2023 CCEA A-Level Religious Studies 4610 Practice Paper with Answers

Dualism holds that a human being consists of two fundamentally distinct kinds of substance: a physical body and an immaterial soul or mind, with the soul constituting the true, essential self. This view has deep philosophical roots in Plato, whose analogy of the cave presents the physical, sensory world as a realm of mere shadows compared with the true reality of the eternal Forms, which the soul, trapped within the body, can access only imperfectly through reason; Plato held the soul to be immortal, pre-existing the body and capable of surviving its death, since the soul's true nature belongs to the eternal, unchanging realm of the Forms rather than to the changing physical world. This dualist framework was developed with particular philosophical rigour by Descartes, who argued that mind (a thinking, non-extended substance) and body (an extended, non-thinking substance) are genuinely distinct substances, interacting causally (Descartes controversially proposed the pineal gland as the point of interaction) but not reducible to one another. Christian theology has drawn substantially on this dualist framework, since it provides a natural philosophical basis for belief that the soul, as the immaterial essence of the person, can survive the death and decay of the physical body, awaiting either an intermediate state or ultimate bodily resurrection and reunion, as classically expressed in Christian eschatology.
Materialist (or physicalist) positions reject this substance dualism, holding instead that there is only one fundamental kind of substance — the physical — and that mental states, including whatever we mean by 'soul' or 'mind', are not a separate, immaterial substance but are identical to, reducible to, or straightforwardly dependent upon physical states of the brain and nervous system. The identity thesis, associated with philosophers such as Place and Smart, holds that mental states literally are identical to particular brain states (a specific thought or sensation simply is a specific pattern of neural activity, in the same way that 'water' turned out to be identical to H₂O). Philosophical behaviourism, associated with Gilbert Ryle's famous critique of Cartesian dualism as positing a 'ghost in the machine', instead analyses mental states as dispositions to behave in particular observable ways, denying any need to posit an inner, immaterial substance at all. Epiphenomenalism occupies an intermediate position, holding that mental states are genuinely produced by physical brain processes but are themselves causally inert byproducts, unable to have any independent causal effect back upon the physical body or world.
The implications of these positions for belief in life after death are stark and sharply opposed. If dualism is correct, and the soul genuinely is a distinct, immaterial substance not dependent for its existence on the continued functioning of the physical brain, then survival of bodily death is at least philosophically coherent, since the destruction of the body need not entail the destruction of the soul itself. If, by contrast, materialism is correct, and mental states/the 'soul' are simply identical to or entirely dependent upon physical brain states, then the permanent cessation of brain function at death would appear to entail the permanent cessation of the person as a conscious, thinking being, since there would be no separate substance capable of persisting once its physical basis has ceased to exist; on a materialist view, survival of death becomes coherent only if reconceived specifically as bodily resurrection — the recreation of a new physical embodiment of the person by God — rather than as the persistence of an immaterial soul independent of any body.
Final answer: dualism (Plato, Descartes) holds body and soul are distinct substances, making survival of bodily death through the soul's persistence philosophically coherent and underpinning traditional Christian belief in the soul's immortality; materialism (the identity thesis, behaviourism, epiphenomenalism) holds mind/soul is identical to or dependent upon physical brain states, implying that death ends the person as a conscious being unless survival is reconceived specifically as bodily resurrection rather than as the persistence of an immaterial soul.

4-level mark scheme (20 marks, AO1). Level 1 (1–5): basic, fragmented knowledge with little accurate detail or named thinkers. Level 2 (6–10): a satisfactory outline of dualism and/or materialism with limited depth or reference to named philosophers. Level 3 (11–15): a good, accurate outline of both dualism (e.g. Plato, Descartes) and materialism (e.g. identity thesis or behaviourism), with clear implications drawn for the afterlife question. Level 4 (16–20): a comprehensive, precise outline covering multiple named thinkers/positions on both sides (Plato's cave, Descartes, identity thesis, behaviourism, epiphenomenalism) with confident specialist terminology and clearly, accurately drawn implications for belief in life after death. Max 20 marks.

