Is There a God? (Paperback)

by Richard Swinburne (Author) "My topic is the claim that there is a God, understood in the way that Western religion (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) has generally understood that..." (more)
Key Phrases: inanimate explanation, detailed historical evidence, theism claims, Big Bang, Grand Unified Theory, Quantum Theory (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
This condensation and popularization of the positive case for the existence of God put forward in Swinburne's 1979 book, The Existence of God, is an argument from the orderliness of the universe, maintaining that theism accounts for that orderliness more simply and more completely than humanism or materialism. Historically, arguments for the existence of God tend toward "preaching to the choir." This one is no exception. The choir will find it compelling, but others--while admiring the system and orderliness of the book--are not likely to be convinced. Steve Schroeder --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"With audacity, [Swinburne] yields nothing to modernity that cannot withstand rigorous philosophical analysis. An essential purchase for seminaries and graduate schools."--Religious Studies Review


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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (January 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198235453
• ISBN-13: 978-0198235453
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #542,572 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good intro to Swinburne, October 12, 1999

By	John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Silver Lake, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I understand why Swinburne closes this volume with some "dissatisfaction," because it is a very brief distillation and summary of his much more detailed work elsewhere and it does, as he readily admits, invite any number of critical replies he does not have room to address. Nevertheless this volume is a good introduction to his thought.

Be warned: the God of Swinburne's "natural theology" does not quite have all the attributes one expects in the God of traditional theism. His God is not, for example, "eternal" (in the sense "outside of time altogether," though he is "everlasting"), nor (therefore) does He have full foreknowledge of what His creatures will do, nor is He sovereign over moral law.

Swinburne's basic idea is that although no particular argument clinches the case for God, several arguments together render His existence altogether more likely than not. And, according to Swinburne, He provides an explanation for scientific law in the sense that His existence explains why there are such laws at all.

In this work, written as a popular reply to Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, Swinburne boils down his arguments to the bare minimum and aims to present them readably to a popular audience. He does it well, though the interested reader is referred to his other work for details.

He is probably at his least convincing in dealing with theodicy and the problem of evil. But other reviewers have already commented on that, so I'll say no more about it here.

All in all, if you are looking for an introduction to Swinburne's thought, this book is an excellent choice.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh and original contribution to the debate, November 9, 1999

By A Customer

Swinburne takes the moldy old "primal mover" argument for the existence of God and brilliantly revitalizes it to such an extent that it is nearly unrecognizable. I am an atheist-an open-minded one. If the arguments for God's existence ever become compelling again, I will change camps. This book was so fresh and original that it deserves a second read-which I am doing. I cannot say that I am convinced but I am very intrigued by Swinburne's argument. It is difficult to summarize his long and subtle argument here. Any attempt to do so would do it injustice so keep that in mind. He suggests that God-a simple non-material being-is the best explanation for the totality of the information that we have about the universe and that no other theory explains the universe as simply or completely as the existence of God does. In other words, using the old principle of "Occam's Razor" (the principle that "the simplest (not more complex) solution is often the correct one") God, rather than seeming a holdover from dark, superstitious times, is a very efficient and elegant solution to the reason why the universe exists at all. You will have to read the book to appreciate this in all its interesting details. And it is interesting and very thought provoking. At the very least, it is a very clever and subtle restating of a very old argument. That alone is enough reason to buy this book if you are interested in these issues. At the most, he may be onto something. A second reading is necessary. One complaint: Swinburne tries to simplify his larger volume for this edition. He writes like a typical academic-which means that his prose is often leaden and dry. It appears that he has shortened his work without necessarily making it more elegant in its presentation. I thought of many examples and illustrations he offered which were not as helpful as he must have thought they might be. If you can dig your way through his flat writing style and have some background in this area, this is a must read book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven Book of Natural Theology, March 3, 1999

By A Customer

Swiburne writes clearly and his arguments for God's existence are interesting and suggestive. In the end, though, they come down to the notion that God is the "simplest" explanation for things we observe in the natural world. It was never clear how postulating the existence of something unlike anything else in experience could be a "simple" explanation of the world. Maybe it's "simpler" just to take the existence of the world as an unexplained fact, a mystery. The discussion of why God allows pain and suffering is the weakest part of the book and is almost a parody of traditional theodicy. At one point in his discussion of animal suffering, Swinburne argues that forest fires aren't necessarily bad for animals because they give them an opportunity to escape danger, which he regards as a "significant intentional act." Since "significant intentional acts" are goods things, it follows that forest fires could be good for animals. This sounds like a joke but Swinburne was serious. The reader wondering why God allows suffering would be better advised to read the book of Job.