Philosophy 55

Question 0

The Christian religion was now faced with what?

Answer 0

A world ambivalent about religion in general, and distanced from the claims and concerns of the Christian revelation in particular

Question 1

What synopsis of Marx’s ideas is presented?

Answer 1

All ideas and cultural forms reflected material motivations, specifically the dynamics of class struggle, and religion was no exception

Question 2

How did the Catholic Church change? Why?

Answer 2

Opened itself to modernity, pluralism, ecumenism, and new freedom in matters of worship to accommodate a secularized modern world

Question 3

What view of Nietzsche’s thought is given?

Answer 3

The death of god signified the demise of an entire civilization’s world view that for too long had held men back from a daring, liberating embrace of life’s totality

Question 4

Measured by its own standards, how did Christianity appear?

Answer 4

It fell short of ethical greatness, and many alternative systems seemed to provide equally inspiring programs from human activity without the baggage of implacable supernatural belief

Question 5

What “radical shift” is identified?

Answer 5

Shift of psychological allegiances from God to man, dependence to independence, transcendent to empirical, universals to particulars

Question 6

What shift in the “psychological vector” is presented?

Answer 6

Power of perceived authority shifted from the past to present, and ancient theism shifted to modern humanism