Complete Coursebook A Level Philosophy of Religion

Subject: Philosophy
Level: Secondary
Age Group: 16 - 18
Order Number: 14029

This book comprises a comprehensive series of study notes for teachers and students covering all aspects of the AS and A2 courses prescribed by the examination boards QA, OCR, WJEC and Edexcel.

Topics covered:

• The Nature of Truth - Meaning in religious language, verification and falsification debate, Logical Positivism.
• Arguments for the Existence of God - Ontological argument (Anselm, Gaunilo, Descartes, Kant, Malcolm), Cosmological argument (Aquinas, Copleston, 'Kalam'), Teleological argument (Aquinas, Paley, Hume, Tennant, Swinburne, Davies), Moral argument (Plato, Kant).
• Nature of God - Monotheism and polytheism, coherence and consistency, analogy in Aquinas and Tillich, omnipotence and logic, omniscience and time, freedom and immutability.
• Revelation and Religious Experience - General and special revelation, types of religious experience, the cumulative case for veridical religious experience, miracles and Hume's criticism.
• The Problem of Evil - Natural and moral evil, protest theodicy, the reality of evil (Augustine, Mary Baker Eddy), Augustinian and Irenaean theodicies, the freewill defence, process theology, animal suffering, the greater good argument.
• Life After Death - Variety of beliefs (immortality of the soul, reincarnation, resurrection, heaven and hell), philosophical issues (dualism, monism, logical behaviourism), the criteria for personal identity and survival, evidence for the belief in life after death from hypnotic regression, near death experiences and parapsychology.