AQA A-Level Religious Studies: Christianity and Christian History Revision Guide

AQA A-Level Religious Studies is a subject that demands far more than surface-level familiarity with religious teachings. If you are studying Christianity as your chosen religion, you need to engage with complex philosophical arguments, articulate the relationship between faith and reason, evaluate competing theological positions, and demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of how Christianity has developed over two millennia. This is a subject that rewards depth of thought and precision of argument in equal measure.

This guide covers the major areas you need to master for the Christianity and Christian history components of the AQA A-Level Religious Studies specification. It works through sources of wisdom and authority, the nature of God, self and afterlife, Christian moral principles, Christian moral action, and the sweep of Christian history from the early Church through to contemporary developments.

Sources of Wisdom and Authority

One of the first questions you need to address is where Christians derive their beliefs and how they justify them. This is not a simple question, and the AQA specification expects you to engage with the tensions between different sources of authority.

The Bible

The Bible is the foundational text of Christianity, but Christians disagree sharply about how it should be read and what kind of authority it holds.

Inspiration and revelation are the two key concepts here. If the Bible is inspired, it means God guided its human authors so that the text communicates divine truth -- but this raises the question of how much human influence shaped the final product. If the Bible is revelation, it is God directly disclosing truths that could not otherwise be known. Some theologians distinguish between propositional revelation (God communicating specific truths or doctrines) and non-propositional revelation (God revealing himself through events or encounters, which humans then interpret).

The most significant debate is between literal and liberal interpretation. A literal (or conservative evangelical) approach holds that the Bible is inerrant -- without error in all it affirms, including historical and scientific claims. On this view, the creation accounts in Genesis describe actual events, and the miracles of Jesus happened exactly as recorded. A liberal approach treats the Bible as a human document that contains divine truth but is shaped by the cultural contexts of its authors. On this reading, Genesis communicates theological truths about God's relationship to creation without making scientific claims, and some miracle accounts may be understood symbolically.

You need to be able to evaluate both positions. The literal approach provides certainty and a clear basis for doctrine, but it struggles with internal contradictions in the text and with findings from science and historical criticism. The liberal approach accommodates modern knowledge, but critics argue it risks undermining the authority of the Bible by making human reason the final judge of what is and is not true.

Church Tradition, Reason, and the Magisterium

The Bible is not the only source of authority for Christians. Church tradition -- the accumulated teachings, practices, and interpretations passed down through the centuries -- carries significant weight, particularly in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity. The Catholic Church teaches that Scripture and Tradition together form a single deposit of faith, interpreted authoritatively by the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Pope and bishops). The Magisterium claims the power to define doctrine infallibly under certain conditions, most notably when the Pope speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals.

Protestant traditions, by contrast, tend to emphasise sola scriptura -- the principle that Scripture alone is the ultimate authority. This was a central claim of the Reformation and remains a key point of divergence between Catholic and Protestant Christianity.

Reason also functions as a source of authority, particularly in the tradition of natural theology, which holds that certain truths about God can be established through rational argument alone (such as the cosmological and teleological arguments for God's existence). Aquinas was the great systematiser of this tradition.

Conscience is another important concept. For Aquinas, conscience is the application of moral knowledge to specific situations -- it is reason working in the moral sphere. For Newman, conscience is the voice of God within the individual. For Freud, by contrast, conscience is nothing more than the internalised voice of parental authority. You should be able to explain these different accounts and evaluate their strengths.

God

The Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity is the defining claim of orthodox Christianity: God is one being in three persons -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed (325 AD, revised 381 AD) provides the classical formulation: the Son is "of one substance" (homoousios) with the Father, and the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father" (with the Western Church later adding "and the Son" -- the filioque clause, which became one of the causes of the Great Schism).

The Trinity is not a claim that there are three gods, nor that God merely appears in three different modes. It is the claim that within the one divine nature there are three distinct persons who are co-equal and co-eternal. This is a doctrine that Christians acknowledge as a mystery -- it cannot be fully comprehended by human reason, but it is held to be revealed through Scripture and confirmed by the early Church councils.

You should be able to explain the economic Trinity (how the three persons relate to creation and salvation -- the Father creates, the Son redeems, the Spirit sanctifies) and the immanent Trinity (the internal relationships between the persons).

