GOV 200 Exam 1

9. All worldviews must answer four philosophical dilemmas, each of which addresses a life concern in a final way. What does the Ontological question attempt to address in a final way?

Ontology attempts to provide final answers to questions of origins, or the ground of being and existence.

13. In considering final answers in the area of Ontology, there are few options from which to choose. Which below identifies these options?

Ontology responds with either naturalism or supernaturalism.

26. Which of the following best explains the phrase "ideas have consequences"?

Options a and c best explain this phrase

6. Which of the following correctly defines 'Pantheism'?

Pantheism is a doctrine which states that God is, or is in everything, and everything is God.

30. When considering the application of worldviews, what is meant by the level of Abstraction?

The level of Abstraction refers to that first critical stage of conceptualization where an intellectual begins to pull together and systematize a worldview, or vision for life.

35.Which of the following offers the best interpretation of Article 1, Section 8, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution?

This clause, often referred to as the general welfare and common defense clause, asserts that Congress has the exclusive authority to tax for purposes of achieving the common defense and general welfare of the United States as indicated in the subsequent seventeen clauses under this same Article

33.When considering the application of worldviews, what is meant by the level of Conglomerate?

This level refers to a most basic representation of the majority of the population, as most people fail to reflect intentionally upon what they believe and why, adopting instead ideas from various perspectives.

32.When considering the application of worldviews, what is meant by the level of Selection?

This level refers to how key intellectual thinkers choose from various worldviews to teach from.

51.What is meant by 'Biblical Christian presuppositional thinking'?

This phrase means that man receives his presuppositions from God in the form of written revelation.

23. True or False: Revelation presupposes rational communication, and rational communication is impossible if man is irrational. Biblical revelation presupposes rational man. Reason or rationality, then, is not negated by revelation, but, on the contrary is indispensable to it.

True

36. Complete the following phrase with the best option presented below: A Biblical perspective on economics

asserts freedom of enterprise, civil protection of private property, and lawful contracts.

42.What famous literary work did Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) write, which dominated European Christendom for nearly 800 years?

his famous City of God (413-426 A.D.)

44.Which of the following identifies the institutional structure and procedure of Biblical Christianity?

holy commonwealth approach to man and life

22. What is the difference, if any, between rationality and rationalism?

Rationalism asserts that man knows only by exercising his intellect, or rationale, and thus, knowledge is grounded in human reason alone. Rationality, on the other hand, claims a quality of reason, and is open to the view that an outside source for knowing, apart from human reason exists.

21. Which of the following best identifies Rationalism as an Epistemological possibility?

Rationalism maintains that man can understand all truth by simply taking thought in contemplation of nature in conjunction with his five physical senses.

Read the following quote by Nahum Sarna, a noted scholar of Jewish history, taken from his book Understanding Genesis (1970). Determine which option best describes or conveys his point of emphasis. The idea that there is an intimate, in fact, inextricable connection between the socio-moral condition of a people and its ultimate fate is one of the main pillars upon which stands the entire biblical interpretation of history.

Sarna is asserting that a Biblical interpretation of history is linked to an understanding of ideas and their consequences in the moral and social life of any society.

34.Consider the following quote by Dr. Francis Schaeffer found in his How Should We then Live? (1979) and identify which option below best explains his main point. A culture or an individual with a weak base can stand only when the pressure on it is not too great. As an illustration, let us think of a Roman bridge. The Romans built little humpbacked bridges over many of the streams of Europe. People and wagons went over these structures safely for centuries, for two millennia. But if people today drove heavily loaded trucks over these bridges, they would break. It is this way with the lives and value systems of individuals and cultures when they have nothing stronger to build on than their own limitedness, their own finiteness. They can stand when pressures are not too great, but when pressures mount, if then they do not have a sufficient base, they crash - just as a Roman bridge would cave in under the weight of a modern six-wheeled truck. Culture and freedoms of people are fragile. Without a sufficient base, when such pressures come only time is needed - and often not a great deal of time - before there is a collapse.

Schaeffer utilizes Roman methods of bridge-building to convey the critical role of ideas in supplying lasting answers to life. When these ideas, or worldviews for that matter, are found weak and wanting, they crash like a little Roman humpback bridge because life's pressures are too great.

