Christ and the Moral Life

Review Questions for the Final Exam

15. Respecting the Created Order

Click links below to get questions on the following two reading selections:

1. Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, "Created Order"

2. William Carroll, Creation and Science

16. Violating the Created Order: The Fall and the Damage Wrought by Sin

1. In what way, according to Fr. Roch, does sin bring about a threefold alienation?  Describe each of the ways in which it alienates us and why.

1. What does the article "The Magic of Touch" suggest about the bodily character of human beings?

2. What does the article "Healing and the Mind" suggest about the mental and spiritual character of human beings?

3. What do the Genesis creation accounts (Genesis 1 and 2) tell us about the bodily and spiritual character of human beings?  Does that claim make any sense given the discoveries of modern science and medicine?  (The best answer would involve material from the readings mentioned in the two questions above.)

1. Describe Plato’s “Allegory of the Chariot” from the Phaedrus.  Please discuss the interpretation of the allegory that suggests the passions are completely bad, and then discuss the interpretation that puts the passions in a more positive light.

2. What, according to Antonio Damasio, is Descartes “error”?  Explain how this “error” relates to his study of the emotions.

3. According to Thomas Aquinas, are good and evil to be found in the passions?  Are passions always evil?  Explain.  What, then, should be our goal when it comes to the passions?

4. In the little article "5 Steps to Emotional Intelligence," it suggests a mnemonic device for dealing with our emotions: RULER, which stands for Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Discipline.  How might the reading by Paul Gondreau on "Balanced Emotions" help us with several of those steps, especially recognizing, understanding, and labeling?  So, for example, what are some of the labels you find in Gondreau's article?  How does his analysis help us understand them?

1. What are some of the dispositions that allowed the villagers of Le Chambon to save Jews during the Second World War?  Compare these to the dispositions that allowed the "ordinary men" of Reserve Police Battalion 101 to kill Jews during the Second World War?

2. How might we say the Kingdom of God was made present in the village of Le Chambon when they rescued Jews during the Second World War?

3. Describe each of the cardinal virtues and what role it would have played in helping the villagers of Le Chambon save Jews during the Second World War.  (In particular, you will want to note the role of prudence in forming the other three virtues.)

4. Describe each of the theological virtues and what role it might have played in helping the villagers of Le Chambon save Jews during the Second World War.  (In particular, you will want to note the role of charity as the form of all the other virtues, including the cardinal virtues.)

5. At one point in his chapter, author Philip Hallie repeats the slogan: “If there is room in the heart, there is room in the home.”  What does Hallie means when he insists that things are not always that easy?  Explain in terms of the virtues.  In a related vein, why is it often not sufficient to say that Christian morality can be summed up in one word:  love?  (In your answer, you will want to include material from Hallie's article, but also insights gained reading about Aeneid and Dido and St. Augustine and his mistress.)

6. The article you read was entitled “Magda and the Great Virtues.”  What are the “great virtues,” and what distinguishes them from the “little virtues”?  What relevance does this point have to our understanding of the true nature of the virtue of prudence?

8. How does Pieper describe the virtue of prudence?

9. How does he describe the virtue of justice?

10. How does he describe the virtue of fortitude?

11. How does he describe the virtue of temperance?

12. How does he describe the role of the virtue of faith?

13. How does he describe the role of the virtue of hope?

14. How does he describe the role of the virtue of love?

16. How might the virtue of prudence informed by faith, hope, and charity differ from prudence not informed by charity?

1. What reasons did the “ordinary men” of Reserve Police 101 give for not stepping out and refusing to kill Jewish woman and children in Jozefow, Poland?  Compare the dispositions that would have led them to make these excuses with the dispositions (the virtues) that allowed the villagers of Le Chambon to save Jewish refugees?  Your discussion must be specific and related to material in the readings, not abstract, general, having nothing to do with the reading.

A) Anticipating the "want" self
B) Giving Voice to your "should" self
C) Evaluating your unethical choices --- accurately

A) Freedom
B) Moral Autonomy, Moral Individualism, and Moral Relativism
C) The reticence we show to attempts to "know ourselves" better?

21. Natural Right and Natural Justice

1. Please explain what Josef Pieper (interpreting Thomas Aquinas) means by "right."  You should eventually be able to distinguish this notion of "right" from a Kantian notion of "right" and the modern notion of an "inalienable right."

