Philosophy 3600 - Philosophy of Religion

Study Guide for Midterm

FINAL VERSION

 

Our midterm will take place on Wednesday, March 19 in class. Bring a bluebook and a blue or black ink pen (no red ink, no pencils).

The midterm is cumulative, in that it will cover everything we've done so far. You are responsible for the following topics:

• The Nature of God
• Omnipotence
• God and Morality
• The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge
• Pascal's Wager

The midterm is a short answer exam. You will be required to answer a bunch of short answer-type questions having to do with the topics listed above.

To prepare:

• Re-read the readings.
• Study your notes from class. For any days you missed, be sure to get the notes from a classmate.
• Study the handouts.
• Write out answers to each of the study questions below.
• Come prepared with questions on Review Day, which will be Monday, March 19.

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

1. What is our "guiding principle" in constructing our concept of God?
   
   
2. Why does it make sense to include omnipotence as part of our definition of God?
   
   
3. Define 'essential property'? 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. Explain why this property is an essential property of this object.
   
   
4. If some property is not an essential property of some object, what do we call that property?
   
   
5. What's wrong with the following definition of 'omniscience': x is omniscient iff for every proposition p, x knows p?
   
   
6. Why does it make sense to include as part of our definition God not just that God is omniscient but that He is essentially omniscient?
   
   
7. What is the difference between the idea that God is everlasting and the idea that He is atemporal?
   
   
8. Contrast metaphysical necessity with accidental necessity. Give an example of a proposition or state of affairs that is metaphysically necessary. Give an example of a proposition or state of affairs that is not metaphysically necessary. Give an example of a proposition or state of affairs that is accidentally necessary. Give an example of a proposition or state of affairs that is not accidentally necessary.
   
   
9. What is the difference between the Absolute Account of Omnipotence and the Thomistic Account of Omnipotence? Describe a case about which they disagree (this would be a case that features some being that is such that one of these accounts implies that this being is omnipotent and the other of these accounts implies that the being is not omnipotent).
   
   
10. What is the difference between the Absolute Possibility Account of Omnipotence and the Relative Possibility Account of Omnipotence. Describe a case about which they disagree.
    
    
11. What is the difference between the Relative Possibility Account of Omnipotence and Clarke's Account of Omnipotence. Describe a case about which they disagree.
    
    
12. What is the difference between Clarke's Account of Omnipotence and the Thomistic Account of Omnipotence. Describe a case about which they disagree.
    
    
13. Briefly present the paradox of the stone.
    
    
14. How would Aquinas respond to the paradox of the stone?
    
    
15. Consider these two states of affairs (or propositions):
    
         that a child is tortured for 1000 years.
    
         that God tortures a child for 1000 years.
    
    Which of these is an example of a state of affairs that is both metaphysically possible and wrong for God to bring about? Explain why this state of affairs has both of these features. Explain why the other state of affairs doesn't have both of them.
    
    
16. Briefly explain the problem of divine sin for the Thomistic Account of Omnipotence.
    
    
17. Describe the case of Mr. McEar. What does the Thomistic Account of Omnipotence imply about McEar? Explain. What does Clarke's Account of Omnipotence imply about McEar? Explain.
    
    
18. Is DCT logically compatible with atheism? If not, explain why they are incompatible. If they are compatible, explain what follows from the combination of DCT and atheism.
    
    
19. With what question does Socrates confront an advocate of the Divine Command Theory?
    
    
20. Consider the claim ("Horn 1") that wrong acts are wrong only because God prohibits them. Defenders of Plato's Euthyphro Argument hold that this claim entails that God's commands are arbitrary. What does this mean? Why is it supposed to be true that the claim above entails this? Why is accepting this implication supposed to be problematic for advocates of the Divine Command Theory.
    
    
21. Defenders of Plato's Euthyphro Argument also hold that Horn 1 entails that all moral truths are contingent. What does that mean? Why is that supposed to follow from Horn 1? Why is that supposed to be implausible?
    
    
22. Defenders of Plato's Euthyphro Argument also hold that Horn 1 entails that God's goodness is "cheap." What does that mean? Why is that supposed to follow from Horn 1? Why would accepting this be problematic for advocates of the Divine Command Theory?
    
    
23. Suppose that God prohibits wrong acts because they are wrong (this is "Horn 2"). Suppose that torturing for fun is wrong, and, moreover, that it is metaphysically necessary that it is wrong. Defenders of Horn 2 are committed to the claim that God has no control over the fact that torturing for fun is wrong, and that God is "subject" to this rule of morality. Consider the question, Is this a threat to God's omnipotence?
    
    How does the Thomistic Account of Omnipotence answer this question?
    
    
24. 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 I will clap my hands at noon today, then it is necessary that I will clap my hands at noon today."
    
    (You might illustrate its falsity by substituting some contingent proposition not having to do with human action in for each occurrence of 'I will clap my hands at noon today'.)
    
    
25. Explain why the following argument (which corresponds to the other interpretation of the Augustinian version of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge) is invalid:
    
    I. It is necessary that if God knows in 1000 AD that I will clap my hands at noon today, then I will clap my hands at noon today.
    2. God knows in 1000 AD that I will clap my hands at noon today.
    3. Therefore, it is necessary that I will clap my hands at noon today.
    
