Exam 2 Short Answer Question Answers

12. Summarize the similarities and differences between Christianity and Plato on the nature of happiness and the virtues.

Similarity: Complete happiness is possible

Differences: 1. subjective attachments important. 2. You keep your individuality 3. Christian vs. Cardinal virtues

Details can be found at http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/chris.htm

13. Summarize the main similarities and differences between Christianity and Plato on the nature of reality, God, and human nature

Similarity: Two Worlds, transcendent and material.

Differences: 1. God is a person 2. Subjective or internal is more real than objective or external

3. Will, rather than reason is the central feature of human nature.

More details at http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/chris.htm

6. Can Love be completely objective? Why or why not? Can Love be completely subjective? Why or why not?

Love must be: (1) unconditional; and (2) directed at the individuality of the person.

If love were completely objective it would be directed at the properties of the person, not the person themselves. If they changed or if someone else had more of these properties, you would stop loving them.

If love were completely subjective, it would be a feeling. You would love the feelings the person caused and not the person. If the feelings changed or ended you would stop loving them.

1. What are the two stages in the development of sin, and how do they arise from pride? (Use the given example).

Stage 1: Choosing an expected (lesser) good over the presented (greater) good.

Stage 2: Choosing no good at all as a pure expression of will or power.

All the sins arise from pride because they involve choosing our own good over the good of others in the first stage and choosing no good out of pride in the second.

You have to be able to give examples of each of these stages for each of the sins.

5. What is free will? How is it both objective and subjective? How does it provide emergent values and transform evil to good?

Free will is the ability to organize our experiences and activities into a unified whole (emergent whole or Gestalt) in which the whole is more than the sum of the parts and in which the parts are transformed within the whole. (follow-through example)

This transformation of the parts within the whole allows things that are bad or painful when seen in isolation to be transformed when seen in the context of this larger whole.

It is objective in that it requires stepping out of the moment to see a larger whole, while it is subjective in that it is a single continuous whole, felt from the inside in its totality. It requires simultaneous detachment and engagement

14. How does unconditional love transform the self and make it reborn according to Christianity?

Since all of us would not want anyone to see all of our actions and thoughts in all their detail, we make for ourselves a false self. (We hold onto an ideal self instead of embracing the real self that is presented to us by God.) Allowing ourselves to trust in and accept the unconditional love of God or another person allows us to accept our real self, this allow us to kill our old self and be reborn to our real one.

We compared the different approaches to trusting in unconditional love to the differences between Traditional Christianity and Christian Existentialism:

Traditional C.: We are connected to God or another person enough to sense their unconditional love and it is this connection (or grace in the case of God) that allows us to trust them.

C. Existentialism: We are alienated from God and other persons. We can never be sure on the basis of any external actions, of God or of other persons. We have to make a leap of fait to trust in the unconditional acceptance of another.

10. What is the difference between traditional Christianity and Christian Existentialism and how is this related to the positions of Franny and Zooey?

This is just an outline. You should consult your class notes for the details.

Traditional Christianity:

The unity or harmony that accounts for the virtues comes from the outside, from God through grace.

God is connected to the world and manifests his presence in it.

We could tell if he went out of existence. We feel his effects on the world and us.

We can prove God’s existence.

The problem of evil is solved by God, in heaven by a harmony beyond our human comprehension (Job)

Free will transforms evil into good.

Franny

Christian Existentialism:

The unity or harmony that accounts for the virtues comes from the inside, from our own free will in a leap of faith.

God is not connected to the world and manifests his presence only as an absence. We are alienated from God.

We could not tell if he went out of existence.

We cannot prove God’s existence.

The Problem of evil must be solved by Human will, in this world, from within the standpoint of Human existence

Free will cannot make evil good, it overcomes evil but it remains evil. One feels the evil fully while refusing to turn away from the good.

Zooey.

Zooey criticizes Franny's attempt to use the Jesus prayer because he thinks she is attempting to escape life and escape dealing with evil by having God transform all the evil to good in a mystic vision.

