Semester 1 Final

Question 1

What is Jesus’ vision for his Church in John 17?

Answer 1

He invisions one church

Question 2

What is the birthday of the Catholic Church?

Answer 2

Pentecost

Question 3

What is the Edict of Milan? What year was it passed? By whom?

Answer 3

It legalized Christianity in 313 AD by Constantine

Question 4

Who keeps the Christian faith of Europe alive after the fall of Rome and plays a huge part in evangelizing the barbarian tribes?

Answer 4

Monks: The Desert Fathers, Benedictines, Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans

Question 5

What is the Great Schism? What year did it happen?

Answer 5

When the Church broke into the East and West in 1054

Question 6

What is the 95 Theses? Who posted it? When?

Answer 6

The 95 Theses was a list of complaints about the Catholic Church written by Martin Luther in 1517, his main issue was the church’s abuse of indulgences.

Question 7

Why did Henry VIII break off from Rome and form the Anglican Church?

Answer 7

Henry is married but has not yet produced a male heir, he blames it on his wife and asks the Church for an annulment which they deny. He then breaks off from the Catholic Church and starts the Anglican Church so that he can divorce and remarry.

Question 8

What is the Act of Supremacy?

Answer 8

The King is the head of the Church of England (not the Pope)

Question 9

What great Catholic Saint emerged during this time in England?

Answer 9

Saint Thomas More

Question 10

What is the difference between a suicide bomber dying for their faith and the apostles’ martyrdoms? (what special knowledge do the apostles have over other religious martyrs?)

Answer 10

The apostles were eyewitnesses to the resurrection and they knew for sure whether what they were dying for was true. Why would they die for something they knew was false? Other religious martyrs believe their faith without actually seeing what they believe firsthand. They don’t know for sure whether what they are dying for is true or false while the apostles do.

Question 11

How early in Christianity do we see the historical fact of the empty tomb cited?

Answer 11

2-5 years from the early Christian creed in 1 Corinthians 15

Question 12

What would have been the easiest way for the Romans/Jews to squash the rumors about Jesus’ Resurrection? What problem did they have though?

Answer 12

Jesus’ body was stolen from the tomb, but this could not happen since it would be nearly impossible to remove the stone from in front of the tomb. There were also guards at the tomb and the apostles would have had to steal the body without them noticing.

Question 13

1 Cor 15 is written in the style of an early Christian _____ and provides us evidence for the early Christian belief in the ________

Answer 13

creed
death, burial, resurrection, appearances

Question 14

What is the most important piece of evidence for the Resurrection?

Answer 14

The empty tomb

Question 15

According to scholarly dating, when was each gospel written? Why are these dates early enough for us to be confident that the gospels accurately record history?

Answer 15

70s, 80s, and 90s
Early enough because the eye-witnesses to the events were still alive and they could fact check them.

Question 16

How can having multiple copies of the gospels help us figure out if those copies are true to the original?

Answer 16

The more copies you have, the more you can compare and look for discrepancies

Question 17

What were the Crusades?

Answer 17

A series of wars between the Christians and Muslims over the Holy Land

Question 18

How were they wars of self-defense?

Answer 18

The Christians wanted to defend Europe against the growing threat of Islamic conquest and to regain the Holy Land that contained the holy places of Christianity

Question 19

Christianity and the founding of the educational system

Answer 19

Christianity founded modern science and the modern education system in a pursuit to better understand God and how he created the world

Question 20

Georges Lemaitre

Answer 20

Big Bang Theory

Question 21

Copernicus

Answer 21

heliocentric theory

Question 22

Francis Bacon

Answer 22

scientific method

Question 23

Can a Catholic believe in evolution? To what extent?

Answer 23

You can believe in evolution but not the evolution of the soul

Question 24

Which proof for God from Unit 1 can science not explain away here?

Answer 24

Contingency argument

Question 25

What can science not explain?

Answer 25

Science cannot tell us WHY things happen

Question 26

Define materialism

Answer 26

The philosophical doctrine that nothing exists except matter, there is no mental or spiritual reality

Question 27

Explain the “God of the Gaps” argument in your own words

Answer 27

The existence of God comes from the need to fill the gaps in what we don’t understand. As we grow in knowledge, the amount of these gaps grows smaller and smaller and eventually there will be no more gaps to be filled. Once this happens, there will be no need for a God to explain these phenomena.

Question 28

Explain how its not a contradiction to have an all-good God and evil to exist in the world? Use the Doctor/Kid and sports analogies.

Answer 28

A doctor gives a kid a shot, even though the shot brings about pain, it has positive benefits even if the child doesn’t understand them. In sports, players intentionally put themselves in pain through working hard to become better players.

Question 29

What is evil? How does this definition help us answer the question, “Did God create evil?”

Answer 29

The absence of good

Question 30

Explain in your own words. (Moral Argument)

Answer 30

If God doesn’t exist, then objective moral values do not exist. Since objective moral values do exist, God must exist.

Question 31

Know the BVG Theorem.

