Perspectives Final Exam 1St Semester

Front 1

Paul was the first theoretician about...
an anticipation of...

Back 1

cosmopolitanism

lutheranism, existentialism

Front 2

What is the significance of circumcision is Paul's letter to the Galatians?

Back 2

Judaism is a closed society, Christianity is an open society

beginning of Paul's letter has elements of both communities

Front 3

Background of Paul

Back 3

Sol has divine revelations on way to Damacus and changes his name to Paul, begins to write letters

Front 4

When was Paul's letter to the Galatians written?

Back 4

45-55 AD

Front 5

Paul on justification by faith alone

Back 5

Paul argues that one can't be justified by laws alone or else Jesus died for nothing, leaning faith on law undermines the effort and sacrifices of Christ

you can adhere to the laws but you aren't justified by them, you are justified by your faith not in the law but God, the Jewish Christians who think that they are justified by the old laws have failed to understand what it means to be a Christian

Faith working through Love justifies you

Front 6

How many commandments are there in the old testament?

Back 6

613

Front 7

Describe Paul and Peter's argument

Back 7

Paul is angry that Peter is excluding Gentiles based on old Jewish laws

Peter (Cephas) is saying lets make everyone the same by imposing Jewish customs, must convert to Judaism in order to convert to Christianity

They get everything we get and don't have to following all the customs that we have to follow

Front 8

Paul's Appreciation for Abraham

Back 8

Anyone who has faith is a full standing member

only Christ is the offspring of Abraham, he is trying to convince the circumcision faction that there is evidence in the old testament that the works themselves are not necessary, Abraham's relation to God is that faith justified him without any customs, laws, or traditions

Abraham's faith in God is like the Gentiles faith in Christ

Front 9

If faith was the only thing we needed then why did God create the law?

Back 9

it was added because of transgressions, to keep us in line, prepare us for the coming of Christ, discipline us

Front 10

Paul’s explanation for why faith makes the law unnecessary or superfluous

Back 10

anyone is a fully inclusive member by faith in Jesus Christ, and since anyone can be a fully included member by faith alone, Paul is saying that following the law is superfluous, not necessary for the inclusion into the Christian community

Front 11

Faith and Appetites for Paul

Back 11

Paul says that if you have faith than the spirit will overcome the low appetites of the body and become virtuous, can get rid of human social laws and codes, we will have reoriented our souls, our natural inclinations

Front 12

State of society when Tertullian is writing

Back 12

reason and faith are in tension with one another

Roman Empire is in tension with Christian community

Front 13

Summary of Letters on the treatment of Christians

Back 13

Pliny the Younger is supposed to report troublesome christians and question, torture, and execute them. When emperor Trajan hears of this he thinks he is doing a good job. Romans think they have developed a good enough system of moral codes and ethics and that Christians pose a threat to the empire.

Front 14

Summary of Epistle to Diognetus

Back 14

More measured defense of Christianity against the Roman Empire, wants to argue that Christianity isn't antagonistic to the Roman Empire but doesn't think one needs secular things to have a meaningful life

Front 15

Who is the author/influences of Epistle to Diognetus?

Back 15

the author is unknown

Hippolytus and Irenaeus were major influences

Front 16

Gnostisism

Back 16

an attempt to fuse the philosophical and theological by substitution reason for faith

Gnostics believed that through reason we can know God perfectly, can bring about salvation through reason

accused of two sins: lack of humility and loving themselves instead of God
(super commandment and false idol commandment)

Front 17

Tertullian and the separation between Athens and Jerusalm

Back 17

Christian who is antagonistic to the secular, takes Christian apologism to extreme, beyond argument of gnosticism to dismissal of secular world, "doctors, demons and foolishness" are referring to any school of philosophy, philosophy is the world's wisdom, practicers are me and demons because they are heretics

Front 18

Tertullian Quote about relationship between philosophy and faith

Back 18

"with our faith, we desire no further belief. For this is our primary faith, that there is nothing that we ought to believe besides."

