Philosophy for Theologians Flashcards
- Explain Aristotle’s approach to causation? What are the ways in which something may be a cause
- Formal Causes: the form or pattern of an object that gives its definition and essence.
- Material Causes: The material or matter out of which something is made.
- Efficient Causes: Things or people which bring something into being.
- Final Causes: the telos, end, the goal to which an object is created.
Justification
Formal cause: The Law of God
Material cause: Christ righteousness
Efficient cause: imputation
Final Cause: goal of glorifying God in being the just and the justifier of sinners.
Aristotle, distinctive feature of his ethics
a.Aristotle frames his approach to ethics in terms of his teleological principle that everything is designed to have an end or purpose
b. That is that it is a system which focuses on the virtues or the internal disposition of the person as the chief concern motive and ethical standard.
How is “dualism” a part of Plato’s thought?
a.Plato believed that reality consisted of a dualism between matter and form/idea
b.idea” to be more important than matter
c.matter to be inherently inferior to and the source of evil.