Term
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Definition
| Natural Theology is the science of God, which, by unaided human reason, demonstrates his existence (an sit) and studies his essence (quid sit) and his relation to the universe. |
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Term
| What perfections can we deduce from the perfection of an underived existence? |
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Definition
| We can deduce unity, simplicity, and immutability among other perfections. |
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Term
| Name the Five Ways to know that God exists of St. Thomas Aquinas. |
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Definition
| The unmoved mover, efficient causality, possibility and necessity of being, gradation of being, and the governance of the world. |
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Term
| Explain one of the Five Ways to know God's existence as it is put forth by St. Thomas Aquinas. |
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Definition
| Unmoved mover: we can judge by our senses that things in the world move. Nothing is moved expect by another thing moving it. But this trend cannot exist in eternity since the world is finite. Therefore there must be some first unmoved mover which set all things into motion... this thing is what we call God. |
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Term
| Philosophically speaking, does evil exist? Explain your answer. |
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Definition
| Evil is not something that is there or that exists per se, but it is a way of saying or describing that something is missing or ought to be there. Evil has no substantial reality, it is the good as in a subject; thus the negativity of evil supposes the positivity of the subject in which it is found. Moreover, to admit the existence of evil is to admit it is a real and positive creation by God, which is opposed to his nature. |
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Term
| What is the aim of the practical sciences? |
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Definition
| The aim of the practical sciences is to know, not for the sake of knowing, but to procure by some action the good of man (other than the pure act of knowing the truth). |
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Term
| What kind of practical science is ethics? |
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Definition
| It is the practical science that aims at procuring man's unqualified and absolute good. It is in the strict sense the science of action since its object is the good or perfection of man himself, the science of human acts. |
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Term
| Why is ethics, as practical knowledge, inadequate? |
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Definition
| As a practical knowledge ethics is inadequate because its aim is to supply rules of human conduct that in relation to man's last end as if it were a natural happiness. But man's last end is a supernatural good, and since his actions must be regulated in reference to this supernatural end and so as to enable him to attain it, ethics is evidently inadequate to teach him everything he needs to know in order to act rightly. It must be completed by the teachings of Divine Revelation. |
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Term
| Name and describe the thought of the three major schools concerning ethics. |
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Definition
The Thomistic school orders man towards God, neither deifying nor degrading the human person, but leading him to the fulfillment of the beatific vision. This school teaches that the entire moral life depends on man's tendency towards his sovereign good, whom we should love not for our own sake, but for Himself.
The schools which find in the end and rule of human conduct in pleasure (Epicurus), utility, the state, humanity, progress, sympathy, pity, or the production of the superman (Nietzsche), assign as man's last end something created, and thereby degrade hum below himself.
The schools which claim that virtue or duty is self-sufficient, either because virtue is itself happiness, or because the pursuit of happiness is immoral, assign as man's last end man himself, and thereby, while seeming to deify man, really, like the schools last mentioned, degrade him below himself, for the greatness of man consists on the fact that his sole end is the uncreated Good. |
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Term
| What does the First Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius say regarding the relation between divine truth and philosophic truth? |
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Definition
| That the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive. |
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Term
| What capacity does St. Paul concede to human reason? |
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Definition
| He concedes to human reason "a capacity which seems almost to surpass its natural limitations. Not only is it not restricted to sensory knowledge, from the moment that it can reflect critically upon the data provided by the senses, but by discoursing on the data provided by the senses, reason can reach the cause which lies at the origin of all perceptible reality. In philosophical terms, we could say that this important Pauline text affirms the human capacity for metaphysical inquiry." |
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Term
| In what twofold way is human knowledge unique? |
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Definition
| It is unique in that, "within visible creation, man is the only creature not only capable of knowing but who knows that he knows, and is therefore interested in the real truth of what he perceives." |
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Term
| Explain briefly (in no more than 5 sentences) the world of Sophistry and the methods and goals of the Sophists. |
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Definition
| Sophistry is not a system of ideas but a vicious attitude of the mind. The sole aim and rule of their knowledge was not that which is, that is to say the object of knowledge, but the interests of the knowing subject. The most characteristic feature of all Sophists was that they sought the advantages conferred by knowledge without seeking the truth. |
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Term
