Christianity

What Christianity covers

One of the six Paper 4 options. God as personal and creator, the Trinity and the person of Christ, the Bible and the Church as sources of authority, worship and the sacraments, atonement theology, and Christianity's encounter with science, secularisation and religious diversity.

The 15 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• God as Personal and as CreatorRecall questions on God as personal, Buber's two kinds of relation and Augustine, omnipotence and immutability, creation from nothing, emanation, construction and artistic expression, stewardship and the goodness of creation, and the challenges to a good Creator.Open →
• The TrinityRecall questions on the biblical roots of the Trinity and how the doctrine is defended, relation and perichoresis, the inadequacy of analogies, the filioque dispute, Barth's modes of being and Rahner's rule.Open →
• The Nature of the ChurchRecall questions on the four marks of the Church, unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity, Cyprian of Carthage on the Church and salvation, Luther on where the Church is found, and the challenges the marks face today.Open →
• Love as the Key Christian Moral PrincipleRecall questions on agape, the commandment to love God and neighbour, the good Samaritan, and how love functions as a moral norm.Open →
• The Bible as a Source of AuthorityRecall questions on the Bible as the word of God, the formation of the canon and differing Bibles, its use in worship and ethics, tradition alongside scripture, revealed and natural theology, the Spirit, and literalist and historical-critical readings.Open →
• The Nature and Role of JesusRecall questions on Arius and Athanasius, Nicaea and the Chalcedonian definition, Luther on justification and the theology of the cross, Calvin on Christ's threefold office, and Moltmann and Weinandy on whether God suffers.Open →
• The Eucharist and Its DiversityRecall questions on transubstantiation, consubstantiation and memorialism, and how practice differs between denominations.Open →
• Christian Art, Music and PrayerRecall questions on the use and rejection of images, the place of music, forms of prayer, and how each expresses belief.Open →
• Christianity and ScienceRecall questions on the challenge of modern cosmology, Galileo on scripture and nature, Darwin's challenge, the conflict thesis, young earth creationism and Intelligent Design, theistic evolution, and the lasting impact of these debates.Open →
• SecularisationRecall questions on the evidence for and against religious decline, the churches' role today, Hitchens and Dawkins against religion, the McGraths' reply, New Religious Movements, and being spiritual but not religious.Open →
• New Movements in TheologyRecall questions on Gutiérrez's liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor, structural sin, McFague's feminist models of God, Cone's black theology, Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, migration and the prosperity gospel.Open →
• Atonement TheoryRecall questions on atonement and soteriology, the sacrificial model, the victory model and Aulén's account of it, Anselm's satisfaction theory, penal substitution and its critics, and the moral exemplar model.Open →
• Barth and Hick on AtonementRecall questions on Barth's Judge judged in our place, God as the subject of atonement and the question of universal salvation, and Hick's metaphorical incarnation, rejection of transactional theories, and implications for other religions.Open →
• Pluralism and DiversityRecall questions on plurality and pluralism, particularism, inclusivism and Rahner's anonymous Christians, Hick's pluralism and its critics, alternatives to the threefold classification, and the Ecumenical movement.Open →
• Equality and Gender in ChristianityRecall questions on biblical grounds for equality, the texts used to limit women's roles, denominational differences, the progress of women's ordination and the arguments for and against it, and its relation to wider equality debates.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Christianity further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Immanence vs Transcendence

  Immanence: the presence and activity of God within creation. Transcendence: the existence of God wholly beyond the created order.

• Transubstantiation vs Consubstantiation

  Transubstantiation: the teaching that the elements become the body and blood in substance. Consubstantiation: the teaching that Christ is present alongside unchanged bread and wine.

• Justification vs Sanctification

  Justification: being declared righteous before God. Sanctification: being progressively made holy in the life that follows.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What do Christians mean when they call God personal?

   Model answer

   That God is not an impersonal force or principle but a being who knows, wills, loves and can be addressed. Christians hold that God enters into relationship with individuals, hears prayer, and reveals himself by name rather than merely being inferred. Personal language does not mean God is a human being writ large; most theologians treat it as analogy, since God has no body and is not one item among the world's objects.

2. 2

   How does M Buber's distinction between two kinds of relation help explain a personal God?

   Model answer

   Buber, a Jewish philosopher whose work Christian theologians took up widely, contrasted I-Thou with I-It. In I-It we treat something as an object to be analysed, used or classified. In I-Thou we meet another whole being in mutual presence, without reducing them to a function. Buber argued that God is the Eternal Thou who can never be turned into an It, and that every genuine I-Thou meeting is a glimpse of that ultimate relation.

3. 3

   Why does Buber's account make theology about God awkward?

   Model answer

   Because the moment God becomes a topic to be described, measured or proved, God has been shifted into the It column. Buber's point is that God is known in encounter, in address and response, not by assembling propositions. Christians who use him tend to say doctrine is a servant of relationship, mapping the encounter afterwards rather than replacing it. Critics reply that without some cognitive content there is no way to tell a genuine encounter from a mood.

4. 4

   Contrast what Buber and Augustine each contribute to belief in God.

   Model answer

   Buber works from the side of encounter: God is the Eternal Thou, known in address and relation, and reduced to an idol the moment he is treated as an object of analysis. Augustine works from the side of God's nature and God's act: God is the unchanging source who creates freely out of nothing, whose creation is good, and in whom evil has no positive existence. One secures that God can be met, the other that God is worth meeting; Christians who use both argue that relationship without doctrine drifts and doctrine without relationship dies.

5. 5

   Explain what is meant by divine omnipotence and where it creates difficulty.

   Model answer

   Omnipotence is the claim that God's power is unlimited. Most Christian thinkers qualify it: God cannot do the logically incoherent, and cannot act against his own nature by lying or willing evil. Difficulties follow. If God can do anything, why is there so much suffering? And if human beings are genuinely free, has God limited his own power? Some theologians answer that God freely restrains his power out of love, which keeps the relationship real.

6. 6

   What is immutability, and why do some Christians find it hard to reconcile with a personal God?

   Model answer

   Immutability is the doctrine that God does not change in nature, character, will or purpose. Classical theists such as Augustine held that change means either improvement or decline, and a perfect being can do neither. The tension is obvious: a God who responds to prayer, is moved by suffering, or becomes incarnate looks like a God who changes. Defenders answer that God's constancy is exactly what makes his responses trustworthy; the change is in the creature's situation, not in God's steady love.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Christianity revision questions

What does Christianity cover in Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies?

15 subtopics: god as personal and as creator, the trinity, the nature of the church, love as the key christian moral principle, the bible as a source of authority, the nature and role of jesus, the eucharist and its diversity, christian art, music and prayer, christianity and science, secularisation, new movements in theology, atonement theory, barth and hick on atonement, pluralism and diversity and equality and gender in christianity. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Christianity organised?

By the Edexcel 9RS0 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.