Study of a chosen religion

Sources of wisdom and authority#

StandardAQA 7062/2 Section A: The study of religion (Christianity)DfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Sources of authority in Christianity

Fig. 1Christianity draws authority from scripture, tradition, the Church, and reason/experience, weighted differently across its branches.

Christianity draws its teaching and authority from several interrelated sources, and the relative weight given to each is one of the deepest divisions within the religion. The primary source is the Bible — the Christian scriptures, comprising the Old Testament (largely shared with Judaism) and the New Testament (the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul and others, and Revelation). Christians regard the Bible as inspired by God and authoritative for faith and life, but they understand its inspiration differently: fundamentalists take it to be the literally inerrant word of God, conservatives hold it is inspired and trustworthy while allowing for the human authors' style and context, and liberals treat it as a human witness to divine revelation, to be interpreted critically. How one reads the Bible shapes one's view on almost every doctrinal and ethical question.

A second source is tradition — the accumulated teaching, creeds, worship and practice of the Church handed down through the centuries. The ecumenical creeds (the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed) summarise orthodox belief; the writings of the Church Fathers and the decisions of the great councils (Nicaea 325, Chalcedon 451) defined the doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ. For Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians, tradition stands alongside scripture as a co-ordinate authority — scripture is read within the living tradition of the Church — whereas the Protestant Reformation asserted sola scriptura ('scripture alone'), subordinating tradition to the Bible as the supreme norm. This is a fundamental point of division between the major branches of Christianity.

A third source is the Church itself as a teaching authority. In Roman Catholicism the magisterium — the teaching office of the Pope and bishops — has the authority to interpret scripture and tradition authoritatively and, in defined circumstances, infallibly; the Church is the God-given interpreter without which scripture would be read in a thousand conflicting ways. Protestant traditions give the institutional Church less interpretive authority, emphasising instead the individual believer's reading of scripture guided by the Holy Spirit ('the priesthood of all believers'), and the authority of the local congregation. A further source, emphasised especially in the more charismatic and mystical traditions, is religious experience and the guidance of the Holy Spirit — the conviction that God continues to speak to believers directly, in prayer, worship and conscience.

The interplay of these sources — scripture, tradition, the Church, reason and experience — is often summarised (in the Anglican and Methodist traditions) as a balance to be held, and the differing weightings distinguish the major branches: Roman Catholicism (scripture within tradition, interpreted by the magisterium), Eastern Orthodoxy (scripture within the tradition of the Fathers and the liturgy), and Protestantism (scripture alone as supreme, read by the believer). Evaluating the sources of authority means assessing which provides the most reliable access to God's truth — the certainty of an infallible teaching Church, the fixed text of scripture, or the living guidance of the Spirit — and recognising that the diversity of Christianity flows largely from these different answers. This connects directly to the later dialogues, where the authority of scripture and tradition is tested against philosophical and ethical challenges.

Worked example

Sola scriptura and its critics

Assess the Protestant principle of 'scripture alone' against the Catholic view of scripture within tradition.

State sola scriptura
Scripture alone is the supreme, sufficient authority; tradition and Church are subordinate and correctable by it (the Reformation principle).
The strength
It gives a fixed, God-given norm above fallible human institutions and returns the Bible to every believer.
The Catholic objection
Scripture must be interpreted, and without an authoritative tradition and magisterium it fragments into conflicting readings (as the many Protestant denominations show); the canon itself was fixed by the Church's tradition.
The Protestant reply
The Spirit guides the believer, and scripture's core message is clear ('perspicuity'); an infallible Church risks placing human authority above God's word.
Judgement
Sola scriptura secures a divine norm but struggles to explain interpretive unity; scripture-within-tradition secures unity but risks subordinating the word to the institution — each answers a real need the other neglects.

Result: The debate is a genuine trade-off: sola scriptura protects the supremacy of God's word but at the cost of interpretive fragmentation, while scripture-within-tradition secures unity and interpretation but risks elevating the Church's authority — which is why the question of authority underlies Christianity's divisions.