| For Plato, what does it mean to practice a philosophy of ideas? |
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Definition
| The philosophy of ideas as taught by Plato consists in following Socrates' lead by seeking the essences of things which the mind apprehend and expresses in a definition. Moreover, Plato claimed that these ideas exist in a realm or supra sensible world where a host of immutable and eternal archetypes exist and it is these ideas that are the object apprehended by the intellect. For Plato those ideas are reality. |
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Term
| For Aristotle, is the world of ideas, described by Plato, separate or joined to material things? Explain briefly your answer. |
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Definition
| For Aristotle, the essences of perishable things possess no separate existence in a pure stat. He holds that there indeed exists in everything an intelligible and immutable element, which Aristotle calls form in virtue of which it possesses a specific nature or essence. But this principle is not separate from things; it inheres in them as one of the factors which constitute their substance. Thus individual objects, though mutable and mortal, are no longer deceptive shadows; they are reality. |
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Term
| What is the rule of philosophy or is criterion of truth? |
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Definition
| The evidence of its object is the rule of philosophy or its criterion of truth. |
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Term
| If philosophy is a science concerned with everything, how can it be a special science? |
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Definition
| One has to consider under what aspect philosophy is concerned with "everything". Philosophy does concern itself with the seeking of the explanation nearest to the phenomena perceived by our sense, but the explanation most remote from them, the ultimate explanation. Philosophy is not concerned with secondary causes or proximate explanations, but on the contrary with first causes, highest principles or ultimate explanations. |
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Term
| In what sense or way does philosophy (especially metaphysics) have the right to judge every other human science? |
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Definition
| Because philosophy is concerned with final causes and ultimate explanations, it is a superior science, and as such has the right to judge inferior sciences when such a science should contradict its own results. |
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Term
| Given the judgment and governance philosophy exercises over the other particular sciences, such as biology or physics, how might such an exercise occur with regards to, say, the Theory of Evolution? |
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Definition
| "Every effect is proportionate to its cause." This Aristotelian axiom exercises over the theory of evolution governance and correction in that it points out the impossibility of the spiritual soul and its spiritual faculties to have been materially generated through the process of evolution, a material process. |
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Term
| Why is it necessary for philosophy to assist theology in its work and in what three ways does philosophy do this? |
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Definition
Theology employs in its demonstrations truths proved by philosophy. Philosophy thus becomes the instrument of theology and it is in this respect and in so far as it serves theological argument.
1)Philosophy assists theology to prove the truths which support the foundations of the faith in that department of theology which is termed apologetics.
2)It assists in imparting some notion of the mysteries of the faith by the aid of analogies drawn from creatures.
3)To refute the adversaries of the faith. |
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Term
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Definition
| Logic is the study of reason as the instrument of acquiring knowledge or means of discovering truth. |
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Term
| What kind of acts are the formal object of moral philosophy? Explain in what these acts consist. |
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Definition
| Human acts are the formal object of moral philosophy. Human acts are those acts performed with intelligence and free will. |
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Term
| What two substantial principles does the Aristotelian school recognize in corporeal substance? |
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Definition
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Term
| Briefly define hylomorphism. |
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Definition
| It is the Aristotelian doctrine that considers a body as a compound of matter and form. It accepts the reality, on the other hand, of matter of the corporeal world, and extension, on the other of physical qualities, also a distinction of nature or essence between the bodies we regard as belonging to different species. Or put another way, it says that every corporeal substance is a compound of two substantial and complementary parts, one passive and in itself wholly indeterminate (matter), the other active and the principle of determination (form). |
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Term
| What is the first (of the main three) problem that theism faces both internally and externally? Explain. |
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Definition
| The problem of evil: The first of these problems is whether and how belief in the existence of God is compatible with recognition of the extent of natural, social and moral evil in the universe of finite beings. It seems that the conjunction of the premises "God is omnipotent" and "God wills the good of every finite being," entails the conclusion, "No evil occurs." But evil does occur. And it seems that the conjunction of the premises "God is omnipotent," and "evil occurs," entails the conclusion, "God is responsible for evil." But in that case God is not--to say the least--unqualifiedly good. Theists are thereby confronted with the possibility that belief in God embodies a contradiction. |
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Term