Doing it for the Fat Lady, means not transforming evil into good, but still seeing the full measure of evil and pain, but unconditionally (for no reason, through an act of will) choosing to value life and people anyway. So things do not become all good like the nice cuddly Easter chicks Franny liked, it remains evil, which is necessary for us to retain our full measure of engagement in this world.

See also Question #14.

2. What is the Role of Reason versus Faith in traditional Christianity?

Unaided reason is capable of proving the existence of God, but it is a supplement to, and not a substitute for, faith. Reason adds understanding to Faith. Reason alone cannot produce Faith.

3. Transcendental arguments deduce the existence of something that transcends our experience by seeing the limitations of our experience.

This is significant because Reason itself is recognizing its own limitations. Reason itself is led to posit the existence of something that transcends reason. This is the first argument we have studied that disagrees with Plato’s Principle that only the objective can be real.

Transcendental argument form:

1. Fact of experience

2. Try to explain this fact using some Scientific or Rational principle.

3. Fail in the attempt to explain the fact within experience using the Scientific Principle:

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Posit an exception to the Principle in Premise 2, something that transcends experience as the only possible explanation of the facts of experience.

4. Give one argument for the existence of God (from Thomas or Anselm). (You can give any one proof)

St. Thomas Ways 1-2: The proof from Existence

1. Things Exist

2. Everything has a cause and nothing is the cause of itself

3. If there were no original cause, then there would be an infinite regress.

4. An Infinite regress is impossible

a. An infinite series cannot be completed. The past is complete.

b. If there is no original cause, the entire series is without a cause.

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There must exist a first uncaused cause.

St. Thomas Way 3: The proof from Possibility and Necessity

1. Things Exist.

2. All Natural things are contingent (they have a beginning and end in time and they depend on something else for their existence.)

3. If this (2) is true then at one time there was nothing.

4. If at one time there was nothing (3), then there would still be nothing now, since nothing can come from nothing. Nothingness provides no sufficient reason to bring anything into existence.

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There must exist a non-natural cause, a necessary and eternal being. Necessary means containing its own cause, so you can’t ask what caused it. Eternal means outside of time, so you can’t ask what came before it.

St. Anselm; Ontological Argument

1. God is the best possible being. He must be conceived as having all perfections.

2. Necessary and eternal existence is a perfection.

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God must be conceived of as existing necessarily and eternally.

Hence if God is even possible, He must exist. (If the concept of a necessary and eternal being even makes sense, then we must admit it exists in reality, since necessary being has to exist and does not depend on an other cause to bring it into existence

Detailed outlines of all the proofs that follow the texts can be found here:

http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/chris.htm#A8

7. What is (a) the Problem of Evil and (b) the Christian solution to the problem of evil? (2 parts)

The Problem of Evil

These are some facts about how we must conceive God.

1. God is seen as all powerful. He could make the world any way he wanted to. Nothing logically possible is beyond His power.

2. God must be seen as all knowing. He is aware of all that happens and of all the alternative ways of making the world and their effects.

3. God is seen as completely good. Any action that produces less than the maximum possible amount of good is incompatible with God's nature.

4. We also believe that God is the creator of this world and all that exists.

These facts about how we conceive God seem to imply that this world must be the best of all possible worlds, for God had the power to create any world, he knew all the possible worlds, and nothing but the best possible action is compatible with His goodness.

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This seems, on the surface to be incompatible with an objective view of the world, which doesn't seem to be the best possible world. The ways in which this world seems not to be the best may be broken into two categories:

1. Natural evil: It seems that many things in the world that are not due to the agency of Humans in any way are not for the best. That is, it seems that the world would have been better off otherwise. In this category would fall natural disasters, disease, and other limitations of the world and our resources.

2. Moral evil: Humans, who were created by God, seem capable of great evils as well. These evils are caused by human actions and human will. Into this category would fall murders, child abuse, and the Holocaust.