Front 19

Gregory on the relationship between Athens and Jerusalm

Back 19

Secular disciplines can be of benefit to the human life but they can't bring salvation to a human life

by doing these things we perfect one part of ourselves that God made to be perfected: our rational self

we should pursue the sciences and humanities because by doing so we can see the glory of God demonstrated, contrasting it with what man can produce

beginning of the harmony between philosophy and faith

Front 20

Augustine's City of God
Augustine's Purpose

Back 20

criticizes philosophy by using philosophy's own resources of argumentation, reminds us that reason without faith will fail in understanding

Front 21

Credo ut intelligam

Back 21

I believe so that I may understand

Front 22

Epicureans and Stoics believe

Back 22

the acquisition of certain moral traits will result in the happy life, philosophical practices will produces these traits, and happiness is located in the body or the soul or both

Front 23

Augustine's general attack on the Epicureans and Stoics

Back 23

wants to disprove the claim that a happy life is beyond one's reach through philosophy

wants to prove that the philosophical desire to achieve happiness through one's own efforts is nothing else than a prideful desire to be the master of one's own life.

Front 24

Epicurean's ideology and Augustine's attack

Back 24

pleasure was to be achieved above all else in the absence of fear of jealous Gods and punishment, pleasure is freedom from external worries or cares, freeing from one's desires, happy life requires good friends and family

it is impossible to not worry when one has friends, also this reduces friends to instruments of pleasure

Front 25

Stoic Virtue and Happiness and Augustine's Critique

Back 25

goal is to be happy in this life, not found in pleasure but in an active, virtuous character, possession of virtue is one thing humans truly possess, when one becomes indifferent to all other possessions they can be free from ordinary life worries

since virtue is always tied to vice, this proves that there exists evil all around us and in each of us and so the possession that virtue banishes this evil is flawed

Front 26

Augustine’s challenge to traditional ethical theory in the pear tree story

Back 26

Traditionally, it was believe that people did evil for two basic reasons: ignorance (didn't know the difference between right and wrong) and misled by passions (knew the right thing but choose to do the wrong thing based on passions)

human beings know what is wrong and will do evil because we desire it, no other motivation except to will a wicked act, nothing can save you from this except God

Front 27

Augustine’s two slogans

Back 27

faith in search of understanding

love first, then do what you will

Front 28

Augustine on the problem of desire

Back 28

Augustine thinks desire in itself is good, for God created it, BUT it can be bad depending on what we pursue

What you love will determine what you will for, because love is that desire which motivates actions.

Front 29

Augustine’s critique of the goals of school

Back 29

The idea here is that Augustine finds the goals of school secular and leading him away from a proper relation with God.

Front 30

Augustine on the hierarchy of goods and God’s natural Law

Back 30

Heirarchy is good, better, best
everything is Good because God created everything to be good
should love better things over lesser things
when a human is properly valuing things on the hierarchy than that human being is relating to the world in the way that God intended us to relate to the world

this is called ordinate desire

Front 31

Natural Law

Back 31

telos, everything in the created order has a specific function or purpose that God has given it

Front 32

Inordinate/Ordinate Desires

Back 32

ordinate desire is a well-ordered one

if you value lesser things over greater things (inordinate desires) we not only abusively relate to the higher things but we lose the pleasure that can be gotten from the lower things, we create and are responsible for our own sufferings if we relate to the world inordinately

Front 33

Promiscuity

Back 33

when you treat a relative good as an absolute good

Front 34

Metaphysical Freedom

Back 34

freedom beyond physical determinations

can become convert or pervert
convert - life in Christ
pervert - distorts the natural order of the chain of goods, absolutizes relative goods

Front 35

Genuine Freedom

Back 35

when you use metaphysical freedom to cling to the eternal, when you choose to value higher goods over lower goods, adhere to the natural order that God defined

Front 36

Manichaeism

Back 36

a hybrid of Christianity and Zoroastrianism

Front 37

Augustine's definition of pride

Back 37

arrogance that we have in thinking that we are entirely self-sufficient

Front 38

Augustine's definition of curiousity

Back 38

an obstacle in addition to pride, which makes one bounce from one interest to another

For Augustine, curiosity means we can not commit to anything, and he says our hearts are restless for this reason.

