Year 12 A Level Taster LessonWhat it entails and what is expected.

Today we are going to examine the three main areas of study in A Level Religious Studies,1. Philosophy2. Ethics3. Developments in Christian thought

The Course- Year 1Philosophy Ethics Christian Thought• Ancient Greek

Influences on Philosophy of Religion

• Traditional Arguments for the Existence of God

• Religious experience

• The Problem of Evil

• Four ethical theories and two applications.

• Situation Ethics

• Natural Moral Law

• Euthanasia

• Kantian Ethics

• Utilitarianism

• Business Ethics

• Augustine and Humannature.

• Person of Jesus

• Existence of God

• Life after death

• Christian moral principles

• Christian moral action

Philosophy Ethics Christian Thought

• ancient philosophical influences

• the nature of the soul, mind and body

• arguments about the existence or non-existence of God

• the nature and impact of religious experience

• the challenge for religious belief of the problem of evil

• ideas about the nature of God

• issues in religious language

• Situation ethics.• Kantian ethics• Utilitarianism• Natural moral law• Business ethics• Euthanasia• Ethical language and

thought• Debates surrounding

the significant idea of conscience

• Sexual ethics and the influence on ethical thought of developments in religious beliefs.

• religious beliefs, values and teachings, their interconnections and how they vary historically and in the contemporary world

• sources of religious wisdom and authority

• practices which shape and express religious identity, and how these vary within a tradition

• significant social and historical developments in theology and religious thought

• key themes related to the relationship between religion and society

The Course- Year 2

In year 1 you will study all of the previous slide and then in year 2 you study further modules. Your

exam at the end of the 2 year course will be made up of first year

topics AND second year topics!!!

Assessment- Year 1

You will have 1 hour 15 minutes for EACH of the

three papers. You will be given the choice of THREE essay questions

and you will answer TWO!

Assessment at A Level

You will have 2 hours for EACH of the three

papers. You will be given the choice of

FOUR essay questions and you will answer

THREE!

Expectations

Attendance- You MUST have 96% or above attendance during year

12- that means no McDonalds trips instead of lessons!

Wider Reading- you will be expected to take out a book from the RE Library every two weeks and complete the reading log.

Essay planning and completion-You will regularly plan and then

write essays. You will receive written feedback on them!!

Completion of reading log

Note taking- Your notes are your own. BUY three folders for each of

the 3 areas to make sure everything is organised. The better

the notes the better the understanding!

Acting on feedback- We are all trying to improve everyday! Make sure you act on essay

feedback given!

RIGHT LETS ACTUALLY DO

SOMETHING NOW THEN SHALL WE…

EthicsLook at the following situations. In pairs or small groups decide what you would do in each situation. Be ready to justify your decision.

1. You witness a car crash. The wreckage is burning, but you may be able to save one of the two passengers. To your horror, you realise that one is a member of your family and the other is a famous cancer specialist on the brink of a breakthrough. Who do you save and why?

2. Your ship goes down and you’re lost in the sea with two others, in a life raft. You have no food. Without a supply of food, there’s no hope of rescue before you starve to death. Two would survive by eating the third: otherwise, all three will die. What do you do and why?

The First Way – From Motion

Things that move must be moved by something. Things cannot move themselves. Things are evidently in motion. There cannot be an infinite chain of movers (infinite regression). There must be a first, unmoved mover that causes motion in all

things. This first, unmoved mover we call God.

Aquinas’ Cosmological ArgumentIn Summa Theololgica Aquinas outlines five arguments for the existence of God. Three of these are cosmological arguments – arguments that try to prove God’s existence by looking at the general qualities of the world.

Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument

“It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another… Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” In Aquinas’ own words

Aquinas’ Cosmological ArgumentJ.L. Mackie

Aquinas is correct that infinite regression is not

possible.We observe this in

everyday life.An infinite number of train

carriages would set themselves into motion,

they need an engine at the start.

Hume

Aquinas makes an inductive leap in his

logic. He establishes the need for an unmoved

mover but then leaps to the conclusion that this

must be the God of classical theism.

Just because we need to explain why certain things in the universe are in motion does not mean we need to explain why the universe as a whole is in motion. Aquinas

commits the fallacy of composition by suggesting what is true of part is true of the whole.

Russell

Who makes the strongest/weakest response to Aquinas’ argument?

Philosophy

• Michelle slides

Christian thought• List the attributes of what you think is a human being?• Is everyone the same, or are we thinking of our potential?• Do we all share the same human nature?Dictionary definition- the general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioural traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans.

This is Nikolas Cruz. On the 14th

February 2018 Nikolas Cruz walked into a school in Florida wearing a gas mask and carrying an AR-15 rifle, he killed 17 students.

This is Saint Maximillian Kolbe. He was a Polish Friar who volunteered his life to save a stranger in the death camp Auschwitz in 1941 when 10 people were randomly sentenced to death as a deterrent to the rest of the camp. He did not know the man he saved and he spent his time with the other 9 men praying and supporting them until they died. He was finally killed after 2 weeks through a lethal injection.

Could it be said that one of these men is ‘more human’ than the other one?

Jean Jacques Rousseau thought that humans were essentially generous and kind, with only certain situations causing them to act in other ways.

1712-17781588-1679

Thomas Hobbes thought the opposite to Rosseau. He

thought that human nature was selfish and brutish (much like

the behaviour of animals). Hobbes believed that the only

thing that separates humans and animals is reason.

Christian thought

Rousseau’s thoughts continued…

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Many a man believes himself to be the master of others who is, no less than they, a slave”

Jean Jacques Rousseau, ‘The Social Contract’., page 1 (1762)

Rousseau thinks that the ‘chains’ in this metaphor are a symbol of Human Competition. The drive humans have to gain more and more power have become ‘chains’ in their lives and they are no longer free.

Rousseau believed that the purpose of a human’s life was to try and become rid of these chains and rediscover our natural human instinct of generosity and kindness.

Christian thought

Bridging work

• Ethics- Create two resources on situation ethics and utilitarianism. There will be key points to include!

• Philosophy- Create a one page revision guide on dualism, monism and materialism. Key scholars must be included.