2. What is the relationship between "right" (as Aquinas understood the term) and "justice"?  What is the ultimate yardstick of justice?

3. How does Josef Pieper describe justice in his article on “The Christian Virtues”?  How is it similar to his description in the chapter on “Justice” from his book The Four Cardinal Virtues?

4. In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II proposes ways in which convictions about the nature of the human person and human flourishing can and should influence the way we treat workers in justice, “giving them their due.”

A) What recommendations does he make and why?

B) Do you agree with Pope John Paul II’s analysis?  Why or why not?  Have you found, working, that most employers act the way the Pope proposes? Would you prefer they did? If you were a manager or employer, how would you treat your workers?

5. I gave you Laborem Exercens to help us reflect on how we might begin to think about treating workers “with justice.”  How about fellow students?  How about parents?  How about waiters and waitresses?  Are some of the principles the same?  What would be some of the differences?

6. Compare Josef Pieper’s notion of justice with the one Robert Bellah described as most common among America’s expressive individualist culture.  What are the pros and cons of each?  (To put this another way: Let us presume for the moment that there are elements of truth in both.  What element of truth is captured by the one and by the other?)

7. What, according to Josef Pieper, are the three basic forms of justice and what are the characteristics of each?

22. Natural Law and Mosaic Law 

1. Please describe Robert Sokolowski's distinction between "human purposes" and "natural ends."

2. According to Thomas Aquinas, is the Old Law binding on all people at all time?  If yes, why?  If no, why not?  What threefold distinction helps Thomas to answer this question?

3. What sort of reply might a Christian give to the criticism that the moral commandments found in his or her tradition are not particularly original — that, indeed, they are to be found in other religions and moral traditions throughout the world?

4. If everyone can know the natural law by the light of his or her natural reason, they why do we need the Ten Commandments?  Why is our reason not a sufficient guide to what is right and wrong?

5. According to Thomas Aquinas, what are the two "first and common" principles of the moral law, which are intuitively known by all people?  Does Thomas have any scriptural warrants for suggesting that these are, in fact, the first principles of all the Law of the Old Testament?

6. According to Thomas Aquinas, what are the "simple judgments, of which even the unlearned are capable" that are derived from the two first and common principles of the moral law?  Please list these in order!

7. According to Thomas Aquinas, are there any other moral precepts in the Old Law other than the two first and common precepts and the Ten Commandments of the Law?  If so, name two.

8. According to Thomas Aquinas, all the precepts of the Old Law should be seen as applications of what basic principles?

9. Keeping in mind the two first and common principles of the moral law, what should we say about all the other precepts of the Old Law?  How should we view them?

10. If we observe the requirements of the Ten Commandments, but we do so not out of love, but out of fear (or greed, or pride), have we, according to Thomas Aquinas, really fulfilled the law?  In other words, is the mode of charity required by the law?

11. According to Thomas Aquinas, of what two things is man proud?  How does God cure our pride over each?

12. What's the basic problem with the written law?  To what element of the human person does a written law appeal?  What can happen with laws that are apprehended only in this way?

13. The traditional Catholic position is that the truths of faith and the truths of reason cannot ultimately contradict, because the One God, who is both Creator and Revealer, is the Author of both.  How would this principle apply to the relationship between the Ten Commandments and what our natural reason tells us is good.?

14. Why should we consider the moral law as revealed in the Bible and given to us by God through the light of natural reason as a gift and not as a burden?  Did the Jewish tradition view it as a gift or a burden?  Can Christians agree?

 
23. The Ten Commandments

1. Does Thomas Aquinas hold that there are other moral precepts in the Old Law (the Mosaic Law) beyond the Ten Commandments?  Please be able to give three clear examples.

2. Thomas Aquinas argues that the so-called "judicial precepts" of the Old Law are precepts of the positive law:  rules made that applied to the Jewish people during the time before the coming of Christ, but not necessarily in the same way now.  That is to say, they are not universally binding the way the basic precepts in the Ten Commandments are.  Do they, therefore, have no value for us in the modern world?  Explain and give several examples.

3. What secondary precepts does one find in The Catechism of the Catholic Church related to the commandment "You shall not murder"?

4. What secondary precepts does one find in The Catechism of the Catholic Church related to the commandment against adultery?

5. What secondary precepts does one find in The Catechism of the Catholic Church related to the commandment "You shall not lie"?

