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The Existence of God

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Swinburne is perhaps the leading figure in contemporary natural theology and _The Existence of God_ is his most important work. In it, he employs the tools of modern confirmation theory to develop a sustained argument for theism.

Swinburne views himself as part of the long tradition of Christian evidentialism that seeks to give rational reasons for belief in God. However, unlike, say, Anselm, Aquinas, or Paley, Swinburne thinks that every deductive argument for theism rests on premises that could rationally be rejected by the skeptic. Thus his arguments are inductive; he treats theism as a large-scale explanatory theory on a par with, say, quantum theory or Newton's theory of motion. He takes several classical arguments (the cosmological and teleological arguments, the argument from religious experience, etc.) and recasts them in terms of Bayesian probability theory, arguing that each of them confirms God's existence, i.e. raises the probability that He exists.

This is, I think, a brilliant strategy: it means that Swinburne's case does not rest on the cogency of any one argument and that none of his arguments depends on such controversial grounds as the principle of sufficient reaon or the claim that existence is a "real predicate." Rather, his premises generally reflect obvious features of the world (such as its existence and complexity) together with a set of widely accepted principles of scientific reasoning. Moreover, he establishes a rational framework applicable to any inductive arguments for theism, making it easier for other philosophers of religion to offer their own inductive arguments. (I'm surprised more of them have not done so!)

Of course, the book is open to criticism. Many of Swinburne's claims are idiosyncratic, for instance, his claim that at every moment God chooses to exist at the subsequent moment. But nothing critical rests on these oddities. More vexing is the dreaded "problem of the priors" besetting Bayesian reasoning in general. His assignment of probabilities to certain propositions might be unsatisfying to the skeptic, to say the least. But here Swinburne is aided by the modesty of his goal: he merely aims to show that it is more likely that God exists than that He does not. His assigments of priors, I think, almost always errs on the side of caution.

Presuppositionalists, Wittgensteinians, fundamentalists, and other fideists will hate this book, as will knee-jerk atheists. Thinking atheists and theists who value reason will appreciate it, even when they do not accept its conclusions. All should read it.

Published in 2004 this is an updated version of the "The Existence of God" - originally released in the 1970's. Unlike many updates, however, that incorporate relatively minor changes this text has a significant amount of new and reworked material. Through examination of arguments for and against theism Swinburne makes a cumulative probabilistic argument for the existence of God. I offer the following thoughts for potential buyers.

The text provides a solid examination of the classic arguments for and against the existence of God. At the outset Swinburne lays out some of the basics of philosophical argumentation, i.e. what is an inductive argument, what is a deductive argument, etc. This approach may be helpful to readers new to philosophical discussion. I also thought the discussion of the argument from evil and the hiddeness of God to be quite well handled. His discussion of the other arguments, while not bad, were not noteworthy. I say this not because of the author's particular views (indeed I think share many of them) but, rather because of approach. His arguments seemed to oscilate between being excessiving accommodating to popular thought and being theologically bloated and rambling. While Swinburne has his followers, his writing is not at the level of a Craig or Plantinga.

With respect to shortcomings, I was surprised by the amount of typos that I noticed - this type of editorial minutia is not normally my forte. Also from a general perspective the text struck me as a bit too self-referential. In light of the tremendous amount of excellent contemporary material in this area it came across as either a bit lazy or even egotistical. Although by no means a terrible book, my strongest impression was - why? Swinburne does not say anything that has not already been said better by others.

Overall, I am not disappointed to have this book in my collection and I would not discourage anyone from picking it up. Readers new to this area would be better advised to start with one of the several great debate books co-authored by Craig (the ones with Flew and Synott-Armstrong are especially strong) and then some of the tremendous works by Plantinga.

Swinburne's book adopts the strategy of defending theism as the best explanation for a wide range of phenomena. By doing so, Swinburne brings to the philosophy of religion a new and innovative epistemology, one which focuses on the importance explanation plays in our quest for knowledge. As a result, his defense of theism is clearly the best out there. Much of _The Existence of God_ is devoted to the topic of explanation, making this book a key text not only for those working in philosophy of religion but in epistemology and philosophy of science as well. Swinburne's methodology is, I think, clearly on the right track; and as a result there is little doubt that his arguments for theism are powerful and deserve serious consideration.

I do not, however, find Swinburne's defense of theism to be successful. Swinburne focuses too much on simplicity as what determines the best explanation. If we take into consideration other elements of good explanations, such as explanatory depth, Swinburne may not be able to make many of the arguments he does. Also, many of Swinburne's arguments are based on what God has *reasons* to bring about; a consideration which may simply beg the question against the atheist. Swinburne's main critic, J.L. Mackie, says nothing about explanation in his response, _The Miracle of Theism_, and thus lets Swinburne get away without being challenged at the heart of his defense.