Answer 31

Any universal model with an average rate of expansion rate greater than 0 must have a beginning. If we claim the universe has to have a beginning, then what started it? (beginner, creator, designer)

Question 32

What is multiple universe theory and why does it ultimately not explain away God?

Answer 32

There are an infinite number of universes each operating under its own unique set of laws. The universe undergoes a type of natural selection. There is no evidence for multiple universes. Conscious life cannot emerge from unconscious forms of energy. It does not explain where the laws of physics come from. (no evidence)

Question 33

Explain the Radio Dials Analogy.

Answer 33

Each radio dial represents a constant or numeric value about the world. Each radio dial has to be exactly the numeric value it is otherwise the universe could not support life or may not even exist

Question 34

What is fine tuning? What are some examples?

Answer 34

Everything in the universe was set at a very certain measurement, if any of these measurements were slightly off, the universe would not be able to sustain life or might not exist at all (pull of gravity, speed of light, distances)

Question 35

Watchmaker Analogy

Answer 35

You find a shiny object on the ground and call it a “watch”. The watch tells time and came to be by a watchmaker. The watch has design in it therefore it is not the product of chance.

Question 36

Be able to explain in your own words. (Design Argument)

Answer 36

All design must have a designer and since the world has design in it, not from chance but from intelligent design, the world has to have a designer.

Question 37

Respond to Objection: “Everything in the universe needs an explanation except the universe itself” using the Hiking Glowing Ball analogy.

Answer 37

If you’re hiking, and find a glowing ball, you know something must have caused or created it. The glowing ball needs an explanation for why it exists in its particular way. The universe’s great size does not make it necessary since contingent beings can be really big

Question 38

Why do we need at least one necessary being? What does this necessary being explain (use the ______ instead of ______ model in notes)?

Answer 38

If everything is contingent we never get an answer, we just push the question infinitely down the road. We need one noncontingent being to explain why a contingent being exists.
Why does it exist this way instead of a different way?

Question 39

Know the definition of contingency using the term possible worlds.

Answer 39

We can image a possible world where this thing exists in a different way

Question 40

Respond to the objection, “if everything needs a cause then what caused God?”

Answer 40

Just like an author is outside of the rules of their book, God is outside the rules of the universe. Since God is outside the universe, the rules of physics and other laws do not apply to Him.

Question 41

Be able to explain the argument in your own words (First Cause Argument)

Answer 41

Every finite and contingent being has to have cause and has to come into existence through a series of causes. This series of causes must have a beginning. Since the universe is a series of causes, the universe has a First Cause.

Question 42

What was the symbolic meaning for eating/drinking a person’s flesh/blood during this time?

Answer 42

The symbolic meaning means to do violence to a person (rip body to shreds)

Question 43

How do the Jews interpret Jesus’ teaching? Does Jesus affirm or correct their interpretation? What detail/fact in John 6 helps us determine this?

Answer 43

The Jews interpret it literally and don’t understand how he can give us his flesh to eat. Jesus does not correct their interpretation, we know this because Jesus allows them to leave.

Question 44

How do the two verbs “esthio” and “trogo” help us interpret Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist?

Answer 44

Esthio means to eat and is the generic version used often in the Bible. Trogo means to gnaw which is the version Jesus uses when he says you must eat my flesh

Question 45

What is the Catholic teaching about the Eucharist? What is transubstantiation?

Answer 45

Bread and wine are substantially changed into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ

Question 46

What does James 2:24 say?

Answer 46

A person is justified by works and not by faith alone

Question 47

What does Rom 3:28 phrase “works of the law” phrase refer to?

Answer 47

Works of the law refers to old covenant rituals

Question 48

What is the difference between Catholic and Protestant teaching on how one accepts the gift of Justification?

Answer 48

Catholics believe that we do not earn our salvation but Christ offers salvation to all and faith/good works are how we accept the gift. Protestants believe that there is no work to earn salvation and we are saved at one moment in time when we accept Christ. After you are saved, there is nothing you can do to lose salvation.

Question 49

What tradition is essential to the Catholic “deposit of faith” (sources of Revelation) that is not found in the Bible?

Answer 49

The canon of Scripture (list of books in the Bible)

Question 50

What do Catholics believe are the sources of Revelation?

Answer 50

The Scripture (God’s truth written down), Tradition (God’s truth revealed and handed down), and the Magisterium (teaching authority of the Church)

Question 51

What does this belief say? (sola scriptura)

Answer 51

It rejects the magisterium and Tradition and believes that we only need the Scripture for salvation and that the Bible alone is the authority in matters of faith.

Question 52

What two errors does infallibility protect the Church from?

Answer 52

Heresy and schism

Question 53

What does infallibility mean? What does it not mean?

Answer 53

The inability to err when speaking authoritatively on matter of faith and morals

Question 54

Be able to explain how Mt 16:13-20 shows Jesus giving Peter papal authority? Be able to compare it to Is 22. What is the significance of the name change occurring here?

Answer 54

They both mention keys (Kingdom of Heaven, House of David). What he opens no one can shut, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Rock, Peg in a firm place.

Question 55

What is meant by the term apostolic succession?

Answer 55

The power and authority given by Christ to the apostles is passed on to their successors