Deck 8: The Great Fathers and the Quest for Union With God

Question 1

According to the author, what was the relationship between the most influential church theologians and the intellectuals of the Greco-Roman culture?

A) Church fathers distained pagan learning
B) They shared many of the same philosophical assumptions
C) They often met together to discuss philosophy and religion
D) There simply was no relationship

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Who was the most important Neoplatonic philosopher of the third century?

A) Cornelius
B) Abagail
C) Plotinus
D) John the Thinker

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Did the church fathers generally believe that one had to transcend the physical world for direct encounters with God?

A) Yes, they thought the world was good, but a limited mediator
B) Yes, they imagined the world as under the influence of Satan
C) No, because of the incarnation one could know God directly through the physical world
D) No, God descends to the physical world to directly speak to souls

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Christian spiritual progress was known as:

A) Mortification, justification, and sanctification
B) Purgative; illuminative; and unitive
C) Repentance, justification, and unification
D) Meditatio, oratio, and contemplation

Question 5

When Origen was nineteen years old, he was appointed to which of the following?

A) The bishop of Alexandria
B) The official rhetorician of the church
C) The official guide of souls in Constantinople
D) The head of the Catechetical School in Alexandria

Question 6

What was Origen's reputation in the patristic church?

A) Highly influential until he became a bishop
B) Highly influential until he preached universal salvation
C) Highly influential and then condemned three centuries later
D) He was not influential in his time, but became influential in the modern period

Question 7

How did Origen die?

A) Martyred in the Roman Coliseum
B) Injuries due to torture
C) Brain aneurism from deep contemplation
D) Thrown off a church spire

Question 8

Origen believed that:

A) Souls were eternal
B) God would save only Christians
C) Plato was a saint
D) Church leaders were corrupt

Question 9

According to Origen, why did God create the world?

A) To showcase his Son
B) To re-educate the souls who fell
C) To punish Satan and his demons
D) To manifest his beauty

Question 10

Which of the following distinguishes Athanasius's understanding of union with God from Origen's?

A) Unlike Origen, Athanasius believed that one could not experience a union with God in this life
B) Unlike Origen, Athanasius believed that a union with God could only come through mystical contemplation
C) Unlike Origen, Athanasius believed that only monks could attain union with God in this life
D) Unlike Origen, Athanasius believed that our physical experience of faith draws us into the direct encounter with God

Question 11

Why are Cappadocian fathers called this?

A) They are all from Cappadocia
B) They all studied under the great theologian Cappadocia
C) Theologians from the West believed (wrongly) that they all studied under the great theologian Cappadocia
D) They all became bishops of the patriarchal see of Cappadocia

Question 12

According to the author, which of the Cappadocian fathers was the most systematic in his theology?

A) Basil the Great
B) Gregory of Nazianzus
C) Gregory of Nyssa
D) Athanasius of Alexandria

Question 13

Was Gregory of Nyssa optimistic or pessimistic about the human condition?

A) He was optimistic: one had the image of the divine nature within one
B) He was optimistic: humans are utterly free beings
C) He was pessimistic: virtually no one would be saved
D) He was pessimistic: humans are literally immersed in sin

Question 14

How did Gregory of Nyssa explain God sending plagues to the Egyptians in Exodus?

A) The plagues punished the first of sinners
B) The plagues were symbols of how the passions work
C) The plagues expressed God's favored love of Israel
D) The plagues demonstrated God's power

Question 15

What did Gregory of Nyssa mean by despoiling the Egyptians?

A) Taking on pagan learning
B) Annihilating pagan learning
C) Taking over pagan sites for Christian churches
D) Working with pagans for the advancement of the Roman Empire

Question 16

What was the fourfold method of interpretation?

A) Truthful, skillful, ethical, saving
B) Practical, theoretical, spiritual, univocal
C) Literal, moral, allegorical, anagogical
D) Read, meditate, pray, obey

Question 17

If God transcends a natural way of knowing, what did the church fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa, claim about knowing God?

A) Humans have a supernatural aptitude
B) Humans have spiritual senses
C) Humans have blind faith
D) Humans have a righteous perception

Question 18

What was unusual about Ambrose being made a bishop of Milan?

A) He had been earlier the bishop of Rome
B) He was a soldier who had a lot of blood on his hands
C) He didn't know how to read
D) He hadn't even been baptized

Question 19

What religion did Augustine investigate and become a member of before he became a Christian?

A) Manicheanism
B) The Order of Delphi
C) Zoroastrianism
D) Monachos Didactichos

Question 20

Why didn't Augustine stay in that religion?