God as Creator

Christianity teaches that God is the creator of all that exists, and that creation is an act of free will, not necessity. The two creation accounts in Genesis (Genesis 1-2) present God as bringing order out of chaos and creating human beings in his own image (the imago Dei). The doctrine of creation ex nihilo -- creation out of nothing -- distinguishes the Christian view from philosophies that hold that matter is eternal.

The relationship between the Genesis accounts and modern science is a key area of debate. Young Earth creationists take the six days of creation literally. Old Earth creationists accept the scientific age of the universe but maintain that God directed the process. Theistic evolutionists hold that God used evolution as the mechanism of creation. Liberal theologians read Genesis as theological poetry, not science.

The Problem of Evil and Suffering

The problem of evil is one of the most important topics in the specification and one where strong students distinguish themselves. The logical problem of evil, classically formulated by Epicurus and refined by Mackie, argues that the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil.

Christian responses include:

• The Augustinian theodicy. Augustine argued that evil is not a substance but a privation -- an absence of good. God created a perfect world, but evil entered through the free choices of angels (the Fall of Satan) and humans (the Fall of Adam and Eve). Evil is therefore the result of creaturely free will, not God's design.
• The Irenaean theodicy. Irenaeus, and later John Hick, argued that God created human beings in an imperfect state so that they could develop morally and spiritually through encountering suffering. Evil serves a purpose: it is the means by which humans grow into the "likeness" of God. Hick called this "soul-making."
• Free will defence. Plantinga argued that a world with free creatures who sometimes choose evil is more valuable than a world of automata who can only do good. Free will is such a great good that it justifies God's permission of evil.

You should also be prepared to evaluate these responses. The Augustinian theodicy relies on a literal reading of the Fall which many find implausible. The Irenaean theodicy struggles with the sheer scale of suffering -- can the suffering of innocent children really be justified as "soul-making"? The free will defence addresses moral evil but has less to say about natural evil (earthquakes, diseases).

Miracles

A miracle, in the traditional Christian understanding, is an event brought about by God that transcends the normal laws of nature. Aquinas defined miracles as events that are done by divine power apart from the order usually observed in nature. The miracles of Jesus -- healings, exorcisms, nature miracles, and supremely the resurrection -- are central to the Gospel accounts.

Hume's famous objection holds that the evidence for a miracle can never outweigh the overwhelming evidence for the regularity of natural laws. Swinburne, by contrast, argues that miracles are possible if God exists, and that testimony can provide adequate evidence for them. Wiles argued that God does not intervene selectively in the world, as this would make God arbitrary and unjust -- why heal one person and not another?

Self, Death, and the Afterlife

The Soul

Christianity has traditionally taught that human beings have a soul -- an immaterial aspect that survives bodily death. But there is significant disagreement about the nature of the soul.

Dualism, associated with Plato and Descartes, holds that the soul is a distinct substance from the body. On this view, the soul is the "real" person, and the body is merely its temporary dwelling. Descartes argued that the mind (soul) and body are two entirely different kinds of substance -- the mind is non-extended and thinking, the body is extended and non-thinking.

Aquinas took a different approach, drawing on Aristotle. For Aquinas, the soul is not a separate substance but the form of the body -- it is what makes a body a living human body. The soul and body are a unity, not two separate things. However, Aquinas also held that the soul can exist apart from the body after death, though this is an incomplete state -- the soul naturally belongs with a body, which is why the Christian hope is not merely the survival of the soul but the resurrection of the body.

Resurrection

The resurrection of the body is a central Christian doctrine, rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. Paul's discussion in 1 Corinthians 15 is the key text: "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." This raises the question of whether the resurrection body is the same physical body restored, or a transformed, spiritual body.

Bodily resurrection (the traditional view) holds that the same body will be raised and transformed. This is affirmed in the creeds ("I believe in the resurrection of the body"). Spiritual resurrection interprets Paul's "spiritual body" as meaning that the afterlife involves a non-physical mode of existence. Some liberal theologians interpret the resurrection of Jesus himself as a spiritual event -- an experience of the risen Christ in the lives of the disciples -- rather than a literal, physical rising from the dead.

Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory

Heaven is understood as eternal life in the presence of God -- the fulfilment of human existence. Hell is traditionally understood as eternal separation from God, though there is significant debate about whether hell involves conscious suffering (the traditional view), annihilation (the view that the unsaved simply cease to exist), or whether hell is ultimately empty (universalism -- the hope that all will eventually be saved).

