Y10 - Y11 RS: Advanced Material

These are more challenging resources for those who would like to improve their ability level. A lot of these resources are for A-Level. You will need a dictionary for some of these. See also the internet links on the level above this one.

Oxplore on the Question of Whether God Exists:

https://oxplore.org/question-detail/does-a-god-exist

Aquinas & the Cosmological Arguments (Crash Course in Philosophy) - You will only be examined on argument number 1 of the five mentioned but the others will be useful to mention in 12-mark answers. To understand this you need to be clear on the meanings of 'necessary' and 'contingent'. Don't worry about the Anselm bit at the start.

Mr McMillan on Cosmological Argument for A-Level (very difficult)

Hot Handout Reasons for Belief is a summary of some other well-known arguments for the existence of God.

Cosmological Argument subfolder: The first file is a simplified and shortened version of a famous radio debate that took place in 1948 on the BBC. Frederick Copleston, a Catholic priest and Philosophy lecturer debated with Lord Bertrand Russell, a world-famous mathematician and philosopher. Russell is normally thought of as an atheist but here he describes himself as an agnostic. The full debate can be heard on YouTube. For the identity of Hume see below under the miracles subfolder. Hume's dialogues are about both the cosmological argument and the design argument.

Design (Teleological) Argument subfolder: The first two files are primary source extracts from Paley and Mill. Mill's is hard to follow at first but becomes very spicy from the end of the first page. The third file is the most interesting of these and is a series of short statements both for & against God's existence by different writers.

Miracles subfolder: C.S. Lewis is the same author as The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia. He lost his mother when he was aged 9, was seriously injured by an explosion in the trenches in World War 1 and later his wife died young of cancer. He was an Oxford scholar in the mid-20th century who spent different periods of his life both as an atheist and a Christian. In the extract below, he writes about 'naturalism' which in Philosophy means the belief that only physical things exist and there is no such thing as the supernatural: ghosts, spirits, God or a soul that lives beyond death. The David Hume extract contains difficult 18th century language. Hume was a very important atheist philosopher from Edinburgh University. Richard Swinburne is a world-renowned philosopher who used to lecture at Hull University before becoming a professor at Oxford. He once had the privilege of addressing an audience that included Mr Haughton.