However, despite its flaws, Swinburne's book is the most powerful use to date of the new explanationist methodology applied to the question of God's existence. No one interested in this issue can afford to pass this work up.

British philosophy professor Richard Swinburne offers what is quite possibly the most sustained attempt to argue for God's existence since the middle ages. Formally a philosopher of science, Swinburne avoids many of the absurdities that characterize many recent defenses of theism. He is clearly familiar with logic and the tools of analytic philosophy and presents some interesting versions of several classic arguments.

His strategy is to argue that no single argument is cogent in isolation but that when several arguments are examined together their combined weight makes God's existence more probable than not.

While the work will be of interest to anyone seriously interested in the philosophy of religion, Swinburne's presentation contains some major difficulties. For one thing, many of his arguments proceed from the premise that certain aspects of our universe (for example, that it is orderly) are unlikely to have arisen in the absence of a divine cause. I find it difficult to see how he can determine a priori (that is, independent of experience) what sort of universe one might expect to have arisen on its own. Moreover, Swinburne's defense of these claims frequently consists of nothing more than pointing out that alternative universes are conceivable. Given the many well known problems with concervability as a guide to possibility as well as our current state of uncertainty with respect to the untimate fabric of the universe, such arguments seem very weak indeed. I, for one, find such dubious starting points and glib defenses to be a major flaw in Swinburne's whole project.

This book is very meaty, this book is very powerful, this book is mind food.

You have Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig and Richard Swinburne carrying the torch for Christian philosophy and apologetics. Richard Swinburne is probably the least known, but offers the most pop. The Moral Argument he presents takes the classical route and I like using it at times, he speaks alot about contingency in this regard.

Swinburne is underated in a sense where he should be more known to everyone. The guy is brilliant and while he isn't well known to the layman, he is definitely well known to other Christian Philosophers as well as his opponents. Swinburne is quoted in many other book from apologists and now I can see why. A reviewer below said that Swinburnes arguments have been refuted which is a little misleading, just because someone puts a rebuttal to an argument, doesn't mean that other person was correct. I have yet to see any arguments from the other side that even scratch Swinburnes arguments. All I see is the other side blowing smoke and hoping quanity beats up on quality.

Swinburne is very technical, sometimes you have to read what he is saying over and over before it fully sinks in, and when it does sink in you are glad you spent the time reading over again, because what he says makes alot of sense and it is something that you never have thought over before.

What I like about Swinburne is that he uses the argument from religious experience and makes it persuasive from facts I would have never thought possible until Swinburnes thought provoking statements. This argument is criticized and many apologists stay away from it, because it seem biased, but Swinburne adds in much logic to show that is a rationally sound argument.

I would suggest this book if you are in the stage of intermediate to advanced level of apologetics. The next book I want to check out is the Coherence of Theism.

this is by far the best collection of arguments for the existence of God put forward by one author in one volume. swinburne is absolutely fair; perhaps too fair. if anything, he understates his case. at any rate, his careful and absolutely rigorous analytic assesment of various arguments for and against the existence of God is a treat for the reader.
but the book does have a severe flaw: it gives no attention to an aesthetic appeal to the existence of God. you almost feel, after you've read this book, like saying 'okay, there is good reason to believe in God, but so what?'...almost as though the existence or non-existence of God has no existential implications. (mark wynn's GOD AND GOODNESS is helpful in this area).
yet this shouldn't detract from the overall value of the book. i simply wish for it to be noted that swinburne's arguments are more persuasive, atleast for me, when placed alongside an existential and aesthetic approach. but such an approach cannot stand without a rigorous analytic assesment of the classical issues, and it is not likely that a better such assesment can be found than in what swinburne here offers. an absolutely essential addition to any philosophy of religion bookshelf and any comprehensive argument for the existence of God, i highly recommend it to the atheist, seeker, and theist. enjoy the book.

Beginning with a discussion of Bayes' Probability Theorem, inductive reasoning, and the nature and justification of explanation, Swinburne goes on to posit the intrinsic probability of theism as being the explanation for life, the universe, and everything. He does this by distinguishing between scientific and personal explanations and finding no satisfactory scientific explanation for the universe. He then applies Ockham's Razor to the personal explanations, and finds the God of Judaism, Christianity,and Islam to be the most intrisically probable personal explanation.

