Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies Paper 1 Philosophy of Religion overview quiz quiz

Inductive and a posteriori

Deductive and a priori

Analogical

Inductive and empirical

The first uncaused cause from which the whole chain of events ultimately flows

The intelligent designer responsible for the order and purpose seen across the universe

That than which nothing greater can be conceived

The ultimate ground of all being itself, in the manner Tillich later described

The universe is a brute fact

There is no first cause

Order could arise by chance

Existence is not a predicate

William Paley

David Hume

Bertrand Russell

Richard Dawkins

He accepted the cosmological argument as a sound and conclusive proof of the existence of God

He called the universe a brute fact that is 'just there'

He argued that existence really is a genuine predicate that adds to a thing's concept

He set the cosmological argument aside and defended the design argument in its place

The logical version deals only with natural evil, while the evidential version deals only with moral evil done by humans

They are simply two different names for one and the same argument against the existence of God

The logical claims a contradiction; the evidential claims evil is strong evidence against God

The logical version is a religious objection, whereas the evidential version is a scientific one

The Augustinian theodicy

The free will defence of Plantinga

Process theodicy

The Irenaean theodicy

Credulity and testimony

Verification and falsification

Analogy and proportion

Sufficient reason and contingency

straightforwardly false statements

cognitively meaningless

probably true but unproven

symbolic yet genuine truths

It is far too literal and crudely anthropomorphic to describe a transcendent God at all

It cannot ever be expressed through symbols, myths or non-literal forms of language

Believers let nothing count against their claims (death by a thousand qualifications)

It can only be verified after death, in the eschatological way Hick later proposed

A remarkable coincidence that believers happen to interpret in a religious way, as Holland suggested

Any prayer that is answered, however ordinary the outcome turns out to be in the end

An unusual event for which science has so far failed to find any natural explanation

A transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity

A God who works selective, occasional miracles would be arbitrary and morally inconsistent

Miracles cannot happen because they would break the fixed and unalterable laws of physics

The witnesses who report miracles are almost always credulous and thoroughly unreliable

The competing miracle claims of rival religions simply cancel one another out, as Hume argued

It is worth only a small bonus on top of the marks awarded for accurate description

It is worth half the marks, so answers must evaluate and judge, not just describe

It applies only to the single textual question and to no other part of the paper

It mainly tests the candidate's memory of key dates and names rather than argument