Midterm + Final Flashcards
Anachronism
Using a concept from one time period in a different time period
Anthropomorphic
to give human characteristics to something (God)
Chain of being
Hierarchy of all things
Christian Universalism
Everyone is saved; everyone is of God and accepted/forgiven by him
City of God
everyone who embraces God
Apophatic/Negative
Theology
God by negation
Caritas/Cupiditas
Love of God v. Love of self (limited things)
Cognitive Theme/Counter Theme
Concept v. Different Concept (ex. linear time v. circular time)
Compatibilism
determinism fits with freedom of will
Contempus mundi
Contempt for the world/focus on the next world
Credo quia absurdum
I believe because it is absurd; faith seeking understanding
Demiurge
god-like shaper of the world
Determinism
Everything is predetermined
Divine (fore)knowledge
God knows all (in advance?)
Donatism
Priests must be pure for the sacrament to work
Divine simplicity
God is simple; one entity
Ego sum qui sum
I am that I am - God is existence
Epistemology
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge
Equivocation
Making one thing mean two different things
Essence
what a thing is; what doesn’t change
Eternal v. Everlasting
no beginning/ending v. has a beginning
Ethnocentrism
evaluating a world view from your own cultural perspective
Etic v. Emic analysis
1st person v. 3rd person
Evil a privation
Evil is the absence of God
Ex nihilo nihil
out of nothing you get nothing
Fall of man
Original sin
Fideism
Faith > reason; sometimes disparages reason
First cause
God either 1) had no cause or 2) is its own cause
Future Contingents
a possible event; neither necessarily true nor necessarily false
Gnosticism
The body is the prison of the soul; the God of the Bible is a lesser false god
Heresy
“wrong views”
Holism
whole>sum of its part
Humanism
humans have a special dignity
Hyperousias
God is beyond being
Imago dei
Image of God; in christianity, the idea that humans are “in God’s image”
Justification by Faith
it is on the basis of faith alone that believers are made right of sin
Manichaeism
belief in the opposition of good and evil
Materialism
matter is the fundamental substance of nature
Metanoia
change resulting in spiritual conversion
Metaphysics
The study of reality and existence, who we are, and what our purpose is
Millenarianism
second coming
Necessity v. Contingency
Must be true v. can be true
Neo-Platonism
Resurgence of platonic ideas; era of philosophy blending christianity and hellenic ideals
Normative v. Descriptive
How things should be v. how things are
Omnipotent
unlimited power
Omniscience
knowing everything
Original Sin
Adam and Eve
Orthodoxy
“right views”
Pantheism
God = nature
Paradox
Two obvious inferences that are incompatible
Pelagianism
you can save yourself; free will to achieve human perfection
Perfectibility
you can make yourself perfect
Perfection
God’s attributes
Predetirminaiton
Everything is predetermined
Prevenient Grace
God graces you first by guiding you owards him
Revelation
God communicates with you; Bible
Saving remnant
i.e. Noah’s ark
Sea Battle
an example of future contingents
Slave to sin
humans are dominated by temptations
Spontaneity
actions fro true nature; only God is capable
Substance
Being / the fundamental reality
Synchronic v. Diachronic
one glance (note: God’s view) v. through time
Syncretism
mixing of WVs
Temporal / Ontological Priority
God was before / everything depends on God
The Word/logos
Christ - of God and within God
Theology
study of the divine
Timaeus
creation of the world
Typology
study of the old testament compared to the new
Unmoved mover
God - cannot change
Via negativa/via affirmativa
What God is not / What God is
Weltanschauung
World View in German
Wheel of Fortune
Ups and downs of life
Will
motivation of freedom in the term “free will”
- Identify and briefly explain four of the six functions of a worldview, as explained by Hiebert.
1) Answer to the ultimate questions
2) Emotional security
3) Validates cultural norms - guides behaviour
4) Monitor cultural changes - selecting elements that fit; rejecting others
- Identify and briefly explain three of the evaluative themes/counterthemes from the course slides.
1) Time as linear v. circular
2) Nature is organic (whole) v. mechanistic (individual parts)
3) Sacred v. profane
- Give Hiebert’s definition of a worldview.
“The fundamental cognitive, affective, and evaluative presuppositions a group of people make about the nature of things, and which they use to order their lives”
- Briefly explain what is meant by saying that Christianity is a synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem.
Christianity is an amalgamation of Jewish faith and Greek philosophy; i.e. physical image of God, God as matter/substance; a combination of the Antenian belief in logic and the Jewish belief in faith
- With reference to the book of Genesis, explain the Christian doctrine that pride is sinful.
