Senior Moral and Spiritual Theology
1st Semester 2013 Oral Examination
Sr. Amelia, O.P. & Sr. Julia Marie, O.P.
Exam Questions:
You may bring this paper with quotes/notes/answers to your exam!
1. Name one major challenge or problem that the modern world faces (Gaudium et Spes),
explain the root of the problem, and discuss how you personally could positively respond
to that challenge or problem during the next eight years.
2. With the rapid pace of technological change and development, especially in the
communications and medical fields, it is conceivable that some invention or procedure
could exist ten years from now about which there are at the present time no specific
moral guidelines. To what sources would you turn in that situation to form your
conscience about the morality of such a new development? What general moral
principles that you currently hold might help to guide you?
3. Gaudium et Spes states “that man . . . cannot fully find himself except through a
sincere gift of himself.” Explain. Over the next five years, what opportunities might you
have to make a sincere gift of yourself and how might these opportunities help you to
find yourself?
4. How have you benefited from the common good and how have you contributed to it?
5. During your college years you will meet people who have beliefs and customs that
differ from your own. What qualities will you need in order to enter into a dialogue with
them that leads to mutual understanding? How would a Christian understanding of the
human person aid your ability and willingness to discuss religion with other people?
6. Over the next four years, what temptations might you encounter that could cripple your
freedom and how might you respond? What opportunities might you find to increase
your freedom and how might you respond?
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7. How might your knowledge of temperaments be of benefit to you during your college
years?
8. If your college roommate is melancholic-phlegmatic, what efforts might you need to
make to insure tranquility in your relationship? What types and topics of communication
would be especially important? Consider the same questions if your roommate is
sanguine-choleric.
9. If as a freshman you were to find yourself overwhelmed by some one or more aspects
of college life (such as the academics, the social situation, the extra-curricular activities),
how might you make use of your knowledge of your own temperament to work through
the difficulties you experience?
10. During your college years, how might you use your knowledge of your temperament
to plan for and foster your own personal and spiritual growth?
11. During your four years of college, in what way(s) do you hope your relationship with
Christ will grow? In what ways do you hope to imitate him and even identify with him?
What support(s) for living Christian morality do you hope or expect to find in college?
12. Do you foresee any situations during the next four years when you might have the
opportunity to defend your Christian moral beliefs and practices? What types of
situations might arise and how would you respond?
13. How might your knowledge of the relationship between freedom and knowledge of
truth impact your choices during your college years?
14. At the age of eighteen you will have the right to vote in this country. How will you
use your political rights to promote the common good? How will you go about analyzing
whether proposed legislation (whether on the local, state or national level) is just?
15. Are there many sources of happiness? Give examples. Is it possible that someone can
find genuine happiness in a source other than God?
16. What is your personal experience with emotions? How have they helped or hurt your
ability to choose the good. Explain how emotions are meant to function within the
powers of the human soul and the affect that they can have on the will. Is it possible to
feel something that is not in accord with reality? Give an example.
17. Explain the nature of Free-Choice as a function of intellect and will. What helps and
hinders my ability to exercise this power? How does this power make man like God?
What extremes/misunderstandings of our understanding of Free-Choice could we fall to?
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18. GS #16 –
In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon
himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good
and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do
this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the
very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(Gaudium et Spes)
What is conscience? What judgment does it make? What does it take for correct
judgment? To what extent does ignorance impact the responsibility for erroneous
judgments of conscience?
19. Give a scenario in which somebody could love or hate something or someone but in
which that emotion doesn't correlate to reality or the truth. Why might their emotions be
telling them something untrue? Are they not really feeling this? Are their emotions bad?
Explain the nature of emotions and how the will can choose to respond.
20. Explain the importance of an interior life as it relates to our ability to hear our
conscience. Why might some people think conscience is a “gut feeling?” How does it
differ? Can my conscience tell me something different than your conscience tells you?
Why or why not?
21. Summarize our first semester readings and discussions to better explain this quote
that we discussed in September. How does this quote relate to the study and practice of
Morality?