There is a reasonable case that John Hick's replica theory offers real advantages over traditional dualist accounts of the soul as an explanation of resurrection. Hick's theory proposes that at (or after) death, God recreates, in a separate 'resurrection world', an exact replica of the deceased person, identical in every physical and psychological respect (memory, character, personality) to the person who died, and argues that such a replica would have as strong a claim to being 'the same person' as the person who wakes up tomorrow has to being the same person who went to sleep tonight, given the physical replacement of matter that already continuously occurs within any living body over time. This approach has the notable advantage of avoiding some of the classic philosophical problems facing substance dualism, particularly the well-known 'interaction problem' first raised against Descartes: if the soul is a genuinely non-physical substance, it remains deeply unclear how it could causally interact with a physical body and brain at all, since causal interaction is normally understood to require some shared physical medium. Hick's theory sidesteps this difficulty entirely by locating personal continuity in psychological and physical replication rather than in the persistence of a mysterious, causally interacting immaterial substance, making it more compatible with a broadly physicalist or scientifically-informed understanding of persons.
However, Hick's replica theory faces a serious objection of its own, often called the 'replica problem', which significantly limits its claim to being straightforwardly more convincing than dualism. If God's power to create an exact replica is genuine, there seems no principled reason why God could not create two, or even several, identical replicas simultaneously; in such a scenario, it becomes deeply unclear which replica (if any) could correctly be said to be numerically identical to the original person, rather than merely a qualitatively identical but numerically distinct copy. This threatens to undermine the theory's central claim to explain genuine personal survival, since if multiple replicas cannot all simultaneously be 'the same person' as the original (as our ordinary concept of personal identity seems to require exactly one continuer, not several equally valid claimants), then it becomes doubtful that even a single replica case truly involves the survival of the original individual, rather than the creation of a new, distinct, if remarkably similar, person who merely believes themselves to be a continuation of the deceased. Dualism, by contrast, whatever its own difficulties explaining mind-body interaction, at least offers an intuitively continuous account of a single persisting subject of experience, without needing to address a multiplication problem of this kind.
On balance, Hick's replica theory should not be judged straightforwardly more convincing than dualist accounts, but rather differently vulnerable. Its genuine advantage lies in avoiding the interaction problem and cohering better with a physicalist understanding of persons compatible with modern neuroscience, making it, in this specific and limited respect, a more empirically cautious account than positing an unobservable, causally mysterious immaterial substance. But the replica problem represents an equally serious, arguably still unresolved, difficulty specifically for Hick's account of what personal identity across death actually consists in, meaning that whether replica theory or dualism is judged 'more convincing' depends considerably on which kind of philosophical difficulty (interaction versus multiplication/individuation) one judges to be the more damaging, rather than either theory offering an unambiguously superior account overall.
Final answer: Hick's replica theory offers a genuine advantage over dualism in avoiding the mind-body interaction problem and cohering with a physicalist view of persons, but its own serious 'replica problem' (the difficulty of explaining numerical identity if multiple replicas are possible) means it is not straightforwardly more convincing than dualist accounts overall, but rather trades one set of serious philosophical difficulties for a different one.

4-level mark scheme (30 marks, AO2). Level 1 (1–7): a basic, largely one-sided or assertive response with little developed evaluation. Level 2 (8–15): some evaluative points made on both sides (e.g. mentioning the interaction problem or the replica problem) with limited development; a stated but underdeveloped conclusion. Level 3 (16–23): a balanced, well-supported evaluation with clear arguments for and against the view, accurately explaining both the interaction problem facing dualism and the replica problem facing Hick, reaching a reasoned conclusion. Level 4 (24–30): a sophisticated, tightly argued evaluation demonstrating critical insight (e.g. recognising that both theories face comparably serious but different problems rather than one being simply superior), with precise supporting detail and a clearly substantiated, nuanced final judgement; fluent written expression throughout using accurate specialist terminology. Max 30 marks.