This incompatibility can be resolved only by denying either the existence of God (or one of these beliefs about God) or the existence of Evil (thus claiming that this is indeed the best possible world).

An Atheist might argue that one must deny the existence of God, while a Christian might try to explain how this really is the best possible world by explaining how the evil in this world is really necessary for some greater good.

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The Christian Solution to the Problem of Evil

As stated above, the standard Christian solution to the problem of evil involves arguing that the nature of this world is compatible with the existence of an all-knowing, all powerful, completely good God, since all of the evil in this world is necessary for a greater good. This explanation is usually done in two stages, for the two types or categories of Evil.

Stage 1: Natural Evil. Natural Evil is seen as a result of Moral Evil through the doctrine of Original Sin. . Even an all powerful being could not have made human beings perfect and make them immediately perfectly happy. Since humans are imperfect they must live in an imperfect world to perfect themselves. Natural evil is necessary for the perfection of Human Nature and its rise from this fallen state.

Stage 2: Moral Evil is not an act of God. It is an effect of Human will. While it is true that God created Humans with free will and an ability to sin, this was necessary for the best possible world to be created. It is better that humans have free will and natural evil and moral evil, than that God created humans without free will in a world without evil. Free will is thought to have such value that the new types of experience and value it makes possible outweigh all the evil that was brought into the world through the introduction of free will.

8. What is Dostoevsky's criticism of the Christian Solution to the Problem of Evil?

D. argues that the traditional Christian solution of believing in a harmony that transcends human understanding causes us to abandon the goods of human experience and to become unable to enjoy the goods of this world as the Christian virtues require us to. If we can accept evil in this world, we have killed our ability to experience goodness as well.

9. Distinguish between contingent and logical necessity in explaining the necessity of evil. Give an example.

Contingent necessity is fake necessity. It is only necessary contingent upon some previous error or weakness. Hume's example is the house which is built so poorly that all the defects become necessary to keep the house up: They cannot be fixed without destroying the house. They aren’t really necessary, but only become necessary if you don’t build the house right in the first place.

Logical necessity is real necessity. It is necessary even for a perfect all powerful being. The only things that could be necessary for such a being are things ordained by logic or other features of its own nature. An example is that it is logically necessary to draw a straight line to mark the shortest distance between two points.

11. What is an existentialist solution to the problem of evil?

The Existentialist holds that the problem of evil must be solved in this world, through an act of human will, from within the standpoint of human existence, and not in heaven, through God.

The evil cannot be transformed into good, or into something we accept or are happy about, without abandoning the goods of human existence.

You must continue to feel the full measure of pain at the bad things, while, through a leap of faith or act of will, throwing oneself completely into the goods that are presented to you. Despite hating the evil, they must live as if it was the best possible world.

The best possible world involves humans using their will to learn to love the world unconditionally by overcoming evil in this way.

15. What was Galileo’s criticism of the Aristotelian Medieval Mode of Explanation?

Aristotle explained the action of a thing by its internal nature. But, since there was no independent access to the thing’s internal nature, he ended up describing the thing’s internal nature by its actions. For example, Glass breaks because it has a brittle internal nature; opium puts you to sleep because it has a dormative nature, etc. Galileo saw that this was circular and provided no insight into the real reason the thing acted as it did. It is merely saying glass breaks because it breaks (since brittle means breaks) and opium puts you to sleep because it puts you to sleep (since dormative means puts you to sleep.) Hence Galileo and Newton ruled out talk of hidden internal natures as pointless in science.

Question 16: Scientific Method

Scientific methods aims at purifying the senses to isolate a single cause or form from the complex mixture of causes the senses give us. It aims at separating the features of our senses that are merely relative to us, from those that are absolute, or really in the object. The method of controlled experiment under ideal conditions attempts to approximate how a single form would act in isolation from the extraneous causes. Copernicus saw that the sun’s motion in the sky was merely relative to him.