Typical mistakes

Treating 'the Bible' as read the same way by all Christians; the fundamentalist/liberal spectrum of interpretation is crucial.
Ignoring the Catholic-Protestant divide over tradition and the magisterium, which is central to Christianity's internal diversity.

Active revision

'Scripture is the only reliable source of authority in Christianity.' Assess this view. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

God and creation (the Trinity)#

AdvancedAQA 7062/2 Section A: The study of religion (Christianity)DfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

The doctrine of the Trinity

Fig. 2Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each fully God and distinct persons, yet together one God — one substance, three persons.

The central and distinctive Christian doctrine of God is the Trinity: the belief that God is one being in three persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — each of whom is fully and equally God, yet who are distinct persons, and who together are one God, not three gods. The doctrine developed as the early Church tried to do justice to its inherited Jewish monotheism ('the Lord our God, the Lord is one') while accounting for its worship of Jesus as divine (the Son) and its experience of the indwelling Spirit. It was defined against rival views at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381): against Arianism (which held the Son was a created being, subordinate to the Father) the Church affirmed that the Son is 'of one substance' (homoousios) with the Father, eternally begotten, not made.

The technical formula is 'one substance (ousia), three persons (hypostases)'. The three persons are distinguished by their relations of origin — the Father is unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and, in Western theology, 'and the Son', the filioque, a point of division with Eastern Orthodoxy) — but they are one in being, will and action, so that the external works of the Trinity are undivided. Augustine developed the 'psychological' analogy (the Trinity mirrored in the mind's memory, understanding and will), while the Cappadocian Fathers stressed the distinct persons in communion. The doctrine is held to be a mystery revealed, not deduced — beyond full rational comprehension while not (its defenders insist) a contradiction.

Closely linked is the doctrine of creation: the belief that God freely created the universe out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), so that everything that exists depends on God for its being at every moment. Creation is good (Genesis: 'God saw that it was good'), purposive, and distinct from God (against pantheism, which identifies God with the world), yet continually sustained by God (against deism, which has God create and then withdraw). Human beings are the summit of creation, made 'in the image of God' (imago Dei), which grounds human dignity, rationality and moral responsibility. The doctrine of creation shapes Christian views on the value of the material world, on stewardship of the environment, and on the relationship of God to a universe increasingly explained by science — a theme of the later dialogue.

The doctrine of the Trinity has been both defended and attacked. Its defenders argue it is the necessary consequence of taking seriously the divinity of Christ and the deity of the Spirit within monotheism, and that it reveals God as inherently relational and loving (love requires an other; the eternal love of Father, Son and Spirit means 'God is love' in God's very being). Critics — including Jews and Muslims, and Christian 'unitarians' — argue the doctrine is incoherent (three persons who are each fully God yet only one God seems to violate arithmetic and the law of identity), unbiblical (the word 'Trinity' is not in the Bible and the doctrine is a later development), and a compromise of strict monotheism. Defenders reply that 'person' and 'substance' are used in technical, analogical senses that avoid the arithmetical contradiction, and that the doctrine is the faithful unpacking of the biblical data. Whether the Trinity is a coherent mystery or an incoherent construction is a key evaluative question, and it connects to the topic of religious language (how far can human words capture the divine?).

Worked example

The incoherence objection to the Trinity

Assess the objection that the Trinity violates the law of identity (three persons cannot be one God).

State the objection
If the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God, and they are distinct, then either there are three gods or the identity claims are inconsistent.
Clarify the claim
Orthodoxy denies tritheism: the three are one in substance (ousia) and three in person (hypostasis), so 'is God' is not simple numerical identity but sharing the one divine being.
The technical reply
'Person' and 'substance' are used analogically; the claim is one what (being) subsisting as three whos (persons) — not one thing that is three of the same thing.
The critic's rejoinder
Critics say this is either a distinction without a clear meaning or a redescription that still leaves 3 = 1 unexplained — a mystery bordering on contradiction.
Judgement
The doctrine avoids strict formal contradiction by distinguishing being from person, but its coherence rests on analogical terms whose exact sense is admitted to be mysterious — defensible as revealed mystery, contestable as rational doctrine.

Result: The Trinity escapes formal contradiction by distinguishing one substance from three persons, but because these terms are analogical and the doctrine is confessedly mysterious, its coherence is defensible to the believer as revealed truth while remaining open to the charge of obscurity from the critic.

Typical mistakes

Describing the Trinity as three gods, or as one God in three 'modes'/masks (modalism) — orthodoxy affirms three distinct persons who are one God.
Confusing 'begotten' (the Son) with 'made/created' — the Nicene point against Arianism is that the Son is begotten, not created.

Active revision

'The doctrine of the Trinity is incoherent.' Discuss. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Human nature, sin and salvation#

AdvancedAQA 7062/2 Section A: The study of religion (Christianity)DfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Salvation history in Christian belief

Fig. 3Christian salvation is a narrative from creation and Fall, through the incarnation and atoning death of Christ, to resurrection and salvation.

Christian anthropology holds that human beings are made in the image of God (imago Dei) — rational, free, moral, and made for relationship with God — and so possess a unique dignity, yet are also fallen, marred by sin. The doctrine of the Fall (Genesis 3) teaches that the first humans misused their freedom in disobedience, disrupting their relationship with God and introducing sin and death into human experience. Augustine's influential doctrine of original sin holds that this fallen condition — a bias towards sin and a loss of the original righteousness — is inherited by all humanity, so that human beings cannot save themselves and stand in need of God's grace. Others (following Pelagius, whom Augustine opposed, and much liberal theology) understand the Fall more symbolically, as a picture of the universal human condition of moral failure rather than a literal inherited guilt.

The remedy for sin is salvation, achieved through Jesus Christ — his incarnation (God becoming human), life, death and resurrection. Central is the atonement: the doctrine that Christ's death reconciles humanity to God, dealing with sin. Christians have understood how the cross saves in several 'models', none officially defined as the sole orthodoxy. The ransom/Christus Victor model (early Church, Aulen) sees Christ's death and resurrection as a victory over sin, death and the devil, liberating humanity. The satisfaction model (Anselm, Cur Deus Homo) argues that human sin dishonours the infinite God, incurring a debt humans cannot pay but owe, and God cannot simply ignore; only the God-man (fully God, so able to pay; fully human, so representing us) can make satisfaction, which Christ does on the cross. The penal substitution model (Reformation) holds that Christ bears the punishment for sin in our place. The moral exemplar/influence model (Abelard) sees the cross primarily as the supreme demonstration of God's love, which moves us to repentance and love in return.

How salvation is appropriated is a further point of division, sharpened at the Reformation. The Catholic tradition holds that salvation involves both grace and human co-operation, through faith working in love and mediated by the sacraments of the Church. The Protestant Reformers (Luther, Calvin) proclaimed justification by grace through faith alone (sola gratia, sola fide): humans are saved not by their works or merits but by God's unmerited grace, received through faith in Christ, whose righteousness is credited to the believer. This turned on the reading of Paul ('a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law') and remains a defining difference, though the Joint Declaration on Justification (1999) between Catholics and Lutherans found significant common ground. The scope of salvation (for all, or only the elect — Calvin's predestination) connects this topic to the free-will debate.

