Modern Challenges to Christianity

Review Questions for the Mid-Term Exam

1. What, according to the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) are some of the challenges to faith in the modern world? (You will need to be able to list at least five, but the bottom line is this: I need a good essay that expresses the heart of the document.)

2. What response did the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, Pope John Paul II, give to these modern challenges? What, in other words, did the Council and the Pope think the Church had to offer the modern world?

3. What does C. S. Lewis have to say about “man’s conquest of Nature”? Why is his chapter (and the book as a whole) entitled “The Abolition of Man”?

4. According to the Catholic Adult Catechism, the two words “I believe” are decisive for our whole life. Why? What sorts of questions are bound up with this issue? According to the author, our answers to these questions are never fully satisfactory. Thus man ultimately remains a question and a deep mystery to himself. Why, according to the author, is this man’s greatness and his burden? Why is it both a gift and a task?

5. According to the Catholic Adult Catechism, science has given us many benefits. Have there been problems as well? Explain. According to the author, the challenges of science -- whether we should do everything we can do -- bring us back to a fundamental question. What is it? Can science answer this question sufficiently? Why or why not?

6. What, according to Henri de Lubac, is the "tragic misunderstanding" of the modern world with regard to God? Explain. Compare Cardinal de Lubac’s position with the discussion in the Catholic Adult Catechism on why religion has lost its credibility in the modern world.

7. In his famous Harvard address, Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn condemns the West for a number of its current maladies: its decline in courage; its loss of a sense of true well being; its overly legalistic tendencies; its corrupted notion of freedom; the shallowness of its news media; its concern for trendy fashions; its shortsightedness; and its loss of willpower. “How,” asks Solzhenitsyn, “has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present sickness?” What is his answer? What is the “mistake” that lies “at the root, at the very basis of human thinking in the past centuries,” that is, a “view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression from the period of the Enlightenment”? Where does the problem lie, according to Solzhenitsyn? Explain.

8. What, according to Stephen J. Toulmin, is the “problem about Modernity”? What are the various suggestions for dating the start of Modernity and what are the reasons for each? When does Toulmin date the start of Modernity? What are his reasons?

9. Please describe the basic outlines of the “standard account” of Modernity given by Stephen J. Toulmin. What, according to Toulmin, are the “defects” of this account?

10. According to Prof. Toulmin: “In four fundamental ways ... the 17^th-century philosophers set aside the long-standing preoccupations of Renaissance humanism. In particular, they disclaimed any serious interest in four different kinds of practical knowledge.” Please describe each of these four transitions.

11. What, according to Prof. Toulmin, were the “three dreams of the Rationalists”? What are all three of these designed to do?

12. Why, according to Prof. Toulmin, was the Scientific Revolution “Janus-faced”?

13. What distinction, according to Prof. Toulmin, lay “at the base of Descartes’ epistemology”? What were the cultural ramifications of this basic dichotomy? (What, for example, did the 20^th-century British author C. P. Snow say about the “Two Cultures”?)

14. According to Prof. Toulmin, “The principal elements, or timbers, of the Modern Framework divide into two groups, reflecting this initial division of Nature from Humanity.” He then formulates the dozen or so basic doctrines that pertain to each side of the division. Please describe them.

15. Please discuss the Marquis de Condorcet’s thesis about the progress of the human mind. What has kept it from progressing in the past? What will allow it to progress in the future? And what are the limits of human progress?

16. In Comte’s Course in Positive Philosophy, he insists that he has “discovered a fundamental law to which it [human intelligence] is subjected from an invariable necessity.” This law, he continues, “is that each of our principal conceptions, each branch of our knowledge, passes successively through three different theoretical states.” Please list and describe each of these three successive theoretical states.

17.Why, according to Rius’s Marxist version of history, did mankind create the gods?

18. After this “creation” of the gods, says Rius, magicians and sorcerers arose. What did they do?

19. Eventually, some people “began to use their heads to find logical explanations for the phenomena of nature”: they were “the thinkers.” Thus “two opposed camps sprang up,” according to Rius, “which still persist to this day.” What are these two camps?

20. What, according to Rius, is the relationship between religion and the formation of an aristocratic class? In a related vein, what is the relationship, according to Rius, between slavery and belief in an “after-life.” Finally, why does Marx call religion “the opiate of the masses.” Compare all this to what Cardinal Henri de Lubac says about the “tragic misunderstanding” of the modern world.

21. Rius calls the Middle Ages “The Age of Faith.” How does he describe this “age of faith”?

22. After the horrible “Age of Faith,” says Rius, then began the Renaissance. How does he describe the Renaissance?

23.When, according to Rius, does “Mankind arrive at the use of Reason”?

