OCR A-level Religious Studies Paper 2 - 17th June 2025 [Exam Chat]

1.

Basically argued whether telos existed or not. For supporting arguments, I said that telos guides moral decision making which is structured by the primary precepts. Also, there is evidence that we are naturally inclined towards doing good (e.g., not everyone steals from stores), as well as the golden rule, so telos must exist. For arguments against, I said telos is unscientific and that the fact that moral disagreements exist shows how natural law isn’t universal. Also, the fact that humans are always tempted to do evil shows how we’re innately sinful beings (I used St Augustine’s view here) so telos therefore doesn’t exist.

1.

Split into three separate arguments. First paragraph, I argued from Aquinas’ view and said that God is involved in conscience because He would want us to reach our telos. We also have some free will in being able to use our God-given ratio to choose between real and apparent goods. Second paragraph, I argued from Freud’s perspective and said that the superego is developed and doesn’t come from God. Since Freud supports a secular approach, he rejects the involvement of God in conscience, and the superego refutes Aquinas’ claim that conscience is innate. Third paragraph, I argued that Aquinas’ and Freud’s ideas are both compatible with involvement of God. I basically combined their ideas and said how the development of the superego involves learning the synderesis rule, how the id could be God-given though tainted by original sin (I was running out of ideas atp), etc, which is a better way of explaining the spiritual and psychological struggles believers go through (e.g., sin = guilt).

1.

I approached the issue using a situation ethics, natural law, and kantian perspective. Situation ethics would judge quality of life as more important than sanctity of life because it’s more loving to end a persons suffering than to keep them alive for the sake of religious belief. Natural law would disagree with the quality of life approach and argue that sanctity of life is more important because it upholds the precept of preserving life. Kantian ethics would argue that we can’t universalise euthanasia so quality of life is unimportant in decisions about euthanasia, though it might argue that it’s wrong to keep a person alive as a means of upholding religious belief.