PHIL 3600 -- Philosophy of Religion
Fall 2014
Prof. Chris Heathwood
T.A. Alex Wolf-Root
University of Colorado Boulder

 

Philosophy 3600 - Philosophy of Religion

Study Guide for Midterm

 

The midterm exam will come in two parts and will take place over two class periods.  The first part will consist of very-short-answer questions (multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank questions, and the like).  The second part will consist of short-answer questions (questions that can usually be answered in a sentence to a paragraph).  Those will be similar to the sorts of questions below.  Both parts will take place in class, and will be closed-note and closed-reading.  For the second part of each exam, you'll need to bring a bluebook.

For the midterm, you are responsible for three main topics:

You are responsible for nine readings:

Being responsible for the readings includes being responsible for the Reading Questions.

And you are responsible for everything we did in lecture, including what we talked about and what's on the slides.  The slides are available on the course schedule on the syllabus.

To prepare for the exam, re-read any readings that you found challenging, study your notes, study the lecture slides, and, most importantly, write out your answers to the questions below, as if it were the exam.  Do this before the review sessions, so that you will know what questions you need to ask.

Let me emphasize the importance of actually writing out answers to these questions. We often think we understand something -- until we try to put it in writing. Only then do we realize we don't really understand it. If you don't write out your answers, you won't know what you don't know.

Study Questions

The Nature of God

  1. (a) What is our "guiding principle" in constructing our first concept of God, "the God of the traditional theologians"?
    (b) What are the "big three" divine attributes?
    (c) What is it for a being to be self-existent?
    (d) Explain fully Anselm's reasoning for the claim that God is self-existent.
    (e) What is our "minimalist" definition God?

  2. (a) Define 'essential property'?
    (b) Give an example of a property and an object (other than God) such that you think the property is an essential property of this object.
    (c) Explain why this property is an essential property of this object.
    (d) Give an example of a property and an object (other than God) such that you think the property is not an essential property of this object.
    (e) Explain why this property is not an essential property of this object.
    (f) If some property is not an essential property of some object, what do we call that property?
    (g) Why does it make sense to include as part of our definition of God not just that God is omniscient but that He is essentially omniscient?

Omnipotence

  1. (a) What is the Cartesian Account of Omnipotence?
    (b) Illustrate the theory with a couple of examples.
    Here is the argument I gave against the Cartesian Account of Omnipotence:
         P1. If the Cartesian Account of Omnipotence is true, then if some being is omnipotent, an impossible state of affairs can be brought about.
         P2. If an impossible state of affairs can be brought about, then there is some state of affairs that is both possible and not possible.
         P3. But no state of affairs is both possible and not possible.
         C. Therefore, if the Cartesian Account of Omnipotence is true, then no being is omnipotent.
    (c) Give the rationale for P1. (The "rationale" for a premise is the reason that an advocate of the argument would give for thinking that the premise is true.)
    (d) Give the rationale for P2.
    (e) Give the rationale for P3.
    (f) Explain why conclusion of this argument will be problematic for at least some advocates of the Cartesian Account.

  2. (a) What is an account of omnipotence?
    (b) Explain the Relative Possibility Account of Omnipotence.
    (c) What's the problem with this theory?
    (d) What is the Thomistic Account of Omnipotence?
    (e) Define the technical terms.
    (f) Illustrate the meaning of these terms with some examples.
    (g) Illustrate the account with some examples.

  3. (a) Explain the problem of divine suicide
    (b) How would Aquinas solve it?
    (c) Present the paradox of the stone.
    (d) How would Aquinas respond to the paradox of the stone?

  4. (a) Present the argument from divine sin in valid, line-by-line format.
    (b) Give the rationale for each premise.
    (c) In class we discussed a solution to it that requires altering the nature of God.  Explain this solution in detail.
    (d) What is the Clarke-Rowe Account of omnipotence?
    (e) Explain how it solves the problem of divine sin.
    (f) Explain the main problem with the Clarke-Rowe Account.

