BELIEF IN GOD

GCSE RELIGIOUS STUDIES UNIT A

REVISION NOTES

Belief In God – Revision Checklist

What you need to Know

NB

For the section, you only need to know about the Christian viewpoints

• Keywords• Being brought up a Christian (Christian Upbringing)• Christian beliefs about God• Christian beliefs on awe & wonder (numinous feelings)• Prayer• Miracles• Design Argument• Causation Argument• Moral/Natural Evil• Response To Evil

Belief in God

numinous

conversion

miracle

prayer

Agnostic atheism

Moral evilNatural evil

omnipotent

benevolent

omniscient

Being Brought Up Christian

• Baptized welcome into church

given godparents

Parents pray with children

celebrate festivals

Church children should attend with parents

Go to Sunday School

Community Help with elderly/poor families

celebrate festivals

Christian Beliefs About God

Benevolent – God is good

Omnipotent – God is more powerful than anything else

Omniscient – God knows everything

Humans not puppets-have free will

Awe & Wonder

Numinous feeling

Something Greater….Going Into A ChurchSomething Greater….Sun, Moon & Stars

Some people find the experience so incredible, they convert.

PrayerPeople pray to…

Communicate with God

Praising God

Asking for help

Are Prayers Answered….?

Sometimes…pray for sick relative who gets better

Prayers not being answered – lead to agnostic/atheism

But….Humans cannot possibly understand God

MiraclesMiracle – paranormal happening which break the natural laws of scienceSome religious people believe miracles are a natural event which must have been caused by Gode.g. pulling babies from the rubble days after an earthquake

Jesus performed many miracles in Gospels e.g. healing blind etc.

Many Christians believe..if miracles happen…must be a reason for believing in God

Design Argument

Paley’s Argument – watch in a woodDesign of it so intricate-must have a makerWorld is so intricate – must have a maker - GODEverything in the world is so intricately designed e.g. eye to see,

Birds wing to make it fly –could not have happened by random chance

Causation Argument

Everything has a cause – must be a cause for the universe

God must exist because everything must have a beginning – God created the beginning of the world

Science says – world created over millions of years. Christians believe six days

But what did God create the world out of - NOTHING

Moral Evil

MORAL EVIL: Caused by humans, e.g. Murder.A Christian might fund it difficult to understand why God created evil

However, the response would be that God created people with free will, so people can decided to become evil

Natural Evil

NATURAL EVIL: Humans are not responsible for this. E.g. Earthquakes

Christians find this difficult to understand that so many innocent people can be killed e.g. Tsunami in 2004 killed 250,000 people, many of them innocent children.

Response To Evil

God is omnipotent & omniscient – why does suffering happen e.g. Tsunami

Christian response is…

Free will – people can become evil of their own choiceLife is a test – in order to get to heaven – people have a series of tests on earth

Suffering gives people strength & power to overcome problemsHumans cannot understand the complexity of God

Christians respond to evil through prayer