Chapter 8

DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION IN EARLY TIMES

1. State the type of Education

The types of education existent in the early times coincides or has the nature of Christology.
In this type of education, universality and being democratic are being seen. Moreover, it aims
at establishing the relationship of a person with a supreme being as a means of one’s salvation
as the primary focus. At the most earliest period, this type of education is informal
“conversational” in nature, often using parables of any sorts to explain the nature of an invisible
deity; in that instruction happens where the said is feasible, just like what The Lord Jesus did
to his Apostles. In its more advance stages, gnomic method has been used by the forefathers
of the church; this method uses concise statements of truth, maxims or adage. The said make
sense and pragmatics of the two types of education types that is existing in the early church
which comes in the form of both moral and religious.

2. Explain in your own words the aim, contents and methods of Christology.

The aims of early type of education called “Christology” is basically getting in touch with
the kingdom of God to get in touch with God Himself. This goes in the passage in Mathew
6:33 which states that “Seek ye first the kingdom and righteousness of God and all this things
will be added unto you”. The purpose of this kind of instruction and tenets is to foster individual
and social development in accordance with what is written in the bible.

3. What are the two types of education? And, what are these compromises?

The two types of education that has been mentioned, one prior to another is Christology
and Monastic Education. As said above, the first is more informal in nature or is in its crude
form where education and instruction is happening almost everywhere whenever it is possible
due to availability just like what Jesus did to his apostles. On the other hand, monastic
education is on the latter part of the Christian type of education; this is basically an
improvement of the prior type of education. It aimed at the salvation of individual soul and
goes in the form of moral and physical education based on mortification and worldly
renunciation for the sake of moral improvement.

4. Explain the aims, agencies and organization, and methods of early Christian Church.
For the period where basic form of Christian education called Christology are more
prominent, the aims is to seek the kingdom of God first, its content is based primarily on individual
and social development based on the context of religion and its method is informal conversational
method. On the other hand, in the early medieval period, the aims of education is salvation of
individual souls which is the basics of the monastic type of education; it uses catechetical method
or is basically called then question and answer method in today’s education.
5. State the brief history of the first two centuries after Christ.

In the first two centuries of education after Christ, two types of education occurs; one of this is
“Christology” and the other one is “Monastic”. As said above, Christology are more prominent,
the aims is to seek the kingdom of God first, its content is based primarily on individual and social
development based on the context of religion and its method is informal conversational method.
On the other hand, in the early medieval period, the aims of education is salvation of individual
souls which is the basics of the monastic type of education; it uses catechetical method or is
basically called then question and answer method in today’s education.
 Chapter 9
MODERN AND POST MODERN PHILOSOPHIES
1. Who are these contemporary philosophers in early time?
There exist several philosophies in early times, namely, Aristotle’s Philosophy and Plato’s
Philosophy.
2. State their view of philosophy in life
Aristotle who existed 384—322 B.C.E. is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making
contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture,
medicine, dance and theatre. He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more
empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms. As the father
of the field of logic, he was the first to develop a formalized system for reasoning. Aristotle observed that
the validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its content. A classic example of
a valid argument is his syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.
Given the structure of this argument, as long as the premises are true, then the conclusion is also guaranteed
to be true. Aristotle’s brand of logic dominated this area of thought until the rise of modern propositional
logic and predicate logic 2000 years later. Aristotle’s emphasis on good reasoning combined with his belief
in the scientific method forms the backdrop for most of his work. For example, in his work in ethics and
politics, Aristotle identifies the highest good with intellectual virtue; that is, a moral person is one who
cultivates certain virtues based on reasoning. And in his work on psychology and the soul, Aristotle
distinguishes sense perception from reason, which unifies and interprets the sense perceptions and is the
source of all knowledge. Aristotle famously rejected Plato’s theory of forms, which states that properties
such as beauty are abstract universal entities that exist independent of the objects themselves. Instead, he
argued that forms are intrinsic to the objects and cannot exist apart from them, and so must be studied in
relation to them. However, in discussing art, Aristotle seems to reject this, and instead argues for idealized
universal form which artists attempt to capture in their work. Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a
school of learning based in Athens, Greece; and he was an inspiration for the Peripatetics, his followers
from the Lyceum.
On the other hand Plato is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied
philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the
fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that
Socrates is usually the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus,
Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans. There are varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato's works
are authentic, and in what order they were written, due to their antiquity and the manner of their preservation
through time. Nonetheless, his earliest works are generally regarded as the most reliable of the ancient
sources on Socrates, and the character Socrates that we know through these writings is considered to be one
of the greatest of the ancient philosophers. Plato's middle to later works, including his most famous work,
the Republic, are generally regarded as providing Plato's own philosophy, where the main character in effect
speaks for Plato himself. These works blend ethics, political philosophy, moral psychology, epistemology,
and metaphysics into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. It is most of all from Plato that we get
the theory of Forms, according to which the world we know through the senses is only an imitation of the
pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the Forms. Plato's works also contain the origins of the familiar
complaint that the arts work by inflaming the passions, and are mere illusions. We also are introduced to
the ideal of "Platonic love:" Plato saw love as motivated by a longing for the highest Form of beauty—The
Beautiful Itself, and love as the motivational power through which the highest of achievements are possible.
Because they tended to distract us into accepting less than our highest potentials, however, Plato mistrusted
and generally advised against physical expressions of love.
3. Enumerate and explain types of modern philosophy
a. Empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are
about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or
propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience. This broad definition accords
with the derivation of the term empiricism from the ancient Greek word empeiria, “experience.”

b. Idealism, in philosophy, any view that stresses the central role of the ideal or the spiritual in the
interpretation of experience. It may hold that the world or reality exists essentially as spirit or
consciousness, that abstractions and laws are more fundamental in reality than sensory things, or,
at least, that whatever exists is known in dimensions that are chiefly mental—through and as ideas.

c. Existentialism in the broader sense is a 20th century philosophy that is centered upon the analysis
of existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The notion is that humans
exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or nature. In simpler
terms, existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through
free will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief is that people are searching to find out who
and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and
outlook. And personal choices become unique without the necessity of an objective form of truth.
An existentialist believes that a person should be forced to choose and be responsible without the
help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.

d. Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person

point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward
something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an
object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate
enabling conditions. Phenomenology as a discipline is distinct from but related to other key
disciplines in philosophy, such as ontology, epistemology, logic, and ethics. Phenomenology has
been practiced in various guises for centuries, but it came into its own in the early 20th century in
the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and others. Phenomenological issues of
intentionality, consciousness, qualia, and first-person perspective have been prominent in recent
philosophy of mind.

4. State the Post Modern Philosophy

Postmodern Philosophy is based from Subjective Truth. One of the themes in Postmodern
philosophy is a denial of universal, objective truth. This is clearly declared in Jean- Francois Lyotard’s
famous statement “incredulity towards metanarrative.”4 A metanarrative refers to a unifying story that
seeks to explain how the world is—in other words a metanarrative is a worldview. Lyotard suggests that
we should be skeptical of such broad explanations. For example, the statement “God so loved the world” is
nonsensical to Postmodernists for two reasons: (1) they deny the existence of God, and (2) statements
reflecting the whole world (metanarratives) are impossible.
 Postmodern Philosophy also uses Language and Deconstruction. Regarding literature,
Postmodernists are highly concerned with the language of written texts. The term defining the major literary
methodology of Postmodernists is deconstruction. Associated with the work of the French philosopher
Jacques Derrida, deconstruction involves reading a text to ferret out its hidden or multiple meanings
(polysemy). In this way, a reader’s interpretation of the text becomes more important than the text itself.
Also significant is the subjectivity of the reader in determining what the author intended. For example, a
reader may feel that a particular text really means an author is racist, even though the written text makes it
clear that the author deplores racism.

Postmodern Philosophy is Anti-Realism and the Construction of Reality. The concept of

deconstruction in Postmodern philosophy is taken far beyond the area of literature. Just as you, the reader,
are creating the meaning of this text, you also construct the world according to your culture and experiences.
In other words, there is no “real world” out there—only six billion constructions of the world, a belief
known as anti-realism.7

Postmodern Philosophy and Conclusion. As opposed to the relativism of Postmodern philosophy,

Christian students need to understand that according to the Christian worldview “Truth” exists. Nearly
everything about Christianity is universal in scope and application. God created the whole universe,
including men and women. Sin is a universal condition affecting every human being. God loved the whole
world, including every human being. Christ died for the sins of the whole world, not just one or two
particular communities. Christians are to love God with all their heart and mind and their fellow human
beings around the world.

