Religious Philosophy Through The Years Quiz

Answer: True

'Leviathan' was published in 1660, during what was known as the modern period. Modern philosophers worked from the assumptions that God does exist, but little more than that can be known or proven through study of religious texts.

Answer: Anselm of Canterbury

Anselm of Canterbury is the author of the 'Prosologian', where his famous ontological argument can be found. This is among one of the first arguments every to be conceived that does not use empirical evidence to make its point. Sound ontological arguments are extraordinarily hard to come up with, and are much harder to penetrate than empirical arguments.

Answer: Elements of Law

Nietzsche was a very prominent philosopher in the post-modern, or contemporary, period. Perhaps the line he is most famous for is his opening sentence of 'The Gay Science' - 'God is dead'. Today, he is one of the most-studied atheists in religious philosophy.

Answer: Job

The story of Job in the Bible presents a logical problem - Job is a good man, God allows Job to suffer, and according to conventional wisdom, God should reward the good and punish the bad. There are seven popular solutions to this problem, none of which are completely satisfactory.

Answer: Abraham

God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith (Genesis 22:1-2) This command was withdrawn several days later after Abraham passed the test of faith (Genesis 22:11-13) but some philosophers argue that the original command was still unjust.

Answer: Aristotle

Aristotle, though most well-known for his theory of geocentricity, dabbled in many subjects throughout his life. Through his theoretical observations of motion and causes of motion, he came to the conclusion that at the beginning of the first chain reaction of motion, there had to be something which wasn't moving already, but moved something else (an unmoved mover).

This, for Aristotle, was God.

Answer: True

An interesting example of this is Hobbes' assertion that God is not literally merciful. To be literally merciful, one must feel bad for the person he or she is being merciful towards. Since Hobbes believed that God is an infinite being, God can't actually "feel".

However, to say that God is not merciful would be dishonoring God, so Hobbes made the distinction between what is literally true about God, and what we say to honor God.

Answer: That than which greater cannot exist

An important part of Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God is his definition of God. The argument cannot function without God being defined as "that than which greater cannot exist".

Answer: Atheist

Although Nietzsche denied the existence of God, he believed that there were such things as good religions and bad religions. He even went as far as to propose a new, good religion, since he believed that most of the religions of that period were bad.

Answer: Finiteness

There are two major models of God operating in the Bible - the transcendent and the immanent. The transcendent model holds that God is all-powerful, outside of the universe, and all-knowing, among other things. The immanent model shows God as finite, and more closely resembling human beings.