Grade 12 Religion Exam Review

Autonomy

Autonomy

free self-direction; responsibility

Deontological Ethics

the idea that we're governing our actions based on a set of rules or guidelines. Kant.

Teleological Ethics

purpose. Seeking to understand the ultimate goal, purpose or end of something. (Teleology derives from Greek root Telus, meaning goal, purpose or end, and agos meaning study).

Ethics

a discipline that deals with the nature of the good, the nature of the human person, and criteria that we use for making right judgements

Good

opposite of evil, morally right or righteous

Morality

a system of right conduct based on fundamental beliefs and obligation to follow certain codea, norms, customs and habits of behaviour

Response

reaction to anything (facially, emotionally, physically)

Responsibility

being morally accountable for one's actions
- presumes knowledge, freedom, and the ability to choose and to act

Revelation

the ways that God makes himself known to humankind. God reveals himself through Jesus Christ, the sacred scriptures and through people/all of creation

Aristotle

- Teleology
- Human Excellence
- The Mean
- The Polis(community)

Kant

- Individualism
- Theoretical vs. Practical reason
- Three practical Considerations
- Deontology
- Maxims

Levinas

- Ethics of the Face
- The Face as unique
- Made responsibly by Face

Four Ethical Experiences

The experience of...
1. personal response (the scream)
2. the other (the beggar)
3. obligation (I have to...)
4. contrast (This is intolerable! This isn't fair!)

Ethics of Justice

- Based on abstract, impersonal principles like justice, fairness, equality or authority
- Tend to place a good deal of weight on moral principles, law or policies, which they believe should be applied to all equally

Ethics of Care

- A sense of responsibility to reduce actual harm or suffering
- Moral dilemmas generally involve a conflict of duties or responsibilities
- Focal point of every ethical dilemma is the specific individuals involved and the particular circumstances of the case
- People who define themselves primarily in terms of relationships with others

Agent

a person who acts freely and knowingly, who chooses to do or not do something; a person who is accountable for his or her actions or omissions

Determinism

- Theory that every event, including every human action, is governed by predictable laws
- Denies the possibility of morals and ethics as we are not free to choose

Free Will

ability to choose between different possible courses of action

Freedom

the human capacity to choose and to act

Logical Positivism

held that if anything has meaning, it must have some kind of sensory experience to back it up

Analytic Philosophy

everything has meaning, it must have some kind of sensory experience to back it up (smell, touch, measure, etc). Main obstacle to this is human will, especially free will

Motive

A reason for doing something

Naturalism

understand the material universe as a unified system; everything shaped by physical, biological, psychological, social and environmental processes

Predestination

view that my behaviour is predetermined, whether by God or by other causes

Providence

God's influence upon events and actions

Objective

a sensory experience that represents reality, facts, data that are outside the self; these exist independently from individual thought and perceptible by all observers

Subjective

exists solely within your mind; it is not something that you can measure or observe

Aggravating Factors

make situation worse and increase one's responsibility

Mitigating Factors

lessen one's responsibility

Ludwig Wittgenstein

- An analytic philosopher, posed an interesting question to try and link free will/intent with senses: "When I raise my arm, my arm goes up. And the question arises: what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raised my arm?"
- The answer = INTENT (the thing left over is the conscious decision to raise my arm)

Paul Ricoeur

- The conceptual framework of action was devised by this philosopher in order to understand human action
- According to him, the morality of an action depends on the following factors:
1. The object (action) chosen
2. The end view or the intention
3. The circumstances

John Calvin

- French Protestant reformer and theologian (1509-1564)
- According to him, freedom of ethics have no place in the doctrine of predestination
- God has chosen from the beginning who will attain salvation and who will not

The Conceptual Framework of Action

- allows us to to understand action indirectly, by asking these questions (who, what, why, how, with whom, with what) the meaning of an action shifts depending on the answers to the Q's
- examine human action in a logical manner; allows us to evaluate whether or not an action is good

Strong AI

continuing to imagine that computers will one day replicate human cognitive mental states

Weak AI

believe it is possible that computer can stimulate some thinking-like features, but no more

Three Forms of Determinism

- Naturalism
- Religious Determinism
- Social Determinism

Character

the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual

Commitment

promise or pledge; resolve to carry something out in the future

Conscience

An inner feeling of the rightness or wrongness of an action

Superego

the part of a person's mind that acts as a self-critical conscience, reflecting social standards learned from parents and teachers