5. What this philosophy says according to Davidson?

A coherence theory of truth states that the truth of any (true) proposition consists in its coherence
with some specified set of propositions. The coherence theory differs from its principal competitor, the
correspondence theory of truth, in two essential respects. The competing theories give conflicting accounts
of the relation that propositions bear to their truth conditions. (In this article, ‘proposition’ is not used in
any technical sense. It simply refers to the bearers of truth values, whatever they may be.) According to
one, the relation is coherence, according to the other, it is correspondence. The two theories also give
conflicting accounts of truth conditions. According to the coherence theory, the truth conditions of
propositions consist in other propositions. The correspondence theory, in contrast, states that the truth
conditions of propositions are not (in general) propositions, but rather objective features of the world. (Even
the correspondence theorist holds that propositions about propositions have propositions as their truth
conditions.) Although the coherence and correspondence theories are fundamentally opposed in this way,
they both present (in contrast to deflationary theories of truth) a substantive conception of truth. That is,
unlike deflationary theories, the coherence and correspondence theories both hold that truth is a property
of propositions that can be analyzed in terms of the sorts of truth-conditions propositions have, and the
relations propositions stand in to these conditions.
 Chapter 11
THEOLOGY
1. Explain the problem of the definitions of God.
God and His nature has problems in definitions if we are to gauge it from the definitions of
mankind. There are several viewpoints that are in effect as regards to this; these are Mysticism; the
ontological argument and The Theism.
According to Mysticism, the word God cannot be defined using words. However, according to
them, He can be experienced, encountered, named but the rest is impossible to do. According to the
Ontological point of view on the other hand, God is the greatest and most perfect being conceivable. Theism
on the other hand, see God as a person with attributes such as benevolence, knowledge, clarity,
righteousness, anger and jealousy.
2. Explain God as indefinable according to Mysticism.
Mysticism puts too much abstractness to the word God. To them, God can be experienced but not
described, encountered but not captured in a formula, named but not talked about in a way that would be
intangible to those who have not met him.
3. Differentiate God existence and God as creative and providence.
In treating divine action in the world, we must distinguish between creation, providence, and
miracle. Creation has typically been taken to involve God's originating the world (creatio originans) and
His sustaining the world in being (creatio continuans). A careful analysis of these two notions serves to
differentiate creation from conservation. Providence is God's control of the world, either through secondary
causes (providentia ordinaria) or supernaturally (providentia extraordinaria). A doctrine of divine middle
knowledge supplies the key to understanding God's providence over the world mediated through secondary
causes. Miracles are extraordinary acts of providence which should not be conceived, properly speaking,
as violations of the laws of nature, but as the production of events which are beyond the causal powers of
the natural entities existing at the relevant time and place.
4. Explain proof and disproof of God.
In the Metaphysical argument of the existence of God, things are considered such as: the
Cosmological Argument (God as the First Cause); the Argument from Contingency (God as Necessary
Being); the Argument from Motion (God as the Prime Mover); the Henological Argument (God as the One
and the Perfect).
The Cosmological Argument or First Cause Argument is a philosophical argument for the existence
of God which explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first
cause was itself uncaused. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the variants of the argument which
has been especially useful in defending the philosophical position of theistic worldviews. The word "kalam"
is Arabic for "speaking" but more generally the word can be interpreted as "theological philosophy."
On the theological perspectives, existence of God has also been tackled. Manichaean doctrine is
premised on a material and ethical dualism. The known cosmos is a mixture of two antithetical realms of
being, originally separate and eternally incompatible. The realm of light is a wholly good, harmonious
universe in which God, the father of greatness, dwells with innumerable light beings, which are one with
him in substance and character. The realm of darkness is a wholly evil, chaotic universe dominated by a
king of darkness and his female counterpart. At the beginning of time, the realm of darkness perceives and
covets the realm of light and attacks it, unaware of the harm that contact with it will bring to itself. The
prescient father of greatness fends off this aggression by putting forth a series of emanations to act out a
strategy of containment and ultimate reseparation of light and darkness. In the primordial battle, one of
these emanations enters into mixture with darkness, constraining it and forestalling a breach of the
boundaries of the realm of light. This mythological background explains the evident condition of the known
cosmos, in which everything is a mixture of conflicted substances and forces, engaged in a perpetual
struggle for mastery. The point of Manichaean instruction is learning to identify oneself with the forces of
light and goodness and striving for their ultimate reseparation from entanglement with darkness and evil.
5. Explain the theological arguments from suffering about God as nonexistent
On the theological perspectives, existence of God has also been tackled. Manichaean doctrine is
premised on a material and ethical dualism. The known cosmos is a mixture of two antithetical realms of
being, originally separate and eternally incompatible. The realm of light is a wholly good, harmonious
universe in which God, the father of greatness, dwells with innumerable light beings, which are one with
him in substance and character. The realm of darkness is a wholly evil, chaotic universe dominated by a
king of darkness and his female counterpart. At the beginning of time, the realm of darkness perceives and
covets the realm of light and attacks it, unaware of the harm that contact with it will bring to itself. The
prescient father of greatness fends off this aggression by putting forth a series of emanations to act out a
strategy of containment and ultimate reseparation of light and darkness. In the primordial battle, one of
these emanations enters into mixture with darkness, constraining it and forestalling a breach of the
boundaries of the realm of light. This mythological background explains the evident condition of the known
cosmos, in which everything is a mixture of conflicted substances and forces, engaged in a perpetual
struggle for mastery. The point of Manichaean instruction is learning to identify oneself with the forces of
light and goodness and striving for their ultimate reseparation from entanglement with darkness and evil.
6. Explain the nature of religious experience
According to the literature, general definition of religious experience is: Religious experience is
the backdrop and basis for particular experience, just as vision is the general faculty that makes it possible
to focus on this or that particular object. It is more readily available to people in general. Not everyone has
had religious experience in general such as mystical experience. Note that, specific religious experience is
not pertinent here because the thing is so wide in scope.

