A Level Religious Studies

This course prepares candidates for the AQA Religious Studies A Level syllabus (2060), for examinations in June 2012 and later years. 

There are four units that comprise the A Level Religious Studies course.

Unit 1 - Religion and Ethics 1

1. Utilitarianism

• The general principles of Utilitarianism: consequential or teleological thinking in contrast to deontological thinking, Bentham's Utilitarianism, Act Utilitarianism, the hedonic calculus 
• Mill's Utilitarianism, Rule Utilitarianism, quality over quantity
• The application of Bentham's and Mill's principles to one ethical issue of the candidate's choice apart from abortion and euthanasia

2. Situation Ethics

• The general principles of Situation Ethics: the middle way between legalism and antinomianism; the idea of situation; conscience - what it is and what it is not; the emphasis on making moral decisions rather than following rules
• Fletcher's six fundamental principles and the understanding of Christian love
• Fletcher's four presumptions: pragmatism, contextual relativism, positivism, personalism
• The application of Situation Ethics to one ethical issue of the candidate's choice apart from abortion and euthanasia

3. Christian teaching on the nature and value of human life

• Nature of humanity and the human condition: what it means to be human
• Fatalism and free will: to what extent human beings are able to influence their own life and destiny
• Equality and difference: religious teaching about equality with particular reference to race, gender and disability 
• The value of life: religious teachings about the value of life with particular reference to the quality of life, self-sacrifice and non-human life including the relative importance of human and non-human life

4. Abortion and euthanasia

• Abortion: definitions for the start of human life, including: potentiality, conception, primitive streak, viability, birth
• The value of potential and real life
• Mother's versus child's life, double effect
• Ethical issues involved in legislation about abortion
• Euthanasia: active or passive
• Ethical issues involved in legislation about euthanasia; voluntary and involuntary; hospices and palliative care
• The right of humans to determine when to die
• Arguments for and against abortion and euthanasia with reference to religious and ethical teachings

Unit 2 - Philosophy of Religion

1. The Cosmological argument

• The cosmological argument as proposed by Aquinas with particular reference to: its basis in observation; the rejection of infinite regress; God as the first mover and first cause, and as the necessary being
• Differing understandings of the role of God in the argument: God as the temporal first cause; God as the sustainer of motion, causation and existence; God as the explanation of why there is something rather than nothing
• Key criticisms of the argument relating to: the possibility of infinite regress and the universe as a 'brute fact'; the fallacy of composition; the identity of the necessary being as God and drawing a conclusion that goes beyond the evidence

2. Religious experience

• The variety of religious experience: credit will be given for reference to any relevant form of religious experience, but candidates are expected to be familiar with the main characteristics of visions, conversion and mystical experiences
• The argument from religious experience for the existence of God
• The challenges to religious experience from philosophy and science

3. Psychology and religion

Freud

• Religion as a collective neurosis; as wish fulfilment and a reaction against helplessness; and as a response to the Oedipus complex and repressed guilt

Jung

• Religion as an expression of the collective unconscious; the 'god within'; the theory of archetypes: the shadow, the animus, anima and the Self and the quest for integration

4. Atheism and postmodernism

• The rise of atheism and the death of God: reasons for the rise of atheism with reference to science, empiricism, evil, the rebellion against moral absolutes and awareness of other faiths; meaning of the slogan 'God is dead'
• The nature of atheism: positive and negative atheism; distinction from agnosticism
• Religious responses to atheism, including a postmodernist view of religion. Key ideas in postmodernism: religions as cultural constructs; no right or wrong religions; personal spiritual search, the religious supermarket and the pick and mix approach; living religion rather than intellectual faith

Unit 3 - Religion and Ethics

1. Libertarianism, free will and determinism

• Free will: question of genetics and environment; free will curtailed by volition; contracting into societies; conflict of free wills
• Libertarianism: the personality and the moral self; the conscience; the causally undetermined choice
• Determinism: the principle of causality; 'hard' determinism and 'soft' determinism; internal and external causation
• A religious perspective on libertarianism and determinism

2. Virtue Ethics

• Aristotle's view: happiness (eudaimonia), moral and intellectual virtues, cardinal virtues and capital vices
• Modern Virtue Ethics: MacIntyre and Foot
• The application of Virtue Ethics to one issue of the candidate's choice apart from issues in science and technology

3. Religious views on sexual behaviour and human relationships

• Scripture-based ideas which are rooted in text
• Institutional-based ideas which have been developed by a particular religious institution
• Individual-based ideas which will have been developed from individual conscience or interpretation of Scripture/institutional-based ideas
• Sexual behaviour outside marriage, including pleasure and procreation
• Views on marriage as a sacred event or secular monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, adultery
• Human relationships, respect and responsibility for others, the abuse of power
• Concept of love (different styles: brotherly, physical, Christian agapé), family and children

4. Science and technology

• Experimentation (animals and humans) and the role of ethics in decision-making
• Inventions and the role of ethics in the control of their use (e.g. nuclear inventions)
• Scientific and technological advances and decisions about who benefits
• Human rights and the conflict with the use of technology, e.g. surveillance, data storage, cyber crime
• A religious perspective on these issues in science and technology

Unit 4 - Life, Death and Beyond

• Religious and secular perspectives on the nature and value of human life
• Religious Nature: e.g. created by God, not perfect, redeemable, dualistic; and/or non-theistic perspectives
• Religious Value: e.g. in the image of God, life is a gift from God, highest element in creation; and/or non-theistic perspectives
• Secular Nature: another animal, one aspect of evolution, mortal
• Secular Value: responsible for preservation of environment, each human is of equal value
• Eschatological and apocalyptic, religious and secular teaching and attitudes can all be treated together as teaching and attitudes towards the future, especially the end. Within a religious context there are examples of teaching in scriptures; apocalyptic is often associated with scripture in some hidden or coded form. Secular interests in 'the end of the world' or time signs and indications of when this might be
• Religious and secular ideas about the importance of the present life and life after death
• Religious views often focused around judgement, either imposed or self-imposed with idea that life on earth is a stage in human existence. Secular view that there is only one life and that is on earth, but this may not lead to egotistical view; view that life after death does not give life on earth a purpose
• Beliefs about death and beyond, both religious and non-religious.
• Death sometimes seen as the end; there is nothing beyond; sometimes seen as the end of the present being but with elements moving beyond death, a stage in the existence of a human - a rite of passage
• Beyond, a spiritual world, a world which is in suspension awaiting something, a parallel existence either bodily or not, an existence with God; a transition back to another existence; continuity of personal identity