Religion & Philosophy — Year 12

Arguments for the existence of God: Students will consider the following: the Design argument; the Ontological argument; the Cosmological argument. They will be able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each of these three arguments for the existence of God and consider their value for religious faith.

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 consider the question 'what are miracles?'. They will look at differing understandings of 'miracle' realist and anti-realist views, the violation of natural law or natural events. Students will compare the key ideas of David Hume and Maurice Wiles on miracles and think about the significance of these views for religion.

Bentham and Kant:

Comparison of the key ideas of Bentham and Kant about moral decision making.

How far these two ethical theories are consistent with religious moral decision making.

Evil and suffering: In this unit students will develop their knowledge of the nature of God and consider the existence of God alongside the existence of evil. They will consider: natural and moral evil; the logical and evidential problem of evil; responses to evil and suffering; Hick's soul making theodicy; free will defense and process theodicy (Griffin).

The application of natural moral law, situation ethics and virtue ethics to:

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.

Religious Experience: In this unit students will study a variety of religious experiences; visions, corporeal, imaginative and intellectual; Numinous (Otto); mystical (William James) and the challenges of verifying religious experience. An important part of this unit is the study of the challenges to religious experience, religious responses to those challenges, Swinburne's principle of credulity and testimony and the influence and overview of religious experiences.

Free will and moral responsibility - students will consider:

The conditions of moral responsibility: free will; understanding the difference between right and wrong.

The extent of moral responsibility: libertarianism, hard determinism, compatibilism.

The relevance of moral responsibility to reward and punishment.

Students will consider religious language and whether it should be viewed cognitively or non-cognitively. They will look at the challenges of the verification and falsification principles to the meaningfulness of religious language. They will then consider:

The challenges of the verification and falsification principles to the meaningfulness of religious language.

Responses to these challenges; eschatological verification with reference to Hick.

Responses to challenges; language as an expression of a Blik with reference to R.M. Hare.

Religious language as a language game with reference to Wittgenstein.

Other views of the nature of religious language; language as symbolic with reference to Tillich.

Religious language as analogical with reference to Aquinas the Via Negativa.

The strengths and weaknesses of the differing understandings of religious language.

Conscience

Differing ideas, religious and non-religious, about the nature of conscience.

The role of conscience in making moral decisions.

Self, Death and the Afterlife: Students will consider the nature and existence of 'the soul' and think about Descartes' ideas of Dualism. They will consider the body and soul relationship and the possibility of continuing personal existence after death.

Introduction to meta ethics: the meaning of right and wrong

Divine Command Theory – right is what God commands, wrong is what God forbids.

Naturalism: Utilitarianism – right is what causes pleasure, wrong is what causes pain.

Non-naturalism: Intuitionism – moral values are self-evident.

The strengths and weaknesses of these ideas.