Suffering and Evil, Religious and Philosophical Questions, National 4
Bring the Problem of Suffering and Evil to life with a ready-to-use student booklet designed for SQA National 4 RMPS. It explicitly targets Unit Outcomes 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 and 2.2, with literacy links to Lit 4-09a and LIT 4-28a.
• Structured sections on: Types of suffering; Natural evil and natural disasters; Moral evil and crime; Supernatural evil and possession; Qualities of God; and the classic problem of suffering with theodicies.
• Engaging activities: riddles and starters, Venn diagrams, data handling of disaster and crime stats, a fact-file research task, news-report writing, a responsibility scale, and an evidence-board project.
• Case study: The Devil Made Me Do It – a detailed, question-led exploration of the 1981 Brookfield case, perfect for critical thinking and evaluating claims.
• Text and belief analysis: students work with contrasting voices including Fry, Leibniz, C S Lewis and Darwin to compare religious and secular responses.
• Retrieval and assessment: SQA Outcome challenges embedded throughout plus an Outcome Retrieval section for re-drafting and evidence of progress.
• Creativity options: Dante’s Inferno nine levels task, superhero ‘qualities of God’ comic strip, and six-word stories to support expression and recall.
Skills and differentiation
• Meta-skills are signposted across the unit, including Empathy, Sense-Making, Focus, Curiosity, Initiative and Critical Thinking. Tasks are scaffolded with sentence frames, choice grids and step-by-step prompts to support mixed-attainment classes.
Format and use
• PDF student booklet. Print and go, or project pages for guided completion. Ideal as a mini-unit or to dip in for standalone lessons. Suits National 4 RMPS and adapts well to lower KS4 or upper KS3 RE and Philosophy.
Keywords: RMPS, Problem of Evil, suffering, natural evil, moral evil, supernatural evil, theodicy, Christianity, Humanism, SQA National 4, data analysis, literacy, meta-skills.
