Augustine's Teaching on Human Nature
Augustine's account of the Fall, original sin, the bound will and the necessity of grace — set against Pelagius, his main opponent on human freed…
Open guidePaper 3
Developments in Christian Thought
Twelve themes spanning Augustine, death and the afterlife, Christology, pluralism, gender, secularism and liberation theology.
View the Christian Thought reading list →0 of 12topics complete
Death and the Afterlife
Christian accounts of life after death — bodily resurrection versus immortality of the soul, purgatory, heaven and hell, and responses to near-de…
Open guideKnowledge of God's Existence
Can God be known by reason and observation (natural theology), or only through revelation? Includes the sensus divinitatis, the effects of the Fa…
Open guideThe Person of Jesus Christ
Who is Jesus Christ? The Chalcedonian Definition, the historical Jesus versus the Christ of faith, and liberation theology's Jesus as liberator o…
Open guideChristian Moral Principles
How Christians make moral decisions — the balance of Bible, Church, reason and conscience, natural law, and Divine Command Theory.…
Open guideChristian Moral Action — Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on discipleship, grace, the Church, and resistance to an unjust state.…
Open guideReligious Pluralism and Theology
Christian responses to religious diversity — exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism — and their implications for salvation and interfaith dialogu…
Open guideReligious Pluralism and Society
How Christian communities respond to multi-faith societies through dialogue, mission and scriptural reasoning, and whether those responses streng…
Open guideGender and Society
Christian teaching on gender roles — complementarian tradition, biblical egalitarianism, feminist theology and the ordination of women.…
Open guideGender and Theology
Does exclusively masculine God-language reinforce patriarchy? Feminist responses from Mary Daly and Elizabeth Johnson, and biblical feminine imag…
Open guideThe Challenge of Secularism
The challenge posed by declining religious influence, naturalistic critiques of belief and the claim that Christianity should play no part in edu…
Open guideLiberation Theology and Marx
How liberation theology uses Marxist analysis to expose structural sin while grounding solidarity, the preferential option for the poor and Chris…
Open guideAdditional background
Enrichment topics
Useful wider reading from the original resource library. These pages sit outside the twelve current Paper 3 topics.
Enrichment
The Nature of God
God as eternal, omniscient and benevolent — and the contrast between classical theism and process theology.…
EnrichmentThe Church in the Modern World
How the Church engages with the modern world — liberation theology, the reforms of Vatican II, and Barth's counter-cultural witnes…
EnrichmentChristianity and Science
Models for the relationship between science and religion, creationism and intelligent design, and Christian responses to evolution…