Unit 5

Question 1

Three parts the Summa is broken into?

Answer 1

• God
• morality
• Jesus

Question 2

What did Aquinas’s vision from God do

Answer 2

Caused him to realize his work had little value

Question 3

Quote from Aquinas’s after he realized his work was of little value

Answer 3

“Everything that I have written seems like straw to me compared to those things I have seen and have been revealed to me”

“I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.”

Question 4

What are the two types of happiness Thomas Aquinas spoke of

Answer 4

Perfect and imperfect happiness

Question 5

Why is perfect happiness not attainable in the lifetime?

Answer 5

God created us with a desire to come to perfect knowledge of him, but true knowledge of God would require being able to see him directly

Question 6

What is imperfect happiness

Answer 6

Achieved here on earth by our reasoning ability to contemplate truth; basically the more truth we know the happier we will be.

Question 7

Where is the only place we can achieve perfect happiness

Answer 7

Heaven

Question 8

What are the theological virtues revealed to mankind through Christ?

Answer 8

Faith, hope, love

Question 9

What is a person’s ultimate end according to Aquinas?

Answer 9

To achieve perfect happiness

Question 10

Why is enjoyment

Answer 10

Concerns satisfaction of worldly desire, short lived, even if we were to experience every possible enjoyment we would still be unhappy

Question 11

What does happiness concern

Answer 11

Obtaining our perfection

Question 12

What does it mean that God is infinite and eternal

Answer 12

Lasting or existing forever, without end of beginning

Question 13

What does it mean that God is unique

Answer 13

God is the fullness of being and perfection

Question 14

What does it mean that God is omnipotent

Answer 14

He is all powerful, he can do anything he wills, consistent with his nature; refers to God’s supreme power and authority over all creation

Question 15

What does it mean that God is omnipresent

Answer 15

He is present everywhere at the same time

Question 16

What does it mean that God contains all things?

Answer 16

All of creation is under God’s care and jurisdiction

Question 17

What does it mean that God is immutable

Answer 17

God does not evolve, God does not change, God is the same God he always has been and always will be

Question 18

What does it mean that God is pure spirit?

Answer 18

God is not a material creation, his image cannot be made. God is a pure spirit that can’t be divided into parts

Question 19

What does it mean that God is alive?

Answer 19

We believe in a living God who acts in the lives of the people

Question 20

What does it mean that God is holy?

Answer 20

God is pure goodness, God is pure love

Question 21

What is Docetism?

Answer 21

This heretical doctrine said that Jesus only appeared to have a human body, so his suffering and death were not real. Docetism said Jesus is God in disguise. Denied the fully human qualities of Jesus

Question 22

Gnosticism

Answer 22

Referred to several religious movements that claimed salvation comes from secret knowledge of God from God’s secret agent or elite

Question 23

What is Arianism?

Answer 23

• Considered Jesus as existing midway between God and creatures
• Said that Jesus was greater than regular humans but less than God
• denied the eternal existence of the Son of God with God the father; in other words it denied Jesus’ divinity saying he was human like us and had no essence before he was conceived

Question 24

What is the Summa Theologica

Answer 24

“An instruction book for beginners”, presents the reasoning for almost all points of Christian theology

Question 25

What is Monophysitism?

Answer 25

Believed that Jesus’ divinity fully absorbed his humanity; rejected by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This council taught that Jesus had a divine and human nature