Quiz: The Essence of Christianity

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Why are there, “in strictness,” only two sacraments?

   Because only two are mentioned by Paul in his letters to Corinth Because only two use natural materials such as water, bread and wine Because Luther abolished the others Because religion has two subjective elements, faith and love
2. 2. What do bread and wine symbolise in Feuerbach’s natural reading of the Supper?

   The pure force of Nature alone The poverty of the early Church Nature transformed by man: Nature gives the material, mind the form The blood and flesh of a sacrificed God
3. 3. What practical principle does Feuerbach call “the axis on which revolves the history of the world”?

   Faith alone justifies Homo homini Deus est: man is a god to man Know thyself Man is a wolf to man
4. 4. What does Part I of the work show, according to the preface?

   That religion arose from the cult of human sacrifice That God is unknowable to man That the true sense of theology is anthropology That the Gospels are fabrications of the second-century Church
5. 5. What do historical critics like Daumer and Ghillany claim about the Lord’s Supper?

   That Luther misunderstood its meaning when he rejected transubstantiation That it was invented by the medieval Church to strengthen priestly power That it was borrowed from the cult of Mithras That it descends from an ancient cult of human sacrifice
6. 6. Whose authority does Feuerbach cite to dismiss the religiousness of elephants?

   Buffon Linnaeus Cuvier Pliny
7. 7. To what does Feuerbach compare feeling and religion in chapter XV?

   Music, which expresses what cannot be said Childhood, which trusts its parents and knows no doubt or criticism Dreaming, in which one’s own activity seems to come from outside Drunkenness, which dissolves the boundaries of the self in ecstasy
8. 8. Whose letter consoling Cicero on his daughter’s death does Feuerbach quote?

   Aulus Cornelius Celsus Sulpicius Seneca the Younger Titus Pomponius Atticus
9. 9. Which Catholic contradiction does Feuerbach trace to the dogma of the Virgin Mother?

   That faith and works both save That marriage and celibacy are both holy That Scripture and tradition are both authoritative That the Pope is both a priest and a king
10. 10. How does Feuerbach describe what his book does to the Christian religion?

    It restores it to the primitive purity of the apostolic age It refutes its historical claims about miracles and the resurrection It translates it from imagery into plain speech It reconciles it with Hegel’s philosophy of absolute spirit
11. 11. What does Feuerbach conclude from the execution of Servetus?

    It was a Catholic crime that the Protestant churches openly opposed It was a work of Reformed, biblical faith, not personal hatred It was a purely political act of the Genevan senate against a foreign agitator It was an accident Calvin tried to prevent
12. 12. How does Feuerbach contrast the Greek and Israelite attitudes to Nature?

    The Greeks feared Nature as hostile; the Israelites worshipped it in sacred groves Both regarded Nature as the product of a divine command and so beneath study The Greeks contemplated it theoretically; the Israelites saw it through practical need The Israelites studied Nature scientifically, while the Greeks ignored it for politics
13. 13. To what does Feuerbach reduce the doctrine of election by grace?

    Chance Reason Natural law Merit
14. 14. Whom does Feuerbach call the founder of monachism?

    St Bernard St Jerome St Anthony St Benedict
15. 15. What does Feuerbach say lies in faith?

    The seed of political freedom A malignant principle A principle of universal love The origin of reason
16. 16. How does Feuerbach describe the relation between God and heaven?

    They are identical: God is the implicit heaven, heaven the explicit God Heaven is God’s first creation, a place wholly distinct from his own being Heaven is a pagan idea that Christianity rejected God rules heaven as a king rules a distant province, through ministering angels
17. 17. What is God as the antithesis of man, the impersonal and passionless God, according to chapter 2?

    The nature of the understanding regarded as objective The image of the absolute monarch ruling over his subjects The projection of the will to power The nature of feeling made objective and worshipped as a person
18. 18. Why does Feuerbach say every prayer is an incarnation of God?

    In prayer God is made to share human distress The Church requires prayer at every celebration of the Eucharist Prayer is addressed to Christ rather than to the Father Prayers must be spoken in human words to be heard
19. 19. What does Feuerbach contrast with the heathen philosopher’s words on his child’s death?

    Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah Socrates praying to the gods before he drank the hemlock Christ weeping at the death of Lazarus Job cursing the day of his birth amid his losses
20. 20. According to chapter 23, when alone do we reach a true identity of the divine and human being?

    When we recognise anthropology as itself theology When the Church unites faith and reason When speculative philosophy completes religion When God is thought as a real personality
21. 21. Whose tears did the Council of Nicaea cite in defence of religious images?

    Augustine’s, before a painting of the crucifixion in the church at Milan Jerome’s, before an image of the Virgin and Child in Bethlehem Gregory of Nyssa’s, before an image of the sacrifice of Isaac Ambrose’s, before a mosaic of the Last Judgment in his cathedral
22. 22. Why does the religious person fail to see that religion is self-knowledge?

    Ignorance of this identity is fundamental to religion Only philosophers trained in speculation can perceive the infinite Self-knowledge is impossible for finite beings bound to the senses Theologians deliberately hide it from ordinary believers
23. 23. How does Feuerbach mock the Catholic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper compared with the Protestant?

    It needs Latin words to work Its God, as an external object, can be devoured by a mouse It allows communion without faith only on feast days Its priests drink the wine and leave the bread
24. 24. Which name for God does Feuerbach call the most intimate in prayer?

    “Creator” “Father” “Lord” “Judge”
25. 25. What does Feuerbach say about Kant’s critique of the proofs of God’s existence?

