1. Developments in Christian thought
New folder/ section in folder.
1/3 2 hour exam papers (33.3% of total A Level)

2. Developments in Christian thought
Learners will study:
• religious beliefs, values and teachings, their
interconnections and how they vary historically
and in the contemporary world
• sources of religious wisdom and authority
• practices which shape and express religious
identity, and how these vary within a tradition
• significant social and historical developments in
theology and religious thought
• key themes related to the relationship between
religion and society

3. A quick reminder… What is Christianity?
When and where did Christianity originate?
Key figures in Christianity?
Key denominations of Christianity?
What happens in the Bible?

4. A quick reminder… What is Christianity?
Create a brief timeline of the key events which occur within the bible.

5. A quick reminder… What is Christianity?
Create a brief timeline of important events within the development of Christianity.

6. Developments in Christian thought…?
Developments in Christian thought…

7. Developments in Christian thought…
Insight:
Augustine on Human Nature.
Death and the Afterlife
Foundations:
Knowledge of God’s existence.
Jesus Christ.
Living:
Christian Moral Principles.
Christian Moral Action
This year.

8. Augustine’s Teaching on Human Nature

9. Augustine on Human Nature: Key terminology
Will
Sin
Grace
The Fall
Neoplatonism
Redeemed
Concordia
Cupiditas
Caritas
Concupiscence
Ecclesia
Summum Bonum ?

10. Will - the part of human nature that makes free choices.
Sin – disobeying the will of God.
Grace – in theological terms, God’s free and undeserved love for humanity, epitomised in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
The Fall – the biblical event in which Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden; also used to refer to the imperfect state of humanity.
Neoplatonism – philosophical thinking arising from the ideas of Plato.
Redeemed – in theological terms, ‘saved’ from sin by the sacrifice of Christ.
Concordia – human friendship.
Cupiditas – ‘selfish love’ – a love of worldly things and of selfish desires.
Caritas – ‘generous love’ - a love of others and of the virtues; the latin equivalent of the greek work ‘agape’.
Concupiscence – uncontrollable desire for physical pleasures and material things.
Ecclesia - heavenly society, in contrast with earthly society.
Summum Bonum – the highest, most supreme good.

11. Human Nature?
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics (including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting) which humans tend to have naturally.

12. To what extent are we in control of our own human nature?
Do you have any evidence for your view?

13. Predict: Who are these people?

14. Anders Breivik & Maximillian Kolbe

15. Anders Breivik & Maximillian Kolbe
Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest who was imprisoned in a Naxi concentration camp because the monastery where he lived was publishing anti-Nazi literature. In July 1941, 3 inmates escaped from Auschwitz. The deputy camp leader selected 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker as a deterrent. One of the men cried out that he had a wife and children…Kolbe offered himself in exchange for this mans life! Kolbe supported the 9 men he was with over the 2 weeks they spent in the underground bunker being starved to death; eventually he was the only one alive. Finally, the prison guards killed him using a lethal injection.
Brievik shocked the world when he carried out a series of attacks and mass murders in On 22nd July 2011 he killed 8 people by setting off a bomb in Oslo followed by the shooting and murder of 69 young people at the left-wing Workers’ Youth Club League at their summer camp on the island of Utoya, Norway. His motives were to cleanse Europe of non-European elements such as Islam, cultural Marxism and multiculturalism. He was diagnosed as having a narcissistic personality disorder and convicted of mass murder in 2012.
We have the human potential to act in two very different ways; why?

16. Why? Anders Breivik & Maximillian Kolbe
We have the human potential to act in two very different ways; why?
These 2 examples = polar opposites of human nature.
They suggest that human beings have the potential to act in diametrically opposed ways.
Why?

17. Do you have any evidence for your view?
To what extent are we in control of our own human nature? Are we naturally good or bad? Can we help how we act?
Do you have any evidence for your view?

18. 2 responses… Clarify Question Summarise
Any words or phrases that you don’t understand.
Question
Do you agree?
What questions would you ask the scholar?
Summarise
What you think the quote is saying about human potential/ human nature
2 quotes: recip read: Rousseau/ Hobbes

19. What does Jean-Jacques Rousseau claim?
“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. Many a man believes himself to be the master of others who is, no less than they, a slave"
What does Jean-Jacques Rousseau claim?
Clarify
Any words or phrases that you don’t understand.
Question
Do you agree?
What questions would you ask the scholar?
Summarise
What you think the quote is saying about human potential/ human nature

20. What does Jean-Jacques Rousseau claim?
“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. Many a man believes himself to be the master of others who is, no less than they, a slave"
What does Jean-Jacques Rousseau claim?
Rousseau argued that humans are essentially generous and only act otherwise when a situation or circumstance causes them to act otherwise.
The metaphor of the chains in the quote describes how human competition for land, resources and power has resulted in loss of freedom.
For Rousseau the purpose of life is to cut free from these chains and rediscover the “state of nature” where human beings are naturally co-operative and appreciative of each other; we should learn to be more like this.

21. “The life of man… solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"
What does Thomas Hobbes claim?
Clarify
Any words or phrases that you don’t understand.
Question
Do you agree?
What questions would you ask the scholar?
Summarise
What you think the quote is saying about human potential/ human nature

22. “The life of man… solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"
What does Thomas Hobbes claim?
Hobbes’ starting point was very different from Rousseau; he thought that ‘in a state of nature’ humans are not naturally generous/ co-operative. Humans are selfish, brutish and animal-like.
Humans are however, in one vital respect, different from animals – the human power of reason means that we can learn to be good and realise that if we cooperate with each other life becomes more tolerable.
Hobbes thinks that the purpose of life is to conquer the brutish animalistic side of human nature and create just and fair societies

23. Who do you most agree with and why. Are we destined to sin
Who do you most agree with and why? Are we destined to sin? Is there good and bad in all people?
Who do you most agree with and why? Are we destined to sin? Is there good and bad in all people?

24. How do you think Christians might respond to these questions?
To what extent are we in control of our own human nature? Are we destined to sin? Is there good and bad in all people?
Who do you most agree with and why? Are we destined to sin? Is there good and bad in all people?

25. Augustine’s Teaching on Human Nature

26. Homework…
Who was Augustine? Find one fact that tells us about who he was/ what he was like/ what he believed.
Will explore Augustine’s view on Human nature. Homework: Who was Augustine? Find one fact that tells us who he was