24. Grace and Charity

1. Consider again this questions:  What's the basic problem with the written law?  To what element of the human person does a written law appeal?  What can happen with laws that are apprehended only in this way?  What help does Thomas Aquinas think God offers? 

2. In the article on grace, the author states that “the Christian message” involves the claim that “salvation does not come from the world but is nonetheless the salvation of the world.”  Explain in relation to each of the following important concepts:

a) The “new creation” (redemption) does not violate the first.

b) Nature and God are not contraries.

c) Grace does not violate nature, but perfects it.

d) Grace does not violate the law, but perfects it.

e) The New Testament (and New Covenant) does not negate the Old, but perfects it.

3. How does this discussion of grace help reinforce the view we found in the section of "Created Order" in Oliver O'Donovan's book Resurrection and Moral Order that we discussed earlier in the semester?

4. Discuss how, according to the article, our redemption and our salvation consists in our participation in the life of the Spirit and the Triune God.

5. Discuss the article’s account of the notion of “justification by faith.”  How is it to be understood as a transformation of life?  How are we transformed? 

 
6. How might this notion of grace, in conjunction with the idea of history we examined above, help us think about the role of grace in a fallen world?  How might it help Christians think about their role in a fallen world and a world of "unbelievers"?

7. Does the Catholic Church claim that the Church is "necessary for salvation"?  Does the Catholic Church claim that all non-Catholics and atheists are going to hell?  Is it the case that the Church argues that all religions are just as good as one another and that salvation for non-Christians comes by their following their own religion faithfully?  If the Church holds that non-Christians are not necessarily going to hell, why does the Catholic Church continue its efforts at evangelization?  Is "evangelization" just for people who were born Catholic?

8. What, according to Fr. Servais Pinckaers, is the relationship between the Holy Spirit and what he calls the New Law?

9. According to Fr. Pinckaers, the work of the Holy Spirit is to enter within us by touching the two deepest cords of our heart.  What are they?

10. What, according to Fr. Pinckaers, is the root, the foundation, of the New Law within us?

11. Describe the analogy Fr. Pinckaers proposes related to the root, the sap, and the branches.

12. What, according to Fr. Pinckaers (and Thomas Aquinas), is the role of the gifts (of the Holy Spirit)? 

13. What are the "seven gifts of the Holy Spirit"?  (We will have more to say about them in due course, but for now, you just need to know what they are.)

15. I ask again:  How would the case of Magda Trocmé and the villagers of Le Chambon shine light on the work of grace and the Trinity in our lives?  How does Magda show us the results of the New Law?

25. Prudence

1. How does the story of Joshua James show the importance of prudence? 

2. How does Josef Pieper describe the virtue of prudence in his article on “The Christian Virtues”?  How is it similar to his description in the chapter on “Prudence” from his book The Four Cardinal Virtues?  What does the longer chapter add?

3. From what source, according to Josef Pieper, does the original desire for the good take its energy? 

4. The will to do the good is an important prerequisite, but what, according to Pieper, determines the content of a prudent decision?  Why is it important that the will to do the good comes first? 

26. The Parts of Prudence

1. What are the three sources of error in "ethical leadership," according to David Messick and Max Bazerman in their article on "Ethical Leadership and the Psychology of Decision Making”?  Discuss each.

2. How can understanding and developing the integral parts of prudence help us avoid the errors Messick and Bazerman describe in their article?

The Beatitudes

1. As the Pope points out: "The Beatitudes are not infrequently presented as the New Testament's counterpart to the Ten Commandments, as an example of the Christian ethics that is supposedly superior to the commands of the Old Testament."  What is the Pope's response to this thesis?

2. Discuss Pope Benedict's understanding of the relationship between the Beatitudes and texts such as those found in Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17.7-8.

3. According to Pope Benedict: "What the Beatitudes in Luke's Gospel present as a consolation and a promise, Paul presents as the lived experience of the apostle."  Please explain what the Pope means.

4. "The paradoxes that Saint Paul experienced in his life," says the Pope, which correspond to the paradoxes of the Beatitudes, thus display the same thing that John expresses in yet another way."  Please explain.

5. Consider once again the previous two questions.  "This reflection upon Paul and John," says the Pope, "has shown us two things."  What are they?

6. On p. 74, the Pope makes the following comment: "the Beatitudes present a sort of veiled interior biography of Jesus, a kind of portrait of his figure."  Please explain.

