Unit 9 - Philosophy

Question 1

Nature of Revelation

Answer 1

• To reveal something is to uncover something that was previously hidden.
• Catholics use revelation to mean the ways in which God has made himself known to humans.
• Revelation is when God speaks to humans and tells them things about himself that they could not otherwise know.

Question 2

Importance of Revelation

Answer 2

• Christian’s believe revelation is important because without it, humans cannot know who God is, which they believe is the meaning and purpose of being a human.
• Revelation is also a proof for Christians of God’s love for humans. People only share stories and their inner life with people they love. Christians believe God also does this through revelation.

Question 3

Beliefs about Revelation held by Catholics

Answer 3

• Catholics believe that Jesus is the final revelation of God.
• Catholics believe the revelation was first given to the apostles, then passed on to the community now called the Church.
• Catholics believe that still today, through the Church and the Bible, people can encounter Jesus and thus the revelation of God.

Question 4

What does the Revelation of Jesus show us about God?

Answer 4

• God sent Jesus out of love for humans.
• God sent Jesus to save humans and lead them back to the faith.
• Sending Jesus was a sacrifice for God.

Question 5

Nature of Visiosn

Answer 5

• A vision may be seen as private revelation. However, Catholics will only accept one if it does not contradict anything taught by the Church.
• The Church has officially recognised some visions which gives Catholics permission to believe in their truth.
• Visions take many forms:
Corporeal visions: physically seeing something.
Imaginative visions: seeing something in dreams.

Question 6

Importance of Visions

Answer 6

• They can prompt action of greater faith from the person who experiences the vision and those around them.
• Suggest a direct calling from God or a possible vocation.
• Showing the loving part of God’s nature as a Father, offering guidance through visions.

Question 7

Reasons why Visions might lead people to believe in God?

Answer 7

• Visions can be powerful, personal experiences, giving great strength and faith.
• Examples from the Bible and history allow people to interpret their own visions in a religious way.
• Private revelations are rare, but may help prove the existence of God.

Question 8

Reasons against Visions as proof that God exists?

Answer 8

• There is no lasting or physical proof of visions.
• They could be hallucinations, misunderstandings, or just made up.
• Even if the vision is genuine, it is not certain proof of God.
• Dreams could be subconscious wish fulfilment.

Question 9

Visions in the Bible:
Old Testament

Answer 9

Abraham was visited by God with a promise of protection and reward.

Question 10

Visions in the Bible:
New Testament

Answer 10

During the transfiguration of Jesus, Moses and Elias appeared to Jesus, Peter, James and John and the voice of God is heard.

Question 11

Non Biblical Visions

Answer 11

Joan of Arc had visions of several saints and as a result tried to force the English from her homeland of France.

She was later captured by the English and burnt at the stake.

Question 12

Miracles

Answer 12

Miracles are things that appear to break the law of nature. Catholics and other Christians claim the only explanation can be God. They have been recorded throughout history.

Question 13

Importance of Miracles

Answer 13

• Experiencing such an event may lead to faith or a strengthening of faith.
• Jesus’ miracles are seen as clear signs of his divine nature.

Question 14

Biblical examples of miracles

Answer 14

• Moses parting and crossing the Red Sea
• Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana
• Jesus healing a blind man at Beth-sa’ida by placing his hands on the man’s eyes.

Question 15

Non-Biblical examples of Miracles

Answer 15

• The Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego in Mexico City in 1531. Her image hasn’t faded as would be expected and has avoided fire and bomb damaged.
• The Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 in Lourdes, France. She pointed to a spring, which is now visited by over 15 million people a year. Around 70 verified healing miracles have happened there.

Question 16

Reasons why Miracles might lead people to believe in the existence of God

Answer 16

• Since miracles have no natural scientific explanation, people see this as proof of God’s existence.
• Those who were part of, or witnessed the miracle, may feel that they have had direct contact with God.
• Natural laws have been broken and only God can do such a thing.

Question 17

Arguments against miracles as proof that God exists

Answer 17

• Coincidences or unusual/uncommon events do occur.
• Scientific and medical knowledge is still continuing to develop - explanation may occur in the future.
• Inexplicable things do not necessarily mean the answer is God.