Purgatory is a distinctively Catholic doctrine. It holds that those who die in a state of grace but with venial sins or temporal punishment still owing undergo a process of purification before entering heaven. Purgatory is not a "second chance" but a completion of sanctification. Protestants reject the doctrine on the grounds that it lacks clear biblical support and that Christ's atonement is sufficient for complete salvation.

Election and Predestination

The question of who is saved and on what basis is one of the most contested issues in Christian theology.

Augustine taught that, because of original sin, all humanity deserves damnation. Salvation is entirely a gift of God's grace, and God has predestined certain individuals (the "elect") for salvation. This is not based on any foreseen merit in the individual but solely on God's sovereign will.

Calvin developed this into the doctrine of double predestination: God has predestined some for salvation (the elect) and others for damnation (the reprobate), and these decrees are unconditional and irrevocable. Calvin's system is summarised in the acronym TULIP: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.

Arminian (and broadly Catholic) responses hold that God's grace is available to all, and that human beings have genuine free will to accept or reject it. On this view, predestination is based on God's foreknowledge of who will freely choose to believe, rather than on an unconditional decree.

You should be able to evaluate the theological and philosophical difficulties with each position. Strict predestination raises serious questions about divine justice and human responsibility. Arminianism preserves free will but may seem to compromise God's sovereignty.

Christian Moral Principles

Situation Ethics

Joseph Fletcher's situation ethics argues that the only absolute moral principle is love (agape). Every moral decision should be guided by the question: what is the most loving thing to do in this particular situation? There are no universally binding rules -- rules are useful guidelines, but they can be set aside when love demands it.

Fletcher distinguished his approach from legalism (rigidly following rules) and antinomianism (having no moral framework at all). Situation ethics is a middle way: principled, but flexible. Critics argue that it is too subjective -- different people may have very different ideas about what love requires -- and that it can be used to justify almost anything.

Natural Moral Law

Aquinas's natural moral law theory holds that God has built a moral order into the fabric of creation, and that human reason can discern this order. The primary precepts -- preservation of life, reproduction, education, living in society, and worshipping God -- are self-evident and universal. Secondary precepts are derived from these through the application of reason.

Natural moral law provides a clear, objective framework for ethics, and it has been enormously influential in Catholic moral teaching. Critics argue that it relies on a particular understanding of human nature that may not be shared by all, and that it can be overly rigid in its application.

Liberation Theology

Liberation theology emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, associated with Gustavo Gutierrez and others. It holds that the central message of Christianity is the liberation of the poor and oppressed. God has a "preferential option for the poor," and the Church's primary mission is to stand in solidarity with the marginalised and to challenge unjust social structures.

Liberation theology draws on Marxist analysis of class and economic exploitation, which has made it controversial within the Church. The Vatican, particularly under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, criticised liberation theology for reducing the Gospel to a political programme. Defenders argue that it recovers the radical social message of Jesus that comfortable Western Christianity has too often ignored.

Conscience

As noted above, conscience is a significant concept in Christian ethics. Aquinas saw it as the exercise of practical reason -- synderesis (the innate orientation towards good) combined with conscientia (the application of moral knowledge to specific acts). Conscience can err, but a person is always obliged to follow their conscience, even if it is mistaken, provided they have made a genuine effort to inform it correctly.

Newman argued that conscience is the voice of God, and that obeying one's conscience is obeying God. This is a more intuitive, less rationalist account than Aquinas's.

The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is the most sustained block of ethical teaching in the Gospels. It includes the Beatitudes ("Blessed are the poor in spirit," "Blessed are the peacemakers"), the command to love your enemies, the injunction not to judge, the Lord's Prayer, and the Golden Rule ("Do to others as you would have them do to you").

The key interpretive question is whether the Sermon on the Mount sets out achievable ethical standards or an impossible ideal. Schweitzer argued that Jesus expected the imminent end of the world and that the Sermon's demands were an "interim ethic" -- extreme demands for the short time remaining. Bonhoeffer argued that the Sermon is a genuine call to radical discipleship, to be obeyed here and now. Reinhold Niebuhr argued that the Sermon describes the ideal of love but that in a fallen world, justice (which sometimes requires coercion and compromise) is the best we can achieve.

Love and Justice

The relationship between love and justice is a recurring tension in Christian ethics. Agape -- selfless, unconditional love -- is the highest Christian virtue. But does love always coincide with justice? Sometimes justice seems to demand punishment, while love seems to demand mercy. Paul Tillich argued that love, power, and justice are not opposites but are deeply interconnected -- justice without love becomes legalism, and love without justice becomes sentimentality.

