Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:34:37.763Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Swinburne's apologetic strategy for theism evaluated

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2017

HERMAN PHILIPSE*
Affiliation:
University of Utrecht, Achter de Dom 20, 3512 JP Utrecht, The Netherlands
*

Abstract

In this article, I classify Richard Swinburne's apologetic strategy for theism, and raise eight structural problems with regard to his Bayesian approach. For example, is theism really a meaningful theory? Does it have any predictive power? If so, isn't theism a degenerating research programme? Furthermore, is it legitimate to immunize theism against empirical refutations? Is Swinburne's tactic of doing so successful?

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, W. J. (1997) ‘Revelation and Scripture’, in Quinn, P. L. & Taliaferro, C. (eds) A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell), 584590.Google Scholar
Cottingham, J. (2014) Philosophy of Religion: Towards a More Humane Approach (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Jackson, P. W. (2006) The Chronologer's Quest: Episodes in the Search for the Age of the Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kenny, A. (2004) The Unknown God: Agnostic Essays (London & New York: Continuum).Google Scholar
Lakatos, I. (1998) ‘Science and pseudoscience’, in Curd, M. & Cover, J. A. (eds) Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues (New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company), 2026.Google Scholar
Mawson, T. J. (2002) ‘God's creation and morality’, Religious Studies, 38, 125.Google Scholar
McFague, S. (1982) Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press).Google Scholar
Moser, P. K. (2010) The Evidence for God: Religious Knowledge Reexamined (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Philipse, H. (2012) God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A. (2000) Warranted Christian Belief (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2006) Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason: The 1993 edition with a new preface (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Schellenberg, J. L. (2015) The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (CT) The Coherence of Theism, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, R. (EG) The Existence of God, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (ITG) Is There a God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1983) ‘Mackie, induction, and God’, Religious Studies, 19, 385391.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2015) ‘Necessary moral principles’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 1(4), 617634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophische Untersuchungen/Philosophical Investigations, Anscombe, G. E. M. (tr.) (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar