"The Catholic view of sexuality, with its inhuman demand for fidelity and commitment to a single person, has been a great source of oppression. Commitments are chains that bind us to some and exclude us from others. Full sexual growth requires, to the contrary, a liberation from emotional ties and the freedom to engage without guilt in physically and emotionally pleasureable activities. Only thus can we achieve true sexual maturity."

3. One popular modern conception of human freedom is that freedom is our ability as autonomous individuals to do what we want to do and the ability to decree by our choices what is good or evil for us. So conceived, freedom is in conflict with any law--including God's law--that is imposed on us from without and constrains our choices. Even when such constraints are justifiable, they impede, rather than enhance, our freedom and moral autonomy.

In Veritatis Splendor Pope John Paul rejects this conception of freedom or moral autonomy as fallacious and detrimental to human flourishing. He claims, to the contrary, that obedience to genuine or true law actually enhances human freedom. Explain his argument for this claim and lay out the alternative conception of freedom and law that undergirds it.
 

4. Secular philosophy, as represented by (a) Cicero's Hortensius, (b) the Academic skeptics, and (c) the writings of the "Platonist philosophers" played a major role in Augustine's intellectual and spiritual journey toward the Catholic faith. In each of these three cases, show what new horizons the philosophers in question opened up for Augustine and also explain why in the end he found their doctrines too limited to provide a satisfying worldview in their own right.
 

5. Ponder the following passage from Book 6 of Augustine's Confessions and explain both (a) its significance in Augustine's ongoing personal search for wisdom and (b) its general implications for the question of how faith and authority are related to reason:

"From this time on I found myself preferring the Catholic doctrine, realising that it acted more modestly and honestly in requiring things to be believed which could not be proved, than the Manichees, who derided credulity and made impossible promises of certain knowledge and then called upon men to believe so many utterly fabulous and absurd things because they could not be demonstrated. Next, Lord, with gentle and most merciful hand You worked upon my heart and rectified it. I began to consider the countless things I believed which I had not seen, or which had happened with me not there .... [Now during this time] I always believed that You exist and that You have care for us .... Thus, since men had not the strength to discover the truth by pure reason and therefore we needed the authority of Holy Writ, I was coming to believe that You would certainly not have bestowed such eminent authority upon those Scriptures, unless it had been Your will that by them men should believe in You and in them seek You."

6. Ponder the following passage from Book Five of Augustine's Confessions and discuss its relevance to questions concerning the relation between faith and reason:

"Yet, Lord God of truth, is any man pleasing to You for knowing such things [as astronomy]? Surely a man is unhappy even if he knows all these things but does not know You; and that man is happy who knows You even though he knows nothing of them. And the man who knows both You and them is not the happier for them but only on account of You: if knowing You he glorifies You as You are and gives thanks and does not become vain in his thoughts .... It would be absurd to doubt that a true Christian is better, though he does not even know the circles of the Great Bear, than one who can measure the heavens and number the stars and balance the elements, if in all this he neglects You who have ordered all things in measure and number and weight."

7. [Note: You will have to answer this question.] On the basis of the readings, lectures, and discussions in this course, give an intelligent assessment of Bertrand Russell's paper "Why I am not a Christian". (See Course Booklet.)