OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 03 Developments in Christian Thought: a complete overview

OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 03 is Developments in Christian Thought, the Christianity option of the third paper. It studies Christianity as a living, developing tradition: its understanding of human nature, salvation and the afterlife, how God is known, who Jesus was, how Christians act, and how the faith meets the modern challenges of pluralism, gender, secularism and poverty. This overview ties together the topic pages and explains how the paper is examined.

How Component 03 works

Component 03 is a two-hour written exam worth 120 marks. It sets four essay questions and you answer three, each worth 40 marks. The two assessment objectives, AO1 (knowledge) and AO2 (evaluation), are weighted 40 per cent and 60 per cent overall, and each essay carries a separate AO1 mark out of 25 and AO2 mark out of 15.

Human nature, the afterlife and knowledge of God

Augustine teaches that human nature is corrupted by original sin and the divided will, dependent on grace. Death and the afterlife covers heaven, hell and purgatory, particular and final judgement, the beatific vision, election (limited, unlimited and universalism) and the sheep and the goats. Knowledge of God contrasts natural theology and Calvin's sensus divinitatis with revealed knowledge in Christ and Barth's rejection of natural theology.

The person of Jesus and Christian ethics

The person of Jesus Christ weighs Jesus as teacher of wisdom, liberator and Son of God, and the significance of his miracles and resurrection. Christian moral principles ask how far the Bible, reason, conscience, the Church and agape guide ethics, and contrast heteronomous and autonomous approaches. Christian moral action studies Bonhoeffer: costly discipleship, duty to God above the state, the Confessing Church and civil disobedience.

Pluralism, gender, secularism and liberation

Religious pluralism has a theology strand (exclusivism, inclusivism with Rahner, pluralism with Hick) and a society strand (multi-faith living, inter-faith dialogue). Gender has a society strand (roles, family, feminism) and a theology strand (Ruether and Daly on patriarchy and God-language). Secularism covers Dawkins, Freud and secularisation; liberation theology uses Marx, structural sin and the preferential option for the poor (Gutierrez).

How Component 03 is examined

• Four essays, choose three. Each is a sustained AO1-plus-AO2 argument, not a description.
• The extended essay (AO2-heavy). Build a case that sets view against view and reaches a justified conclusion, because AO2 is the larger mark band.