The Euthyphro dilemma originates in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks whether the pious (or, in later theistic reformulations, the good or the right) is loved by the gods because it is pious, or whether it is pious because it is loved by the gods. Applied to a monotheistic religious context, the dilemma is typically restated as: is what is morally good commanded by God because it is (independently) good, or is it good simply because God commands it? This presents a genuine dilemma because each of the two possible answers appears to generate a serious difficulty for a religious understanding of the relationship between God and morality.
The first horn of the dilemma holds that God commands certain actions because they are already, independently, good — moral goodness exists as a standard that precedes and is independent of God's will, and God, in commanding what is good, is recognising and communicating this pre-existing moral order rather than creating it. The difficulty with this horn is that it appears to compromise the traditional theistic understanding of God's sovereignty and omnipotence: if goodness exists independently of God and God is simply subject to, or constrained by, an external moral standard, this suggests there is something (the moral order itself) that exists prior to and independently of God, apparently limiting God's absolute sovereignty over all reality and raising the further question of where this independent moral standard itself comes from, if not from God.
The second horn holds that what is good is good simply and entirely because God commands it — this is often called divine command theory, and it preserves God's absolute sovereignty, since nothing exists independently of or prior to God's will. However, this horn generates an equally serious difficulty: if moral goodness is nothing more than whatever God happens to command, then morality appears to become arbitrary rather than rationally necessary, since it seems, at least logically, that God could in principle have commanded the opposite of what is currently considered good (for example, commanding cruelty rather than kindness), which would, on divine command theory, make cruelty good purely by virtue of that command. This threatens to make the statement 'God is good' effectively empty or tautological (meaning simply 'God commands what God commands'), rather than the substantive, meaningful praise of God's character that religious believers typically intend.
The implications of the dilemma for the relationship between religion and morality are considerable. Those persuaded by the first horn tend towards positions, such as natural law theory as developed by Aquinas, that ground objective moral standards in a rational order (often itself understood as flowing from God's own eternal, rational nature, in an attempt to avoid the full force of the dilemma by locating goodness in God's nature rather than God's arbitrary will) that human reason can, in principle, access and understand, giving morality a rational, non-arbitrary and to some degree independently justifiable character even for those without explicit religious commitment. Those persuaded that the second horn is unavoidable for a fully sovereign conception of God face a harder task in explaining why God's commands are not simply arbitrary, and this difficulty has fuelled the argument, developed further by secular critics such as Rachels, that morality can and should be understood and justified through reason and human interests, independently of appeal to divine command at all.
Final answer: the Euthyphro dilemma asks whether God commands what is good because it is independently good, or whether it is good only because God commands it; the first horn threatens God's sovereignty by positing an independent moral standard, while the second horn threatens morality's rational, non-arbitrary character by making goodness dependent on potentially arbitrary divine will, and the dilemma has significantly shaped both religious attempts (such as natural law theory) to ground morality in God's rational nature and secular arguments that morality can be justified independently of religious belief altogether.

4-level mark scheme (20 marks, AO1). Level 1 (1–5): basic, fragmented knowledge with little accurate detail. Level 2 (6–10): a satisfactory outline of the dilemma's basic structure with limited explanation of implications. Level 3 (11–15): a good, accurate outline of both horns of the dilemma with clear explanation of their respective implications for divine sovereignty and the non-arbitrariness of morality. Level 4 (16–20): a comprehensive, precise outline of both horns with sophisticated discussion of implications, including reference to responses such as natural law theory grounding goodness in God's nature, expressed with confident specialist terminology throughout. Max 20 marks.