17. What does the following phrase mean “Qualitatively identical particles having only the formal mathematical properties of matter extended in space and time?

This is Mechanistic Reductionism.

"Qualitatively identical particles" means that the basic constituents of matter have no internal nature or individuality; the atoms are contentless bits of information.

Their only properties are their arrangements in space and time, the primary properties, which are formal mathematical properties of matter extended in space and time, the different geometrical shapes and arrangements these atoms can take.

18. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Use the distinction between Primary and Secondary properties to answer this question.

It makes primary properties. The air still vibrates, and the tree's atoms still impact on those of the forest floor.

It makes no secondary properties such as color, sound, etc. These are merely the feeling produced in an observer, and there is no observer.

19. What were Descartes’s two main aims in the Meditations? How did he achieve each?

1. To provide a sound basis for scientific method. He aimed to show that the real source of scientific knowledge lay in the mind and not in the senses.

2. To show how science and religion could be compatible.

He achieved the first by showing that everything from his senses could be doubted, using the Dream argument in Meditation 1. He then showed how all scientific knowledge could be based on the contents of his mind by proving his own existence and the existence of a non-deceiving God who is the source of his reason, which finds the truth using the scientific method.

He achieved the second by splitting the world up into two different types of substances: mind and body. Science will be completely true of body, extended matter; religious truths will deal with the soul or mind.

20. What is Descartes’s proof of his own existence? Why is the argument important? Does he agree or disagree with science?

I think, therefore I am.

He could only be deceived when he tried to apply his sensations to the external world. If he restricted himself to his own thoughts, which he perceived from the inside, he could never be mistaken.

This was important because it represented the first major argument that subjectivity, perception of ourselves from the inside, was more reliable than objectivity, perception of objects outside of us.

It also formed the basis of his reconciliation of Science and Religion since he

Disagreed with science on the mind, but

Agreed with science on the body and all external matter.

Question 21: Problem with Substance Dualism

If mind and body are radically different types of stuff, it is hard to see how they can interact with each other. In particular, it is hard to see how an unextended substance can interact with an extended one.

Yet mind and body do seem to interact in both directions:

1. The mind affects the body: This seems to happen whenever we act. The mind decides to do something and the body does it.

2. The body affects the mind:

a. In sense perception, our sense organs seem to affect and produce images in our mind.

b. Damage to our brain or the influence of drugs on our body often affects our mind

Question 22: What is the main problem with Physicalism?

It seems to deny the existence of free will.

The argument from responsibility (below) stresses our belief in moral responsibility as evidence for our belief in free will. One could equally well argue that denying free will lead to fatalism (the view that, since everything we do is determined, there is no point to attempting anything or taking any of our actions seriously). Therefore since none of us are fatalists, we must all believe in free will and in the existence of a transcendent soul

Questions 23. Dual aspect Theory vs. Materialism

Thomas Nagel's bat argument and Frank Jackson's Mary the Neurosurgeon argument both argue that the subjective character of mental states cannot be reduced to a physical description because they contain unique irreproducible content or information that is not contained in any physical account.

24. How does the emergent view of the self explain the possibility of immortality? of freedom?

On this view there is no substantial self apart from or behind our various components. The self is the organized unity of these components. It emerges from the way the components work together as a unified whole. The self is more that just the sum of its parts on this view.

Immortality

This view often sees the self as analogous to the software of a computer, while the body is the hardware. Just as software can be transferred from one hardware or computer to another, this view would hold that the set of dispositions that make our personality and self might be transferable from one substrate to another and, thus, make a type of immortality possible.

Free Will:

Free will consists of an agent's actions being caused by the agent as a unified whole rather than by any one component of itself or by external forces. Thus even though the agent is determined by natural laws, it is free if it is determined by the laws governing itself as a whole rather than those governing it some of its parts or by outside forces. Views like this are often called Soft Determinism or Compatibilism, because they claim that having free will is compatible with the parts of an organism being physically determined.

25. What is compatibilism? How does it claim that free will and science are compatible?