The Ontological Quiz

1) What does Ontos mean? Being / nature

2) How does this argument work? Defines what is meant by the term God

3) Who is the main proponent? Anselm

4) How did he define God? As the greatest being imaginable

5) Is this an a priori or a posteriori argument? A priori

6) What does de re mean? In the mind

7) What does De dicto mean? In reality

8.) What is the definition or main tenet of this argument? God must exist because it is illogical for Him not to exist / If God is the perfect being if He did not exist then He would not be perfect.

9) Whose idea was the perfect island? Gaunilo

10) What was his point? That he could imagine a perfect island but that didn’t mean it existed

11) What other examples can you think of, of things which exist only in the mind? Unicorns, dragons, fairies

12) What is the difference between them and God? He is a necessary being.

13) Where do our ideas of perfection come from? The mind of God

14) What was Plato’s example of this? The cave

15) Whose analogy was the triangle? Descartes

16) What was his point? That if you imagine a triangle it has to have three angles and three sides to be a triangle, so too with god, to be God He must exist.

17) Whose idea was alternative universes? Plantinga

18) What was his point? In an infinite universe everything must be possible somewhere, but if God is possible somewhere then He must be everywhere

19) What’s wrong with a priori arguments? No evidence and they rely on agreeing on the meanings of terms.

20) What are the main problems with this argument? Circular logic / still no proof / you can follow he logic and agree with the premises but still not believe that God exists, only that the argument is logical!

A2 RE Quick Quizzes

Religious Language

  1. univocal, equivocal, analogical
  2. univocal – a word meaning only one thing
    equivocal – the same word used with a different meaning
    analogical – the meaning is conveyed using comparative words / parallels
  3. a phrase which is imaginative or symbolic but not literal
  4. a thing representing something like an idea or a quality
  5. because God is indefinable, infinite and ungraspable
  6. a thing indicating an occurrence or future state
  7. usually a story or poem which represents a message symbolically
  8. Adam and Eve, Noah and the rainbow, Jonah and the big fish

 

 

Soul / Life after death

  1. Rene Descartes
  2. I think therefore I am
  3. Dualism
  4. Socrates
  5. Socrates’ defence of the survival of the soul
  6. Theory of exact replicas
  7. The ephemeral spiritual body
  8. Richard Swinburne
  9. The Gnostics
  10. A transmittable unit of cultural inheritance

 

 

Existence of God

  1. Three out of: ritual, myth, doctrine, ethical, social, experiential
  2. ‘Exploring inner space’
  3. Ineffable
  4. William James 1901
  5. Rambo and Farhadian
  6. Total mystical consciousness
  7. Rudolph Otto
  8. Principles of credulity and testimony
  9. ‘What can be expected to turn out to be correct’
  10. ‘To do with being’