Front 39

Inordinate Desire

Back 39

to value a lesser good over a greater good

Front 40

Augustine's problem with evil

Back 40

the problem of evil is if god is all good and created all things good then how do you explain the existence of evil

Front 41

Theodicy

Back 41

an attempt to defend God's goodness and existence in the face of the existence of evil in the world

Front 42

Evil Suffered

Back 42

even though one thing is suffering evil, the other thing is simply performing its purpose, a good product comes from the encounter, one good thing is flourishing at the expense of another

Front 43

Evil Done

Back 43

confined to the human sphere

the telos of a human being is to reason, moral agents, when one does evil, he or she is failing to flourish and is preventing the one who suffered the evil from flourishing, this is evil done

Front 44

Evil as privation

Back 44

Evil is the absence of goodness where one would otherwise expect to find it

Evil = nothing

Front 45

Who is responsible for what evil?

Back 45

God has allowed evil. It doesn't conflict with His goodness. God is not the author of evil. Rather, precisely because of His goodness He chooses to co-exist with evil for a time.

Humans are responsible for evil done

Front 46

Augustine on why evil is not an illusion

Back 46

Mary Baker Eddie says evil is an illusion

Evil can't be an illusion because even if it was than you still live through it, doesn't desolve the problem just deflects it, if it is an illusion than it is an evil illusion and thus still evil

Front 47

Augustine’s attraction to Manicheanism

Back 47

Augustine was attracted to it because it is a rational explanation for the existence of evil, exactly what he wanted from scripture but couldn't get from it, also one can deflect all evil they have done so it justifies the mistakes of his youth

Front 48

Augustine’s rejection of Manicheanism

Back 48

Manes doesn't give an explanation of why Good and Evil are at war with one another

if god is supposed to be completely incorruptible and evil can fight with God and overshadow God than evil can diminish God but that cant be right because God can't be diminished because he is incorruptible

Front 49

Hermeneutics

Back 49

making an effort to be truthful to the text, giving authority to text over reader in order to allow the message to be communicated just as we are supposed to hear it

Front 50

"Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ"

Back 50

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 51

"We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ."

Back 51

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 52

"The only thing I want to learn form you is this: Did you receive the spirit form doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you really experience so much for nothing?"

Back 52

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 53

"Just as Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham..."

Back 53

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 54

"Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith."

Back 54

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 55

"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self0indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Back 55

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 56

"As many of you have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Back 56

Paul
Paul's letter to the Galatians

Front 57

"Who is the God in whom they trust, you wonder and what kind of cult is theirs to enable them one and all to disdain the world and despise death, and neither to recognize the gods believed in by the Greeks nor to practice the superstition of the Jews? And what is the secret of that strong affection they have for one another?

Back 57

The Epistle to Diognetus
Author Unknown

Front 58

"To say it briefly: what the soul is in the body, that the Christians are in the world. The soul is spread through all the members of the body, and the Christians throughout the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but is not part and parcel of the body; so Christians dwell in the world, but are not part and parcel of the world."

Back 58

The Epistle to Diognetus
Author Unknown

Front 59

"Christians love those that hate them. The soul is locked up in the body, yet is the very thing that holds the body together; so, too, Christians are shut up in the world as in a prison, yet are the very ones that hold the world together."

Back 59

The Epistle to Diognetus
Author Unknown

Front 60

"I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it I repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed."

Back 60

Letters on the Treatment of the Christians

Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger

Front 61

"For whatever the nature of their creed might be, I could at least feel no doubt that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy deserved chastisement."

Back 61

Letters on the Treatment of the Christians

Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger

Front 62

"The whole of their guilt, or their error, was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their world, nor deny a trust when they should e called upon to deliver it up...."

Back 62

Letters on the Treatment of the Christians

Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger

Front 63

"Persons of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes are, and will be, involved in the prosecution. For this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread though the villages and rural districts; it seems possible, however, to check and cure it."

Back 63

Letters on the Treatment of the Christians

Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger

Front 64

"The method you have pursued....in sifting the cases of those denounced to you as Christians is extremely proper."

Back 64

Letters on the Treatment of the Christians

Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger

Front 65

"When they are denounced and found guilty they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that when the party denies himself to be a Christian, and shall give proof that he is not (that is, by adoring our gods) he shall be pardoned on the ground of repentance."

Back 65

Letters on the Treatment of the Christians

Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger

Front 66

"These are 'the doctines' of men and 'of demons' produced for itching ears of the spirit of this world's wisdom: this the Lord called 'foolishness,' and 'chose teh foolish things of the world; to confound even philosophy itself."

