Deck 13: Philosophy and Belief in God

Question 1

What did Anselm believe about proving God's existence?

A) You could do it using the concept of God as the greatest being conceivable.
B) God's existence follows from his definition in just the way that the existence of the most perfect island follows from its definition.
C) If you want to prove God's existence, you must first look at how the world is.
D) The existence of God can only be known by mystical experience.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Immanuel Kant believed that existence was a property a thing either did or didn't possess.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

St. Thomas Aquinas used each of the four kinds of argument for God except for the ontological argument, which he rejected.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Who among the following is NOT a proponent of "intelligent design"?

A) Michael Behe
B) Phillip Johnson
C) Richard Dawkins
D) William Dembski

Question 5

Identify a true statement about Hume concerning the arguments for the existence of God.

A) His empiricist epistemological principles rule out the possibility of any meaningful ontological argument.
B) He was highly supportive of the teleological arguments for the existence of God.
C) He refrained from criticizing the appropriateness of the analogies involved in the arguments from design.
D) His criticism of the ontological argument comes from a critical view of the process of reasoning itself.

Question 6

Descartes maintained that his idea of God was derived from sense impressions.

Question 7

Julian of Norwich thought that mystical revelations were just as valid as knowledge derived from reason.

Question 8

Which of the following best explains Mary Daly's stance about the image of God the Father?

A) It is an image that appropriately expresses the power and awe of God.
B) It is an image that needs to be replaced with the image of God the Mother.
C) It perpetuates the artificial polarization of human qualities built into the traditional sexual stereotypes.
D) It is an image that only has negative effects among less sophisticated thinkers.

Question 9

What kind of an argument did Kant use to justify the rationality of belief in God?

A) ontological
B) cosmological
C) teleological
D) moral

Question 10

Given his epistemological standards, what characteristic must all of Descartes's arguments for God possess?

A) They must be based on sensory experience.
B) They must be capable of being doubted.
C) They must yield conclusions that are absolutely certain.
D) They must prove the independence of human thought.

Question 11

St. Anselm believed that it is self-contradictory to deny that God exists.

Question 12

St. Thomas Aquinas's first three proofs of God's existence are versions of what today is called the:

A) ontological argument.
B) cosmological argument.
C) teleological argument.
D) moral argument.

Question 13

William James thought it was okay to will to believe in God in spite of the fact that there is no conclusive evidence for his existence.

Question 14

Which of the following is true of Soren Kierkegaard's notion of truth?

A) It relies on objective certainty.
B) It is passionate commitment.
C) It lies in what one believes.
D) It is the knowledge obtained through mysticism.

Question 15

Which of the following is true of Immanuel Kant's refutation of the ontological proof of God?

A) He stated that belief in God is not rationally justified.
B) He believed that existence is a perfection.
C) He argued that causality is a concept that is not applicable to things-as-experienced.
D) He argued that existence is a precondition of having characteristics, and not a characteristic in itself.

Question 16

Unlike philosophy, theology makes no philosophical assumptions about God.

Question 17

According to Baron von Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason, something might happen even if there is no sufficient reason for it to happen.

Question 18

David Hume analyzed the argument from design as a defective and weak analogy.

Question 19

According to Leibniz, what is the sufficient reason for the changing of the seasons?

A) the earth's direction of rotation
B) the angle at which the earth's axis is tilted relative to the sun
C) monads
D) God

Question 20

According to Julian of Norwich, how did mystical experience compare with reason as a source of knowledge about God?

A) It is a better source than reason.
B) It is as valid a source of knowledge as reason is.
C) It is a worse source than reason.
D) It is not a source of knowledge at all.

Question 21

According to Mary Daly, traditional theism serves the purpose of patriarchal social arrangements.

Question 22

According to Alvin Plantinga, theists have a right to start from belief in God, but the belief need not be an end product of justification and inference.