Religion Test 1 Dr. C

What are the four causes?

1. Material

2. Formal

3. Efficient

4. Final

What question does each of the four causes answer?

1. What is it made of?

2. What kind of thing is it?

3. Where does change come from? How did it come about?

4. What is good? the purpose of something/ intrinsic purpose-> its what?

List the four causes of a chair.

1. Material: Wood

2. Formal:Design

3. Efficient: Carpentry

4. Final: Dining

List the four causes of a bird.

1. Material: cells

2. Formal: animal 

3. Efficient: environment benefits

4. Final: recreation

List the four causes of a human being.

1. Material:cells and water

2. Formal: mammal with conscience

3. Efficient: adam and eve

4. Final:procreate and to live the circle of life 

Why are the four causes called “causes”? What do they cause?

• They explain why something is the way it is. (because). Always referring to the particular way things exist.

What is the difference between efficient and final causation?

Efficient and Final causation are each answering different questions. Efficient cause is where the origin of the change comes from and how it comes about the final cause is what the purpose of the cause is.

Why are the five ways called “the five ways”? They are ways of doing what?

The five ways are called the five ways because they are the way of demonstrating that God exists by using only reason and not

What are potentiality and actuality?

• Potentiality and Actuality are aspects of motion and change (kinesis metabole). Potentiality refers to what it is possible for something to be according to its nature while actuality is the coming to be for actualization of that possibility..

The three ways we studied conclude that there must exist what three kinds of being?

1. An unmoved mover

2. unpaused (efficient) cause

3. an intelligence that leads unintelligence things to their end

Summarize the first way in logical steps.

1.  Stuff is always moving and changing

2.  Whatever is in motions is put in motion by another

   1. Nothing can change unless it is potentially what it will change into

      1. Fire-> Potentiality- burning, Actually-Fire Burning

   2. Whatever is moving is in state of actuality

   3. Motion is passed from  potentiality is actuality

   4. Whatever changes from p to a just be changed by something already in the same respect.

3.  It is impossible for something for x  to be potentiality and actuality in a given state

4. it is impossible for (x) to be both mover and moves in the same respect or nothing can change itself

5. therefore, whatever changes must be changes by something else

6. this can’t go onto infinity-> there must be a first mover that is itself unmoved.

Summarize the second way in logical steps.

1. it is obvious that in the world there is an order at efficient causes

2. nothing can be its own efficient cause

   1. if it were, it  would have to exist before itself, which is impossible

3. it is impossible for the chain of causality can not be infinity

   1. grandma->mom->me

   2. to take away the cause is to take away the effect

   3. if the chain is infinity, it has no 1st cause

4. There must be a first cause, itself cause, and this what we mean by “God”

Summarize the fifth way in logical steps.

1. things that lack intelligence act for an end(goal/reestablished destination)

   1. this is evident from their acting (almost) always in the same way to achieve the best results

2. therefore it is not fortuitously but by design that they achieve their end

3. things that lack intelligence cannot direct themselves but must be directed

   1. arrows+archer

4. Therefore they must be an intelligent beings exist by whom all natural things are directed to their