Question 18

Catholic responses to Miracles

Answer 18

• Reveal God’s omnipotent nature
• Healing miracles show God’s love for humans
• A way God communicates with people

Question 19

Religious experiences

Answer 19

A Religious experience, sometimes described as numinous, is a feeling of the presence of God which fills a person with awe and sometimes fear. This may occur in a religious building, a beautiful place or when witnessing the natural world.

Question 20

Arguments for religious experiences

Answer 20

• People way feel an awareness of something greater than them: God.
• Can build of strengthen their faith.
• May be seen as an important reminder of God’s omnipresence and his nature as a creator and designer.

Question 21

Why Richard Swinburne argues we should trust the validity of religious experiences?

Answer 21

It is reasonable to believe that the world is probably as we experience it to be. Therefore:
• Unless we have a specific reason to question a religious experience, it is possible that it is evidence of God.
• Religious experiences increase the probability of God, even if they do not prove God exists.

Question 22

Religious experiences and the revelation

Answer 22

Catholics believe that Jesus was the complete and final revelation. Therefore religious experiences can not be regarded as revelations. However the Catholic Church suggests that the revelation of Jesus could be further explained, and some private revelations have been accepted by the church.
• Any private revelations are seen as Secondary to the revelation of Jesus and will contain no new information.
• They are only able to provide insight into what has already been revealed.

Question 23

Arguments against religious experiences

Answer 23

1) Lack of evidence
2) Laws of nature
3) Use of stimulants
4) Hallucinations
5) Wish fulfilments

Question 24

Catholic responses to the question of proof

Answer 24

• God, an omnipotent being, is not bound by the laws of nature, so it is expected that religious experiences can and do break them.
• Just because there is no evidence, it does not mean something didn’t happen. Faith doesn’t require proof.
• Catholics do not disagree about stimulants, hallucinations and wish fulfilment, which is why the Church conducts detailed investigations into some claims before it recognises them as authentic.

Question 25

Parleys design argument

Answer 25

• If you were walking across a heath and you discovered a watch you would recognise that it was designed and it didn’t just exist by chance.
• You would recognise this because it is ordered and exhibits complexity.
• The Universe also exhibits complexity. How?
• As the universe has been designed it must have a designer.
• The only possible designer of something as wonderful as the universe is GOD since he is eternal.

Question 26

How may the design argument lead to a belief in God?

Answer 26

• It is based on our own experience of design:
- There appear to be many designed, ordered or purposeful objects.
- These are things which everyone can observe.

• It compliments a Christian view of the nature of God:
- Philosophers say a designer must be omnipotent and omniscient which supports the Catholic view of God.

• It encourages scientific examination of the universe:
- Attempts by science to discover the underlying rules of the universe make sense if they were created by an intelligent designer.

Question 27

Arguments against the design argument and catholic responses?

Answer 27

A: The uniqueness of the universe - David Hume said the universe is unique and not like anything else so we can not use an analogy to explain it.
R: Just because something is unique doesn’t mean evidence and experience can’t be applied to explain it.

Question 28

Arguments against the design argument and catholic responses?

Answer 28

A: The existence of evil and suffering - evil and suffering are either signs that God is a poor designer or that there is no designer. If a benevolent, omnipotent God is the designer of the universe why is it not perfect?
R: Humans can learn goodness from there experience of suffering or evil.

Question 29

Arguments against the design argument and catholic responses?

Answer 29

A: There is no order, just the appearance of order - Richard Dawkins suggests that people see the world with ‘purpose-coloured spectacles’: they only see order because they look for it.
R: Science and evidence support the concept of order.

Question 30

Arguments against the design argument and catholic responses?

Answer 30

A: Evolution as an explanation of order and purpose - evolutionary theory suggests that complex organisms have developed through genetic mutation and natural selection and not through design.
R: Scientists suggests the world could not exist as it currently does without the specific evolution that has taken place, therefore it must have been directed.

Question 31

Aquinas’ cosmological argument

Answer 31

• Every effect has a cause.
• Nothing can cause it’s own existence.
• There cannot be an infinite chain of causes.
• God is the first cause.
• The first three of St Thomas Auinas’ Five Ways connect to the cosmological argument.

Question 32

Strengths of the cosmological argument?

