Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
Theology III
Sacramentality: Unit One Objective Assessment – Review Sheet
Unit 1: Who Am I?
Unit One Essential Questions
What do other people think about me?
What am I good at? What challenges me?
Why do I do what I do?
What does God value about me? What does society value about me?
What is important to know about me? How do I want to be seen?
Sigmund Freud
 Psychic Determinism: All of our thoughts and feelings have a meaning and purpose that relates to
previous experiences.
 Freud’s View of the Human Mind: The Mental Iceberg
o Conscious level: The small part on top, the thoughts and ideas we are aware of.
o Preconscious Level: Tiny bit in the middle between unconscious and conscious.
o Unconscious Level: The vast reservoir of thoughts, feelings, urges, derives that actively
seek expression. These ideas wish to set free into the conscious.
 Personality
o The id: Irrational and emotional, it follows only the pleasure principle, the basic
instinctual aspects.
o The ego: balances the ideas from the id and the superego. This is the rational part of the
mind.
o The superego: the moral part of the mind. Thinks only of the long term.
 Defense Mechanisms
o Denial: Denying thoughts, feelings, or realities that are painful.
o Displacement: Shifting of an emotion from its original focus to another object, person, or
situation that is less threatening.
o Projection: the tendency to blame another person for the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes
present in oneself.
o Rationalization: to invent plausible explanations for acts, opinions, etc., that are actually
based on other causes.
o Reaction Formation: Developing an attitude that is exactly the opposite of how one feels.
o Regression: the reverting to an earlier or less mature pattern of behavior and feeling.
o Repression: a process by which unacceptable or painful impulses, desires, or fears are
excluded from consciousness and left to operate in the unconscious.
o Sublimation: refocusing of energy away from negative outlets and towards positive ones.
o **All defense mechanisms are performed unconsciously. They are neither good, nor are
they bad, but can become harmful if they begin to have too much control.
Abraham Maslow
 A Hierarchy of Needs
o Self-Actualization
 Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance
of facts.
o Esteem (Self-esteem and attention/recognition)
 Confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others.
o Love/Belonging
 Friendship, family, sexual intimacy.
o Safety
 Security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, of the family, of
health, and of property.
o Physiological
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Theology III
Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis (ability to regulate the internal
environment), excretion.
Myers-Briggs Personality Test
 Introvert vs. Extrovert – What energizes us?
o Introverts: Recharge with small group or alone. Diligent, is carful. Avoids others, is
secretive.
o Extroverts: Recharged by external activity. Is well understood, is open. Has less
independence, is impulsive.
 Sensory vs. Intuitive – How do we process information?
o Sensory: Detail oriented. Neat and organized. Practical, patient, attentive. Loses sense of
overall, mistrusts intuition.
o Intuitive: Big picture types. Creative, directions are evil. Speculative and imagination.
Sees patterns and works with new ideas. Is inattentive to detail and is impatient.
 Thinker vs. Feeler – How do we learn?
o Thinker: Logical, analytical, organized. Does not notice other’s feelings, shows less
mercy, in uninterested in persuading.
o Feeler: Understands needs and values, demonstrates feelings. Is not objective or guided
by logic, bases justice on feelings.
 Judgers vs. Perceivers – What kind of environment do we need to function?
o Judger: Decides, plans, orders, controls, makes quick decisions. Is unyielding, stubborn,
wishes not to be interrupted.
o Perceivers: Compromises, sees all sides of an issue, is not judgmental. Is indecisive, is
easily distracted, has no order.
Ken Wilber
 Levels and Lines
o Lines: Multiple intelligences; areas of development.
 Physical
 Mental/Psychological
 Cognitive/intellectual
 Social/Emotional
 Moral/Ethical
 Spiritual/Religious
o Levels: How developed we are in a specific line
 Basic: Just learning, don’t function well
 Advanced: Have a deep knowledge; can function extremely well
 Expert: Deepest knowledge; using this knowledge to create something.
Thomas Keating – “The Household of Bethany”
 The Purgative Way – Martha
o Becoming aware of how our unconscious needs affect ordinary daily life, including our
service of God. Although our actions are good, our motives are bad.
 The Illuminative Way – Mary
o Words and reasoning begin to give way to intuition. Love moves us to a deeper level of
listening, into a greater interior freedom.
