briefly summarize Anselm’s argument for God’s existence in Chapter 2 of the Proslogion.

Answer 19

Ontological argument → if it is great it has to exist, the greatest thing you can think of it has to be real because existing in reality is greater. Early conception: He never thought of God under the figure of a human body.
Concept: “that which nothing greater can be thought”
God is defined as ???
Better to exist for real than only be in somebody’s mind:
If this concept existed only in the understanding then we would be saying that the same thing is a being that nothing greater can be thought of or a being that something greater can be thought. (contradiction)

Question 20

Briefly summarize Gaunilo’s reply to Anselm’s argument for God’s existence from ch. 2 of the Proslogion.

Answer 20

Lost Islands. You can imagine a paradisiac island, that island doesn’t necessarily exist in the real world, that is the argument that the student offers Anselm.

Lost Islands. You can imagine a paradisiac island, that island doesn’t necessarily exist in the real world, that is the argument that the student offers Anselm.

This idea you don’t have it in your understanding, (understanding why using it)
He is doubtful that this even is a real idea
The island exist in reality because according to Anselm it is greater to exist in reality than only a thought, Gaunilo thinks that it is unreasonable because simply thinking of them does not exist
Perfect island: if it is ever good, than the same structure should be for a perfect island. It would be greater if it existed, therefore this island must exist. Since the argument he offered is similar to Anselm’s argument, than it doesn’t work for God, it doesn’t work neither for the perfect island.

Question 21

Briefly summarize Anselm’s theory of truth.

Answer 21

Found in the chapter “On Truth”
Ontological truth: The fact that something exists whether we know it or not
christian– jesus says i am the way, the truth and the life. god is truth basically
God is truth, he is equivalent to truth itself. Choices and actions can be true or false.
True statements: we say that these 2 statements are true, what we have are different statements that all count for true if they conform to God.
statements can be rightly stated as true is well put together.

Question 22

Briefly summarize why Anselm holds that not even God can take away rectitude of will.

Answer 22

God gave freedom so we can preserve basic justice that was given by God, he can’t take it away because he would be willing in the opposite direction. One way he would like us to keep it, but on the other he would take it away.
Part of God’s will is that you keep your justice. God would contradict himself if he took it away from us.

God gave you everything, including your rectitude of will, if he takes it away, it goes against his will to give you rectitude of will in the first place, he contradicts himself. He may want to take away your rectitude because he wants you not to do something, but he can’t do so, he is tied to the nature of goodness and he is said to be the source of all goodness.

Question 23

Briefly explain why Anselm holds that the ‘ability to sin’ is not part of the definition of freedom of choice.

Answer 23

We have to keep in mind that we are not the only ones who can be free, if God is free then it is impossible for God to do evil things, so freedom doesn’t have evil involved in it. Liberty of indifference.
You’re picking between sinning and not sinning.
If you sin you could use what is best for you.
Freedom is acting out of your spontaneity, expressing your own nature instead of choosing between what is already there.

God has freedom of choice and God can’t sin, God has to have free will because if not, he is worse than us, if God can’t sin but he has free will, the ability of sin can’t be part of free will.

Question 24

Briefly explain how Anselm justifies the damnation of infants who die unbaptized.

Answer 24

You only go to heaven if you are free of sin, you can’t be impured
Either salvation or damnation. Adam and Eve screwed up so humans owe a massive debt to God, so God to make it work he sent Jesus. Jesus is fully god, fully man. .You have to be baptized so that you wipe away original sin, and now you are pure and can go to heaven. Babies are sent to hell if unbaptized.
Either heaven or hell. Damnation refers to the state of being condemned to eternal punishment or suffering, often in a religious context

Question 25

With reference to the slogan fides quarens intellectum, explain Anselm’s view on the authority of reason

Answer 25

Meaning of “faith seeking understanding,” reflects his view on the relationship between faith and reason. He posits that faith is the foundation for understanding, as believers must first accept certain truths about God before seeking deeper comprehension. .
Extreme 1: fideism, all faith (don’t trust your reason)
Extreme 2: all reason, rational skepticism, you don’t believe anything unless the argument is convincing.
Ex: don’t accept that god exist before having it proven to you
We want what is in between. christianity is a rational system of belief.
Reason can do thing like producing the ontological argument, he thinks reason can argue without using the Bible, even if sound irrational he believes reason can do it and make sense out of it. It has a role, it matters. Never abandon faith, reason has a role but it is secondary, faith is first (especially for anselm). “Trust your reason” but not all the way.