7. What do you meant by experience of God?

Experience of God is getting in connection to one’s believed to be an all-powerful deity that is able
to influence the causation or events that in turn also affects the way one conducts his or her life.
8. Differentiate general and specific experience

General experience of God and religion is a backdrop and basis for particular experience, just as
vision is the general faculty that makes it possible to focus on this or that particular object. Specific
experience on the other hand varies from person to person and has its own level of intensity or levels.
9. Differentiate cosmological and metaphysical argument.
Cosmological argument is actually just a compoment of the Metaphysical argument of the existence
of God. Along with other concerns such as the Argument from Contingency, the Argument from Motion
and the Henological Argument or God as the One and the Perfect. The Cosmological Argument or First
Cause Argument is a philosophical argument for the existence of God which explains that everything has a
cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused. The Kalam
Cosmological Argument is one of the variants of the argument which has been especially useful in
defending the philosophical position of theistic worldviews. The word "kalam" is Arabic for "speaking" but
more generally the word can be interpreted as "theological philosophy."

TRANCENDING TOWARDS END

1. What are the meanings of religion?

a) "[Religion is] the belief in Spiritual Beings" (Edward B Tylor, Primitive Culture)
b) "By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which
are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life" (James George Frazer,
The Golden Bough).
c) "[Religion is] the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as
they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine."
(William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience)
d) "A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say,
things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral
community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." (b) [Religion is] "the self-validation
of a society by means of myth and ritual." (Émile Durkeim, The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life)
e) "[Religion is] "the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all
other concerns as preliminary, and a concern that in itself provides the answer to the question
of the meaning of our existence." (Paul Tillich)
f) "[Religion is] a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and longlasting
moods and motivations.... by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and
clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem
uniquely realistic." (Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System")
g) "Religion, like culture, is a symbolic transformation of experience." (Thomas F. O'Dea, The
Sociology of Religion)
h) "[Religion is] a system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a
community) orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary
powers, meanings, and values." (Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion)
i) "Religion is a means to ultimate transformation." (Frederick Streng, Understanding Religious
Life)
j) [Religion is] a means of ultimate transformation and/or orientation." (Joseph Adler, "Varieties
of Spiritual Experience: Shen in Neo-Confucian Discourse")

2. Explain the different religious experience.

 There are two broad category of religious experience. We have the general which conforms with
the known literatures as regards to the general religious tenets and beliefs of one’s religion. We also
have the specific religious experience in which there are multiple and varied kinds and cases; this
sometimes does not conform to the general norms.

