Chapter 8: Philosophy and Theology: Dialogue and Debate
Quiz questions:
1. The idea of the phrase ancilla theologiae is that philosophy can be a ________ of
theology.
2. Anselm’s “ontological argument” was written as a ________ on God, rather than
an argument about God.
3. The “argument from design” typically depicts God as a ________.
4. The ________ approach to theology is also referred to as the via negativa.
5. ________ are language for God that involve both similarity and difference
between God and the object to which God is compared.
Multiple-choice questions:
1) Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Faith and Reason
a. warned the church against the use of secular philosophy
b. praised philosophy for its ability to help enrich the church
c. suggested that there are both helpful and dangerous elements within philosophy
d. promoted the ideas of Aristotle over those of Plato
2) Christians applied the Platonic concept of the logos to
a. the Bible as the Word of God
b. the Trinity
c. the Holy Spirit
d. Christ as the visible revelation of God
3) It can be argued that western culture as a whole is most indebted to
a. Aristotle
b. Plato
c. Neo-Platonism
d. Kant
4) One of the important differences between Aristotle and Plato is Aristotle’s
a. sharp distinction between the material and spiritual worlds
b. rejection of the monarchy in favor of democracy
c. insistence that only what can be directly observed with the senses is real
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d. emphasis on study of the natural world
5) The position that beliefs must be justified on the grounds of experience is known as
a. Aristotelianism
b. logical positivism
c. Middle Platonism
d. critical realism
6) Critical realism would be likely to argue that
a. God cannot directly be experienced, which means that God’s existence can never
be proved one way or the other
b. God’s existence can be proved through observation of the natural world
c. God cannot be known directly, but can be known through analogies to things
that we can perceive
d. everything we say about God is simply a construct of the human imagination
7) The definition of God as the “unmoved prime mover” was written by
a. Thomas Aquinas
b. Anselm of Canterbury
c. William Paley
d. Plato
8) The definition of God as “that than which no greater thing can be conceived” was
written by
a. Aristotle
b. Thomas Aquinas
c. Immanuel Kant
d. Anselm of Canterbury
9) Which of the following two figures criticized Anselm’s ontological argument?
a. Immanuel Kant
b. Thomas Aquinas
c. Gaunilo
d. Alvin Plantinga
10) The basic assumption in Aquinas’s “Five Ways” is that
a. it is impossible to prove God’s existence
b. signs of the ordering of the world are the basis for the existence of a creator God
c. God is revealed through Scripture and tradition rather than nature
d. God never intervenes in the natural world
11) The kalam argument is concerned with
a. the nature of God’s ongoing involvement with the world
b. proving that the existence of God is merely a human construct
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c. the cause of the beginning of the universe
d. human ability to perceive God
12) The classic “argument from design” is usually attributed to
a. Aristotle
b. Isaac Newton
c. Anselm of Canterbury
d. William Paley
13) Apophatic theology would be most likely to make the following statement:
a. human language is unable to describe God
b. all images of God are a kind of divine “baby-talk”
c. it is possible to make positive statements about God
d. it is best to speak of God in metaphors
14) The position that a created entity can be like God without being identical to God is
an expression of
a. the principle of analogy
b. kataphatic theology
c. metaphorical language for God
d. all of the above
15) According to theologians like Sallie McFague, the statement that “God is a father” is
best regarded as
a. a literal truth
b. an example of apophatic speech
c. a metaphor
d. an analogy
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