These doctrines can be evaluated for coherence and moral acceptability. The doctrine of original sin is defended as a realistic account of the universal human tendency to wrongdoing (some point to its explanatory power for human history), but criticised as unjust (why should all inherit Adam's guilt?) and as incompatible with evolution (there was no single first couple in a state of original righteousness). The satisfaction and penal-substitution models of atonement are defended as taking sin and divine justice seriously, but criticised as portraying God as requiring blood or punishing the innocent Christ for the guilty (which seems unjust and unloving), leading some to prefer the moral-exemplar model — though critics of that model say it makes the cross merely inspirational, not actually saving. The scope of salvation raises the problem of the fate of the unevangelised and of other faiths, connecting directly to religious pluralism. A strong candidate expounds these doctrines accurately and evaluates the coherence and moral character of the competing models, showing the internal diversity of Christianity.

Worked example

Evaluating penal substitution

Assess the objection that penal substitutionary atonement portrays God as unjust.

State the model
Christ bears, in our place, the punishment that sin deserves, satisfying divine justice so that believers can be forgiven.
The objection
Punishing an innocent person (Christ) for the guilty is itself unjust, and a God who requires such a punishment before forgiving looks less loving than a person who simply forgives.
The defence
Christ is not a third party but God himself bearing the cost (the Trinity), freely and out of love; justice and mercy meet, and sin is taken seriously rather than ignored.
Weigh
The Trinitarian reply blunts the 'punishing an innocent' charge (God bears it himself), but the deeper worry — why God cannot simply forgive without penalty — favours the moral-exemplar model for some.
Judgement
Penal substitution is defensible if God's justice requires that sin be dealt with, and if God bears the cost himself; it is vulnerable if forgiveness needs no penalty, in which case the exemplar model is preferable.

Result: Penal substitution answers the 'unjust' objection partly by making God the one who bears the cost, but its coherence depends on holding that divine justice cannot simply overlook sin; those unpersuaded by that premise reasonably prefer the moral-exemplar model — a live debate within Christianity itself.

Typical mistakes

Presenting one atonement model as 'the' Christian view; several coexist, and candidates should compare them.
Confusing Anselm's satisfaction (paying a debt of honour owed to God) with penal substitution (bearing punishment) — related but distinct models.

Active revision

'The doctrine of atonement presents God as unjust.' Assess this view. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Religious practice and expression#

StandardAQA 7062/2 Section A: The study of religion (Christianity)DfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Word-centred and sacramental worship

Fig. 4Christian worship spans a spectrum from sacramental (Eucharist-centred) to word-centred (preaching-centred), reflecting different sources of authority.

Christian faith is expressed and sustained through worship, sacraments, prayer and community, and the forms these take vary widely across the traditions. Worship — the adoration and service of God — ranges from the highly liturgical and sacramental (the Roman Catholic Mass, the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, with set prayers, vestments, incense and a central focus on the Eucharist) to the word-centred worship of Reformed and evangelical Protestantism (with the sermon, the reading and preaching of scripture, and extempore prayer at the centre), to the charismatic worship of Pentecostal churches (with spontaneity, speaking in tongues and healing) and the near-silent, non-sacramental worship of the Quakers. This spectrum reflects the different weightings of scripture, tradition and experience discussed earlier.

The sacraments are 'outward and visible signs of an inward and invisible grace' — actions instituted by Christ through which grace is believed to be conveyed. The two universally recognised are baptism (initiation into the Church, using water, marking cleansing from sin and new life in Christ — practised as infant baptism in most traditions, believer's baptism in Baptist and some other churches) and the Eucharist (also called Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper or the Mass, commemorating and re-presenting Christ's Last Supper, using bread and wine). Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy recognise seven sacraments (adding confirmation, reconciliation/penance, anointing of the sick, marriage and ordination), and hold, in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. Protestant traditions generally recognise only the two dominical sacraments and understand the Eucharist variously — as a real spiritual presence (Calvin), a memorial (Zwingli), or, for Lutherans, Christ present 'in, with and under' the elements. The theology of the Eucharist is thus another major point of division.

