MATSEC AM Religious Knowledge cheat sheet

Formation stages: oral tradition → written sources → editing/redaction → canon. The Documentary Hypothesis (J, E, D, P) is one model for the Pentateuch, not settled fact.

Canon criteria used in antiquity: apostolic origin, catholicity (universal use), liturgical reading, and doctrinal consistency. Trent (1546) fixed the Catholic canon including the deuterocanonicals.

Genres to identify: myth, etiological narrative, law code (casuistic vs apodictic), prophecy (oracle of judgment/salvation), wisdom saying, psalm lament/thanksgiving, apocalyptic, gospel, epistle.

Two senses of Scripture in Catholic exegesis: literal (author's intention) and spiritual (allegorical, moral, anagogical), with the literal sense as foundation.

Historical-critical methods: source, form, redaction, tradition-history, textual criticism. Narrative and canonical approaches read the final text as a unity.

Dei Verbum (1965) teaches that Scripture must be read in the same Spirit in which it was written, attending to content, unity of the whole Bible, and the analogy of faith.

Synoptic problem: Matthew, Mark and Luke share material; Markan priority plus a hypothetical Q source is the dominant solution; John is largely independent.

Textual transmission: Septuagint (LXX), Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Vulgate. Variants are assessed by manuscript age, geographic spread, and lectio difficilior.

Chalcedon (451) defines two natures, divine and human, in one person (hypostasis), without confusion, change, division or separation.

Key Christological heresies: Docetism (appearance only), Arianism (creature), Nestorianism (two persons), Monophysitism (one nature), Adoptionism.

Titles of Jesus: Christ/Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man (Daniel 7), Lord (Kyrios), Logos, Lamb of God, Suffering Servant.

The Kingdom of God is proclaimed as already present in Jesus' words and deeds and still future; parables, table fellowship and exorcisms are signs of it.

Ethical core of the Sermon on the Mount: Beatitudes, love of enemies, non-retaliation, golden rule, Lord's Prayer, the narrow gate.

Passion and resurrection: Last Supper, Gethsemane, trials before Sanhedrin and Pilate, crucifixion, empty tomb, resurrection appearances, ascension.

Miracle categories: healing, exorcism, nature miracles, raising the dead. They function as signs of the Kingdom and reveal Jesus' identity.

Parable interpretation: allegorising vs one-point reading; context in Luke's travel narrative and Matthew's kingdom discourse shapes meaning.

Pentecost (Acts 2) is the founding event of the Church's mission; the Spirit empowers witness from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Marks of the Church in the Nicene Creed: one, holy, catholic, apostolic.

Images of the Church: Body of Christ, Temple of the Spirit, People of God, Bride, Pilgrim Church, Sacrament of Salvation (Lumen Gentium).

Ministry structure: bishop, presbyter, deacon; apostolic succession through laying on of hands; Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome.

Vatican II documents: Lumen Gentium (Church), Gaudium et Spes (Church in the modern world), Nostra Aetate (non-Christian religions), Unitatis Redintegratio (ecumenism).

Ecumenism: unity in essentials, freedom in doubtful matters, charity in all; distinctions between conciliar fellowship, intercommunion limits and dialogue.

Sacraments: seven, grouped as initiation (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist), healing (penance, anointing) and service (orders, marriage).

Church–State and Church–world relations: subsidiarity, solidarity, common good, option for the poor, and the autonomy of earthly realities.

Three sources of moral knowledge: Scripture, tradition and reason, with natural law accessible to all; conscience is the proximate norm of morality.

Three fonts of a moral act: object, intention and circumstances. A good intention cannot justify an intrinsically evil object.

Natural law (Aquinas): the rational creature's participation in eternal law, known through basic goods such as life, knowledge, friendship and worship.

Conscience: must be formed and followed; invincible ignorance excuses, vincible ignorance does not; a conscience may be erroneous.

Double effect conditions: the act itself is morally good or neutral, the bad effect is not the means, intention is the good effect, and proportionality holds.

Virtue ethics: cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance) and theological virtues (faith, hope, charity); gifts and fruits of the Spirit.

Key moral issues treated in Catholic teaching: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, war (just war criteria), sexual ethics, bioethics, ecology (Laudato Si').

Just war criteria: legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, proportionality, last resort, discrimination between combatants and non-combatants.

Judaism: Tanakh (Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim), Talmud, covenant, monotheism, Sabbath, synagogue, rabbinic tradition, Shoah memory.

Islam: five pillars (shahada, salat, zakat, sawm, hajj), Qur'an as revelation, sunna, sharia, Sunni/Shi'a split over succession.

Hinduism: Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, dharma, karma, samsara, moksha, atman-Brahman, bhakti and yoga paths.

Buddhism: Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, anatta (no-self), anicca (impermanence), nirvana, Theravada and Mahayana schools.

Sikhism: Guru Nanak, ten Gurus, Guru Granth Sahib, ik onkar (one God), langar, khalsa.

Nostra Aetate (1965): affirms what is true and holy in other religions; rejects discrimination and antisemitism; calls for dialogue.

Dialogue types (per the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue): dialogue of life, of action, of theological exchange, of religious experience.

Distinguish exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism; Catholic teaching holds that salvation is mediated through Christ while affirming God's universal salvific will.

Secularisation thesis (Wilson, Berger): decline of religious authority in public life; counter-thesis of desecularisation (Berger) and post-secular society (Habermas).

Durkheim: religion as social glue, sacred/profane distinction, collective effervescence, totemism. Weber: Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, disenchantment.

Marx: religion as 'opium of the people', projection; Freud: religion as illusion and collective neurosis. These are critiques to be evaluated, not endorsed.

Religion and the media: mediatisation of religion, televangelism, online communities, religious authority reshaped by digital platforms.

Religion and politics: models of establishment, pluralism, separation; laïcité in France; religious freedom as a human right.

Religion and the arts: iconography, sacred music, architecture, literature; iconoclastic controversies; inculturation of the Gospel.

Migration and diaspora reshape religious landscapes; plural societies raise questions of integration, identity and religious literacy.

Religion and science: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration (Barbour's typology); Galileo case as a historical case study.

Arguments for God: cosmological (Aquinas' Five Ways, Kalam), teleological (design, fine-tuning), ontological (Anselm, Descartes, Plantinga's modal version), moral.

Problem of evil: logical problem (MacIntyre, Mackie) vs evidential; free-will, soul-making and greater-good defences; distinction between moral and natural evil.

Faith and reason: fides quaerens intellectum (Anselm), Thomist harmony, fideism, rationalism; Vatican I on faith and reason; Fides et Ratio (1998).

Divine attributes: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, simplicity, immutability, eternity (timeless vs everlasting).

Religious language: analogy (Aquinas), univocity, equivocity, verification and falsification challenges (Ayer, Flew), Wittgensteinian language games.

Religious experience: numinous (Otto), mystical, conversion; criteria for authenticity; challenge of naturalistic explanation.

Fundamental theology: revelation, credibility of faith, signs of credibility (miracles, resurrection, Church), and the act of faith as free and reasonable.

Atheism and agnosticism: New Atheism, agnosticism as suspension of judgment, and the distinction between proof and reasonable belief.