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Eduqas A-Level Religious Studies A120QS
Christianity: Religious Figures and Sacred TextsChristianity
Christianity: Religious Concepts and Religious LifeChristianity
Christianity: Social and Historical Developments in Religious ThoughtChristianity
Christianity: Practices That Shape Religious IdentityChristianity
Islam: Religious Figures and Sacred TextsIslam
Islam: Religious Concepts and Religious LifeIslam
Islam: Social and Historical Developments in Religious ThoughtIslam
Islam: Practices That Shape Religious IdentityIslam
Judaism: Religious Figures and Sacred TextsJudaism
Judaism: Religious Concepts and Religious LifeJudaism
Judaism: Social and Historical Developments in Religious ThoughtJudaism
Judaism: Practices That Shape Religious IdentityJudaism
Buddhism: Religious Figures and Sacred TextsBuddhism
Buddhism: Religious Concepts and Religious LifeBuddhism
Buddhism: Social and Historical Developments in Religious ThoughtBuddhism
Buddhism: Practices That Shape Religious IdentityBuddhism
Hinduism: Religious Figures and Sacred TextsHinduism
Hinduism: Religious Concepts and Religious LifeHinduism
Topic overviewBrahman and atman: monism, dualism and the Vedanta schoolsThe Trimurti, cyclical time, Vaishnavism and ShaivismKarma, samsara and the goal of mokshaVarnashramadharma: the four varnas and four ashramasThe status of the Dalits: Gandhi, Ambedkar and afterAhimsa from Jain roots to Gandhi's satyagraha
Hinduism: Social and Historical Developments in Religious ThoughtHinduism
Hinduism: Practices That Shape Religious IdentityHinduism
Sikhism: Religious Figures and Sacred TextsSikhism
Topic overviewGuru Nanak's background and the influences on his teachingGuru Nanak's revelation, teachings and the community at KartarpurGuru Gobind Singh and the founding of the KhalsaThe Guru Granth Sahib as living GuruThe Mul Mantar and the Japji SahibGuru Arjan and the empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh
Sikhism: Religious Concepts and Religious LifeSikhism
Sikhism: Social and Historical Developments in Religious ThoughtSikhism
Topic overviewKhalistan, persecution and the politics of the PunjabEquality of men and women in SikhismSikh attitudes to other faiths and interfaith dialogueSikhism, science and secularisationOrigins and development of the Sikh community in BritainMiri and piri, the kirpan and defending the oppressed
Sikhism: Practices That Shape Religious IdentitySikhism
Arguments for the Existence of God: Inductive
Arguments for the Existence of God: Deductive
The Problem of Evil and Suffering
Religious Belief as a Product of the Human Mind
Religious Experience
Topic overviewVisions and religious conversionMysticism, Teresa of Avila and the stages of prayerWilliam James's four marks and Otto's numinousChallenges to the authenticity of religious experienceThe value of religious experience for the individual and the communityDefining miracles and the Hume–Swinburne debate
Religious Language
Ethical Thought
Deontological Ethics
Topic overviewAquinas's four levels of law and the primary preceptsVirtues, goods and the moral act in AquinasNatural law applied: abortion and voluntary euthanasiaFinnis, the basic goods and practical reasonablenessHoose and the proportionalist debateFinnis and proportionalism applied: immigration and capital punishment
Teleological Ethics
Topic overviewFletcher's rejection of legalism and antinomianismThe working principles and the six propositionsSituation ethics applied: homosexual and polyamorous relationshipsBentham, utility and the hedonic calculusMill: higher pleasures, the harm principle and rulesUtilitarianism applied: animal experimentation and nuclear deterrence
Determinism
Religious Language
- 6 subtopics
- 18 things to know
- Component 2
What Religious Language covers
Religious Language is examined in Component 2, Philosophy of Religion. It covers the inherent problems of religious language, logical Positivism and the verification principle, falsification: Flew, Hare, Mitchell and Swinburne, analogy and symbol: Aquinas, Ramsey, Randall and Tillich, religious language as myth and religious language as a language game.
