Quiz: The Essence of Christianity

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. Why does Feuerbach say every prayer is an incarnation of God? Prayer is addressed to Christ rather than to the Father In prayer God is made to share human distress Prayers must be spoken in human words to be heard The Church requires prayer at every celebration of the Eucharist
2. What is God as the antithesis of man, the impersonal and passionless God, according to chapter 2? The projection of the will to power The nature of the understanding regarded as objective The image of the absolute monarch ruling over his subjects The nature of feeling made objective and worshipped as a person
3. How does Feuerbach describe what his book does to the Christian religion? It restores it to the primitive purity of the apostolic age It translates it from imagery into plain speech It refutes its historical claims about miracles and the resurrection It reconciles it with Hegel’s philosophy of absolute spirit
4. With what modern institutions does Feuerbach say Christianity is in flagrant contradiction? Fire and life assurance companies, railroads and steam-carriages Banks, stock exchanges, joint-stock companies and the national debt Universities, scientific academies, observatories and botanical gardens Parliaments, free newspapers, public schools and lending libraries
5. What, according to Feuerbach, did Zwingli do when he called the Lord’s Supper merely subjective in significance? Said plainly what his opponents said mystically Proved the real presence by reason Restored the Catholic doctrine in disguise Contradicted the whole Christian tradition
6. What does Feuerbach contrast with the heathen philosopher’s words on his child’s death? Christ weeping at the death of Lazarus Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah Job cursing the day of his birth amid his losses Socrates praying to the gods before he drank the hemlock
7. Whose authority does Feuerbach cite to dismiss the religiousness of elephants? Pliny Linnaeus Cuvier Buffon
8. What does Feuerbach conclude from the execution of Servetus? It was an accident Calvin tried to prevent It was a purely political act of the Genevan senate against a foreign agitator It was a Catholic crime that the Protestant churches openly opposed It was a work of Reformed, biblical faith, not personal hatred
9. How does chapter 3 contrast the law and love? The law and love are identical in God The law holds man in bondage; love makes him free The law belongs to the heart, love to the understanding The law makes man free; love makes him dependent
10. Which Catholic contradiction does Feuerbach trace to the dogma of the Virgin Mother? That marriage and celibacy are both holy That faith and works both save That the Pope is both a priest and a king That Scripture and tradition are both authoritative
11. How does Feuerbach mock the Catholic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper compared with the Protestant? 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 It needs Latin words to work
12. What comparison does Feuerbach use to show why the “how” of creation seems incomprehensible? A painter who paints a landscape without any colours A seed that is expected to grow into a stone or a metal A clock that winds and regulates itself without a watchmaker A flute expected to sound like a bassoon or trumpet
13. What does Feuerbach say about Kant’s critique of the proofs of God’s existence? Kant was rightly refuted by Hegel Kant proved God’s existence by practical reason, which settles the matter Kant misunderstood the ontological proof entirely Kant was right, but his point was self-evident rather than remarkable
14. According to chapter 6, where does God have a substantial meaning? Where the Church is united with the state under a Christian monarch Where philosophy has reached its completion Where people live in comfort, security and settled prosperity Where there is abstraction from the substance of real life
15. According to chapter 23, when alone do we reach a true identity of the divine and human being? When God is thought as a real personality When speculative philosophy completes religion When we recognise anthropology as itself theology When the Church unites faith and reason

0 of 15 answered