Sacred Doctrine Test
1. Who was Aristotle and when did he live?
Aristotle was a scholar and philosopher of Greek origin, who wrote many things including Metaphysics. He lived from 384 Bc to 322 Bc.
2. What, according to Aristotle, is the surest and most basic principle of knowledge?
According to Aristotle the surest and most basic principle is that of noncontradiction which means that It is impossible for the same thing at the same time to belong and not to belong to the same thing and in the same respect.
3. Who was Rene Descartes and when did he live?
Rene Descartes was a scientist, mathematician, and philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650.
4. What is common with the approaches of Aristotle and Descartes?
They both have metaphysics as part of their approach. They both also seek to understand deep principles or ideas that cannot be explored only through science or only through philosophy.
5. What is the difference between the approaches of Aristotle and Descartes?
Descartes wants to learn about what he knows about the world and what he can still discover through many different things. He uses his creation of a scientific method to understand and to analyze things better.
6. What type of knowledge is Descartes seeking with his method?
Descartes is seeking knowledge to learn what he knows about the world. He says that science can be useful but not fully sufficient.
7. What role does doubt have in Descartes’ method?
Doubt played a huge role in Descartes methods because after he finished school he changed his opinion on philosophy, math and science which caused many doubt to form in himself because he believed that his efforts to instruct himself had no large effects other than growing his ignorance to certain things.
8. What questions do these reading answer, or what problems do these readding solve?
These readding answer the question of how doubt can play a key role in understanding certain things about life, because questioning things can help you learn more about the things to seek to understand.
9. Who was Thomas Aquinas and when did he live?
Thomas Aquinas was a theologian and an Italian Friar. He wrote many influential writings that are foundational for the Christian and Catholic religions. He lived from 1225 to 1274.
10. According to Aquinas what is it that makes theology necessary and scientific?
What makes theology necessary and scientific is the fact that it is a practical science.
11. How does God unfold his plan of divine revelation (see CCC)?
God unfolds his plan of divine revelation gradually to man, in sections of which are supernatural revelations that he gives us.
12. What does it mean to say that Sacred Scripture is inspired?
It means that the scriptures were written by someone, but the ideas are inspired by god, or given to them by God.
13. What exactly is the nature of the human soul?
The nature of the human soul is to seek the truth of the world because our souls will not be satisfied with mere information. The nature of the human soul is also to become genuinely good.
14. How is Theology related to happiness according to Fr. Thomas Joseph White?
According to Fr. Thomas Joseph White Theology is related to happiness because happiness is as much in the mind as our heart, and it comes from knowing the truth of ultimate things. “The highest most vivifying thing we can do is contemplate truth.
15. What question do these readding answer/ What problem do these readding solve?
These readding solve the problem of how God reveals himself. We see The catechism talk about how God reveals himself over time in segments that are supernatural revelations
16. What is it about the Manicheans that is attractive to Augustine?
Augustine is attracted to the fact that the Manicheans are able to help him. They help him find better work.
17. What problems does Augustine see with the Manicheans?
They believed in interpreting scripture literally and not focusing on the main principles.
18. What changes Augustine’s views about the Bible?
His friend Ambrose who has a mostly spiritual view of the Bible instead of a literal sense which helps Augustine’s view of the Bible.
19. Why does Augustine struggle with the question of marriage and chastity?
He struggles with the idea of marriage and chastity because he can not bear the idea of many years with out a concubine. He could not imagine giving up his sexual pleasure for chaste life.
20. What questions does this readding answer and what problem does it solve.
This readding answers the question that has to do with scripture interpretation. We can see that interpreting scripture literally in not accurate, the readings of scripture are not meant to be taken literally but to be guides in our faith.
21. How does Augustine overcome his struggle with the problem of evil?
He overcomes his struggle with the problem of evil by visualizing the Lord all around him in all the spaces that surround him. He said that God is good and most mightily and incomparably superior to evil things.
22. What errors about Christ did Augustine hold prior to his conversion?
The errors about Christ that Augustine held prior to his conversion were the idea that Christ was a vast ocean and that us humans are the sponge absorbing all his knowledge. Also, the idea that Christ was not a human.
23. How does the story of Ponticianus impact Augustine?
The story of Ponticianus impacted Augustine because they offered him good religious philosophy, which helped him understand the faith better.
24. What causes Augustine to open the Bible in the garden and what passage does he read?
He heard a voice saying, “Pick up and Read, Pick up and read.” He opened the Bible to Romans 13:13-14
25. What does Augustine say happens to him at his Baptism?
All the people that were there to watch him get Baptized began to murmur his name and then they all rejoiced and said “Victorinus, Victorinus!”
26. What happens during Augustine’s conversation with his mother at Ostia?
During his conversation with his mother, he realized something that helped him along his faith journey.
