Topics include: Arguments for the existence of God: The Teleological argument Presentation: Paley’s analogical argument. Criticisms: Hume. The Ontological argument Presentation: Anselm’s a priori argument. Criticisms: Gaunilo and Kant. The Cosmological argument Presentation: Aquinas' Way 3. The argument from contingency and necessity. Criticisms: Hume and Russell. Evil and suffering The problem of evil and suffering. The concepts of natural and moral evil. The logical and evidential problem of evil. Responses to the problem of evil and suffering. Hick’s soul making theodicy. The free will defence. Process theodicy as presented by Griffin. The strengths and weaknesses of each response.
Students will be assessed through AO1 essays (10 marks) and AO2 essays (15 marks) - completed at home and in timed conditions.
Agruments that depend on sense experience.
Argument that is based on the experience of the senses.
When used of arguments, refers to those based on probability.
Refers to scripture or some form of religious experience.
This universe of space and time.
Statements that could be true or false.
Religious experience The nature of religious experience. Visions: corporeal, imaginative and intellectual. Numinous experiences: Otto, an apprehension of the wholly other. Mystical experiences: William James; non sensuous and non-intellectual union with the divine as presented by William Stace
Students will be assessed through AO1 essays (10 marks) and AO2 essays (15 marks) - completed at home and in timed conditions.
As well as this, students will take a formal Mock exam.
Refers to the fact that something cannot be described.
The communication of genuine insights.
Refers to the short-lived nature of an experience.
An aspect of mystical religious experience, in which the experiencer does not control the experience but is controlled by it.
Experiences of the 'wholly other', unrelated to spatio-temporal experiences.
Topics include: Normative ethical theories Deontological: natural moral law and the principle of double effect with reference to Aquinas; proportionalism. Teleological: situation ethics with reference to Fletcher. Character based: virtue ethics with reference to Aristotle. The differing approaches taken to moral decision making by these ethical theories. Their application to the issues of theft and lying. The strengths and weaknesses of these ways of making moral decisions.
Students will be assessed through AO1 essays (10 marks) and AO2 essays (15 marks) - completed at home and in timed conditions.
The approach to ethics in which the rightness or wrongness of an act is judged by its conformity to duties, rules and obligations.
An adjective relating to theories claiming that what is right in one situation/culture/era is right in all.
Theories concerned with the purpose of actions and therefore with consequence.
Changeless.
Happiness, complete well-being.
The seventeeth-century writers of manuals for training Catholic clergy.
A quality or disposition in a person held to be of mortal value.
The teaching authority of the church which consist of the Pope and bishops.
Refers to the first name of Aquinas,so a Thomist position is one that would have been held by Aquinas.
Issues of human life and death: embryo research; cloning; ‘designer’ babies abortion voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide capital punishment. Issues of non-human life and death: use of animals as food; intensive farming use of animals in scientific procedures; cloning blood sports animals as a source of organs for transplants.
Students will be assessed through AO1 essays (10 marks) and AO2 essays (15 marks) - completed at home and in timed conditions.
As well as this, students will take a formal Mock exam
A Christian theory that is based on absolute obedience to God's commands as contained in the Bible.
The belief that there should be no rules or principles directing human behaviour.
The name Fletcher gave to his middle way between legalism and antinomianism.
The Greek word meaning selfless love.
A theory that is concerned with consequences.
Happiness measured by seven criterias.
A disposition/ character trait to be valued.
That which is good for humans; it is human flourishing.
Refers to the physical union between a man and woman in sexual intercourse.
Transplanting tissue or organs from one species into another.
Students will study the following with reference to Christianity: • Sources of wisdom and authority • God/gods/ultimate reality • Self, death and the afterlife
Students will be assessed through AO1 essays (10 marks) and AO2 essays (15 marks) - completed at home and in timed conditions.
Greek = rotation. The Father is in the Son; the Son is in the Father and so on.
Those who exept Christ are thereby redeemed from sin and reconciled with God.
When applied to God, means, existing within the space-time universe.
A pupil/ student/ apprentice of a teacher.
A collection of books which a religious group regards as inspired by God.
A recognised, independent branch of the Christian Church.
God sustains creation/maintains it/ keeps it in existence.
Students will study the following with reference to Christianity: • Good conduct and key moral principles • Expression of religious identity
Students will be assessed through AO1 essays (10 marks) and AO2 essays (15 marks) - completed at home and in timed conditions.
As well as this, students will take a formal Mock exam
The philosophical view that everything that there is exists 'in God'.
To do with the last days, that is, the last, Judgement/God's Kingdom.
Latin , refers to Luther's doctrine of justification by ' faith alone'
God predestines some to the Kingdom through His grace but leaves others immersed in their sin to be condemned to hell.
Something that has value for it's own sake, for example, human life in the Sanctity of Life Principle.
Believer's baptism.
Teaching: a summary of the principles of the Christian religion, given in question and answer style.