Pride is defying God/thinking you can be as good as him (Adam and Eve)
- Briefly explain why Plato holds that the divine must be unchanging
1) To change, one must change either for the worst or for the best
2) God is already the greatest thing imaginable
3) To change God would have to change for the worst
4) That is not a logical change, thus he is unchanging
- Identify and briefly explain the main elements of Plotinus’ neo-Platonism.
1) the One is infinite
the one is not selfish and so he creates
2) the Intellect - pure forms
3) Soul - wants to get back to the source
- Briefly explain the evolution of Augustine’s conception of God.
1) believes in God without a human form but material
2) God is immaterial
3) Understanding the Trinity - love
- Explain how Augustine uses analogy to illuminate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
We are made to resemble God to better understand him; Looking at humans, we have a will, memory, and understanding which are all the mind
- Briefly summarize the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius and its significance.
Augustine thinks that Original Sin ruined us and that very few can be saved
Pelagius believes that, since Jesus told us to be perfect, perfection must be attainable
- Briefly explain Augustine’s understanding of the contrast between the City of God and the Earthly City.
City of God: the believers
Earthly City: the non believers who indulge in worldly pleasures
- Briefly explain the philosophical problem of future contingents.
The problem of free will
The Sea Battle: “there will be a sea battle tomorrow” - if yes than that statement was always true, if not than it was always false; everything in the past was necessarily true or false so where doe free choice come in?
- Briefly explain how Boethius reconciles divine foreknowledge and human free will.
Human have free will because, from their perspective, they can make that decision; However, from God’s perspective, there is no choice (ex. you can’t know someone is making a choice but that does not take away the fact that they did make a choice)
- Briefly explain the doctrine of chance given by Philosophy in Boethius’Consolation.
Chance is only perceived by the person experiencing it
There are always preceding causes for all events and so luck doesn’t exist
- Identify and briefly explain Eriugena’s fourfold division of nature.
1) is not created and creates (God)
2) created and creates (primordial causes or ideas)
3) created and does not create (us)
4) is not creates and does not create (God - after creation)
- Briefly explain what Eriugena means by calling God a ‘seer’ and a ‘runner.’
Seer: all things are in God’s vision
Runner: he makes all things move
God is simple, thus his vision and actions are one
- Briefly explain the sense in which God may be said to be ‘nothing’ in Eriugena’s philosophy.
God is simple, i.e. not a “thing”; he is beyond being; things have characteristics, God is beyond characteristics
- Briefly explain Eriugena’s views on the naming or description of God.
Description based on comparison; God cannot be contrasted with anything else or with what he is because is simple and beyond understanding by comparison
- Briefly summarize Anselm’s argument for God’s existence in Chapter 2 of the Proslogion.
“that than which nothing greater can be thought”
The understanding of God means he must be real
- Briefly summarize Gaunilo’s reply to Anselm’s argument for God’s existence from Ch. 2 of the Proslogion.
The island argument
- Briefly summarize Anselm’s theory of truth.
God is Truth; Things are true in relation to God, not in relation to themselves; rectitude = in accordance with God
- Briefly summarize why Anselm holds that not even God can take away rectitude of will.
1) Freedom of will is freedom of rectitude
2) Freedom of will is given to us by God
3) If God took away rectitude of will, it would be inconsistent with this characterization
- Briefly explain why Anselm holds that the ‘ability to sin’ is not part of the definition of freedom of choice.
1) God had freedom of choice
2) God cannot sin
3) Sin cannot be a part of God
4) God cannot be sinful
5) Freedom of choice cannot include sin
- Briefly explain how Anselm justifies the damnation of infants who die unbaptized.
1) human are stained by sin
2) human aren’t great enough to get rid of sin, only Jesus is; to think that you are great enough to rid yourself of sin is prideful
3) humans cannot rid themselves of sin without baptism
- With reference to the slogan fides quarens intellectum, explain Anselm’s view on the authority of reason.