48.Which of the following relationships between taxes and production is most accurate?

Taxes discourage production as opposed to encourage production because they negatively affect the incentives and actions of those from whom the taxes were taken and collected; corporations now cannot expand operations, people are discouraged from initiating new enterprises, employers do not expand employment opportunities, and wages tend to decline.

12. The Teleological dilemma deals with what life-question in a final way?

Teleology attempts to provide final answers to questions of purpose and destiny.

15. In considering final answers in the area of Teleology, there are few options from which to consider. Which below identifies these options?

Teleology responds with a kingdom of earth solution, or a kingdom of God approach.

28. What is meant by the phrase "institutional structure and procedure of life"?

The "institutional structure and procedure of life" is the total societal and relational expression of answers to all the basic questions in life which all worldviews must address.

24. What is the life-orientation of the Biblical Christian Worldview in contrast to a rationalistic worldview, or Rationalism?

The Biblical Christian Worldview structures all of life vertically, orienting man to God; God is the ultimate point of reference from which to organize all of life.

41.Which of the following is constitutional law, or located in the U.S. Constitution?

The Legislature of the United States shall have power to pass all laws which they shall judge necessary to the common defence and general welfare of the Union.

39. What is the role of the Preamble relative to interpreting the U.S. Constitution?

The Preamble represents the interpretive key to the entire text by asserting the six great grand objects the national government has been authorized to achieve through the various delegated powers.

38. What is the Biblical perspective relative to forms of civil-government?

The Scriptures seem to reveal that a constitutional form of civil-government, or a limited form of civil-government, is best; civil government is also under Law.

53.Ravi Zacharias conveyed five key characteristics of worldviews which dovetail with our discussion on the nature of shifts in worldviews. Of the five options presented below, which incorrectly explains why shifts in worldviews occur?

lacks Deviation, or corresponds too closely with reality, and therefore, subverts liberty

8. A worldview, properly speaking, has three sections. Which of the following is not representative of these?

the levels of application of worldviews

2. Which of the following correctly defines 'Presupposition'?

A presupposition is something assumed to be true beforehand as a basis of argument, discussion, or perspective.

1. Which of the following correctly defines the term 'Worldview'?

A worldview is a philosophy of life which attempts to address and answer the grand questions of life to direct man in organizing his relationships, or in the manner he should live and construct all of life.

7. Which of the following does not correctly identify the nature of, or definition of, a 'worldview'?

A worldview is the same as a presupposition.

29. Which of the following is not a fundamental characteristic of a worldview?

A worldview will attempt to be limited in its application. Rather than attempting to address the larger questions of life, it will focus mainly upon ethics and morals.

40. Which of the following is constitutional law, or located in the U.S. Constitution?

All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

4. Which of the following correctly defines 'Absolute'?

An absolute is synonymous with 'self-existent' and 'self-sufficient.' It also relates to existence without relation to any other being.

20. Which philosophical question presented below can best be equated with the following quote by Francis Schaeffer in Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979) If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase of child abuse and violence of all kinds, pornography . . . the routine torture of political prisoners in many parts of the world, the crime explosion, and the random violence which surrounds us.

Axiological question

11. The Axiological dilemma deals with what life-question in a final way?

Axiology attempts to deal with issues of ultimate value.

14. In considering final answers in the area of Axiology, there are few options from which to consider. Which below identifies these options?

Axiology responds with theism, humanism, or materialism

37. What is the Biblical perspective on liberty?

Biblically, liberty for individuals exists under law; law is defined as a pre-existing legal framework ordained by God for man.

5. Which of the following correctly defines 'Deism'?

Deism represents a belief in the existence of God while denying the relevance of special revelation; God is acknowledged as Creator, but not providential guide.

17. Which philosophical question presented below can best be equated with the following quote by Francis Schaeffer in How Should We then Live? (1976) But it is not only that we need absolutes in morals and values; we need absolutes if our existence is to have meaning-my existence, your existence, Man's existence. . . . How can we be certain that what we think we know really corresponds to what is there? And in all these layers, each more profound than the other, unless there is an absolute these things are lost to us: morals, values, the meaning of existence (including the meaning of man), and a basis for knowing.