Prayer — communication with God — is central to Christian life in all traditions, taking forms including adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication (intercession for others), and ranging from set, liturgical prayers (the Lord's Prayer, the Psalms, the daily office) to spontaneous personal prayer and contemplative or mystical prayer (the tradition of Teresa of Avila and the Cloud of Unknowing). The community of the Church — the 'body of Christ' — is itself a central expression of Christian identity: Christianity is not merely a private belief but membership of a worshipping, serving community, expressed in fellowship, mission, charitable service (the Church's long involvement in education, healthcare and care for the poor) and the pursuit of social justice.

These practices can be evaluated for their significance and for the debates they raise. Worship and sacraments are defended as the God-given means by which faith is nourished, community sustained and grace received, and as the lived reality of a religion that is practised, not merely believed; the sheer diversity of forms is seen by some as a richness and by others as a scandal of disunity. The sacramental disputes (transubstantiation, infant vs believer's baptism) show that practice is inseparable from doctrine. A recurring evaluative question is whether the externals of worship and sacrament are essential to Christian faith or whether, as the Quakers and some Protestants hold, true worship is inward and spiritual and the externals are secondary or even distracting — a debate that connects to the nature of religious experience and to the challenge of secularisation, where declining religious practice raises the question of what is essential to Christianity.

Worked example

Is external worship essential?

Assess the Quaker view that true worship is inward and needs no sacraments or liturgy.

State the Quaker view
True worship is the inward, immediate encounter of the soul with God in silence; outward sacraments and set liturgy are unnecessary, even distracting.
The strength
It captures Jesus' teaching that God is worshipped 'in spirit and in truth', and the prophetic critique of empty ritual; it locates religion in the heart.
The sacramental reply
Christ instituted baptism and the Eucharist ('do this in remembrance of me'); embodied creatures need outward, communal signs, and grace is mediated through them.
Weigh
The inward is essential (ritual without faith is empty), but Christianity's incarnational logic (God took flesh) supports embodied, communal expression; most traditions hold both are needed.
Judgement
Inward faith is primary, but for most of Christianity outward worship and sacrament are its proper embodiment, not optional extras — the Quaker view is a coherent minority position, not the mainstream.

Result: The Quaker position rightly insists that inward faith is essential and ritual without it empty, but the incarnational and communal character of Christianity, and Christ's institution of the sacraments, make outward worship the proper expression of faith for most of the tradition rather than a dispensable addition.

Typical mistakes

Describing 'Christian worship' as if uniform; the liturgical/word-centred/charismatic/silent spectrum is important.
Confusing transubstantiation (Catholic — the elements become Christ's body and blood) with the memorialist (Zwinglian) or 'real presence' views held by other traditions.

Active revision

'The sacraments are essential to Christian faith.' Discuss. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Christianity and contemporary society#

AdvancedAQA 7062/2 Section A: The study of religion (Christianity)DfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Christian responses to religious pluralism

Fig. 5Positions range from exclusivism (salvation only through explicit faith in Christ) through inclusivism to pluralism (all religions equally valid).

Christianity's engagement with contemporary society is a major part of the study of the religion, and it reveals both internal diversity and the pressures of modernity. On gender and sexuality, Christian traditions divide sharply: on the ordination of women, some churches (Anglican, Methodist, most Protestant) now ordain women while the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches do not, appealing to scripture, tradition and the male priesthood; on same-sex relationships, positions range from traditional teaching that limits sexual relationships to heterosexual marriage (citing biblical texts and natural law) to affirming churches that bless same-sex unions (citing the priority of love and a critical reading of the relevant texts). These debates turn on the sources-of-authority question — how scripture and tradition are weighed against reason, experience and changing social understanding.

On religion and science, Christianity has developed a range of responses to the challenges of cosmology and, especially, evolution. Young-earth creationism rejects evolution in favour of a literal Genesis; but the mainstream Christian traditions have largely accepted evolution, holding either that Genesis is a theological, not scientific, text (concerned with why, not how, the world exists) or that God works through the evolutionary process (theistic evolution). Many theologians argue that science and religion are 'non-overlapping magisteria' (Gould) or are complementary — science asking how, religion asking why and who — so that there need be no conflict; the 'conflict thesis' (that science and religion are inherently at war) is now widely regarded by historians as a nineteenth-century myth. This connects directly to the dialogue with philosophy of religion, where the New Atheists revive the conflict claim.

