Read the Questions and Answer the following questions throughly. Do not just merely answer in two sentences. Write approximately 300 words per answer. A detailed paragraph or two is needed to receive credit.
Weekly Assignments: Reason, Faith and Tradition: Explorations in Catholic Theology-Martin Albl
Chapter One
Essay Questions:
1. Why have all known human cultures developed religious beliefs?
2. What does the word "transcendent" mean and how is it related to religious beliefs?
3. What does it mean to ask whether human life or the universe as a whole has a transcendent meaning?
4. What are some reasons for thinking that a transcendent realm exists?
5. What is the root meaning of the word "theology?" How does academic discipline of religious studies differ from theology?
Chapter Two
Essays Questions
1. What are some of the common characteristics of the rationalist, materialist and determinist worldviews?
2. In what ways is a strictly rationalist view actually unreasonable?
3. What are some non-scientific ways by which one can gain knowledge?
4. In the Catholic worldview, why does faith involve not only faith in God, but also faith in the creeds of the Church?
5. In what way can an "intellectual conversion" be a step toward faith?
Chapter Three
Essays Questions
1. Which of Aquinas's "five ways" of proving God's existence is the most convincing? Explain your choice.
2. Summarize the First cause argument. Why must the First Cause be a transcendent one?
3. Name the two ways in which Balthasar's approach to theology is holistic.
4. Summarize Balthasar's approach to the Christian tradition.
5. Define these terms from Balthasar's theology: limited being, infinite being, analogy of being.
6. Explain how an "aesthetic approach" differs from a rationalist approach in perceiving reality. Why does Balthasar think that an aesthetic perspective to reality is a good preparation for faith in God?
Chapter Four
Essays Questions
1. Why does Whitehead believe that modern science could only have developed among people who believed in the Judeo-Christian God?
2. What factors led to the conflict between the Church and Galileo? What lessons did John Paul II draw from this conflict?
3. What are some similarities between the Big Bang theory and the Christian doctrine of creation?
4. Discuss arguments for and against the cosmic argument for design. Consider especially twentiethcentury discoveries of order at the molecular level.
5. What is the biological argument from design? How is the Neo-Darwinist theory of evolution a challenge to this argument?
6. What is the difference between an acceptance of the theory of evolution and the philosophy of evolutionism? What are the two basic criticisms of evolutionism as a theory that tries to explain the whole of life?
7.What are some of the basic elements in a Catholic understanding of the relationship between faith and science?
Chapter Five
Essay Questions
1. What is the difference between natural revelation and historical revelation?
2. Discuss the Christian arguments for why God must be personal, not an impersonal mind.
3. Why does the Catholic tradition teach that knowledge of God can be expressed through analogies?
4. For Aquinas, what is the relationship between these two statements: "God is wise" and that "person is wise?"
5. According to traditional Christianity, is God male, female or neither? Explain.
6. Define a miracle, according to traditional Christian thought. Explain the relationship between one's own worldview and one's interpretation of biblical accounts of miraculous events.