A) It required that he quit his job
B) It demanded strict obedience
C) It was intellectually unsatisfying
D) It was impossible for him to have fellowship with the community

Question 21

In learning about the Christian religion, what did Augustine's mentor first make him do?

A) Read the Bible, front to back
B) Take a retreat and pray for God's will
C) Study Platonic philosophy
D) Run the ancient marathon course as a symbolic gesture

Question 22

How did Augustine become a priest?

A) He was forcibly ordained
B) He volunteered himself for the sake of the gospel
C) He won a special election to the post
D) He experienced a mystical vision of God commanding him

Question 23

What was the Donatist controversy about?

A) Whether Jesus was merely a human savior or a divine savior
B) Whether bishops who had seriously sinned could administer sacraments
C) Whether to allow Emperor Donatus to force Christians into the army
D) Whether the Emperor Donatus could rule without being a Christian

Question 24

What did Pelagius charge Augustine with?

A) Denying free will
B) Having an affair with a married woman
C) Proclaiming that God's grace wasn't enough to be good
D) Seeking special favors from the bishop of Rome

Question 25

Why did Augustine write City of God?

A) To infuse the church with greater zeal for God
B) To teach non-Christians about the faith
C) To teach Christians about their own faith
D) To respond to Roman pagans who thought the gods had abandoned them.

Question 26

What was the political situation at the end of Augustine's life?

A) The Western section of the empire started becoming a democracy
B) The Western section of the empire was being invaded by Germanic tribes
C) The whole empire was being invaded by Muslims
D) The church became the government in the Western empire

Question 27

How is Augustine's experience of God different from that of the Platonist philosophers?

A) Augustine experienced God as the Trinity
B) Augustine experienced God as Absolute Divinity
C) Augustine experienced God as love
D) Augustine experienced God as the God of destiny

Question 28

What best characterizes Augustine's influence in the Eastern church?

A) The Eastern church was not affected as much
B) The Eastern church declared him Augustine the Great
C) The Eastern church aligned his theology to that of Gregory of Nyssa
D) The Eastern Church denounced Augustine as a heretic

Question 29

What best characterizes Augustine's influence in the Western church?

A) He is the most influential theologian since Paul
B) He rivals the influence of the popes throughout history
C) He went from being highly influential to being later dismissed in the Middle Ages
D) He has been compared to Boethius in importance

Question 30

Church fathers were impressed with Platonic philosophy.

Question 31

The author claims that Christians simply could not align their own spiritual interests for union with God to Platonic interests.

Question 32

Origen thought that Christians should have a type of marriage relationship with God.

Question 33

Origen's early life was highly devout.

Question 34

Origin believed that human beings were eternal souls who ended up with bodies.

Question 35

Origen was one of the first fathers of the church to challenge the goal of apatheia as not Christian.

Question 36

Athanasius taught that the sacraments, other Christians, and the scriptures were good, but that one had to go beyond them for deep encounters with Christ.

Question 37

Basil was born into a pagan family, but converted to become a great bishop and theologian.

Question 38

Gregory of Nazianzus spent the last five years of his life in prayer and poetic writing.

Question 39

According to Gregory of Nyssa, one had to bypass the natural way of knowing to come to a supernatural way of knowing.

Question 40

Ambrose came to Milan to become its bishop.

Question 41

Augustine came to Milan to become court orator to the emperor.

Question 42

Augustine became the bishop of Carthage.

Question 43

Augustine was ordained against his will.

Question 44

Donatism never truly collapsed until North Africa was overtaken by Muslim invaders.

Question 45

Which aspects of Platonic philosophy do you think are beneficial to Christianity? Which ones do you think are particularly harmful?

Question 46

Athanasius seemed to think that profound and even direct encounters with God could be obtained through the mediation of the biblical word and the sacraments. Others, such as Gregory of Nyssa, insisted that one had to bypass any physical mediations to encounter God most profoundly. Which position do you think makes the most sense and why?

Question 47

The Donatist controversy began with the problem of the authority of bishops who had renounced the faith under persecution, but were now restored. Augustine's position was that the sacramental power that they administrated had nothing to do with their personal holiness but only God's grace. Is this a coherent position? How is it defensible or not to have sinful ministers who still have sacramental authority?

Question 48

The Pelagian controversy proved to be an important debate in the history of Christianity. What are your views on free will? Did the Council of Orange succeed in your mind in settling the issue? Explain.

Question 49

In his City of God, Augustine makes clear distinctions between the heavenly and earthly kingdoms. What connections can you make between this view and the modern separation of church and state? What do you think about his conclusions?