 The Night of the Spirit – Lazarus
o Representative of the “death of the false self.” Only the death of the false self brings
liberation from the drives for survival and security, affection and esteem, and power and
control. Christian: We can not enter into the transforming union (heaven) with our false
selves.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
 Stage One: Sensorimotor
Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
Theology III
Everything is based on one’s senses. Short attention span or ability to focus. Beginning to
recognize patters. Attempting to understand the world through the 5 senses.
Stage Two: Pre-Operational
o Observing changes and trying to make sense of them. Basic pattern recognition, but not
with the ability to critically analyze. Conversational skills are developed.
Stage Three: Concrete Operational
o More information is taken into pattern recognition. Concepts attached to concrete ideas.
Using past knowledge to define potential questions.
Stage Four: Formal Operational
o A deep understanding based on the situation at hand. An ability to abstractly analyze or
think about and idea. Deductive reasoning skills are developed.
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Lawrence Kohlberg
 The Stages of Moral Development
o Level One: Pre-Conventional Morality (“Me” – individual)
 Stage One: Punishment and Obedience
 Stage Two: Personal Usefulness
o Level Two: Conventional Morality (“Us” – the group)
 Stage Three: Conforming to the Will of the Group
 Stage Four: Law and Order
o Level Three: Post-Conventional Morality (“Everybody” – Universal)
 Stage Five: Social Contract, Constitutionalism, and Higher Law
 Stage Six: Personal Conscious (The Jesus and Gandhi stage)
Walter Wink – World Views
 Ancient Worldview
o Reflected in the Bible. Everything earthly has its heavenly counterpart and vise versa.
Every event is thus a combination of both dimensions of reality.
 The Spiritualist Worldview
o The Spirit is good, the flesh is evil. The world is a prison into which spirits have fallen
from the good heaven. St. Paul’s worldview.
 The Materialist Worldview
o There is no heaven or spiritual aspect. Matter is ultimate. The opposite of the Spiritualist
Worldview.
 The Theological Worldview
o “Science tells us how, religion tells us why.” Splitting reality in two and separating them.
Science and religion co-exist.
 The Integral Worldview
o Everything has an inner and an outer aspect: heaven and earth are the inner and outer
aspects of a single reality. God is not “up” but “within.” Panentheism: God is in
everything and everything is in God.
Sacramentality: Unit Two Objective Assessment – Review Sheet
Unit 2: Why Am I Here?
Unit 2 Essential Questions
Why am I here? Why should I care?
What makes life great? How have others answered this?
What’s the big deal about people Catholic? Aren’t we just supposed to be good people? How do
even know that?
What is the answer: science or religion?
Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
Theology III
Dan Gilbert – “The Surprising Science of Happiness”
 Experience Simulator – The frontal parts of our brains. It allows humans, and strictly humans, to
create a sort of hypothetical world within our minds where certain scenarios can be played out in
certain ways.
 Impact Bias – The tendency to overestimate the hedonic impact of future events. Tendency of the
experience simulator to not work properly and to over exaggerate the impact of an event on a
person’s happiness.
 Natural Happiness – Happiness that occurs when things are going our way.
 Synthetic Happiness – Happiness that occurs when things aren’t going our way. The happiness
that comes from convincing oneself that a decision or an event is better than what was created
using the experience simulator. Synthetic happiness is just as real as natural happiness.
Broaden Your Perspective
 Individuality – We aren’t automatically individuals. We become individuals through efforts to
become so. In order to become an individual, we must admit our lack of individuality. We must
understand that most of our ideas are from the result of other people’s thinking.
 Acculturation – the adaptation of a different culture.
 Habits that Hinder Thinking
o Mine is Better – The superiority complex. A certain idea or thing is better simply because
we think it. We must get rid of this to clear our thinking.
o Face Saving – Pointing the finger away from oneself. Setting out to defend our ideas
rather than to understand the truth.
 Reasoning – Forming our ideas around the evidence.
 Rationalizing – Manipulating evidence to fit one’s belief.
o Resistance to Change – Rejecting new ideas without examining them fairly. We must be
careful not to think in a certain way just because our parents had. Give every new idea a
fair chance to prove itself.
o Conformity - Sometimes it is good to conform. However, too much conformity creates a
situation in which individuality is discouraged. Think for yourself, regardless of what
others think of you.
o Stereotyping - A fixed, unbending generalization. It impedes the mind’s dynamic activity.
o Self-Deception – Convincing oneself that an idea exists for a reason that isn’t actually
true. We must evaluate all information fairly.
 Metacognition – “Thinking about thinking.” We must evaluate not only what we think, but why
we think what we think.
Utilitarianism
 Jeremy Bentham – regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.
 John Stuart Mill – strong follower of utilitarianism.
 Consequentialist – the consequences of an action determine if it is right or wrong, not the act in
and of itself.
 The Principle of Utility – In a moral dilemma, the correct choice results in the most amount of
happiness for the most amounts of people; no act in itself is wrong. Maximizing good and
minimizing bad.
 Hedonism – Pleasure is the only intrinsic good, the goal is to maximize pleasure.
 The Viewpoint of a Disinterested and Benevolent Spectator – Act as a disinterested and
benevolent spectator when determining the goodness vs. badness of an action. One can not show
bias.
 Differences with Immanuel Kant – In Kantian Christianity, actions can be inherently wrong. It is
not a consequentialist decision-making process.
Michael Himes – “Sacramental Vision”
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Theology III
Verbum – The Word: everything is trying to communicate itself. God, since God lives outside of
time, can express himself fully. We exist to be in conversation with God, and he is trying to
communicate himself through everything.
Grace – God’s communication of himself outside of the Trinity. Seeing that everything is
engraced, and accepting it: saying “yes.” This is accepting and responding; it is the choice.
Incarnation – We don’t speak God’s language. So he sent Jesus as the human translation of God’s
language.
Body of Christ – We have the ability to speak God’s language through the Body of Christ (first
this was Jesus, but after his death, the Church became the Body of Christ). The 7 Sacraments are
ways that the Body of Christ translates the language of God.
Symbol – As the body of Christ, we can speak this language – we are a sacramental symbol, we
embody what God’s love is – God’s agopic love through grace. A sacrament is a symbol that
points to grace.
o Symbol vs. Sign
 Symbol points inward to itself – A hug is a symbol; it embodies the love is
shows.
 Sign points outward. Someone telling you to notice the music.
Eros – Greek word for romantic love between two people.
Agape – Greek for selfless love. Loving someone for what s/he needs and desires, not for how I
feel or how s/he makes me feel by loving him/her. Love is a choice we enter into willingly.
The Sacramental Principle - “this term describes the church’s belief that “the presence of God and
of grace” are “mediated through symbols to the entire course of ordinary life…through a wide
variety of symbols – material, sensuous, aesthetic, active, verbal and intellectual”.
o Everything is sacramental – anything that causes one to accept and recognize God’s love
is a sacrament.
Sacramental Vision – Seeing everything as God sees it – seeing the grace of God, the agopic love
in the other. Realizing others as individuals – not in relation to you.
o You exist as you, outside of my expectation of you. I’ll let you be you. Therefore, the
only thing I can do is love. The Goal, our telos, is to love. The goal is not to be happy, but
to love.
I-it & I-You
o I-it: a relationship in which the other exists for my gratification. We are the star in a
movie and everyone else is there to compliment our role.
o I-You: a relationship in which I recognize the other as a true other.
o *Once you encounter the true other, the only thing you can do is love it.
C.S. Lewis – “Meditation in a Toolshed”
 Looking At vs. Looking Along
o Looking at: viewing an experience from an outward perspective. Observing an
experience purely from outside of the experience itself.
o Looking along: empathy. Placing oneself in the same situation in an attempt to not just
look at the experience, but also to look along it and to see the experiences from the eyes
of the person who is in the middle of it.
The Big Patterns That Are Always True
 Rites of Initiation: All cultures have initiation rite  the things that are necessary to become a
man.
 The Monomyth of the Hero: Four Stages
o 1. The Boy must separate himself from routine and the affection of others. He must be
alone.
o 2. This action of separation will move the boy into a “threshold of space,” where he will
be ready to mold himself into a man. Free of dependence or pride, the boy can begin his
transformation.
o 3. A religious/spiritual encounter is possible, desired, and required.
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Theology III
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4. The initiate will return to his initial group having been transformed into a man. The
true gift to his group will be the man he has become.
The Five Essential Messages of Initiation
o Life is hard
o You are not that important.
o Your life is not about you.
o You are not in control.
o You are going to die.
C.S. Lewis – “Man or Rabbit”
 Christian vs. Materialist (Relativism, Hedonism, Utilitarianism)
o “Can someone live a good life without being Christian?”
 Yes, but not the best life.
o Dishonest error: When one knows Christianity exists and refuses to accept it or at least
consider it and try to understand it as a viable way to exist, this is a dishonest error.