Will not the knowledge of it [the chief good], then, have a great influence
on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more
likely to hit upon what is right? [Aristotle Ethics]
22. What is the source of man’s dignity? Can my dignity be increased or diminished? Can
some lives be worth more than other’s? Give examples. Why or why not?
23. Explain the Principle of Double Effect. Give examples of how this principle could be
misunderstood or misapplied.
24. St. Ireneaus famously said “the glory of God is man fully alive.” How does this quote
relate to what we have been studying this year?
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25. Scenario: It is the end of the semester and you have research papers due at the same
time in four different classes. Your grade in one of those classes is already low and you
are worried about passing. You have hardly slept for several days and are surviving on
coffee (strong) and bagels (stale). A dormitory neighbor comes into your room and
shows you a website where you can buy research papers for college courses. The student
strongly encourages you to use the site, telling you that many students use this site to
purchase papers and no one who has turned such a paper in to a professor has gotten
caught.
Question: What moral principles would you apply to this situation? What would you
consider in making a judgment about the morality of purchasing a term paper on-line?
26. Scenario: On a Saturday night you drive to a state park that is a couple miles from
your college campus for a planned party with a group of college friends and
acquaintances, several of whom ride with you. You are a freshman and not yet of legal
age to drink in that state. One of the party-goers opens his car trunk and pulls out a
number of cases of beer. He offers one to you.
Question: What moral principles would you apply in this situation? What would you
consider in making a judgment about the morality of drinking the beer?
27. Scenario: At 9:00 pm on the Sunday night before mid-terms, your roommate runs in
and invites you to go to an impromptu party off-campus. She says that the young man on
whom you have had a crush for a while will be there and that he asked if you were going
to go. The problem is that you have not yet been to Mass. You had other plans on
Saturday night and slept in that morning, planning to go to the 10:00 pm Sunday night
Mass at the Newman Center. You ask whether you can come to the party after Mass, but
your roommate tells you that most people are planning to return to campus around
midnight because of early mid-terms the next day.
Question: What moral principles would you apply in this situation? What would you
consider in making a judgment about the morality of missing Mass to go to the party?
28. You are a college intern with a major pharmaceutical company. Your focus is
marketing and branding. Your job is not to understand or research products but to market
them, make them desirable, and to make them sell! You are hoping that this internship
will help you to get a job in advertising in NYC after college. A new pharmaceutical
drug has just been approved by the FDA. Your company is the first to promote it. Your
boss slaps the file on your desk which contains the drug name, purpose, and side effects.
She tells you that she wants the groupon, commercial, and google advertisement ready by
next week.
Question: What type of information would you need to determine your Moral Act? What
moral principles would you apply? How would a classically Aristotelian and Christian
approach to determining your Moral Act differ from proportionalism or
consequentialism?
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29. Scenario: A college friend invites you to go home with her for the weekend. You
call your parents and tell them about the invitation. They tell you they do not want you to
go because it is too close to mid-terms, you have already been burning the candle at both
ends with extracurricular activities, and you have been complaining to them about how
your grades have slipped. You argue with them, but they will not budge. Your friend
suggests you come home with her anyway. After all, you are nineteen years old—a legal
adult—and entitled to make your own decisions. You decide to go home with your
friend. Saturday afternoon your Mom calls. She says she is on campus and cannot find
you. She and your father regretted that you were missing out on the weekend with your
friend and decided to come down to the campus (only a few hours from Nashville) and
surprise you.
Question: What is your conscience telling you now? Why? What do you think you
should say to your Mom?
30. Scenario: You are taking a college anthropology course. Your teacher explains that
the human person shares in an animal nature and lives by instinct, or feeling, though this
instinct is of a higher function than an animal. You know that your in-class essay depends
upon you correctly explaining the professor’s approach to the human person. You make
an appointment to speak with the professor and explain that you have a Judeo-Christian
understanding of the human person and do not agree with all that he has been saying. He
tells you, “don’t worry, I am Catholic. There is lots of room for disagreement on such
matters as human nature, dignity, and freedom.”
Question: How could you demonstrate a mastery of the material without compromising
your own values? Where does the Christian understanding of the human person agree or
diverge from your professor's opinion. How might he justify his own personal views and
his position as a Catholic? Include an explanation of the powers of the soul in your
response.
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