There is a case, associated particularly with Kant's moral argument, that morality's full rational coherence, if not its basic content, points towards religious belief. Kant held that the moral law itself (the categorical imperative) is established by reason alone and does not require religious belief for its validity; however, he argued that practical reason further requires believers to postulate the existence of God and personal immortality in order to secure the 'highest good' (summum bonum) — the rationally necessary alignment of virtue with proportionate happiness — since virtue plainly does not reliably produce proportionate happiness within this present life, and only a good and powerful God, together with an afterlife in which this correspondence could ultimately be realised, could guarantee that the moral life is not, in the end, rationally pointless or futile. On this account, morality as a practically coherent, motivationally sustainable project (rather than morality's basic rational content) is argued to require these religious postulates.
However, this view is challenged forcefully by both Rachels and Dawkins from different directions. Rachels argues that morality can be, and should be, grounded entirely in impartial rational consideration of the interests of all affected parties, requiring no appeal to religious belief or divine command at all; he further argues that grounding morality in obedience to religious authority is, if anything, a philosophically and morally inferior foundation compared with autonomous rational moral agency, since an action performed purely out of obedience to a command (divine or otherwise) arguably lacks the genuine moral worth of an action freely chosen because the agent has rationally recognised it to be right — echoing, in a secular register, some of the same concerns raised by the arbitrariness horn of the Euthyphro dilemma. Dawkins mounts a different, more empirically-grounded challenge, arguing that moral and cooperative behaviour is adequately explained by evolutionary biology, through mechanisms such as kin selection (favouring behaviour that benefits genetic relatives) and reciprocal altruism (cooperative behaviour that tends to be reciprocated, conferring long-term survival advantage even on unrelated individuals), meaning morality's origin requires no religious explanation whatsoever. Dawkins further points to what he calls a shifting 'moral zeitgeist' — a broad, historically observable trend of moral progress (for example, the abolition of slavery, the extension of rights across race and gender) that has often occurred in tension with, or ahead of, established religious teaching and scripture, arguing this shows that the actual historical source of much moral progress lies in secular reasoning and changing social consensus rather than in religious belief.
On balance, the statement should be substantially rejected. While Kant's argument raises a genuine and interesting question about what is required to make the moral life fully rationally coherent over the very long run, it does not establish that morality as such — its basic content, our capacity to recognise moral obligations, or its practical functioning in ordinary human life — is impossible without religious belief; both Rachels's account of impartial rational morality and Dawkins's evolutionary account of the origins of cooperative and altruistic behaviour offer coherent, non-religious explanations of both where moral capacities come from and how moral obligation can be rationally justified, without needing to invoke God or an afterlife. Religious belief has undoubtedly provided one significant historical and psychological source of moral motivation, community and grounding for very many people, but this is different from establishing that morality itself is impossible without it.
Final answer: the statement should be substantially rejected — while Kant's moral argument raises a genuine question about what is needed to make the moral life fully, rationally coherent in the very long term, Rachels's account of morality grounded in impartial reason and Dawkins's evolutionary account of the origins of cooperative behaviour together show that morality's basic content, justification and practical functioning do not require religious belief, even though religion has been one significant historical source of moral motivation for many people.

4-level mark scheme (30 marks, AO2). Level 1 (1–7): a basic, largely one-sided or assertive response with little developed evaluation or named reference. Level 2 (8–15): some evaluative points made on both sides with limited development; reference to at least one of Kant, Rachels or Dawkins without full accuracy; a stated but underdeveloped conclusion. Level 3 (16–23): a balanced, well-supported evaluation with clear arguments for and against the view, accurate reference to at least two of Kant, Rachels and Dawkins, reaching a reasoned conclusion. Level 4 (24–30): a sophisticated, tightly argued evaluation demonstrating critical insight, accurate and well-integrated reference to all three named contributors (Kant, Rachels, Dawkins), with precise supporting detail and a clearly substantiated, nuanced final judgement; fluent written expression throughout using accurate specialist terminology. Max 30 marks.