Freedom and Foreknowledge

  1. (a) Explain why the following claim (from one interpretation of the Augustinian version of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge) is false: "If God knows in 1000 AD that you will eat tacos tonight, then it is necessary that you eat tacos tonight." (HINT: Part of your explanation might involve substituting some contingent proposition not having to do with human action in for the known and allegedly necessary proposition.)
    (b) Explain why the following argument (which corresponds to the other interpretation of the Augustinian version of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge) is invalid:
         PI. It is necessary that if God knew in 1000 AD that you will eat tacos tonight, then you will eat tacos tonight.
         P2. God knew in 1000 AD that you will eat tacos tonight.
         C. Therefore, it is necessary that you will eat tacos tonight.
    (HINT: The best way to show that an argument is invalid is to produce another argument with the same logical form that has obviously true premises and an obviously false conclusion.)
    (c) St. Augustine evidently endorses compatibilism about free will.  What is this view?
    (d) Which premise of any of our foreknowledge arguments would a compatibilist deny?
    (e) Present an objection to compatibilism.

  2. (a) Jonathan Edwards writes:
    "It is also very manifest, that those things which are indissolubly connected with other things that are necessary, are themselves necessary. As that proposition whose truth is necessarily connected with another proposition, which is necessarily true, is itself necessarily true. To say otherwise would be a contradiction: it would be in effect to say, that the connexion was indissoluble, and yet was not so, but might be broken. If that, the existence of which is indissolubly connected with something whose existence is now necessary, is itself not necessary, then it may possibly not exist, notwithstanding that indissoluble connexion of its existence.— Whether the absurdity be not glaring, let the reader judge" (from Freedom of the Will, Part II, §12, quoted in Plantinga, "On Ockham's Way Out," pp. 237-238).
    Which principle that lies behind our official version of our foreknowledge argument is Edwards here expressing? (You should both identify the principle by name and state the principle.)
    (b) Which premise of the Edwardsian version of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge would Aristotle reject, and why?
    (c) Lay out the argument we gave against this Aristotelian solution.
    (d) Which philosopher or philosophers that we learned about would be most likely to say the following in response to the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge?: "There is no dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge, since there is no foreknowledge; for foreknowledge implies earlier knowledge, but there is no earlier knowledge when it comes to God, since temporal concepts don't apply to God at all."
    (e) Which premise of the Edwardsian version of dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge is this response denying?
    (f) Which philosopher or philosophers that we learned about would be most likely to say the following in response to the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge?: "You don't do what you do because God knew you'd do it. Rather, God knew that you would do that only because you do it. If you were to have done something else, God would have known all along that you would do this other thing."
    (g) Which premise of the Edwardsian version of dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge is this response denying?
  3. (a) Give the sort of counterexample to the Fixity of the Past that Ockham might give.  Spell out just how this is a counterexample to the Fixity of the Past.
    (b) What is it for a fact about the past to be a soft fact about the past?  Give an example.
    (c) What is it for a fact about the past to be a hard fact about the past?  Give an example.
    (d) Explain how a defender of the Edwardsian argument would modify the argument in light of Ockham's counterexample to the Fixity of the Past.
    (e) Which premise of this modified argument would an Ockhamist deny.  Explain the argument for denying that premise.
    (f) Explain how a defender of the Edwardsian argument would modify the argument yet again in light of Ockham's criticism of the last version of the Edwardsian argument.  (HINT: the new argument doesn't involve knowledge.)
    (g) Explain the reasoning for thinking that whereas the fact that God knew in 1000 A.D. that you would read this sentence is a soft fact about the past, the fact that God believed in 1000 A.D. that you would read this sentence is a hard fact about the past.
    (h) Then explain one of Plantinga's arguments for the view that this last fact -- the fact that God believed in 1000 A.D. that you would read that sentence -- is actually a soft fact about the past.
    (i) Explain why, despite this, an Ockhamist is committed to the possibility that there are actions you can perform that are such that if you were to perform one of them, then what is actually a hard fact about the past would not have been a fact at all.  (In other words, explain why Ockham is committed to our having power over the hard past.)  In laying out your answer, illustrate it with an example.
    (j) Explain why being a "one boxer" about Newcomb's Paradox also suggests that we have power over the hard past.
    (k) Give the argument for being a "two boxer."

 

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