    Kant was right, but his point was self-evident rather than remarkable Kant was rightly refuted by Hegel Kant proved God’s existence by practical reason, which settles the matter Kant misunderstood the ontological proof entirely
26. 26. Which pair does Feuerbach cite to show how philosophy united men across social ranks before Christianity?

    Philo and Seneca, both Jews Socrates and Pericles Epictetus the slave and Antoninus the emperor, both Stoics Plato and Aristotle
27. 27. How does Feuerbach describe believers and unbelievers in social terms?

    Believers are citizens, unbelievers foreigners Believers are servants, unbelievers masters Believers are aristocrats, unbelievers plebeians Believers are priests, unbelievers laymen
28. 28. What comparison does Feuerbach use to show why the “how” of creation seems incomprehensible?

    A flute expected to sound like a bassoon or trumpet A clock that winds and regulates itself without a watchmaker A painter who paints a landscape without any colours A seed that is expected to grow into a stone or a metal
29. 29. What does Feuerbach call “the first criterion of truth”?

    Agreement with another, who represents the species The inner certainty of the believing heart before God The authority of Scripture as interpreted by the Church The testimony of the senses alone, unmixed with reasoning
30. 30. How does chapter 3 contrast the law and love?

    The law holds man in bondage; love makes him free The law makes man free; love makes him dependent The law and love are identical in God The law belongs to the heart, love to the understanding
31. 31. Which biblical miracle does Luther cite as proof that God subjects his will to human prayer?

    The raising of Lazarus Water turned into wine at Cana The sun standing still at Joshua’s word The parting of the Red Sea
32. 32. In what order, according to Feuerbach, do man and God create each other?

    Man consciously invents God as a political device, and priests then make man in God’s image God creates man, and man then discovers God by reason and the study of nature Man first unconsciously creates God in his image; then God creates man in his Both arise at once from the Absolute Idea
33. 33. According to chapter 6, where does God have a substantial meaning?

    Where there is abstraction from the substance of real life Where the Church is united with the state under a Christian monarch Where people live in comfort, security and settled prosperity Where philosophy has reached its completion
34. 34. Which person of the Trinity does Feuerbach call the real personal God of Christians?

    The Father The Holy Spirit None of them; God is impersonal substance Christ
35. 35. For whose sake, Feuerbach argues, does religious Providence act?

    For all animals and plants equally, without distinction of rank For the angels alone For the preservation of the laws of Nature For man, and among men especially for the religious
36. 36. If God were an object to the bird, what would he be?

    A creature of the air and light A being without form A human being with wings A winged being
37. 37. What does creation out of nothing express, according to Feuerbach?

    The rational order that natural science progressively discovers in the world The nothingness of the world before an unlimited subjective will The eternity and self-sufficiency of matter, which needs no maker The equality of all creatures before God
38. 38. What image does Feuerbach use as the “mathematical symbol of miracle”?

    A triangle inscribed within a circle A point without position or magnitude A circle in a straight line A line without end that returns upon itself
39. 39. Why does Feuerbach call the gods of Olympus “real persons” in contrast to the persons of the Trinity?

    They were created by poets They existed apart from each other as individuals They were worshipped by a whole nation They had human bodies in statues
40. 40. From what, according to Feuerbach, did Jacob Böhme receive his mystical light?

    The reading of Paracelsus A comet seen over Görlitz The shining of tin utensils A fever during the plague
41. 41. Through what does the ego attain consciousness of the world, according to chapter 8?

    Through sense-perception of nature Through consciousness of the thou Through solitary reflection Through the idea of God
42. 42. What does Feuerbach say the Holy Spirit does in the Trinity?

    Unites the human and divine natures in Christ Embodies the love of the believer for God Represents the Church as a person Spoils the symmetry, expressing only the relation of Father and Son
43. 43. How does Feuerbach answer Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” in the Appendix?

    “I eat, therefore I am” “I feel, therefore I am” “I act, therefore I am” “I believe, therefore I am”
44. 44. With what modern institutions does Feuerbach say Christianity is in flagrant contradiction?

    Universities, scientific academies, observatories and botanical gardens Parliaments, free newspapers, public schools and lending libraries Banks, stock exchanges, joint-stock companies and the national debt Fire and life assurance companies, railroads and steam-carriages
45. 45. According to chapter 26, to whom does faith apply the maxim “Love your enemies”?

    Only to fellow Christians who sin Only to rulers and magistrates Only to personal enemies, not to the enemies of God To all men without exception
46. 46. What must happen to man so that God may be all?

    Man must die Man must be perfect Man must be nothing Man must know himself
47. 47. What, for Feuerbach, distinguishes human consciousness from that of brutes?

    Man alone has instincts that never err in seeking what preserves his life Man alone can discriminate by the senses Man has his species, his essential nature, as an object of thought Man alone feels himself as an individual distinct from all other beings
48. 48. Whose doctrine of God does Feuerbach describe as made up of innumerable “potences” yet thoroughly impotent?

    Kant’s Schelling’s Spinoza’s Hegel’s
49. 49. What, according to Feuerbach, did Zwingli do when he called the Lord’s Supper merely subjective in significance?

    Proved the real presence by reason Said plainly what his opponents said mystically Restored the Catholic doctrine in disguise Contradicted the whole Christian tradition
50. 50. Which biblical story does Feuerbach cite as once believed as firmly as the Incarnation?

    Elijah’s chariot of fire Jonah and the whale Balaam’s talking ass The fall of Jericho