7. Please be ready to discuss the Pope's interpretation of each of the following Beatitudes:

(a) Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God.  Consider especially the following:

i. According to Pope Benedict, it was no longer possible for Israel to maintain the older vision according to which the righteous prosper and poverty is a consequence of a bad life.  Now Israel recognized that its poverty is exactly what brings it close to God.  Explain the notion of poverty underlying this statement.
ii. Pope Benedict suggests that there is a relationship in the Jewish world between piety and poverty.  Explain the notion of piety and poverty exemplified in characters such as Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, Zachariah and Elizabeth, and the shepherds of Bethlehem.
iii. Connect this Beatitude with Paul's notion of "justification."   
iv. What, according to Pope Benedict, does St. Francis teach us about possessions?

(b) Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

i. Who in the Old Testament is described as "meek"?  Who in the New Testament is characterized by his actions as "meek"?
ii. How, according to Pope Benedict, is Jesus's kingship different from the kings of the earth?
iii. What, according to Pope Benedict, is "the promise of the land" in this Beatitude?

(c) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

i. The promise of the previous Beatitude was, according to Pope Benedict's interpretation, that Christ would bring peace.  This Beatitude deals with "peacemakers."  If there is to be peace in the world, where must there be peace first?  How does this consideration help link the current Beatitude with the previous one?
ii. Consider this counter-cultural claim.  According to Pope Benedict, "When men lose sight of God, peace disintegrates and violence proliferates to a formerly unimaginable degree of cruelty."  Which is it?  Does religion cause war and violence?  Or is violence the result when we turn away from God (especially from the mind-set embodied in Beatitudes I and II)?

(d) Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

i. What are the two types of mourning described by Pope Benedict?  Which is the sense of mourning being used in this Beatitude?
ii. How do Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene offer the perfect example of "those who mourn"?  (Please don't simply say "because they wept for Jesus."  The answer begins there;  but you must go further.)
iii. Please explain how this Beatitude affirms the opposite of an attitude of cynicism toward the world's suffering.

(e) Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

i. Pope Benedict's exposition of the previous Beatitude ends with praise for those who resolve to suffer evil rather than giving in to it (they are the ones who "mourn").  That brings him naturally to this Beatitude: those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.  Explain the relationship Pope Benedict describes between "mourning" and "righteousness."  With regard to this topic, explain first, what "righteousness" is?  Second, why does "righteousness" tend to lead to "persecution" and thus to "mourning"?
ii. Why is this Beatitude very much like the Beatitude that says "Blessed are you when they persecute you and speak every kind of evil against you in my [Jesus's] name"?

(f) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

i. Pope Benedict says:  "This Beatitude describes those who are not content with things as they are and refuse to stifle the restlessness of heart that points man toward something greater."  Please explain what he means.

(g) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

i. What, according to Pope Benedict, is "the organ for seeing God"?
ii. Pope Benedict says, "If you say, ‘show me your God,' I should like to answer you, ‘show me the man who is in you.'" Please explain what he means and how it relates to this Beatitude?
iii. Pope Benedict asks:  How is man's inner eye purified?  What is his answer?
iv. What, according to Pope Benedict is the "precondition" for seeing God?  The "ascent to God," he says later on, "occurs precisely" in what?  Please explain.

8. Has Pope Benedict supported the thesis that the Beatitudes are NOT at odds with the Ten Commandments?  Please explain.

9. In the Gospel of Luke, the four Beatitudes that Jesus presents are followed by four proclamations of woe.  What are they?  Pope Benedict asks: "Are these things really so bad?"  What is his answer?  (Please don't answer, "Yes, they're bad because Christians shouldn't like money or pleasure now; they should look forward to heaven."  That's just too shallow, and it's not what the Pope says.  So please just read the text!  What he says might surprise you.)  In this regard, the Pope discusses what he calls "the fundamental Christian option."  Please describe what he means.

The Lessons of the Martyrs

1. Is authentic Christian martyrdom life-denying?  Do martyrs seek out punishment and suffering?  What light is thrown on this question by the lives of St. Polycarp and St. Thomas More?

2. What, according to John Paul II is the lesson of the martyrs.  What challenge do they pose for us, even those of us who are not being asked to sacrifice our lives? 

28. Death and Eternal Life

What two lessons do we learn, according to Fr. Roch Kereszty, from Christ's resurrection appearances to the disciples?