“faith seeking understanding”
When considering contradictions, faith>logic
Principles of Continuity, Gradation, Plentitude
Continuity: the chain of being is continuous - eveything follows from the previous and flows into the next
Gradation: Ranked
Plentitude: the universe is FULL
Act and Potency
What something is - only God is this without potency
What something can be - potential
Active v. Passive Intellect
Active: thinking
Passive: receptive aspect of the intellect (see a chair, think chair)
Anchorite/Anchorise
Hermit - living religious life on their own in total devotion to God
Anthropocentrism
Human centred view - Humans above everything else
Antinomianism
Heretical view - if you’re saved already you might as well do whatever you want
Arianism
One God - Creator
Son and Spirit are divine but made by God
Heretic view
Jesus is an angel in a body
Asceticism
Deprive oneselves of any luxury
Atonement
Reconciliation with the divine
Blasphemy
Anything you say of do that show a lack of respect for the divine
Christendom
The territory ruled by Christianity (Usually referring to Europe)
Christology
The part of Theology studying Christ
Consubstantial
Of the same substance
Cosmopolitanism
Humans are all part of the same community (typically Christianity)
Demonstration
Structure of deductive reasoning - starts with premises, leads to conclusions
If: all S = Q
and all Q = P
Then all S = P
Ens necessarium
Nothing is necessary except God
Essence v. Existence
The nature of something vs its actuality
For God, his essence is his existence
Filioque
“Of the Son”
In the West - God the father and the Son generate the holy spirit
In Easter thought - the holy spirit is produced only from the father
Final Cause
Aristotle - the purpose of a thing explains it and everything about it
Godhead (Godhood)
The divine essence
Haecceity
“thisness”
What differentiates you from something with the same essence/nature
Hair Shirt
Tool for self torment used in monastic life
Hylomorphism
every natural body consists of two intrinsic principles, one potential, namely, primary matter, and one actual, namely, substantial form
Imitatio dei
You must imitate the divine (Christ)
Intellectual Substance
No material form (angels)
Incorporeal
Intercession
Intervening - praying for assistance/help for yourself or someone else
Limbo
Edge of hell for people who are unbaptized
Messiah
The anointed one - Jesus in Christianity
The liberator
Different from the Jewish Messiah
Mysticism
A set of practices aimed at getting one closer to the divine
Natural Law
Moral rules written into the nature of things and which we can recognize
Nicene Creed
Unified Christian world view
Nominalism v. Realism
Realism
Numerical Identity
A thing is only numerically identical to itself
Different than qualitative identity - things that have the same characteristics
Passion
Passion of Christ - suffering of Christ to help humans
Pollution
Contamination of the Soul
Prime Matter
Aristotle: matter without form
pure matter that can take on any other form - is all already formed
Principles of Continuity, Gradation, Plenitude
The great chain of being:
Plenitude: all form in nature have been realized
Gradation: Things are ranked
Continuity: continuous ranking
Principle of Sufficient Reason
“Nothing is without reason”
Never acceptable to say that something has not explanation
Not necessarily a motive
Purgatory
A place where imperfect souls go - a place to burn out all your sinful nature - painful but there is hope (as opposed to hell)
Quiddity
“Whatness”
The nature
Sabellianism
Christian heresy: only one God, no Trinity
3 from our point of view
Spiritual Body
When resurrected you do not only come back in a spiritual sense
There will be a spiritual body that is superior to your original body
Substantial Form
The form that makes the thing what it is
Suffering servant
Isaiah
The scapegoat
Christian view: predicts Jesus
Summum Bonum
The highest good
Aristotle: happiness
Christian: (understanding of) God
Teleology
Explanations that emphasis the end - explain why things happen by using their purpose
Transcendentals
Concepts that transcend Aristotelian schemes of categories
Ex. Being, true, good (according to some Christianity), etc. (applies to everything)
Universals
Universal essence
ex. Triangularity, humanity (realist)
Voluntarism
The relationship between the will and the intellect in God
God’s will has priority over his intellect
Ex. Why is killing wrong? Because God decided (will)
- Briefly summarize Anselm’s argument against Roscelin’s view of the Trinity.
Roscelin: thought that there was a looming heresy with the doctrine of divine simplicity; if they’re all one thing, they all have to be born; instead, he must be three things.
Anselm: what you are saying is ambiguous; you’re not saying anything new; if you’re saying that he’s three different essences than that is heresy (polytheism)
- Briefly explain Anselm’s Christology
View of Christ: Jesus is fully human and fully divine; fused natures (godly and human); the characteristics of Jesus are part of the divine (his actions).
- Briefly explain Aquinas’ view concerning charitable love toward irrational creatures.
You cannot show charitable love towards irrational creatures cause you cannot be friends with an irrational creatures.
1) You cannot wish good on them because they cannot possess good and they are not free being.
2) To be friends you must share a form of life and human life is rational.
