Catholic Studies Exam 2

embedded intelligence

What is the name of the inductive principle which states that, if it takes intelligence to figure something out, then intelligence must have been used to create the thing itself?

irreducible complexity

What is the name of the inductive principle which states that, in order for an item to function as what it is, an irreducible number of parts intelligently ordered at some level of complexity is required?

love

What term describes freely choosing something good for the benefit of another without regard to any possibility of future gain in return?

that a transcendent, eternal, universal power had to bring the universe into existence

What does Saint Thomas Aquinas intend the “First Cause” argument to prove?

Aristotle

Who is the author of the treatise Metaphysics cited by Saint Thomas Aquinas in ST I. q. 2, a. 3?

purposeful

If something is said to be “designed,” then it is __________.

think and love

An entity’s “deepest design” elucidates its “ultimate purpose.”  What two abilities are unique to human beings and, therefore, illustrative of human beings' deepest design?

God (or the First Cause)

The purpose of life is to know and to love __________.

moral theology

What is the name of the field of knowledge which investigates how human beings should act relative to the design of human beings?

moral bad

Complete the following sentence by filling in the blank:  The definition of bad is “to act against the design of the thing in question,” and the definition of __________ is to act willingly against the design of human beings, i.e., to choose not to know or love God.

harmonious

The period for the viable birth of science in human history was the period from 1250 to 1650 in Europe.  During this “fertile period of scientific growth,” the relationship between science and Christianity is best characterized as __________.

Which of the following statements is true?

Both subjective and objective factors play roles in science and its development.

one

How many times in its 2,000-year history has the Catholic Church condemned a scientific theory?

no

Yes or no:  Did Galileo ever offer a successful scientific demonstration that the earth actually revolved around the sun?

integrationism

What term stands for the idea that the truths of Christian faith and the truths of human reason (including science) do not contradict each other (and can, therefore, be united into a coherent understanding of truth)?

yes

Yes or no:  Did Galileo agree with Saint Robert Bellarmine that the truths of Christian faith cannot contradict the truths of science (and vice versa)?

C.

Fr. Georges Lemaître

Which of the following scientists was the first to propose the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe?

The Kalaam argument

For which argument for the existence of God does the Big Bang Theory provide evidentiary support?

multiverse

What term describes the speculative and hypothetical idea of a cosmological system in which what we call our universe suddenly emerged from another pre-existing or older universe?

inductive

Is the design argument for God’s existence typically understood as a deductive argument or an inductive argument?

unified theory

Complete the following sentence by filling in the blank:  The idea that theoretical physics may eventually be able to explain all physical aspects of the universe through a single set of equations (or even a single equation) is called __________.

design

The “anthropic coincidences” argument is a variation on the __________ argument for the existence of God.

three alpha

What is the name of the process which allows for three helium-4 nuclei to bond simultaneously to become a carbon-12 nucleus?

Penrose number

What is the name of the number 10^{(10^123)}?

what happened

Does the theory of common ancestry address the “What happened?” aspect of the theory of evolution or the “Why did it happen?” aspect?

Humani generis

What is the name of the encyclical issued by Pope Pius XII addressing matters related to evolutionary biology?

Neo-Darwinism

The merging of Mendelian genetics with Darwin’s earlier thinking about principles explaining evolutionary change is known as __________.

natural selection

The name of the process entailing (a) variation of traits within a species, (b) survival of the best adapted members of the species, and (c) successful passing of the traits to subsequent generations of the species is known as __________.

emergentism

The attempt to reconcile materialist interpretations of human nature with notions of human freedom and intellection by appealing to the study of systems which possess characteristics not found in those systems’ individual elements is known as __________.

everything which exists is composed exclusively of matter

Which premise in the materialist argument of human nature is unproven and unprovable, constituting a kind of “faith” in materialism and its conclusions?

universal

An abstract idea theoretically knowable by all human beings and setting forth a definition allowing for classification of various similar items into a related class or genus is called a __________.