Lesson Outline – Phase II writers



1b: Knowing and Believing

Lesson 4 of 5: Augustine: Revelation as knowledge

Aim of the lesson

For the students to have:

• Knowledge and understanding of the concept of Revelation as a source of knowledge exemplified by Augustine of Hippo.

• Knowledge and understanding of the nature and role of Faith and Reason.

• An opportunity to evaluate the ideas outlined.

Differentiation / Extension

Extension: An interesting activity could be a comparison between David Hume and St Augustine. How are their beliefs similar? How are they different? In what ways might Augustine defend his ideas to David Hume in proposing revelation as a valid means of discovering the truth?

Assessment

Teacher/peer: Belief line of St Augustine’s search for truth or dialogue between Augustine when he was young and then at different stages in his thinking.

Duration 1 Hour

Timings

Starter 15 minutes – recap of different approaches to truth learnt from previous lessons.

Main Activity 35 minutes – introducing concept of revelation. St Augustine ‘Belief Line’/dialogues.

Plenary 10 minutes – consideration of revelation as a valid way of discovering truth.

Intended Age 16 -18

Previous Knowledge needed by teacher

Teachers should be familiar with the concept of revelation and the thinking of St Augustine (see Student Resource Sheet 8). They should also be fluent with the key ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Hume.

Previous Knowledge needed by students

The content of the previous lessons.

Background Reading

• Raeper and Smith, A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas, , Lion Publisher.

• L. Ahluwahlia, Foundation Study to Religious Studies, , Hodder.

• A Jordan et al.; Philosophy of Religion for A level, Stanley Thornes

• Stephen Law, The Philosophy Files, Dolphin.

• Irwin, Conard, Skoble, The Simpsons and Philosophy, Open Court.

• J Tyerman Williams, Pooh and the Philosophers; Methuen Publisher.

• Philosophy goes to the Movies; Ch. Falzon; Routledge discusses the following relevant films:

• Augustine of Hippo (Roberto Rossellini, 1975)

• Rashomon (A. Kurosawa, 1951)

• Twelve Angry Men (S. Lumet, 1957)

• The Maltese Falcon (J. Huston, 1941)

• The Big Sleep (H. Hawkes, 1946)

• The Name of the Rose (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986)

• Chinatown (R. Polanski, 1974)

• Se7en (D. Fincher, 1995

Website

• iep.utm.edu/a/augustin.htm

Resources

• Student Resource Sheet 7 Cathedrals

• Student Resource Sheet 8 St Augustine

Introduction / Starter activity

Recap the key people and their ideas from the last lessons:

Key Question: How can we find truth?

1. Socrates believed that conscience is the inner voice of God. It is the ultimate source of truth that we must seek to follow even at the cost of life. (Human intuition)

2. Plato believed in two different worlds: the world of sense experience and the world of ideas. The latter one is the source of ultimate truth. The Form of the Good is the highest of all forms and is divine. Knowledge of the Form of the Good is knowing the true nature of all things and also of morality. Behaving immorally means not knowing properly. (Reason)

3. Aristotle believed that this world is the only world and that sense observation is the source of true knowledge. (Observation)

4. Descartes believed that the source of knowledge was to be found in putting everything into question. By peeling away all doubt certain knowledge would be found. (Rationalism)

5. John Locke (1632 – 1704) believed that our mind at birth is a tabula rasa (blank tablet), onto which life’s experiences write the general principles and details of our knowledge. It is through our senses that we know what the world is like. (Empiricism)

6. Bishop Berkeley (1685 – 1753) believed that perception is everything. This, though, doesn’t lead to materialism but to idealism which means that our mind imposes what and how we experience things. (Empiricism)

7. David Hume (1711 – 1776) claimed that any idea can be reduced to some sense experience. (Empiricism)

Introduce the new topic:

In two’s briefly discuss any examples of an idea suddenly coming to them about something, either through a dream or a sudden inspiration. If they cannot give an example that happened to them they can give an idea from a film/TV drama/soap etc.

Revelation as a source of knowledge. In most religions God is regarded to be the ultimate source of all knowledge – God is all-knowing. Remind them of Psalm 139 from last lesson. This could be seen as an absolute standard of truth.

Therefore an experience or disclosure of God is to have ultimate knowledge which could not be gained through any human efforts. This kind of knowledge – revealed knowledge – is seen as an act of grace on God’s behalf and as an act of faith on the believer’s behalf.

Main Activities

Handout the sheet Student Resource Sheet 7: Cathedrals and ask whether anyone has been inside a cathedral admiring the stained glass windows. Let them describe their experience.

Ask further how the beauty of the inside of a cathedral compares to its outside. Can one appreciate the beauty of a cathedral only from the outside?

(if their answer is ‘Yes’ then we are in a mess and have to think of something else; let’s hope that at least one will say ‘No’. Maybe we could focus on the stained glass windows only as they can only be appreciated from the inside). The idea is that understanding religious belief requires faith. One has to ‘enter’ the religious arena to be able to judge it. In the context of the debate of religion and science it means that a purely scientific view of the world will never be able to appreciate a religious understanding and vice versa: a biased religious view will not be able to appreciate a scientific approach.

Introduce Saint Augustine (AD 354 – 430) Use Student Resource Sheet 8: St Augustine and, if available, the website iep.utm.edu/a/augustin.htm. In small groups of two or three the students can either make a belief line of St Augustine’s life, or carry out a dialogue between Augustine and himself at the key stages of his life. The belief line should show the key influences on his life and the main ideas/beliefs he had at the various stages of his life.

(Instead: you could watch the film on Augustine (see ‘Philosophy goes to the movies’ in ‘Background Reading’) and discuss in light of ‘revealed knowledge’.)

Plenary

Discuss: To what extent or in what sense is revelation (in form of religious experience, visions, miracles, near death experience, reading holy scripture as the word of God) a source of knowledge? How does this compare (conflict with, complement) scientific knowledge?

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