Epistemological question

10. The Epistemological dilemma deals with what life-question in a final way?

Epistemology asserts ultimate answers to the question "How can I know what is true?"

50.True or False: Government credit (a subsidy or guarantee of private loans) does not divert or redirect production; as a matter of fact, private loans tend to be more frequently spent on dubious and frivolous projects.

False

43.Which of the following best captures the essence of the Biblical Christian Worldview?

God applies to the whole of life.

45.Which of the following properly defines the term 'jurisdiction'?

Jurisdiction refers to the lawful use of lawful authority.

31. At what level of worldview application would the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx (1818-1883) best be placed?

Karl Marx was an active writer and thinker, whose works produced a vision for life, and subsequently engaged the minds of others. Therefore, he operated at the level of abstraction.

16. Which of the following best identifies Naturalism as an Ontological possibility?

Naturalism asserts that some yet-to-be discovered impersonal force within the natural realm is productive of all that exists, including man.

3. Which of the following correctly defines 'Naturalistic'?

Naturalistic is defined as a view of the world that excludes or dispenses with the supernatural or spiritual.

47.Do public work projects, such as bridge-building for example, pursued to simply provide employment, actually add wealth to a community?

No! A bridge is what is immediately seen, but what is not immediately seen is the need to pay for this bridge and its bridge-builders out of taxpayer monies. For every dollar that is spent on the bridge is a dollar taken from taxpayers; therefore for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else. No real wealth has been created.

49.True or False: Government lending is vastly different from private lending, as the government almost invariably operates by different lending standards. The whole argument for its entering the lending business, in fact, is that it will make loans to people who could not get them from private lenders. This is only another way of saying that the government lenders will take risks with other people's money (the 'taxpayers') that private lenders will not take with their own money. After all, the people being lent to are poorer risks, less efficient in their production capacity, and lack good credit!

True

52.The whole argument of Hazlitt's book, Economics in One Lesson, may be summed up in the statement: "That in studying the effects of any given economic proposal we must trace not merely the immediate results but the results in the long run, not merely the primary consequences but the secondary consequences, and not merely the effects on some special group but the effects on everyone."

True

46.Consider the following quote by Gene Edward Veith Jr. taken from his Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (1994), and then answer the question below. Moreover, excluding transcendent values places societies beyond the constraint of moral limits. Society is not subject to the moral law; it makes the moral law. If there are no absolutes, the society can presumably construct any values that it pleases and is itself subject to none. All such issues are only matters of power. Without moral absolutes, power becomes arbitrary. Since there is no basis for moral persuasion or rational argument, the side with the most power will win. Government becomes nothing more than the sheer exercise of unlimited power, restrained neither by law nor by reason. ...To be sure, most postmodernists today do not explicitly advocate totalitarianism. On the contrary, they intend their positions to be liberating, freeing oppressed groups from the "one truth" proclaimed by oppressive cultural forces. And yet it is difficult to see how their premises could in any way support a free society. Clearly, democracy rests on the opposite of postmodernist tenets-on the freedom and dignity of the individual, on humane values, on the validity of reason, on God rather than the state as the source of all values, on a transcendent moral law that constrains both the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of individual passion.

Veith's main point is that the absence or denial of transcendent values and absolutes releases society from moral limitations and projects a government of unlimited authority or jurisdiction

19. Which philosophical option presented below can best be equated with the following quote by Nancy Pearcey in Total Truth? (2005) These days, even young children need to be primed to think critically. Several years ago I picked up a science book for my little boy Michael, and was shocked to discover that along with the science it gave a whopping dose of philosophical . . . . Titled The Bears' Nature Guide, the book featured the Berenstain Bears from the extremely popular children's picture book series. As the book opens, the Bear family invites us to go on a nature walk; and after turning a few pages, we come to a two-page spread with a dazzling sunrise and the words spelled out in capital letters: "Nature . . . is all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE!"

a naturalistic ontology

25. Which of the following philosophical statements is not part of the Biblical Christian Worldview?

a naturalistic ontology

18. Which philosophical option presented below can best be equated with the following quote by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781)? All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

a rationalistic epistemology