On religious pluralism, Christianity must respond to the fact of many religions, and three positions are standard. Exclusivism holds that salvation is found only through explicit faith in Christ ('no one comes to the Father except through me'), so other religions do not save. Inclusivism (Karl Rahner's 'anonymous Christians') holds that salvation is through Christ but is available to sincere adherents of other faiths who respond to grace as they know it, even without explicit Christian faith. Pluralism (John Hick) holds that the great religions are equally valid human responses to the same ultimate reality ('the Real'), so no one religion has exclusive truth or a monopoly on salvation — Hick's 'Copernican revolution' places God, not Christianity, at the centre. These positions have very different implications for mission, tolerance and the truth-claims of Christianity.

Underlying all of this is the challenge of secularisation — the process by which religion loses social significance in modern Western societies (declining church attendance, the privatisation of belief, the marginalisation of religion in public life). Sociologists debate whether secularisation is inevitable (the 'secularisation thesis') or whether religion is merely changing form or reviving globally (the persistence of religion, the growth of Christianity in the global South, the rise of 'believing without belonging'). Christianity responds in varied ways — by adapting to modern culture (liberal theology), by reasserting traditional identity (conservative and evangelical resurgence), or by focusing on service and community. Evaluating Christianity's engagement with contemporary society means assessing how well it can hold to its core beliefs while responding to modern challenges, and whether its accommodations to modernity are faithful development or a loss of nerve — a question that leads directly into the two dialogues, with philosophy and with ethics, that complete the course.

Worked example

Assessing Hick's pluralism

Assess John Hick's pluralist claim that all the great religions are equally valid responses to the same ultimate reality.

State the view
Hick's 'Copernican revolution': the Real is at the centre, and the religions are culturally conditioned but equally valid human responses to it; none has exclusive truth or salvation.
The strength
It fits the moral and spiritual fruit found in all faiths, promotes tolerance, and avoids the harshness of consigning sincere non-Christians to damnation.
The objection from truth
The religions make contradictory truth-claims (one God vs many vs none; Jesus as God vs not); they cannot all be straightforwardly true, so pluralism seems to empty each of its actual content.
The objection from within
Exclusivists argue pluralism betrays Christianity's own claims (Christ as the unique saviour); it is not a neutral standpoint but a new meta-theology that relativises all faiths.
Judgement
Pluralism gains in tolerance and humility but at the cost of the distinctive truth-claims of each religion; inclusivism may better balance Christian conviction with openness — a genuine trilemma.

Result: Hick's pluralism secures tolerance and moral generosity but struggles with the conflicting truth-claims of the religions and with fidelity to Christianity's own convictions; inclusivism offers a middle way, so the choice among exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism is a real and unresolved question for contemporary Christianity.

Typical mistakes

Treating 'the Christian view' on gender, sexuality or science as single; the traditions diverge, and the divergence reflects the authority debate.
Confusing the pluralism positions: exclusivism (only through explicit faith in Christ), inclusivism (through Christ but available to others), pluralism (all religions equally valid).

Active revision

'Christianity has adapted successfully to the challenges of the modern world.' Evaluate this claim. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Key points

Sola scriptura and its critics

Key points

The incoherence objection to the Trinity

Key points

Evaluating penal substitution

Key points

Is external worship essential?

Key points

Assessing Hick's pluralism

Sources

Study of a chosen religion

Key points

Sola scriptura and its critics

Key points

The incoherence objection to the Trinity

Key points

Evaluating penal substitution

Key points

Is external worship essential?

Key points

Assessing Hick's pluralism

Sources