Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that while none (...) of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Content Description #"Under the auspices of the Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau."#Includes bibliographical references.

Richard Swinburne offers an original treatment of a question at the heart of epistemology: what makes a belief rational, or justified in holding? He maps the rival accounts of philosophers on epistemic justification ("internalist" and "externalist"), arguing that they are really accounts of different concepts. He distinguishes between synchronic justification (justification at a time) and diachronic justification (synchronic justification resulting from adequate investigation)--both internalist and externalist. He also argues that most kinds of justification are worth having because they are indicative (...) of truth; however, it is only justification of internalist kinds that can guide a believer's actions. Swinburne goes on to show the usefulness of the probability calculus in elucidating how empirical evidence makes beliefs probably true. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne, IsThereaGod? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. vii+144.

In purporting to explain the occurrence of some event or process we cite the causal factors which, we assert, brought it about or keeps it in being. The explanation is a true one if those factors did indeed bring it about or keep it in being. In discussing explanation I shall henceforward concern myself only with true explanations. I believe that there are two distinct kinds of way in which causal factors operate in the world, two distinct kinds of causality, (...) and so two distinct kinds of explanation. For historical reasons, I shall call these kinds of causality and explanations ‘scientific’ and ‘personal’; but I do not imply that there is anything unscientific in a wide sense in invoking personal explanation. (shrink)