The 6 subtopics
Each one has its own page.
- The inherent problems of religious languageUnivocal language, equivocal language and via negativa.Open →
- Logical Positivism and the verification principleVerification principle, analytic statement and hick's eschatological verification.Open →
- Falsification: Flew, Hare, Mitchell and SwinburneFalsification principle, parable of the invisible gardener and flew's phrase for the fate of religious assertions.Open →
- Analogy and symbol: Aquinas, Ramsey, Randall and TillichAquinas's analogy of attribution, aquinas's analogy of proportion and model in Ian Ramsey's account of religious language.Open →
- Religious language as mythMyth in the study of religion and problem of competing myths.Open →
- Religious language as a language gameLanguage game, wittgenstein's idea of family resemblances and objection about verifiable propositions in religion.Open →
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
Your recallNot started
Who and when
Who were the Logical Positivists, what is their criterion of meaning, and what is an analytic statement?
Numbers
State the falsification principle, name who devised the gardener parable and when, and describe how the story opens.
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Why does Aquinas reject both univocal and equivocal language about God?
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What is a myth in the study of religion?
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How did Wittgenstein's early philosophy view language?
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Why does the God of classical theism create a problem for language?
Who and when
Who were the Logical Positivists?
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What is the falsification principle?
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Explain Aquinas's analogy of attribution.
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Why is myth described as a complex form of language?
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How did Wittgenstein's later philosophy change his early view of language?
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What is univocal language?
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State the verification principle.
Numbers
Whose parable of the gardener does Flew use?
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Explain Aquinas's analogy of proportion.
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What do creation myths communicate?
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What is a language game?
Take Religious Language further
The same content, four other ways.
Commonly confused
Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.
Wisdom's parable vs Flew's challenge
Wisdom's parable: the 1944 essay that first told the story of the invisible gardener. Flew's challenge: The later use of that story to demand what would count against a religious claim.
Hare's blik vs Mitchell's partisan
Hare's blik: an unfalsifiable way of seeing the world, held without factual claim. Mitchell's partisan: A factual claim held in trust, whose holder admits evidence counts against it.
Analogy of attribution vs Analogy of proportion
Analogy of attribution: language applied to God because God is the cause of the quality in creatures. Analogy of proportion: Language applied to God scaled to the kind of being that possesses it.
Questions from this topic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
Why does the God of classical theism create a problem for language?
Model answer
Human language developed to describe finite, physical and temporal things. God is held to be infinite, incorporeal and timeless, so ordinary words do not obviously fit.
- 2
What is univocal language?
Model answer
Univocal language uses a word in exactly the same sense of two subjects. Calling God good and a person good univocally would make divine goodness the same kind as human goodness.
- 3
What is the danger of univocal language about God?
Model answer
God is reduced to one more being alongside creatures. Anthropomorphism follows, and divine transcendence is lost.
- 4
What is equivocal language?
Model answer
Equivocal language uses the same word in two entirely unrelated senses. Calling God good equivocally would leave the meaning of the word unknown.
- 5
What is the danger of equivocal language about God?
Model answer
Nothing informative would be said about God at all. Worship and doctrine would rest on words with no graspable content.
- 6
What is the via negativa?
Model answer
The via negativa describes God only by saying what God is not. Maimonides and Pseudo-Dionysius are its best known advocates.
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material.
Religious Language revision questions
- What does Religious Language cover in Eduqas A-Level Religious Studies?
- 6 subtopics: the inherent problems of religious language, logical positivism and the verification principle, falsification: flew, hare, mitchell and swinburne, analogy and symbol: aquinas, ramsey, randall and tillich, religious language as myth and religious language as a language game. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
- How is Religious Language organised?
- By the Eduqas A120QS specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.
Every question in Religious Language, on a schedule.
Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.
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