 Morality (“Good life”) – Not to there, but from there. Morality is not the telos, morality is a means
to an end (so it is ultimately insufficient), but it is not an end in and of itself. The end is love,
morality can assist us in getting there.
Sacramentality: Unit Three Objective Assessment – Review Sheet
Unit 3: What, If Anything, Am I Supposed To Do?
Unit 3 Essential Questions
If I do care, as a _____, what do I need to do?
Who’s to say? Why can’t I do whatever I want?
What forms and informs my conscience?
Who can tell me what good or bad is? How can anyone? How can I even tell what good or bad is?
Who am I becoming?
Relativism
 Personal/Cultural moral relativism: a person who maintains that there are no moral rules that apply
to al cultures or all people in one culture and that no country or person should impose their (or his)
moral rules on any other culture or person. No moral rules apply to everyone.
 Appealing facets of relativism:
o No science, no knowledge; if it can’t be proved using science, it isn’t true.
o Circumstances do make a difference; this is true. Although circumstances can affect the
morality of a given act, it doesn’t mean that they completely change the morality.
o Tolerance and Compassion; Jesus focused against hypocrisy, and he judged actions, not
people. Relativists do not judge people or actions.
 Unappealing facets of relativism:
o Relativism is self-contradictory
 No objective moral principles.
 Sets forth a moral principle that is objective.
o Relativism is impractical: You have to believe some things are ok in certain situations
which no one could ever believe, such as the Holocaust.
o Different cultures, different moral codes; this isn’t true, most cultures actually have
similar moral rules. Therefore there must be ethical ideals integrated into each person.
Freedom
 Popular Definition (Freedom) vs. Theological Definition (Free Will)
o Popular definition: the state of having little or no legal or physical restraints upon one’s
actions.
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Theology III
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Theological definition: the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, and so to
perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. A capacity to choose that is
particular to humans.
Philosophies that Oppose the Notion of Freedom
o Determinism: the idea that all human action is dictated by laws of nature (Isaac Newton).
o Conditioning/Behaviorism: General way of understanding human behavior.
 Classical Conditioning (Elephant) – Ivan Pavlov: a natural reaction in a person
or animal is elicited by an unnatural stimulus.
 Operant Conditioning (Rider) – B. F. Skinner: voluntary actions are manipulated
through a series of rewards and punishments.
Aristotle
 Telos/Teleology: All things have a purpose towards which they strive. For humans, this telos is
eudaimonia, or happiness.
 Character: “Ethos” in Greek. A fairly stable set of attitudes, opinions, and dispositions that result
in fairly stable patterns or ways of acting and reacting. In general, a person’s actions determine
their character, and their character determines their actions.
 Parts of a Human Being
o Rational (Rider): Reason. Distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.
o Non-Rational (Elephant):
 Appetitive: various appetites, desires, and emotions that a human feels.
 Vegetative: controls a person’s involuntary actions.
 Habituation: by repeatedly doing a certain action, we become habituated to do that activity.
Practice makes permanent.
 The Four Major Character Types
o Virtuous: knows what is right, do it, and feel good about it.
o Continent: knows what is right, does it, and does not feel good about it.
o Incontinent: knows what is right, doesn’t do it, and does not feel good about it.
o Vicious/Self-Indulgent: doesn’t know what is right, doesn’t do what is right, feels good
about it.
 The Golden Mean: the virtuous person will try to steer an intermediate or mean course between
two extremes. This intermediate way of feeling and acting is a “virtue,” and the two extremes on
either side of this intermediate are “vices.”
 Know Yourself: one should come to “know thyself” and learn to avoid those vices to which he or
she is particularly prone.
 The Bent Stick Remedy: A person who finds themselves indulging in a certain vice should try to
go completely on the other end of that virtue to the other vice. Just as if one whishes to straighten
out a bent stick, he or she will have to bend it all the way back in the opposite direction before it
will straighten. Hopefully in doing so, a person will find the Golden Mean.
Media as Conditioning/Behaviorism
 “General Principles of Media Literacy”
o All media are constructions; they don’t always reflect reality, but try to look as though
they do.
o The media construct reality; much of our model of reality comes from the media we've
seen, or that other people whom we take as models (our parents, our teachers) have seen.
o Audiences negotiate meaning; the worth of effect of media is dependent from person to
person.
o Media have commercial implications; media are often controlled by companies and
therefore need to make a profit in order to succeed.
o Media contain ideological or value messages; the media affirm the world as it is, the
status quo, the received wisdom, whatever is thought of by the media makers as the
consensus. And they become reinforcers of that status quo as a result.
Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
Theology III
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Media have social and political implications; media has important social and political
effects on our lives together in society and as members of the public because they
construct reality.
o Form and content are closely related; You will get a very different experience of a major
event by reading the newspapers, watching TV, listening to the radio, going A media
literate person asks: What about the form of this medium influences the content?
“The Merchants of Cool: A Report on the Creators & Marketers of Popular Culture for Teenagers”
o Cool Hunting/Culture Spies: People hired by companies who actively seek out the
trendsetters and what is “cool” in order that it may be used in marketing techniques by
companies.
 Trendsetters/Early Adopters: those who are ahead of the curve and who “set”
what is cool.
o Under-the-Radar Marketing: marketing that isn’t obvious or upfront. Product placement
for example is under-the-radar marketing.
o The Mook: the term used to describe the raunchy, immature, and idiotic caricature that
entertainment/advertising companies have found is most popular with young males.
o The Midriff: the term used to describe the sexualized and appearance-obsessed caricature
that entertainment/advertising companies have found is most popular with young
females.
o The Giant Feedback Loop: the term used to describe the reality whereby, “The media
watches kids and then sells them an image of themselves. Then kids watch those images
and aspire to be [those caricatures] in the TV set. And the media is there watching them
do that, in order to craft new images for them and so on.”
What Difference Does God Make to the Good?
 Natural Law: Belief that God placed in every human being an ability to determine right from
wrong using reason alone.
 Natural Virtues: Aristotelian virtues that assist in the leading of a good life.
 Theological Virtues: Faith, hope, charity (agape). Virtues from God that help to perfect the natural
virtues. We all have the ability to live a good life, and the theological virtues straighten out that
path.
o Faith: belief in God. Freely committing one’s entire self to God. Seeking to know and to
do God’s will.
o Hope: Desiring the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as happiness; placing trust in
Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of
God.
o Charity: Loving God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for
the sake of the love of God.
Immanuel Kant
 Kant vs. Aristotle
o In contrast to Aristotle, Kant believed the pursuit of the happy life was distinct from the
pursuit of a moral life. The life of reason and/or the virtuous life isn’t necessarily a happy
one.
 A Good Will
o Kant believed the telos of humanity to be a good will, in contrast to Aristotle who
believed it to be eudaimonia.
 Deontology: Focus on duty and intentions, not on the context/circumstances,
outcomes/consequences, or even the actions.
 Categorical Imperatives (General)/The Categorical Imperative (Specific)
o General: Moral rules/commands that must be followed by everyone in all situations.
o Specific:
 The Formula of Universal Law: Act only if you wish all people to do the exact
same at the same time. If the world could not cooperate in a correct manner if all
humans were to act in the same way, then do not act in that way.
Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
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Theology III
Formula of the End in Itself: Act in such a way that you treat humanity as an end
and never simply as a means.
Phillip Zimbardo
 Three Factors that Contribute to Evil:
o Dispositional: “The Bad Apples” – those who are inherently bad.
o Situational: “The Bad Barrel” – Situational factors that could cause a “good apple” to do
evil.
o Systematic: “The Bad Barrel-Makers” – the system that puts people in bad situations.
 Three Possible Responses to Evil
o Perpetrator of Evil: sees the evil and continues to expand upon it and to spread it.
o Passive Inaction: sees the evil and does nothing about it, thereby passively recognizing
that it is ok.
o Hero: the socio-centric everyday people who are willing act when others are passive, to
deviate from the norm, and defend moral principles.
Conscience
 Definition: the instinct within us to do good and avoid evil. The process of actively seeking to see
the truth and to think honestly. “What does God want me to do?” In order to have this, you must
be your own person. Be the man you want to be.
o Superego: not the same as conscience. Superego comes from the outside world and can
lead to good or bad things.
 Responsibility (objective) vs. Culpability (subjective)
o The responsibly of a person is always the same when they have chosen an immoral
action. However, the culpability can change as certain factors change.
 The Parts of a Moral (or Immoral) Act
o Object: what you have chosen to do; the concrete action.
o Intention: why you have chosen what to do; often times there are many intentions or
levels of intentions.
o Circumstances are secondary elements that affect the person or the action itself that have
the potential to increase or decrease the culpability of a person in a given situation.
 **Morally good actions will have a good object, will be done with the right intentions, and will be
done under proper circumstances.