Habit

a manner of behaving acquired by frequent repetition; prevailing disposition or character

Judgement

the concrete decision of what I must do in the situation based on my personal perception and grasp of values

Moral Stance

my moral orientation or direction in life; what I "stand for"

Narcissism

a disorder marked by self absorption to the exclusion of others

Trinity

Father, Son, Holy Spirit
"...the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit." CCC #261

Christian Notion of "Person"

- Individual who bares rights and responsibilities
- Outpouring of love to the other

The Three Senses of Conscience

- Conscience as a capacity to recognize right and wrong

- Conscience as a process of moral reasoning

- Conscience as a judgement

Conscience as a capacity to recognize right and wrong:

- Our capacity to know and do the good, and to avoid evil
- Our fundamental sense of value and of personal responsibility
- Our fundamental awareness that there is a right and a wrong

Conscience as a process of moral reasoning

- Search for what is the right thing to do in any situation
- Search for what is right through perception and process of reflection and analysis
- Perceive accurately and think correctly

Conscience as a judgement

- Your conscience is incomplete until you act on it
- Decision of what you must do in the situation based on personal perceptions and grasp of values

Symptoms of a misinformed conscience

Rationalization
Trivialization
Misinformation
The End justifies the immoral means
Difficult to reason
Legalistic
Lax

Rationalization

Making excuses for wrongs actions by suggesting that the "victim" can afford or handled it

Trivialization

Making the wrongful action seem less significant by calling attention to the norms or predominant actions of society

Misinformation

To receive false or misleading information that results in faulty reasoning. This false information may also be transferred inadvertently as a result of the environment one grows up in

The End Justifies the Immoral Means

The outcome is perceived as incredibly important and thus the actions undertaken, whether good or bad, justify the outcome

Difficult to Reason

Acting impulsively without considering the consequences or other possible solutions to a given problem

Legalistic

When persons are so caught up in obeying the rules perfectly that they cannot see the real needs of a situation. They miss some very important facts that should be considered in moral decision making. Persons with a legalistic conscience are prone to being overly sensitive about their blameworthiness.

Lax

When persons habitually behave in a certain way, their conscience gradually gets distorted. Actions that once seemed wrong begin to seem less wrong or not wrong at all.

Call/Call Story

- The bible contains a number of stories of God calling people and imparting to them a mission
- They follow the pattern of encounter with God, God speaks, God gives a mission, the person being called objects, they are reassured by God, and God gives a sign that God is with them in their mission
- When God calls us, God does not leave us alone

Covenant

- A binding agreement between two parties that spells out the conditions and obligations of each party
- The biblical notion of covenant arose from this contractual notion, but it is far more
-This with God is a bond of love that calls to us in our freedom to respond in love
- God's commitment to us is forever. God's commitment is founded in love.

Prophets

- God's messengers on earth who stand apart from their societies and who call people back to the goodness of God's revelation
- closely connected to their vocation, their call from God

Revelation

- God makes Himself known fully by sending his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
- The sacred scriptures reveal the loving actions of God in human history

Sin and Transgression

- Refers to transgression, which is the judgment of God
- Sin shows itself when the moral commandments are broken
- You cannot be a sinner in general
- You are a sinner by stealing, by being disrespectful, by polluting the environment
- In a negative way, sin reveals the holiness of God

Vocation

- call from God.
- Jesus calls all people into the family of God. God also calls each one of us personally to a way of life that is founded on the love of God and the love of neighbour.
- For some this way of life leads to priesthood; for others, consecrated religious life; for others, service in the context of family life or the broader community

YHWH

- Moses is to serve as the mouth of God to Aaron and to the people. He is to tell them that he has been sent to them by the God of their ancestors to bring them to the mountain of the Lord in the power of the holy Name of ****
- The vowels are not given
- In worship the name **** was replaced with Adonai: "my Lord"
- The name was pronounced in temple worship only once a year by the High Priest

Adonai

Hebrew name for God
"my lord"

Righteousness

the quality of being morally right or justifiable

Justice

just behavior or treatment.