3) To be friends = to wish eternal happiness - you can’t help an irrational creature go to heaven
- Briefly explain what is meant by talk of Aquinas’ ‘destruction of the world.’
Not the destruction of the physical world
The destruction of the concept of the world: our understanding of the world is wrong - the idea that the world is a container of objects; reality is instead each object blasting into existence.
- Briefly explain the difference between strong and weak theories of existence.
Weak: reality cannot be explained; things have a simple presence; existence by observation
Strong: why; you cannot end inquiry with the thought that things are simply there
- Briefly explain Duns Scotus’ solution to the problem of individuation.
The problem: realist position - universal nature that humans share
How are things individual?
Kent: chain of categories; things can not be further divided; you are not the same as the other things on your level
Scotus: this doesn’t explain anything; the things that makes you unique cannot be observed
- According to Aquinas, in what sense did the devil desire to be like God?
He desired to be equal to god or like god
He can’t be equal to god as he is finite and God is infinite; he would have to destroy his own nature
He wanted to imitate God - but humans also want to imitate God - so what is the difference? - he is trying to conquer nature - similar but without God’s assistance - pride
- Briefly contrast Anselm’s view with the traditional explanation for Christ’s incarnation.
Original Sin - under the devil’s authority
Traditional view: a human born that is not one of Adam and Eve’s progeny - the devil cannot act on him
Anselm: God would not give power to the devil - instead, humans cannot pay off their crimes; so you need a being that is divine and human so they can act on the behalf of humans but also with divine essence
- Briefly explain Aquinas’ view on the question whether an angel is in a place.
Angels are immaterial
They occupy space through their intellect and apply their power to a place through their intellect
- Briefly summarize Aquinas’ view on love for one’s enemies.
You cannot love an enemy as an enemy
You should love what makes them human and so what makes them a child of God
- Briefly explain why, according to Dante, humans need the guidance of both secular and Church authority.
People have a dual nature: the soul (larger purpose) and the body (this world)
What makes a life good is a life spent thinking; you need secular guidance for this
You need the guidance of the Church for your soul
- With reference to Margery Kempe, distinguish introvertive from extrovertive mystical experience.
Introvertive: solely introspective
Extrovertive: sensory perception of the world
- Identify and briefly describe the three characteristic features of mystical experience.
Noetic: the mind/intellect - the cognitive part of the experience - the known
Ineffable: can’t be put into words - past conceptuality
Paradoxicality: seemingly illogical way of expressing a mystical experience
- Briefly explain Aquinas’ view on the sorrow of the demons.
Sorrow is physical, not mental - it’s not achieving your will
Demons do not have a body
They are not capable of felling
They feel sorrow in the sense of frustration of their will. They’re desires are not fully fulfilled
- Briefly explain why, according to Dante, secular powers do not derive their authority from the Church.
There was an empire before the Church
The Church is defined by the nature of Christ and Christ’s kingdom, in the bible, is not of this world; he has no temporal authority so the Church cannot have temporal authority either
- Briefly explain why, according to Aquinas, each angel belongs to a species of its own
Matter individuates you
What makes us different is that our matter is distinct
Angels have no matter, so each of them have to be totally unique categories/species
- Briefly explain Duns Scotus’ doctrine of the formal distinction.
Real distinction: separable
Conceptual distinction: related to our ways of thinking; we draw a difference between things based on perception but they are the same thing (ex. morning star and evening star)
Formal distinction: No real separability; God’s mercy and justice cannot be separated; yet they are still different definitions of the same thing. Not a distinction invented by humans.
- Briefly explain Aquinas’ view about the relationship between the body and the soul.
Platonic view: dualistic - what you are (substance) is a soul - your soul is the real you, your body is a temporary residence
Aquinas: what you are fundamentally is a soul and a body - you need both to be what you are - the body is in the soul - the body becomes unified only within the power of the soul -> as soon as you die your body falls apart
A soul without a body cannot experience things
The soul goes away without destruction after death - it’s waiting for a new body after the return of Christ - new body is different in that it is indestructible
- Briefly explain Duns Scotus’ approach to the question of God’s infinity.
Infinity cannot be limited and defined
Fully realized intensity of a quality
- Briefly explain what is meant by describing humans as a microcosm within the Great Chain of Being.
Chain of Being: lowest characteristic = existence
alive - motion - memory - imagination - rationality (humans)
Humans are a microcosm of the natural world because they have all possible qualities of the natural world in their natures
Theological Virtues
What you need to achieve your union with God
Charity, faith, and hope
