LC Religious Education flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Philosophical anthropology

The study of what a human person is. Materialist, dualist and relational accounts give different answers, shaping what religions and ethicists say about meaning, freedom and the soul.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes' claim that 'I think, therefore I am'. Doubting everything shows the doubter exists, making the thinking self the one indubitable foundation for knowledge.

Existence precedes essence

Sartre's existentialist principle that humans are not born with a fixed nature or purpose. We exist first, then create our own meaning and are responsible for that freedom.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

A model ordering human needs from physiological and safety through belonging and esteem to self-actualisation, with later revisions adding cognitive, aesthetic and transcendence needs.

Logotherapy

Viktor Frankl's approach holding that the primary human drive is the will to meaning, found through work, relationships, and the attitude taken toward unavoidable suffering.

Synoptic problem

The puzzle of why Matthew, Mark and Luke share so much material and order. The dominant Two-Source Hypothesis proposes Markan priority plus a lost sayings source called Q.

Council of Nicaea

The 325 CE council that defined the Son as homoousios, of the same substance as the Father, against Arius. Its creed became a foundation of mainstream Christian belief.

Council of Chalcedon

The 451 CE council defining Christ as one person in two natures, divine and human, without confusion, change, division or separation. This formula underlies mainstream Christology.

Sola scriptura

A Reformation principle meaning 'scripture alone'. It holds the Bible is the supreme authority in matters of faith and practice, over against church tradition and papal teaching.

Second Vatican Council

The 1962-65 council that produced Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, Sacrosanctum Concilium and Nostra Aetate, promoting liturgical reform, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.

Ecumenism

The movement seeking visible unity among separated Christian churches, for example through the World Council of Churches founded in 1948. Distinct from interreligious dialogue.

Four Noble Truths

Buddhist teaching that suffering exists, craving causes it, it can cease, and the Eightfold Path leads to that cessation. They form the core framework of Buddhist doctrine.

Five Pillars of Islam

Shahada (declaration of faith), salat (prayer), zakat (almsgiving), sawm (fasting in Ramadan) and hajj (pilgrimage). These are core obligations for mainstream Muslims.

Guru Granth Sahib

The Sikh scripture revered as the eternal Guru after the ten human Gurus. It contains hymns by Guru Nanak and other figures and is treated as a living authority.

Ninian Smart's dimensions

Seven dimensions for comparing religions: doctrinal, mythological, ethical, ritual, experiential, institutional and material. They provide a balanced framework for study.

Abrahamic religions

A category grouping Judaism, Christianity and Islam by their shared reference to Abraham. It is a useful but imperfect label, not an insider self-description of these traditions.

Moksha

In Hindu traditions, liberation from samsara, the cycle of rebirth. It is pursued through paths such as knowledge, devotion and disciplined action, and is the ultimate goal.

Natural law

Aquinas' ethics holding that reason grasps basic human goods. Its primary precept is that good is to be done and evil avoided, with secondary precepts applied to cases.

Categorical imperative

Kant's test of moral maxims: act only on principles you could will as universal law, and treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.

Utilitarianism

The ethical theory that the right action maximises overall welfare. Bentham and Mill developed it; act- and rule-utilitarians disagree on whether acts or rules are assessed.

Virtue ethics

Aristotle's approach focusing on character rather than acts or consequences. Virtues are stable dispositions cultivated by habit and guided by practical wisdom, aiming at flourishing.

Three fonts of morality

Catholic analysis of a moral act through object, intention and circumstances. An intrinsically evil object cannot be made good by a good intention or favourable circumstances.

Double effect

A principle permitting an act with a good effect and a foreseen bad side-effect when the act is good, the bad is not the means, intention is good, and proportionality holds.

Kohlberg's moral stages

Three levels of moral reasoning: pre-conventional (punishment, self-interest), conventional (approval, law and order) and post-conventional (social contract, universal principles).

Complementarianism

The view that men and women have equal dignity but distinct, non-interchangeable roles, often including male headship in family and church. Contrasted with egalitarianism.

Imago Dei

Latin for 'image of God'. Genesis 1:27 grounds equal human dignity in being made male and female in God's image, though the text has been read in conflicting ways.

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

The 1994 Catholic document stating the Church has no authority to ordain women. It illustrates the distinction between equal dignity and restricted roles in Catholic teaching.

Feminist hermeneutics

Approaches to scripture and tradition that reinterpret texts, recover women's history, and critique patriarchal power. Naming which strategy is used sharpens analysis.

Subsidiarity

Catholic social principle that decisions should be made at the lowest competent level, with higher bodies intervening only to support. Formalised in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931.

Just war theory

The tradition from Augustine and Aquinas holding war may sometimes be justified if authority, cause, intention, proportionality, last resort and chance of success are satisfied.

Preferential option for the poor

Catholic social teaching and liberation theology principle that moral priority belongs to the poor and vulnerable, shaping how economic and political structures are judged.

Structural sin

The idea that injustice can be embedded in institutions, laws and economies, not only in individual choices. Liberation theology uses it to analyse systemic poverty and oppression.