27. What problems does this readding address?
This readding addresses the problem that we cannot use solely sacred doctrine to study our faith we also need to look at the Bible.
28. What is the importance of the first article of the Creed?
The first article of the creed is so important because all of the other articles depend on it, and we first profess our belief in God and his oneness. It also begins with God the Father, who is the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and foundation of all God’s works.”
29. What does God’s name tell us about him?
Gods name tells us that he is mysterious. “He is infinitely above everything that we can understand or say he is the hidden God”
30. Why does Aquinas say that God’s existence is “clearly known by reason”?
What Aquinas means when he says God's existence is "clearly understood by reason" is that we must recognize that God is limitless. He is not the same entity as us or a species; God does not even have a human body like us, therefore we cannot use our own tools, knowledge or science to explain his existence. This shows us that we must use reason to fully understand his existence.
31. What does it mean to say that God is “simple” and identical with his essence?
God is “Simple” because the substance-accident structure is an actuality and potentiality pair that is not possible in God. His Essence is identical with His Being, and thus unrestricted and unlimited, which prevents anything extraneous from being added to it.
32. According to Fr. Thomas Joseph White, what are the “proofs for the existence of God” first and foremost about?
They are primarily concerned with demonstrating that there is a manner of thinking about God that can reach up to God while or after the revelation of God goes down to human reason, allowing the two to work together under grace or in grace
33. What problems do these readding solve?
These reading answer the question or problem of how to go about understanding the existence of God. Though there may not be an official way to understand the existence of God, we can use what we have been given to help us understand the existence of God in a deeper way. We can use sacred scripture, tradition and other resources that are fundamental to our faith.
34. What is meant by the words “one” and “three” in the dogma of the Trinity?
The word “one” means that God is equal with the father and the son. He is of the same substance and of the same nature.
“The father is that which the son is, the son is that which the father is, the father and the son that which the holy spirit is. They are by nature one God.
The word “three” means one God in three persons, the “consubstantial trinity.”
35. What is meant by the terms: “procession”, “relation”, and “person”?
The term “procession” means outward movement. It also means to be against the nature of the first principle.
The term “relation” means the relation of the same thing to the same thing.
The term “person” means the same as essence or subsistence. A person is an individual substance of a rational nature.
36. How do the names of the three Persons contribute to our understanding of God as triune?
The three names contribute to our understanding of God as triune because the three names are not individual gods, they are not three gods, but they are one God. They are real relations and not merely mental relations.
37. Identify two biblical texts that the Church points to as explicit revelations of the Trinity?
John 10:30 says “I and the father are one”
Romans 1:4 says that Christ, the man who had lived and died among them, was truly God, one with the father,
38. How do the readings explain the mystery of evil in relation to God’s providence?
The readding explain the mystery of evil in relation to Gods providence by explaining that God is not the direct or indirect cause of it.
39. What is the difference between moral and physical evil (see CCC)?
Moral evil is more harmful than physical evil, and God is in no way directly or indirectly the cause of it. God can also bring good out of moral evil.
Moral evil is the result of human free will, that opposes God’s law and harms others.
Physical evil refers to suffering and hardships caused by natural or physical elements beyond human control
40. How does Aquinas explain God’s goodness and the permission of evil?
He explains that Gods permission of evil in the things governed by him is not inconsistent with divine goodness.
41. How does the Fall differ from original sin?
The fall differs from original sin because the fall, is when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and disobeyed God and original sin is the effect of the fall.
42. What are the four “wounds” of original sin that Fr. White identifies?
The four “Wounds of original sin are Ignorance, malice, Weakness, and concupiscence.
43. Why does the CCC say that questions about the “meaning” of the origin of the universe go “beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences”?
Its says that the “meaning” of the origin of the universe go “beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences,” because it is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin.
44. What central truths are “affirmed” in the first words of Genesis?
That God is transcendental meaning he is above time and space and existed before us and will exist after us.
The central truth of Imago Dei
45. How are we to explain the distinction between God and his creatures?
We are to explain the distinction between God and his creatures by stating that God is the cause for his creatures, he is the cause of being in all things that have being.
46. What conclusions about human existence can be drawn from the phrase “image of God?”
The human being is made in the image and likeness of God in a stable way due to his or her nature as a rational person, having a spiritual soul with incorporeal powers of intelligence and free will.
The human being is one substance, or one concrete being composed of both body and spiritual soul.
Men and women are equally made in the image of God.
The human being is created toward or unto the image of God because this image is not only static but ultimately dynamic.
47. How does the Church understand the relationship between body and soul?
The Church understands the relationship between the body and the soul, and one connected in God
48. What question do these readding answer or what problem do they solve?
These readings help us answer and understand the question of creation. They help us understand that there are many parts to understand creation and the origin of the universe that go far beyond what we have learned or understand.