Instructions
Answer one of the following prompts in 5–6 pages (no more than 6 pages), with standard formatting: 1 inch margins, doublespaced, 12 point font, etc.
A 5–6 page paper gives you more space to work with than a 2–3 page paper. This is an opportunity to pack in more content, not an opportunity to abandon the virtue of careful concise prose that was demanded by the 2–3 page paper.
It is not my intent that this be a research paper. Extra reading is not required. The goal here is careful reading and analysis of primary texts. If you do make use of other sources (even if you don’t end up discussing them directly), please cite those sources.
Prompts
- According to Aquinas, it is possible for God to create something such that it has no beginning to its existence. According to Henry of Ghent, this is not possible. Present and evaluate this disagreement. (Some leading questions: What are the fundamental points of disagreement between Aquinas and Ghent? What is Ghent’s argument against Aquinas’s view? Is it a good argument?)
- Scotus presents a series of objections to Boethius’s view that God knows future contingents by seeing them from eternity. What are those objections? Which is the most powerful? How might Boethius reply?
- Ghazali claims that the will is a power to differentiate among similars; Averroes denies this. Explain each view and the arguments given by each philosopher for his view. Who is correct? Why?
- Suppose time comes to be with the world. Does that help solve the puzzle of why the world came to be when it did? Ghazali argues that it does not. Explain and evaluate his response.
- According to Ockham, the truth, today, of ‘Antichrist will come’, does not entail that Antichrist must come. Likewise, according to Ockham, the truth, today, of ‘God knows that Antichrist will come’ does not entail that Antichrist must come. Explain why, on Ockham’s account, each of these entailments does not hold. Suppose God tells you, today, that Antichrist will come. Does that entail that Antichrist must come?
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