Christian Moral Action: Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a required case study for the AQA specification, and he is one of the most compelling figures in modern Christian thought. You need to know his key ideas in detail.

Costly Grace

Bonhoeffer distinguished between cheap grace and costly grace. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship -- the assumption that because God forgives, Christians can live however they wish. It is "the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance." Costly grace, by contrast, is grace that demands everything: "It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." For Bonhoeffer, the Reformation doctrine of justification by grace alone had degenerated into cheap grace -- an excuse for moral passivity.

Discipleship

Bonhoeffer argued that true discipleship means total obedience to Christ. "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." This is not a metaphor for Bonhoeffer -- it meant literal willingness to sacrifice everything. Discipleship is not an addition to an otherwise comfortable life; it is the reorientation of one's entire existence around the demands of Christ.

Political Resistance and Suffering

Bonhoeffer was an active participant in the resistance against the Nazi regime. He joined the Abwehr conspiracy that planned the assassination of Hitler. This raises profound questions for Christian ethics: can violence ever be justified in the service of justice? Bonhoeffer's answer was that in extreme situations, the responsible Christian must act decisively, even if it means getting their hands dirty. He spoke of a willingness to sin boldly -- to take on guilt for the sake of others.

Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and executed in April 1945, just weeks before the end of the war. His willingness to suffer and die for his convictions gives his theological writings a weight and authority that few other modern theologians can match.

The Role of the Church in Society

Bonhoeffer argued that the Church must not retreat into a comfortable religious sphere but must engage with the world and speak out against injustice. His concept of "religionless Christianity" (developed in his prison letters) suggests that the Church should focus not on religious rituals and institutions but on living out the demands of the Gospel in the midst of worldly life. The Church exists not for itself but for others.

Christian History

The AQA specification requires you to understand the broad sweep of Christian history, including the key turning points that shaped the religion as it exists today.

The Early Church

The earliest Christians were a Jewish sect who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah. The key developments in the early Church include the mission to the Gentiles (led by Paul), which transformed Christianity from a Jewish movement into a universal religion; the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire; and the eventual legalisation and adoption of Christianity under Constantine (the Edict of Milan, 313 AD).

The early Church also had to define its beliefs against competing interpretations. The great Christological debates -- about the nature of Christ and his relationship to God the Father -- dominated the fourth and fifth centuries.

The Creeds

The Nicene Creed (325 AD, revised 381 AD) was the product of the Council of Nicaea, convened by Constantine to resolve the Arian controversy. Arius taught that the Son was a created being -- the first and greatest of God's creatures, but not God in the fullest sense. The Nicene Creed rejected this, declaring the Son to be "of one substance" (homoousios) with the Father.

The Chalcedonian Definition (451 AD) addressed the question of how the divine and human natures relate in Christ. It declared that Christ is one person with two natures -- fully divine and fully human -- which exist "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." This remains the orthodox position for Catholic, Orthodox, and mainstream Protestant Christianity.

The Great Schism (1054)

The Great Schism divided Christianity into the Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) churches. The causes were both theological and political: the filioque clause (the Western addition of "and the Son" to the Nicene Creed's statement about the procession of the Holy Spirit), disputes over papal authority (the Eastern churches rejected the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction), and cultural and linguistic differences between the Latin West and the Greek East.

The Reformation

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was the most significant rupture in Western Christianity.

Martin Luther (1483--1546) challenged the Catholic Church on multiple fronts. His Ninety-Five Theses (1517) attacked the sale of indulgences, but the deeper issue was his doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide). Luther argued that salvation cannot be earned through good works or the sacraments -- it is a free gift of God, received through faith. He also championed sola scriptura (Scripture alone as the ultimate authority) against the Catholic emphasis on tradition and papal authority.

John Calvin (1509--1564) developed a more systematic Reformed theology. His Institutes of the Christian Religion set out a comprehensive theological system centred on the sovereignty of God. Calvin's doctrine of predestination (discussed above) and his establishment of a theocratic community in Geneva were among his most influential and controversial contributions.

The Reformation led to the fragmentation of Western Christianity into Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and eventually many other Protestant traditions. The Catholic Church responded with the Counter-Reformation, centred on the Council of Trent (1545--1563), which reaffirmed Catholic doctrines on justification, the sacraments, and papal authority while also addressing abuses within the Church.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries posed fundamental challenges to Christianity. The emphasis on reason, empirical evidence, and individual autonomy called into question the authority of revelation, tradition, and the institutional Church.