From the beginning of intrinsic probability, Swinburne then considers and assesses the values of various arguments to theism. He dismisses some out of hand, such as Pascal's Wager and the argument from morality, and assigns weight to the other arguments. He finds good cosmological and teleological arguments, as well as good arguments from consciousness and providence. He then addresses the strongest argument against theism: the Problem of Evil, and concludes the study with arguments from history, miracles, and religious experience. The balance of probability is that it is somewhat more likely that God exists than otherwise.

Swinburne's dismissal of morality as a good argument to the existence of God is somewhat out of tune with his endorsement of the beauty of the universe as a good argument to the existence of God. Morality, understood as spiritual beauty, is at least as good (or bad) an argument to God as physical beauty.

Swinburne's argument against the Problem of Evil is probably the weakest portion of the book. Spiritual evil is easily handled. If you're going to give humans free choice, then some of them are going to choose evil. But the argument that natural evil (in the form of earthquakes, etc.) is necessary so that humans can display their good character is, to say the least, weak. A better explanation seems to be that a universe of good without evil is a logical impossibility (like a square circle or a four-sided triangle), and that even an omnipotent God cannot create a logical impossibility.

The Appendices speak to the Trinity, the argument to design, and Plantinga's critique of evolution. The validity of the doctrine of the Trinity should not be judged solely on Swinburne's abbreviated explanation. He wrote a complete book on the subject, "The Christian God," which should be consulted before dismissing the arguments he makes here. Having said that, his short discussion of the Trinity is not as intellectually satisfying as other portions of the book, and it sounds very much like the position of Michael Servetus, who got himself burned at the stake for voicing similar views during the Reformation.

Swinburne's analysis of Plantinga's critique of evolution is interesting. Plantinga seemingly argues that evolution is impossible without the directing hand of God, a position similar to Bergson's position in "Creative Evolution." (Bergson argued for an "elan vital" rather than God as the creative force behind evolution). Plantinga thus argues that this necessity for God disproves evolution. Swinburne turns Plantinga's argument around and argues that the fact of evolution is proof of God's existence.

This book is not an easy read, but if you're interested in a rigorous philosophical justification of Christian theism, it's worth reading.

Only the terrible sections on the "argument from providence" and "the problem of evil" kept me from giving this book five stars. The bulk of Swinburne's book is carefully argued and thought-provoking. The premises on which his arguments rest are not obviously correct, but they raise debate about the existence of god to a much higher level than that offered by the typical apologist.

Swinburne tries to show in this book that there is a "p-inductive" argument for the existence of God (with the attributes "omnipotent", "omniscient" and "perfectly free"), i.e. that the existence of God is more probable than not and therefore that it is rationally justified to believe in God.

To justify his approach he frankly admits that all deductive "proofs" to the existence of God failed. Starting with the a priori probability of the thesis of Theism he piles up the usual arguments for the existence of God using Bayes Theorem and argues that most of them are good "c-inductive" arguments for the existence of God, that is, that they increase the probability of His existence. The only argument that decreases the probability slightly,is, according to Swinburne, the "problem of evil" . Overall, he concludes, his proposition holds.

As expected from Swinburne, the book is brilliantly written and he explains the theoretical concepts he applies with adorable clarity und precision. This alone makes the book a good read.

However, his conclusion ist questionable.
His framework of "explanation" lacks empirical support and looks like an ad-hoc proposition, especially his "personal explanation" which he tries to establish besides the "scientific explanation" as equal in value. Of course, the "scientific explanation" is backed by reality but the personal explanation is backed only by faith.

He can't show with the arguments he offers, that they point to the existence of an omnipotent und omniscient and all-good God. His argumentation also holds for a being with huge but limited powers. He argues that a being with unlimited powers is simpler and - according to the historical scientific evidence - a simpler hypothesis is more probable than a complex one. This is a true in a heuristic sense, but it is to weak to give an answer to a very important metaphysical question.

Furthermore, I can't see a good c-inductive argument in Swinburnes work for the existence of an all-good God as postulated by him.
Why should an all-good God construct a world with a food chain mechanism?
Why should an all-good God stage them in a very unimportant place in a vast, empty and life-adverse universe?

All in all, this book is - nonwithstanding the fact that it has drawbacks - a very interesting read for anyone how is really interested in the philosophy of religion.

Like all intelligent (and certainly some arguments aren't) arguments for the existence of God, Swinburne's argument will be compelling to theists and inconclusive to atheists. Anytime someone believes in God,especially a religious type of belief, there has to be an existential element. In the Anselmian tradition of "faith seeks understanding", the book is very good. The key, however, is that the faith aspect is ALREADY present. Atheistic philosophers, especially those of the analytic stripe, will merely analyze the argument to death (no pun intended). People will always try to find rational justification for the beliefs they already have.