24. According to Rius, the French Revolution helped to bring the triumph of ________ over _________. Explain.

25. At the beginning of Chapter Three of The End of the Modern World, Fr. Romano Guardini summarizes his previous chapter (on the “birth of the modern world”). There he suggests that, “Until a short time ago, the three elements discussed in the preceding section of our study as intrinsic to modern life were considered an inviolable heritage.” Please list and describe each of these three elements.

26. On p. 38 of his text The Copernican Revolution, Thomas Kuhn makes the following startling remark: “Evaluated in terms of economy, the two-sphere universe ... remains what it has always been: an extremely successful theory.” Explain what he means. In your answer, you will want to make clear what, according to Prof. Kuhn, the function of a conceptual scheme is and then why the two-sphere universe satisfies that function. (You will also, of course, have the describe the basic elements of the “two-sphere universe.”)

27. What does Kuhn mean when he says on p. 39 of his text: “economy and cosmological satisfaction cannot guarantee truth”?

28. Kuhn has a chapter entitled “The Problem of the Planets.” What is “the problem of the planets,” and how do the two chief world systems (Ptolemaic, on the one hand, and Copernican, on the other) account for the “problem”?

28. On p. 83 of his text, Kuhn asks: “Why, despite the real difficulties encountered by the Ptolemaic system, did astronomers continue for so long to assume that the earth had to be the stable center of the universe and of at least the average planetary orbits? (Note: the answer is not because of Aristotle’s supposed authority!)

29. On p. 110 in your Reader, you will find a picture with the caption: “The Copernican Universe.” Why is this designation problematic?

30. “For it is the duty of an astronomer,” writes Osiander in the preface to Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus, “to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study. Then he must conceive and devise the causes of these motions or hypotheses about them. Since he cannot in any way attain to ____________, he will adopt whatever suppositions enable the motions to be ___________________. Please explain what Osiander means.

A) the certainty of faith; determined by science

B) true causes; computed correctly from the principles of geometry

C) the certainty of scientific demonstration; found in accordance with Holy Scripture

31. Did the heliocentric theory held by Copernicus and Galileo really replace the Ptolemaic theory of the universe? Or did it really replace another intermediate theory? Explain.

32. What were the crucial physical theories missing from Galileo’s model of the cosmos that were supplied by Kepler and Newton?

33. What was Kepler’s ultimate goal of describing “the harmonies of the world”? Along with describing the harmonies among the planets, what else did he hope to accomplish? Explain.

34. Galileo and Bellarmine agreed on one fundamental principle: if natural science were at any point to provide a demonstration for something, then the Scriptures would have to be reinterpreted in light of this discovery. Where do they disagree (perhaps without fully understanding the nature of their disagreement)?

Galileo, “Letter on Sunspots,” “The Assayer”

1. In his “Letter on Sunspots” – a document that was controversial because it suggested that the sun, a body that had always been taken to be unchanging and unalterable, was in fact subject to change – Galileo argues that “in making the celestial material alterable, I contradict the doctrine of Aristotle much less than do those people who still want to keep the sky inalterable.” Why does he hold that he is contradicting Aristotle less than his opponents?

2. A related question: What, according to Galileo, must all human reasoning be placed second to? What is the best sort of method, according to Galileo, for those who would “philosophize better”?

3. One of the objections that would have been leveled against Galileo in his own day was that one cannot get certain “knowledge” about the stars and other celestial bodies because (a) they are so far away, and thus (b) we can never know the “substances” composing them or their true “essence” or “nature.” What was Galileo’s response? What sort of knowledge does he think we must satisfy ourselves with?

4. In his work entitled “The Assayer,” Galileo criticizes those who seem to hold the view that, “in philosophizing one must support oneself upon the opinion of some celebrated author.” He claims that these people seem to think that reading philosophy is like reading works of fiction, such as The Iliad or Orlando Furioso. What is the least important things, according to Galileo, in such works of literature? How, then, is philosophy written? What language must you understand to read this book?

5. Above, in the “Letter on Sunspots,” we saw Galileo affirm that “all human reasoning must be placed second to direct experience.” In his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, he insists, furthermore, that “nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (must less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words.” There is a simple-minded understanding of these passages which might suggest that, for Galileo, the proper job of the scientist is simply to look at the world, while everyone before Galileo simply read books. In class, I suggested the reality is a bit more complicated. Discuss the complications inherent in Galileo’s conception of what “sense-experience” gives us by making reference to his discussion in the “Assayer” of the phenomenon we call “heat” (or any of the other properties that in class we called, following the terminology of the philosopher John Locke, “secondary qualities”).

“Galileo’s Methodology,” The Founders of Classical Science

1. What, according to this article, did Galileo believe could serve as the basis for all scientific work? How is his view different from those of earlier philosophers?