Back 66

Tertullian
On the Exclusion of Heretics

Front 67

"Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy. From this source came the AEons, and I known not what infinite forms, and the trinity of man in the system of Valentinus, who was of Plato's school."

Back 67

Tertullian
On the Exclusion of Heretics

Front 68

"The same subject-matter is discussed over and over again by the heretics and the philosophers; the same arguments are involved. Whence comes evil? Why is it permitted? What is the origin of man?"

Back 68

Tertullian
On the Exclusion of Heretics

Front 69

"From all these, when the apostle would restrain us, he expressly names philosophy as that which he would have us be on our guard against."

Back 69

Tertullian
On the Exclusion of Heretics

Front 70

"What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians?"

Back 70

Tertullian
On the Exclusion of Heretics

Front 71

"With our faith we desire no further belief. For this is our primary faith, that there is nothing that we ought to believe besides."

Back 71

Tertullian
On the Exclusion of Heretics

Front 72

"Life is perfectly happy when it enjoys absolutely all goods of both soul and body, so that nothing is lacking. For life is not the same thing is virtue, since only a virtuous life, and not any kind of life, is virtue."

Back 72

St. Augustine
City of God, Book XIX

Front 73

"The happy life is said, further, to be social when the goods of one's friends are loved for what they are as on loves one's own goods, and when one wishes for one's friends what one wishes for oneself."

Back 73

St. Augustine
City of God, Book XIX

Front 74

"neither prudence nor temperance can rid this life of the evils that are their constant concern"

Back 74

St. Augustine
City of God, Book XIX

Front 75

"that the first and most fundamental command of nature is that a man should cherish his own human life and by his very nature shun death; that a man should be his own best friend, wanting and working with all his might and main to keep himself alive and to preserve the union of his body and soul."

Back 75

St. Augustine
City of God, Book XIX

Front 76

"When virtues are genuine virtues and that is possible only when men believe in God they make no pretense of protecting their possessors from unhappiness, for that would be a false promise; but they do claim that human life, now compelled to feel the misery of so many grievous ills on earth, can, by the hope of heaven be made both happy and secure."

Back 76

St. Augustine
City of God, Book XIX

Front 77

"This then in this world, is the life of virtue. When God commands, man obeys; when the soul commands, the body obeys; when reason rules, our passions, even when they fight back, must be conquered or resisted; man must beg God's grace to win merit and the remission of his sins and must thank God for the blessings he receives."

Back 77

St. Augustine
City of God, Book XIX

Front 78

Augustine on evil in relation to the hierarchy of goods

Back 78

(1) that evil does not exist because all things on the hierarchy are created good

(2) that evil done results often from the perversion of the will that follows from valuing a lower good over a higher good (e.g., think of the crimes committed in the name of valuing money over all else)

Front 79

"For as we ought not to neglect the heaven, and earth, and air, and all such things because some have wrongly seized upon them, and honour God's works instead of God, but to reap what advantage we can from them for our life and enjoyment, while we avoid their dangers"

Back 79

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus

Front 80

"not raising creation, as foolish men do, in revolt against the Creator, but form the works of nature apprehending the Worker and as the divine apostle says, bringing into captivity every thought to Christ"

Back 80

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus

Front 81

"we know that neither fire, nor food, nor iron, nor any other of the elements is of itself most useful or most harmful, except according to the will of those who use it"

Back 81

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus

Front 82

"and as we have compounded healthful drugs from certain of the reptiles, so from secular literature we have received the principles of inquiry and speculation, while we have rejected their idolatry, terror, and pit of destruction."

Back 82

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus

Front 83

"Nay, even these have aided us in our religion, by our perception of the contrast between what is worse and what is better, and by gaining strength for our doctrine from the weakness of theirs."

Back 83

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus

Front 84

"We must not then dishonor education, because some men are pleased to do so, but rather supposed such men to be boorish and uneducated, desiring all men to be as they themselves are, in order to hide themselves in the general, and escape the detection of their want of culture."

Back 84

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus

Front 85

"I take it as admitted by men of sense, that the first of our advantages is education; and not only this our more noble form of it, which disregards rhetorical ornaments and glory, and holds to salvation, and beauty in the objects of our contemplation: but even that external culture which many Christians ill-judgingly abhor..."

Back 85

The Panegyric on St. Basil

Gregory of Nazianzus