The Decalogue

Another word for the ten commandments, literally translated as "ten words"

The Ten Commandments

"I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me"
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."
"Keep holy the Lord's Day"
"Honor thy father and mother"
"Thou shalt not kill"
"Thou shalt not commit adultery"
"Thou shalt not steal"
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods"

Commandments 1-3

Love God

Commandments 4-10

Love other people

Characteristics of a Prophet

- Prophets are people who speak on God's behalf
- Prophets are critics who see injustices and suffering in the world and are deeply moved to cry out against these injustices
- Prophets always defend the poor and voiceless in society
- Prophets obey God and are not influenced by power, personal glory, or possessions
- Prophets have enormous courage and conviction in speaking out against oppressive situations in their world
- Prophets have vision and are the conscience of the community
- Prophets are always persecuted and mocked as being out of touch with reality

Apocalyptic Literature

A style of writing that evolved during Israel's troubled history around the time of Jesus. It focused on the end of history and the time of God's purifying judgment. It frequently employed frightening imagery of end-time wars between good and evil and of convulsions in nature.

Eschatological

Pertaining to the end of time, in the sense of its fullness. The coming of the Kingdom of God at the end of time, according to Jesus, has already begun in his life, death and resurrection. Eschatological ethics that insist that we can already live what God will realize or reveal at the end.

Exegesis

The analysis of texts in their original context. Uncovering the historical, cultural, linguistic, etc., particularities that the original author was dealing with in order to better understand the original meaning and intent of a text

Hermeneutics

A way of interpreting texts and events to help us understand what they mean for us in the twenty-first century

Gospel

The unique literary genre that proclaims the life, death and resurrection of Jesus from the perspective of the living faith of particular early church communities

Parousia

This term refers to the second coming of Christ, which is to take place "at the end of the age." This time ends time: it is the ending of the story of salvation. The end is described as a completion: the full revelation of God

Torah

The five books of Moses that contain the core teachings: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

Synoptic Gospels

- greek word meaning "at a glance" or "seeing with the same eye"
- Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are known as the these because they include many of the same stories, told in the same sequence and sometimes using the exact same wording - the degree of similarities can only be accounted for by literary independence

Three-stage process in the development of the Gospels

1. The events themselves
2. Reports or testimonies about the events (oral or written)
3. The writing and collection of various reports (the traditions) into biblical books

Beatitudes

- A form of pronouncement that presupposes that a good or happiness has already been given or is about to be received. The Sermon on the Mount contains a list of these: "blessed are the poor in spirit..."
- Word means "blessing" or "promise of true happiness"

Sermon on the Mount

- Jesus repeatedly teaches that Christian behaviour must be patterned on the action of God
- contains the heart of Jesus' ethical message
- Jesus does NOT replace the Torah given by Moses, but is the fulfillment of it; the disciples still had to follow the Torah but Jesus gave it a new meaning
- The completion of this New Torah reflects what a fully redeemed world looks like

Apostle

A title given on the gospels to the 12 chief disciples of Jesus and later also to Paul

Conversion

A radical transformation of values, a turning around, that takes place at the intellectual level as an awareness and openness to truth and true knowing, at the moral level when I recognize myself as free and responsible, and at the religious level where my preoccupation with myself is taken over with the love of God and love for others

Gentile

A person who is not apart of the Jewish faith or not of Jewish ancestry

Magisterium

The official teaching office of the Church: the bishops in union with the bishop of Rome, the pope

Three Periods of Christianity

Period of Jewish Christianity
Period of Greek and European Christianity
Period of Global Christianity:

Conversion Experiences / Requirements

- A radical transformation of values; a turning around
- Intellectual transformation: an awareness and openness to truth
- Moral transformation: a recognition of oneself as free and responsible
- Religious transformation: a preoccupation with oneself is replaced with the love of God and others

Challenges of Church through history

- Judaism and the Roman Empire
- Christian Persecution
- Emperor Nero
- St Paul of Tarsus
- St Peter

Development of the Gospels

- Mark's gospel was the first to be written and influenced the writers of Matthew's and Luke's gospels, who drew on some of Mark's texts in their gospels
- It can be deduced that they had yet another source - which scholars have called Q -to which Matthew and Luke refer to
- We know this because both have similar texts that are not found in Mark or John, and because neither had access to each other's gospels

Five Traits of a Covenant

- The Preamble
- The Historical Prologue
- The Submission
- The Witnesses
- The Blessings and Curses

The Structure of a Call Story

- Confrontation with God
- Introductory Speech
- Imparting of a Mission
- Objection by the Prophet
- Reassurance by God
- The Sign