Theistic existentialism, developed by the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, understands faith not as rational certainty or the conclusion of a philosophical proof, but as a passionate, subjective commitment that goes beyond, and cannot be reduced to, objective rational demonstration — famously described as a 'leap of faith'. Kierkegaard illustrates this through his reading of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac in Fear and Trembling, presenting Abraham as the 'knight of faith' whose relationship with God cannot be justified or explained within ordinary ethical or rational categories, but who nonetheless freely and passionately commits himself to God in a way Kierkegaard regards as the highest form of human existence, beyond both the merely 'aesthetic' life of immediate pleasure-seeking and the 'ethical' life of rational moral duty. On this account, authentic human freedom is realised precisely through this free, deeply personal act of faith-commitment before God, rather than through detached rational calculation.
Atheistic existentialism, developed most influentially by Jean-Paul Sartre, begins from the explicit denial that God exists, and draws the conclusion that there is therefore no pre-given human nature or essence (no God-given purpose or blueprint) that could define what a human being is for, prior to and independent of the choices any individual actually makes — captured in Sartre's formula that 'existence precedes essence'. Because there is no God and no fixed human nature to appeal to, Sartre argues that human beings are radically and inescapably free, 'condemned to be free', bearing full and unavoidable responsibility for the values and meaning they create through their own choices, since there is no external authority, human or divine, to which this responsibility could be transferred. Sartre uses the concept of 'bad faith' to describe the self-deceptive strategies by which people attempt to deny or evade this radical freedom and responsibility, for instance by pretending their choices are fully determined by social roles, circumstances, or, in a religious context, by divine command, rather than genuinely owning the freedom Sartre holds to be an inescapable feature of human existence.
This synoptic theme connects meaningfully to other units of study. It relates directly to the theme of Religion and Morality, since both Kierkegaardian and Sartrean existentialism bear directly on the question of whether authentic moral agency and meaning require, or are instead undermined by, belief in God: Kierkegaard's account suggests genuine freedom is realised through, not despite, radical commitment to God, directly opposing the more Feuerbach/Marx-influenced view (relevant to the second part of this synoptic theme) that dependence on God actually alienates humans from their own freedom and moral agency. It also connects to the theme of secularisation studied in relation to the Church today (A2 4 or A2 6), since Sartre's atheistic existentialism represents one significant modern philosophical expression of the wider secular challenge to religious belief that these units also examine from a more historical and sociological angle, showing how the same underlying question — whether human freedom, meaning and authenticity require or are hindered by religious faith — recurs across different units of the specification.
Final answer: Kierkegaard's theistic existentialism locates authentic human freedom in a passionate, non-rational 'leap of faith' commitment to God (exemplified by Abraham, the knight of faith), while Sartre's atheistic existentialism, denying God's existence and any pre-given human essence, locates authentic freedom in the individual's full, inescapable responsibility for self-created meaning and values, with 'bad faith' naming the evasion of this freedom; both positions connect directly to the wider synoptic question, studied elsewhere in the specification, of whether religious belief supports or undermines authentic human freedom and moral agency.

4-level mark scheme (20 marks, AO1), requiring genuine cross-unit reference for full marks. Level 1 (1–5): basic, fragmented knowledge of existentialism with little accurate detail and no cross-unit reference. Level 2 (6–10): a satisfactory outline of at least one of Kierkegaard or Sartre, with a superficial or underdeveloped cross-unit reference. Level 3 (11–15): a good, accurate outline of both Kierkegaard's theistic existentialism and Sartre's atheistic existentialism with a clear, relevant cross-unit reference (e.g. to Religion and Morality or secularisation). Level 4 (16–20): a comprehensive, precise outline of both positions with accurate technical vocabulary ('leap of faith', 'existence precedes essence', 'bad faith') and a well-integrated, substantive cross-unit reference that genuinely illuminates the synoptic theme. Max 20 marks.

