Germany Jahrgangsstufe 11 Catholic Religious Education

Chapters: 4

1. Church between tradition and modernisation

Church in a modernising society

Coming soon

Humans and medical-technical progress

Bioethics: Deciding What Is Right in Biology and Medicine – Bioethics asks whether we should do what biology and medicine now let us do. It uses four principles: autonomy (respect choice), beneficence (do good), non-maleficence (do no harm) and justice (fairness). Human dignity means a person is never only a means to an end, so informed consent is needed. Therapeutic cloning may be allowed under strict rules; reproductive human cloning is banned in most countries. Start-of-life and end-of-life questions are weighed as benefits against risks and values.

Theodicy: why does God allow suffering?

Theodicy: Why Does God Allow Suffering? – Theodicy is the attempt to answer one hard question: if God is all-powerful and all-good, why is there suffering? People meet suffering in illness, loss and injustice, and they cope by talking, helping, reflecting and finding meaning. Worldviews explain suffering differently: karma and rebirth, forces of good and evil, a world without a plan, or one good God. The classic puzzle holds three claims that seem hard to keep together. Answers include free will, growth through hardship, limited power, karma and trust, as in the story of Job. Each has strengths and limits.

Knowledge and language about religion

Epistemology: What Is Knowledge? – Epistemology is the part of philosophy that asks what knowledge is, how we get it and how sure we can be. A classic answer: knowledge is a belief that is true and well justified (justified true belief), although lucky cases (Gettier cases) show this may not be enough. Knowledge comes from reason (rationalism) and from experience through the senses (empiricism); Kant argued we need both. Theories of truth include correspondence (matches the facts), coherence (fits with other beliefs) and pragmatic (works in practice). Scepticism reminds us that senses and reasoning can mislead, so we test, check sources and stay open to correction.