1. BELIEF IN GOD
GCSE RELIGIOUS STUDIES UNIT A
REVISION NOTES

2. 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

3. Belief in God numinous miracle omnipotent conversion prayer omniscient
atheism
Agnostic
Moral evil
Natural evil
benevolent

4. 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

5. Christian Beliefs About God
Benevolent – God is good
Omnipotent – God is more powerful than anything else
Omniscient – God knows everything

6. Awe & Wonder Numinous feeling Something Greater….Going Into A Church
Something Greater….Sun, Moon & Stars
Some people find the experience so incredible, they convert.

7. Prayer People 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

8. Miracles
Miracle – paranormal happening which break the natural laws of science
Some religious people believe miracles are a natural event which must have been caused by God
e.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

9. Design Argument Paley’s Argument – watch in a wood
Design of it so intricate-must have a maker
World is so intricate – must have a maker - GOD
Everything 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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.

13. Response To Evil
Christians respond to evil through prayer
God is omnipotent & omniscient – why does suffering happen e.g. Tsunami
Christian response is…
Free will – people can become evil of their own choice
Life is a test – in order to get to heaven – people have a series of tests on earth
Suffering gives people strength & power to overcome problems
Humans cannot understand the complexity of God