3. What are the six transcendent experience? Explain.

a. Perennialist transcendence
Sometimes have spiritual experiences, either within or outside of a religious context. These
experiences point to a divine reality beyond all parochial religious dogmas, to a God beyond all names.
After having had such an experience, you may choose to join a particular religious group, while still
believing in people’s ability to find God in other religious traditions; or you may be hostile to religions for
their claims to exclusive truth. Your spiritual life may be quite eclectic, for example combining Christian
worship with Buddhist meditation. You may shift from a more Christian, personal idea of God, to a more
apophatic or transcendent idea of God. You’re more likely to believe in reincarnation than an Abrahamic
heaven / hell.
Examples: Ken Wilber, Aldous Huxley, Bede Griffiths
b. Pantheist / animist transcendence
Transcendent or spiritual experiences point to a spirit or greater consciousness beyond the human,
but not beyond nature. Rather, nature is in some sense spirit. God is ‘all that there is’. Transcendent
experience might connect you to a particular spirit within nature, or to the spirit or energy of nature itself.
You may be a panpsychist, believing all matter is animate. When we die, our energy returns to nature rather
than surviving in any sort of personal immortality.
Examples: Philip Pullman, Hayao Miyazaki
c. Romantic transcendence
You are not quite sure what is out there, but you have a sense or intimation that there is some
spiritual dimension or transcendental or nominal reality beyond phenomenal appearances. This
transcendent reality may be transcendent to nature, or in some sense it may be nature itself. Humans cannot
really know this transcendent reality directly or logically, but can have intimations of the Noumenal through
emotional experiences in the arts (both creating art and encountering it) or in nature. However, it may be a
false intimation – it is not entirely clear. We must resist the impatient grasping after rational certainty.
Examples: Wordsworth (who arguably shifted between this position, pantheist transcendence, and
then finally religious transcendence), Keats
d. Platonic or rational transcendence
Newton said that there is transcendental realm of divine reality beyond transient appearances, and
the best way to access it is through the pure reason of math/s and logic. The cosmos obeys the mathematical
laws of this divine realm, and we can discover it by discovering the laws of the cosmos. Emotions and
desires cloud our reason and our ability to access this reality. However, we might sometimes have intuitions
or ecstatic experiences which give us sudden access to divine truths.
 Examples: Plato, Newton
e. Transcendent humanism
Humans have a unique capacity to create the transcendent, through artistic effort, but more broadly
simply through noticing and appreciating life. This doesn’t point to anything supernatural, it is a simple
appreciation of the luminous beauty of moments. The transcendent or numinous is not ‘out there’ – rather,
we make it. The fact that we die, and all these moments disappear ‘like tears in rain’ (as Roy puts it in
Bladerunner), only makes these experiences more poignant and moving.
Examples: Kenan Malik, Sanderson Jones of the Sunday Assembly, Jeanette Winterson (possibly)
f. Ego-transcendence
When humans have transcendent experiences, they are transcending their usual ego structures and
achieving altered states where ordinary ego-consciousness is disrupted. You may interpret these altered
states either as ‘peak experiences’ or ‘flow states’ or even as a glimpse into the non-existence of self. Such
states or experiences may happen spontaneously or through practices like meditation or drugs or sex or
sports. Glimpsing the non-existence of self can be either liberating or terrifying. At its best, we get liberated
from the ego and filled with love for other beings – either a particular being (like our child) or even all
beings. You are skeptical of any claims about the survival of consciousness after death.
Examples: Sam Harris, Abraham Maslow, most western secular Buddhists
4. What are the basic forms of religious life?
a. Synodal Piety: the quality or state of being pious in which there is always adherence to an assembly
of ecclesiastics or other church delegates, convoked pursuant to the law of the church, for the
discussion and decision of ecclesiastical affairs; ecclesiastical council.
b. Strict Ritualism
c. Ascetical Piety the quality or state of being pious wherein there is a practice of strict self-denial as
a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline
d. Evangelical Path, wherein there is strict adherence to the biblical passages