OCR A Level Philosophy of Religion

A posteriori – Knowledge based on experience (e.g., Cosmological Argument).

A priori – Knowledge independent of experience (e.g., Ontological Argument).

Analogy – Using comparison to explain religious language (Aquinas).

Anthropic Principle – The universe appears fine-tuned for life (Tennant).

Bliks – Non-falsifiable religious beliefs (Hare).

Cognitivism – The belief that religious/moral statements are objective and true/false.

Cosmological Argument – Argument for God’s existence based on causation (Aquinas, Leibniz).

Credulity, Principle of – Religious experiences should be taken as true unless proven otherwise (Swinburne).

Determinism – The belief that all events are pre-determined and inevitable.

Evidential Problem of Evil – The sheer amount of suffering makes God’s existence unlikely.

Falsification Principle – A statement is meaningful if it can be proven false (Flew).

Free Will Defence – Theodicy arguing that God allows evil due to human freedom (Plantinga).

Gaunilo’s Objection – Critique of Anselm’s Ontological Argument (Perfect Island analogy).

Hume’s Fork – The distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas.

Irenaean Theodicy – Evil exists for human growth and soul-making (Hick).

Language Games – Wittgenstein’s theory that religious language is meaningful in context.

Materialism – The belief that only physical matter exists (opposed to dualism).

Meta-Ethics – The study of the nature of moral language and judgments.

Moral Argument for God – God is needed as a basis for objective morality (Kant).

Mystical Experience – Religious experience involving direct encounter with God (William James).

Natural Law – Moral order inherent in nature, given by God (Aquinas).

Numinous – The feeling of awe and wonder in religious experience (Otto).

Omnipotence – God’s all-powerfulness, debated by theologians.

Ontological Argument – An a priori argument for God’s existence (Anselm, Descartes).

Predicate – A quality or property attributed to a subject (used in Ontological Argument).

Process Theodicy – The idea that God is limited and suffering is part of His experience (Griffin).

Quinque Viae – Aquinas’ Five Ways to prove God’s existence.

Religious Experience – Personal encounters with the divine (James, Otto, Swinburne).

Religious Pluralism – The belief in multiple valid religious truths.

Revealed Theology – Knowledge of God gained through divine revelation (Barth).

Soul-Making Theodicy – The view that suffering helps humans develop spiritually (Irenaeus, Hick).

Teleological Argument – The argument for God’s existence based on design (Paley, Tennant).

Theodicy – An explanation for why a good God allows evil.

Transcendence – The belief that God exists beyond the physical world.

Verification Principle – The idea that only verifiable statements are meaningful (Ayer).

Wittgenstein – Proposed Language Games theory in religious language debates.