Key challenges included: biblical criticism (the application of historical and literary methods to the Bible, which raised questions about its authorship, reliability, and historical accuracy); the rise of science (particularly the Copernican revolution and later Darwinian evolution, which challenged traditional readings of Genesis); and philosophical critiques of religion (Hume on miracles, Kant on the limits of metaphysical knowledge, and later Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche on the human origins of religious belief).

Christianity responded in diverse ways. Liberal Protestantism (Schleiermacher, Harnack) sought to reinterpret Christianity in terms compatible with modern thought, locating the essence of religion in experience or ethical teaching rather than dogma. Conservative and evangelical movements insisted on the continuing authority of Scripture and traditional doctrine. Catholic responses included both anti-modernist reactions (the Syllabus of Errors, 1864) and more constructive engagements with modernity (culminating in the Second Vatican Council, 1962--1965).

Modern Developments

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen several major developments in Christianity that the specification expects you to understand.

Ecumenism -- the movement towards unity among the divided Christian churches -- gained significant momentum in the twentieth century. The World Council of Churches (founded 1948) brought together Protestant and Orthodox churches, and the Second Vatican Council opened the Catholic Church to dialogue with other Christian traditions. Progress has been real (joint statements on justification, shared worship in some contexts) but limited -- fundamental disagreements on papal authority, the ordination of women, and sexual ethics remain.

Liberation theology (discussed above under moral principles) has been a major force in reshaping Christian thought, particularly in the Global South. It has challenged comfortable assumptions about the relationship between faith and politics and has placed the experience of the poor at the centre of theological reflection.

Feminist theology has challenged the patriarchal structures and assumptions of traditional Christianity. Feminist theologians such as Rosemary Radford Ruether and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza have argued that the Bible and Christian tradition contain both oppressive and liberating elements, and that the task of theology is to recover the liberating message while critiquing the patriarchal distortions. Key issues include the maleness of God-language, the exclusion of women from ordained ministry in some traditions, and the interpretation of biblical texts that appear to subordinate women.

Exam Technique for AQA A-Level Religious Studies

Strong content knowledge is essential, but you also need to deploy it effectively under exam conditions. The AQA specification assesses three assessment objectives:

• AO1: Knowledge and understanding. You need to demonstrate detailed, accurate knowledge of Christian teachings, concepts, and historical developments.
• AO2: Analysis and evaluation. You need to construct arguments, weigh evidence, consider multiple perspectives, and reach justified conclusions.

The highest marks go to answers that integrate AO1 and AO2 -- that is, answers where knowledge is used in the service of argument, not simply displayed for its own sake. Avoid writing everything you know about a topic. Instead, select the material that is relevant to the specific question and use it to build a clear, well-structured argument.

For essay questions, aim for a clear structure: an introduction that engages with the question, a series of developed paragraphs that present and evaluate different positions, and a conclusion that offers a justified judgement. Use scholars and thinkers by name (Aquinas, Augustine, Calvin, Bonhoeffer, Hick, Fletcher, Hume, Swinburne) to give your answer precision and authority.

Prepare with LearningBro

LearningBro offers structured, topic-by-topic revision courses that match the AQA A-Level Religious Studies specification. Each course builds your knowledge and exam technique together, with practice questions that mirror the style and demands of the real papers.

• AQA A-Level Religious Studies: Christianity -- covers sources of authority, the nature of God, self and afterlife, Christian moral principles, and Christian moral action including Bonhoeffer.
• AQA A-Level Religious Studies: Christian History -- covers the early Church, the creeds, the Great Schism, the Reformation, Enlightenment challenges, and modern developments including ecumenism, liberation theology, and feminist theology.

Final Thoughts

AQA A-Level Religious Studies -- Christianity is a demanding subject that rewards genuine intellectual engagement. The students who achieve the highest grades are those who understand the material deeply enough to think with it, not just about it. They can explain Aquinas's natural moral law and then evaluate it from a situation ethics perspective. They can set out Calvin's doctrine of predestination and then articulate why an Arminian might reject it. They can describe Bonhoeffer's costly grace and then discuss what it meant in the context of resisting Nazism.

Start your revision early, focus on understanding arguments rather than memorising lists, and practise writing evaluative essays under timed conditions. Use scholars and primary sources to give your answers authority, and always engage directly with the question being asked.

Good luck with your revision.