    (To do this, produce an argument with the same logical form that has obviously true premises and an obviously false conclusion.)
    
    
26. What is wrong with the following objection to the principle that knowledge entails truth?:
    
    "This principle is false. Just the other day, I was absolutely certain that it was going to rain. I just knew it was going to rain. But, as it turned out, it didn't rain. So just because you know something will happen doesn't mean it really will happen."
    
    
27. Which premise of our main version of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge would a compatibilist about freedom determinism reject, and why?
    
    
28. 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 from Handout 4 is Edwards here expressing? (Identifying the principle by name is enough.)
    
    
29. Which premise of our dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge would Boethius reject, and why?
    
    
30. Suppose God knows, atemporally, that I clap my hands at noon today. Suppose I nevertheless have the power to refrain from clapping my hands at noon today. Given that God knows, atemporally, that I clap my hands at noon today, what else do I have the power to do?
    
    
31. Consider this claim:
    
    "If it was true in 1000 AD that you will eat dinner tonight, then you don't have the power to refrain from eating dinner tonight."
    
    Give the rationale for this claim (i.e., the reason someone would think it is true).
    
    
32. Which philosopher or philosophers that we studied 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."
    
    
33. Which philosopher or philosophers that we studied 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 what you'd do only because you will in fact do it. If you had done something else, God would have known all along that you would do this other thing."
    
    
34. Which philosopher or philosophers that we studied would be most likely to say the following in response to the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge?:
    
    "Even though God's knowing long ago what we'll do prevents us from doing something else, we can still be free. We're free so long as we do what we will to do, and this we can do even if it is necessary that we will what we will."
    
    
35. Give an example of a soft fact about the past. Roughly, what is it for a fact about the past to be a soft fact about the past?
    
    
36. Give an example of a hard fact about the past. Roughly, what is it for a fact about the past to be a hard fact about the past?
    
    
37. Give a counterexample to the Fixity of the Past that Ockham might give.
    
    
38. Explain why the fact that God knows in 1000 A.D. that I will clap my hands at noon tomorrow seems to be a soft fact about the past. (Hint: this will require saying something about what knowledge is, and what, in general, makes it true that some person knows something.)
    
    
39. In a nutshell, what is the difference between the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge and the dilemma of freedom and forebelief?
    
    
40. Explain why it seems more plausible to say that, whereas the fact that God knows in 1000 A.D. that I will clap my hands at noon tomorrow seems to be a soft fact about the past, the fact that God believes in 1000 A.D. that I will clap my hands at noon tomorrow seems to be a hard fact about the past.
    
    
41. What is it for two propositions to be logically equivalent? Give an example of two propositions that are logically equivalent.
    
    
42. Explain why the proposition God believed in 1000 A.D. that Heathwood would clap his hands at noon tomorrow is logically equivalent to the proposition It was true in 1000 A.D. that Heathwood would clap his hands at noon tomorrow. (This is from one of Plantinga's arguments for the claim that facts about what God believed in the past can be soft.)
    
    
43. Explain why the proposition It was true in 1000 A.D. that Heathwood would clap his hands at noon tomorrow is a soft fact about the past. (This is from one of Plantinga's arguments for the claim that facts about what God believed in the past can be soft.)
    
    
44. Briefly explain that argument of Plantinga's the previous two questions have referred to.
    
    
45. Plantinga (and any Ockhamist) would be happy to say all of the following: (i) that God believed in 1000 AD that I will eat granola tomorrow for breakfast; (ii) that God's believing this absolutely guarantees that I will do it; and (iii) I am nevertheless able to refrain from doing this. If these three claims are true, what else must I also be able to do?
    
    
46. Explain the difference between an epistemic reason to believe something and a prudential reason to believe something. Give cases that illustrate each.
    
    
47. What is it for one act, from among a set of alternative acts, to dominate?
    
    
48. Write out a decision matrix in which one act dominates.
    
    
49. What is the Principle of Dominance? (In stating the Principle of Dominance, you can use the word 'dominate', which you defined two questions ago.)
    
    
50. What is Doxastic Voluntarism?
    
    
51. What, in a nutshell, is wrong with the version of Pascal's Wager that is based upon the Principle of Dominance?
    
    
52. What is the expected value of an act?
    
    
53. What is it for an act to maximize expected value?
    
    
54. What is the Principle of Expected Value?
    
    
55. Give an example of a decision matrix, along with an assignment of probabilities to the possible states of the world, in which one act maximizes expected value.
    
    
56. State and explain the version of Pascal's Wager that is based upon the Principle of Expected Value. In doing so, you should write out the relevant decision matrix, along with the relevant assignment of probabilities.
    
    
57. What, in a nutshell, is wrong with with the version of Pascal's Wager that is based upon the Principle of Expected Value?
    
    
58. What is it for an act to have dominating expected value? What is the Principle of Dominating Expected Value?
    
    
59. What is the "many Gods" objection to the Dominating Expected Value version of Pascal's Wager? Evaluate this objection? If you think it is a good one, introduce and reply to a response Pascal could make?

 

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