There is a serious and influential case, developed by Feuerbach and Marx, that religion functions as a form of alienation and oppression rather than a genuine expression or support of human freedom. Feuerbach's projection theory argues that the concept of God is, in reality, humanity's own best qualities — reason, love, moral goodness — projected outward and imagined as belonging to a separate, superhuman being, a process Feuerbach regards as a form of self-alienation, since in attributing these qualities to God, humanity impoverishes itself, treating as external and beyond reach what are, in truth, its own highest human capacities. Marx developed this critique further and gave it an explicitly political and economic dimension, famously describing religion as 'the opium of the people': on Marx's account, religion functions ideologically to reconcile oppressed and exploited people to unjust material conditions by offering the promise of otherworldly compensation and comfort (reward in heaven for suffering endured on earth), thereby dulling the pain of oppression just enough to discourage the revolutionary consciousness and collective action that might otherwise challenge and transform those unjust conditions directly — on this view, religion does not merely fail to promote true this-worldly freedom, it actively works, whether intentionally or not, in the interests of those who benefit from existing social and economic inequality.
However, this critique should not be accepted as a complete or universally accurate account of religion's relationship to human freedom, and engaging with wider human experience and with theistic existentialism (studied elsewhere in this synoptic theme) provides significant grounds for qualification. Kierkegaard's account of faith presents religious commitment not as alienation from freedom but as its highest, most authentic realisation, since the 'leap of faith' is, for Kierkegaard, a freely chosen, deeply personal act rather than passive submission to external authority; many believers' own lived human experience of faith likewise describes a sense of purpose, moral clarity, and even liberation from destructive patterns of behaviour or despair, rather than oppression, which Marx and Feuerbach's account, focused primarily on religion's ideological function within unjust social structures, does not straightforwardly capture or explain away. Human experience also provides significant historical counter-evidence to the claim that religion functions only or primarily to pacify oppression: religious belief and religious communities have, at numerous points in history, been central drivers of liberation movements rather than obstacles to them, including significant religious involvement in movements for civil rights and social justice, suggesting that religion's actual relationship to freedom and to existing power structures is considerably more variable, and more dependent on interpretation and context, than Marx's largely negative characterisation allows.
On balance, the statement should be substantially qualified rather than straightforwardly accepted or rejected. Marx and Feuerbach's critique captures a genuine and historically evidenced risk or tendency — religion can function, and at points in history clearly has functioned, ideologically to pacify the oppressed and discourage challenge to unjust conditions — and this insight retains real critical value. But engaging with the fuller range of human experience of religious belief, including its role in some liberation movements and the authentic sense of freedom many believers, in line with Kierkegaard's account, describe experiencing through faith, suggests this is not religion's fixed, inevitable or universal nature, but one possible outcome depending heavily on how a religious tradition is interpreted, institutionalised and lived out in relation to existing structures of power.
Final answer: the statement should be substantially qualified — Marx and Feuerbach's critique of religion as ideological alienation captures a genuine, historically evidenced risk, particularly where religious institutions become entangled with unjust structures of power, but the fuller range of human experience, including theistic existentialism's account of faith as authentic freedom and religion's historical role in some liberation movements, shows that religion is not inevitably or universally oppressive, but capable of functioning as either a support for, or an obstacle to, genuine human freedom depending on interpretation and context.

4-level mark scheme (30 marks, AO2), requiring genuine engagement with human experience AND at least one other unit of study for full marks. Level 1 (1–7): a basic, largely one-sided or assertive response with little developed evaluation, human experience engagement, or cross-unit reference. Level 2 (8–15): some evaluative points made on both sides with limited development; superficial engagement with human experience and/or a weak cross-unit link; a stated but underdeveloped conclusion. Level 3 (16–23): a balanced, well-supported evaluation with clear arguments for and against the view (Feuerbach/Marx's alienation critique versus Kierkegaardian faith-as-freedom and historical counter-evidence), genuine engagement with human experience, and a relevant cross-unit reference, reaching a reasoned conclusion. Level 4 (24–30): a sophisticated, tightly argued evaluation demonstrating critical insight (e.g. distinguishing religion's ideological potential from its lived, variable reality), substantial and well-integrated engagement with human experience, a substantive cross-unit reference, and a clearly substantiated, nuanced final judgement; fluent written expression throughout using accurate specialist terminology. Max 30 marks.