2. Discuss Galileo’s criticism of the great British experimentalist William Gilbert.

3. Discuss the role that experimentation seems to have played in the work of Galileo.

4. Does Galileo believe that one can get to “true causes” by means of experience?

5. Did Galileo subscribe to an “atomic theory” of matter? Explain, and please give an example from his discussion of “secondary qualities.”

Francis Bacon, The New Instauration

1. In this famous work, Francis Bacon identifies four major “idols of the mind.” Please discuss each of the following and the threat it poses to scientific progress:

(a) Idols of the Tribe

(b) Idols of the Cave

(c) Idols of the Marketplace

(d) Idols of the Theater

2. Francis Bacon is famous for proposing that “induction” is the proper method for making progress in science. Describe Bacon’s conception of “induction.”

3. “Experimentation” is not the same as simple “observation” of nature. Explain the difference. Did Francis Bacon believe that simple observation could be the basis of the scientific method? Why or why not?

The Scientific Revolution: Contested Territory

1. There are a number of reasons why one might want to study the natural world. Compare Kepler’s reason for wanting to study Nature with Francis Bacon’s reason for wanting to study Nature.

2. Compare Aristotle’s view about substance and its properties with the majority of those investigating nature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Following Galileo and Newton, where did natural philosophers increasingly look for certainty?

3. In class, I suggested that there are clearly some benefits to science of avoiding questions of “formal” and “final” causality, questions of “substance” and “essence.” What are some of the potential problems with avoiding such questions, especially when it comes to knowledge about the human person?

4. What is the relationship between the “mathematicization” of nature and the increasing tendency since the Scientific Revolution to view nature as a “machine,” a “mechanism”?

5. What are some of the potential problems with the “mathematicization” and “mechanism” of Nature that resulted from the Scientific Revolution?

6. How did the contemporary developments in physics since the time of Einstein cause “one of the most traumatic transitions in modern science”? What, in other words, did Newton’s laws seem to provide that Relativity and Quantum Theory challenged?

7. According to the chapter “The Scientific Revolution: Contested Territory: “The sheer power of Newton’s universal laws suggested to scholars in many different fields that there should be similar laws governing human interaction as well.” Explain.

Science and Religion: The Conflict Thesis

1. According to Prof. Principe, in his lecture on “Science and Religion,” the “Conflict Thesis” so prevalent in modern Western culture that insists there is an irreconcilable conflict between science and religion had its origins in two popular, late-eighteenth century works. What are they?

2. According to the first of these two authors, John William Draper, “The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers.” What are the two powers? How does Draper describe them?

3. According to Prof. Draper, “When the old mythological religion of Europe broke down under the weight of its own inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor the philosophers of those times did any thing adequate for the guidance of public opinion.” In whose hands did they leave religious affairs? What state of affairs was brought about by leaving the “religious affairs” of Europe in their hands?

4. Later, Prof. Draper insists that “no one can ... spend a large part of his life in the public teaching of science, without partaking of that love of impartiality and truth which Philosophy incites. She inspires us with a desire to dedicate our days to the good of our race ....” Does Prof. Draper seem to think that spending a large part of one’s life in the public teaching of, say, religion or literature will lead to the same love of truth and dedication to the good of our race?

5. Prof. Draper explains to his reader that, “it has not been necessary to pay much regard to more moderate or intermediate opinions, for, though they may be intrinsically of great value, in conflicts of this kind it is not with the moderates but with the extremists that the impartial reader is mainly concerned.” For this reason, says he, he will have little to say about the Protestant and Greek Churches. With whom is he mainly concerned? Why? What has this group done that the Protestant Church never presumed to do?

5. “As to Science,” says Draper, “she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected any one to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by cruelties and crimes.” Can you think of any counter-examples?

6. According to Prof. Draper, there were in European history two “reformations.” The second was the “Protestant Reformation.” What was the first? How, according to Prof. Draper, did each of these “reformations” treat Science?

Also: From Movies and Quizzes

Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times

1. Describe the significance of the image behind the opening credits. (For those of you who don't remember, it was a clock.)

2. Describe the significance of the opening scene of the movie.

3. What comment do you suppose Chaplin was trying to make in this movie about modern technology and the modern attempt to rationalize all human affairs? Explain using specific scenes from the movie.

Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants

How would you describe the basic historical perspective that informs the award-winning after-school special Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants? (Note on the term “historical perspective”: By this term, I mean what is the perspective that guides their selection of events and the way in which they portray those events.) Please give examples from the movie itself. From what you know of the “Galileo Affair,” was the award-winning after-school special very “historical”? Please give examples.