Answer 32

• It is based on experience - Everyone can see the evidence that all things in the universe we can investigate have a cause. It is difficult to deny that cause and effect exist in the world.
• It is more logical than the alternative - It makes sense and fits with our experience of events within the universe. Believing in an infinite chain of causes and effect seems impossible.
• It is compatible with scientific evidence - Most scientists argue that the universe does have a beginning (Big Bang) which is in keeping with the cosmological argument that the universe needs a first cause. This makes it compatible with scientific thinking.

Question 33

Arguments against the cosmological argument and catholic response.

Answer 33

• The impossibility of a total explanation - Bertrand Russel argued that a total explanation was impossible, human’s should just accept the universe’s existence as a fact.

A rejection of infinite chains of cause and effect means a total explanation is possible.

Question 34

Arguments against the cosmological argument and catholic response.

Answer 34

The universe as a whole does not need a cause - Bertrand Russel also said that just because everything in the universe needs a cause it does not mean the universe as a whole does. We have no experience of universe’s being caused and created.

All things in the universe can have their cause investigated, so why not the universe itself?

Question 35

Arguments against the cosmological argument and catholic response.

Answer 35

The first cause doesn’t have to be God - Some scientist are happy to use the Big Bang theory as a suitable explanation for the start of the universe without the need for God.

Everything starts somewhere, and only and omnipotent God could be the absolute beginning.

Question 36

Natural evil

Answer 36

• Evil from natural events that humans cannot control.
• Examples include: natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes; illness disease.
• Seems like unjust punishment for victims.
• Catholics may see them as a test of faith.
• Opportunity to do good

Question 37

Moral evil

Answer 37

• Evil from actions of humans.
• Examples include: murder, theft, assault, terrorism.
• Catholics believe humans have free will; suffering is the price people pay for evil.
• God gave humans a conscience and encourages them to act in the right way.

Question 38

What is the Inconsistent Triad?

Answer 38

How can evil exist if God is omnipotent and benevolent.
The combination of any 2 of these positions leads to the first being logically impossible. It is clear that evil and suffering does exist, therefore they come to the conclusion that either God does not exist or he is not worthy of worship.

Question 39

How does evil and suffering prove that God doesn’t exist?

Answer 39

• If God is omnipotent, surely he has the power to stop suffering.
• If God is omniscient, surely he is aware of the suffering.
• If God is benevolent, surely he would want to stop suffering.

• A good God would not have created a world with natural evil in it. It is therefore easier to believe in a world created by accident rather than by God.
• Some people struggle to also believe in a God who allows humans to cause such evil and suffering when God could stop it. If God does not stop the suffering God doesn’t exist.

Question 40

Catholic reasons for the existence of evil and suffering?

Answer 40

• Catholics can decide what to do using their conscience.
• It’s a test from God as evil is misuse of human free will.
• So that we can learn to see the good in times of hardship.

Question 41

Responses to evil and suffering:
Biblical solution

Answer 41

• Job - The Book of Job teaches Christian’s that suffering is something that will be experienced. Though we may be strengthened from it, it is something that we may not always understand.
• Psalms - 119 teachers Christian’s they can learn from their previous sufferings. Gods omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence are also made clear.
• New Testament - God suffers in the person of Jesus Christ. If Jesus is to suffer so do humans. The reason is not comprehensible but we should face the same sufferings that Jesus does.

Question 42

Responses to evil and suffering:
Philosophical solution

Answer 42

• St Augustine - Some Catholics do not believe that evil is a thing in itself but an absence of good - just as darkness is an absence of light. St Augustine argued differently. The world was created perfectly by God however it was free will from humans that led to evil. Humans therefore have the choice to either be good or bad; to better their soul. The reward is heaven.
• St Irenaeus - The philosopher St Irenaeus said God deliberately designed a world with evil in it. However it was done so for the belief that it was the best way that humans can develop, grow into the image of God, and use free will well.

Question 43

Responses to evil and suffering:
Practical solution

Answer 43

• Prayer - Suffering may be shared in prayer. Prayers of intercession are part of the mass. This can sometimes be the only meaningful response for the individual catholic.
• Charity - Helping others is the same as helping Christ. Those who help others in need will gain salvation.