Religion Review

Chapter 2:
- Key Terms

Agent: One who acts, who has the capacity to initiate a course of events. A person to
whom we ascribe actions. One who is responsible for his or her actions.

Action: Action is the realization of the power of human freedom. When we engage
the capacities of our freedom, we change the world around us.

Determinism: A point of view that holds that human behaviour is a product, not of
free will, but of a complex array of physical, social, cultural, psychological and
historical clauses.

Intention: That which motivates me to act- values. The reason for doing something
that appears, at least to me, as a good.

Freedom: The human capacity to choose and to act. I am free because I have
possibilities and capacities to act on these possibilities.

Predestination: The view that my behaviour is predetermined, whether by God or

by other causes.

Responsibility: The conviction that a person is the agent of his or her actions. This
presupposes freedom, knowledge, and capability. As seen through the application of
the conceptual framework of action, circumstances can mitigate the degree of a
person’s responsibility in any given action.

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Chapter 3:
Key Terms

Commitment: promise or pledge; resolve to carry something out in the future.

Habit: A manner of behaving acquired by frequent repetition; prevailing disposition

or character.

Identity: The distinguishing character of a person. My identity is determined in

large part by the moral stance that I take in life.

Judgment: The concrete decision of what I must do in the situation based on my

personal perception and grasp of values.
Moral Stance: My moral orientation or direction in life; what I “stand for.”

Narcissism: A disorder marked by self-absorption to the exclusion of others.

Psychiatry: A branch of medicine that deals with mental, emotional, and

behavioural disorders.

Psychology: The study of the mind, mental states, behaviour. Psychology tries to
explain why people think, feel, and behave as they do.

Trinity: “…the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone