Week 1 Homework

Reading Assignment:
Read Chapter 1 of Theology and Sanity, “Religion and the Mind”—pp. 21-30.

Questions:
These questions are meant to help you understand the reading. Writing down your answers is a good way to find out if you really understand something. Some of the questions will be more challenging than others.

1. What is does Sheed say his concern is in this book?
2. What are the two faculties of the soul? What is the work of each?
3. Which of the two faculties matters more?
4. What, according to Sheed, does it mean to have a Catholic will and a Catholic intellect?
5. What follows logically from the fact that we are made from nothing? (p. 23)
6. Define “rigidity”. (p.24)
7. How is seeing God everywhere a matter of sanity?
8. What was the point of Sheed’s example of the human eye on page 26?
9. Explain Sheed’s fire analogy on page 29.
10. What is one practical consequence of seeing as the Church sees?

Reflection Questions
1. On page 22 Sheed says, “[W]e have not so much Catholic minds as worldly minds with Catholic patches.” Do you agree with this statement?
2. On page 28 Sheed says, “Many…find the use of the intellect in religion actually repellant…” What has been your attitude towards the use of the intellect in religion?