Religious Studies Revision — Cambridge OCR A-Level
Complete Cambridge OCR A-Level Religious Studies specification revision resources. Tailored syllabus coverage with topic breakdowns, quizzes, and practice questions.
Specification Topics
Top Exam Board Tips
- When outlining the logical problem, explicitly use the inconsistent triad and state the explicit contradiction. Note that Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense is seen by many as logically resolving the problem, shifting attention to the evidential argument.
- For evaluating theodicies, structure your answer with clear strengths and weaknesses. Use technical terminology (privation, original sin, epistemic distance, soul-making) to demonstrate precise knowledge and earn higher marks.
- To achieve higher marks, integrate scholarly views: for Augustine, refer to modern scientific challenges (evolution, geology) and philosophical critiques (e.g., Schleiermacher's objection); for Irenaeus, mention John Hick’s vale of soul-making and the problem of gratuitous evil.
- In comparative essays, highlight the contrasting paradigms: Augustine’s theodicy is retrospective (restoring a perfection lost through the Fall) while Irenaeus’ is prospective (moving towards a future perfection). Show awareness of pastoral and existential implications.
- Always maintain a critical focus on the exam question, ensuring you consistently evaluate whether the theodicies succeed in responding to the problem of evil, rather than merely describing them. Use phrases like 'However, this is insufficient because...' to demonstrate evaluation.
- Structured essays: directly contrast dualist and materialist views by theme (e.g., origin of consciousness, personal identity, afterlife), using key texts and terminology accurately.
- Use examiner-friendly phrasing: 'Plato's dualism is challenged by the materialist notion that...' or 'Descartes' clear and distinct ideas can be critiqued through Dawkins' evolutionary lens...'
- Include scholarly views: mention Ryle's 'ghost in the machine' critique of Descartes or Swinburne's modified dualism to deepen analysis and show wider reading.
- For top marks, integrate evaluation throughout rather than as a bolt-on, and address the assessment criteria of 'weighing up strengths and weaknesses logically'.
- Always define key terms precisely in your introduction, signalling your awareness of philosophical nuances; for example, specify whether you are discussing omnipotence in a logical or metaphysical sense.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Confusing the logical problem of evil (claiming a logical contradiction) with the evidential problem (claiming improbability), often failing to articulate the distinct forms of argument.
- Presenting Augustine’s theodicy as simply stating evil is a privation without explaining how this relates to free will, the Fall, and the transmission of original sin.
- Misunderstanding Irenaeus’ theodicy as implying God directly causes evil for a greater good, rather than permitting it as a necessary condition for soul-making and free moral development.
- Failing to distinguish between moral and natural evil in the context of applying theodicies, and not addressing how each theodicy accounts for natural evil.
- Oversimplifying theodicies as fully successful solutions without addressing key criticisms, such as the proportion and distribution of suffering, and the problem of animal suffering.
- Confusing Plato's dualism with Descartes': students often merge the tripartite soul with Cartesian substance dualism, overlooking that for Plato the soul is the thinking entity while for Descartes mind and body are distinct substances.
- Misrepresenting Descartes' interactionism as a physical connection rather than a causal one; many claim pineal gland is 'where mind meets body' without explaining the conceptual issue of causal interaction.
- Oversimplifying Hobbes as a 'crude materialist' without noting his nuanced view of mental speech and motion, or attributing to him a denial of consciousness rather than a reduction of it.
Key Terminology & Definitions
- Natural evil
- Moral evil
- Free will
- Soul-making
- Dualism
- Materialism
- Substance
- Consciousness
- Paradoxes
- Eternity
- Foreknowledge
- Scholarship
- Interpretation
- Conversion
- Mysticism