| What is the second (of the main three) problems that theism faces both internally and externally? Explain. |
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Definition
| The independence of finite beings: A second problem is that of whether and how a belief in the existence of God is compatible with belief in the powers of finite beings, the powers that belong to inanimate objects, animal bodies, and the rational will of human beings. For, if God is omnipotent and everything that happens, happens by His will, then God is the cause of everything happening. But, if this is so, then it seems that finite beings do not in fact have any real powers. It is not that the mole tunnels, but that God moves its limbs and that God opens the tunnels. Every event has God as its immediate cause, including those events that are human actions. God makes it the case that I decide to raise my hand and then God makes it the case that my hand rises. The finite universe is a puppet show and God is the puppet master. |
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Term
| What is the third (of the main three) problem that theism faces both internally and externally? Explain. |
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Definition
| How to speak meaningfully about God: When we speak of God's power or knowledge or goodness as unbounded, we raise the question of what we can mean when we ascribe these attributes to god, for we first learned to use the words "power," "knowledge," and "goodness" of a variety of finite beings, so that the power, knowledge, or goodness that we ascribe was always limited. What then can we mean when we speak of "unlimited" power or knowledge or goodness? Theists in recognizing that God exceeds the grasp of our understanding must also recognize that in trying to speak of God we are extending our use of words and the application of our concepts, so that we no longer understand what we mean when we talk about God to the same extent and in the same way that we do in our speech about finite beings. Is it then the case that in attempting to speak about God we have carried our analogizing beyond the limits of linguistic possibility and deprived our language of meaning? |
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Term
| What are the three questions philosophy attempts to find an answer to? |
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Definition
1)Is it true?
2)Do we have sufficient reason to assert it?
3)What do we mean when we assert it?
In short, philosophy attempts to understand what truth, rational justification, and meaning are. |
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Term
| What are the three possible stances or answers to the apparent incompatibility between the theistic believer and the philosopher? |
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Definition
1)There are theists who reject the claims of philosophy all together.
2)There are philosophers, who, being precluded to reject belief in anything, reject the claims of theism.
3)And there are theists according to whom it is the will and command of God that we should pursue philosophical inquiry into His existence and nature. On this view God created human beings as rational, that is, as questioning animals. Among the goods that in virtue of our specific created nature we pursue is that of truth and we are required to pursue truth concerning God's existence and nature through philosophical inquiry. |
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Term
| Describe the two major types of universities as explained by MacIntyre. |
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Definition
1)The first and most contemporary is found in America and is one in which each academic discipline is treated as autonomous and self-defining, so that its practitioners prescribe to those entering the discipline what its scopes and limits are. And, in order to excel in any one particular discipline, one need in general know little or nothing about any of the others. In this current structure God is isolated to departments of theology, rendering their curriculum Godless.
2)The second is a university in which the different academic disciplines are open to each other in intellectual dialogue and not closed, allowing theism to play a role in which theology is studied both for its own sake and as key to an overall understanding of the nature of things. |
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Term
| What two errors did Augustine recognize as needing philosophical refutation in his day? |
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Definition
1)For one, his theology is at odds with the materialism that the Platonists had taught him to reject.
2)Secondly, his theology is at odds with the Platonic dualism of the soul and its denigration of the body.
Augustine recognized that the refutation of both of these errors is the task of philosophy. |
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Term
| What important translation(s) did Boethius bring to fruition during his life? |
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Definition
| Among the translations into Latin that Boethius completed during his life are Aristotle's Categories, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Sophistical Refutations, and Topics. |
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Term
| What is a truthful thought? Why is absolute falsehood impossible? |
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Definition
| A truthful thought is that thought which represents, as it really is, the thing to which it refers; a thought in conformity with that thing. We conclude that truth in the mind consists in its conformity with the thing. Absolute falsehood is impossible because the very pronouncement of the concept of falsehood presupposes the existence of some truth. |
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Term
| What do we mean by the incomprehensibility of God? |
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Definition
| We mean that we can never know what God is because our human created intellect is finite and bound to corporeal matter, the effect, but God, the cause, is infinite without any bounds. Moreover human created intellect can only know things perfectly and adequately which have form in some matter. It cannot know subsistent being in this way; only the Divine Intellect can. According to St. Thomas, we will see God's essence to a finite degree, according to the intensity of the Lumen Gloriae that is given to us. |
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