Faith and Moral Development
Fall 2003
Exam 1
* NB: As students at this University, please remember that you are
all responsible for the honesty and integrity of everyone in this community.
That means it is your responsibility to report any and all cheating – even
if it is your best friend. To do any less would be a violation of your
integrity and would cheapen any true friendship.
As you take this exam (as with every exam), please be mindful of the time.
Don't spend too much time on any one question to the detriment of the whole.
And by the way, good luck! I have every faith that you will be excellent!
Do your best.
Essays: (of which there are ten, each worth 10 points!)
Please answer the following questions in the blue book
provided in complete sentences and in legible, entirely literate prose.
Since in all cases, I have given you a choice of which questions you may
answer, please remember to give the letter and number of the question you
are answering in the blue book. There is no benefit to doing more than
the assigned number of questions. I will not choose the best answer.
I will grade them in order and move on. By the same token, please don't
forget to do any. At the end, you should have ten well-conceived, neatly-written,
and utterly inspired essays for me to grade.
A) Please answer one out of the following two:
1. After Jesus tells the rich young man (in Mt 19) to keep the commandments,
he replies: "I have kept all these; what do I still lack?" One interpretation
of this response would be to say that the young man doesn't understand how
hard it is really to follow the Law in its fullness. John Paul II has a somewhat
more charitable interpretation. What is it? What, in other words, according
to JP II, does the young man realize as he stands in the presence of Jesus?
What is Jesus's advice to the young man at this point in the story?
2. What, according to JP II, is the "absolutely essential ground in which
the desire for perfection can take root and mature? What, according
to JP II, are the "conditions for the moral growth of man, who has been called
to perfection"? "Following Christ," says JP II, "is not [only] an outward
imitation...." What is it?
B) Please answer one out of the following two:
3. What happened during the time the Chambonnais called "The Desert."
Why was it important in what happened later during the Second World War?
How does this relate to what Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount about
the Beatitudes?
4. At a certain point in the film Weapons of the Spirit, Madame Hétier
says very bluntly: "We didn't ask ourselves about what we were doing.
It was very simple – uncomplicated. It just seemed the human thing
to do." Was it simple and uncomplicated? Was it the "human" thing
to do? Are humans falling short of their "humanity" if they don't do
such things?
C) Please answer one out of the following two:
5. The documentary Weapons of the Spirit suggests that the memory of their
ancestors and parents was very important to the Chambonnais and that it was
important to them that they become a "reflection of their image." Is
it important to you to become a "reflection of the image" of your parents
and grandparents? Is it important for many people you know? What
do you think of a culture were there is so much antipathy between children
and their parents? What do you think the Chambonnais would think of
it? What do you think MTV thinks of it? Why is this division
in their interest? Is it in yours?
6. Bill Moyers and Pierre Sauvage point to a classic paradox about the Holocaust:
the Holocaust took place in Christian Europe, and yet most of the rescuers
were Christians who were heavily influenced and motivated to rescue Jews
precisely because of their Christian faith. Analyze this puzzle.
D) Please answer one out of the following two:
7. Sauvage points out that for him and for other people living in L.A., "for
us, things are so hard." But for the people of Le Chambon, things were
"so easy." Indeed, he suggests that the people of Le Chambon "derived
strength from their effort." Why do you suppose that is?
8. On p. 11 of his book, Hallie says: "My uncle had rescued me from the coercion
of despair, and he had done it by empowering me." What does he mean?
What event is he describing? What do you think of what his uncle did?
E) Please answer one out of the following two:
9. What was the thesis of Philip Hallie's first book, The Paradox of Cruelty?
10. What was Hallie's attitude for most of his life toward nonviolent people?
Why did he dislike them?
F) Please answer one out of the following two:
11. When Hallie says to Magda Trocmé at one point, "But you are good
people, good," what was her reaction and why?
12. What did Associate Pastor Edouard Theis say when Hallie once asked him:
"Pastor Theis, didn't you ever hate these Germans for what they were doing
to the parents of these children?" Explain.
G) Please answer one out of the following two:
13. What does Hallie say about "habit"? What was the "habit" – the
"iron axiom" – of the villagers in Le Chambon? Why are such "habits"
important? What does it mean for something to become "second nature"?
14. According to Hallie, what are (using a term from Italian novelist and
essayist Natalia Ginzburg) the "great virtues"? What are the "little
virtues" (piccole virtu)? What do we spend more time teaching our children
about? Indeed, how do you have to teach "the great virtues"?
H) Please answer one out of the following two:
15. According to Hallie, ethics, in the Western world at least, has been
appalled at what? What have ethical thinkers "done their best to overcome"?
16. Why did Thoreau think that the beach where the wreck of the St. John
had happened had a "rarer and sublimer beauty" than it would have if the
murderous storm had not happened there? Hallie suggests that "our delight
in the sublime" is made possible because of what "fact of human life"?
What, according to him, are we "fascinated in"; what do we "rejoice to see"?
What do you think?
I) Please answer one out of the following two:
17. Describe the scene in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield between Steerforth
and Ham. What significance does Hallie find in this scene?
18. What appeal was made by Captain Dill to his fellow villagers in the village
of Hull? Why was Hallie astonished when he read about Hull's speech?
J) Please answer one out of the following two:
19. According to Hallie: "There are those who think that citizenship
is simply a possession, a legitimate right symbolized and legalized by a
duly attested document that one puts in a strongbox, or something one receives
as a birthright. For them being a citizen is primarily a public, legal
matter, with no special obligations, except perhaps not to do certain things
-- not to kill, not to rob, not to cheat." There were people like that
in Hull, says Hallie, but there were also people who had a somewhat different
view of the matter. How does he describe them?
20. According to Hallie: "Thoreau leads us to think that we must choose between
allegiance to nature and allegiance to human society. He wants a freedom
that is not just civic, but that is absolute." What does Hallie think
of this dichotomy? Explain.
* When you are finished, put your test paper inside the blue book and return
the blue book to the exam proctor. Then have a wonderful weekend.
Get some rest!