Richard Swinburne
Encyclopedia
Richard G. Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
at the University of Oxford
. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion
and philosophy of science
. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.
at Exeter College, Oxford
, but in fact graduated with a first class
BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
Swinburne has held various professorships through his career in academia. From 1972 to 1985 he taught at Keele University
. During part of this time, he gave the Gifford lectures
at Aberdeen
from 1982 to 1984, resulting in the book The Evolution of the Soul. From 1985 until his retirement in 2002 he was Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford (his successor in this chair is Brian Leftow
).
Swinburne has been a very active author throughout his career, producing a major book every two to three years. His books are primarily very technical works of academic philosophy, but he has written at the popular level as well. Of the non-technical works, his Is There a God? (1996), summarizing for a non-specialist audience many of his arguments for the existence of God and plausibility in the belief of that existence, is probably the most popular, and is available in translation in 22 languages.
, he is noted as one of the foremost Christian apologists, arguing in his many articles and books that faith in Christianity
is rational and coherent in a rigorous philosophical sense. While he presents many arguments to advance the belief that God exists, he argues that God is a being whose existence is not logically necessary (see modal logic
), but metaphysically necessary in a way he defines in his The Christian God. Other subjects on which Swinburne writes include personal identity
(in which he espouses a view based on the concept of a soul), and epistemic justification.
Though he is most well-known for his vigorous rational defense of Christian intellectual commitments, he also has a theory of the nature of passionate faith which is developed in his book Faith and Reason.
According to an interview Swinburne did with Foma magazine, he converted from the Church of England
to the Greek Orthodox Church around 1996:
Swinburne's philosophical method reflects the influence of Thomas Aquinas
. He admits that he draws from Aquinas a systematic approach to philosophical theology. Swinburne, like Aquinas, moves from basic philosophical issues (for example, the question of the possibility that God may exist in Swinburne's The Coherence of Theism), to more specific Christian beliefs (for example, the claim in Swinburne's Revelation that God has communicated to human beings propositionally in Jesus Christ).
Swinburne moves in his writing program from the philosophical to the theological, building his case rigorously. Swinburne relies on his previous arguments as he moves into his defenses of particular Christian beliefs. Swinburne has attempted to reassert classical Christian beliefs with an apologetic method that he believes is compatible with contemporary science. That method relies heavily on inductive logic, seeking to show that his Christian beliefs fit best with the evidence.
Swinburne also coined two principles for the assessment of religious experiences:
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...
and philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.
Academic career
Swinburne received an Open Scholarship to study ClassicsClassics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
at Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
, but in fact graduated with a first class
British undergraduate degree classification
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom...
BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
Swinburne has held various professorships through his career in academia. From 1972 to 1985 he taught at Keele University
Keele University
Keele University is a campus university near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as an experimental college dedicated to a broad curriculum and interdisciplinary study, Keele is most notable for pioneering the dual honours degree in Britain...
. During part of this time, he gave the Gifford lectures
Gifford Lectures
The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford . They were established to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term — in other words, the knowledge of God." The term natural theology as used by Gifford means theology supported...
at Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
from 1982 to 1984, resulting in the book The Evolution of the Soul. From 1985 until his retirement in 2002 he was Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford (his successor in this chair is Brian Leftow
Brian Leftow
Brian Leftow is the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oriel College, Oxford, succeeding Richard Swinburne, who retired in 2002. Leftow's research interests include metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and philosophical theology. He is a graduate of Grove City College,...
).
Swinburne has been a very active author throughout his career, producing a major book every two to three years. His books are primarily very technical works of academic philosophy, but he has written at the popular level as well. Of the non-technical works, his Is There a God? (1996), summarizing for a non-specialist audience many of his arguments for the existence of God and plausibility in the belief of that existence, is probably the most popular, and is available in translation in 22 languages.
Christian apologetics
A member of the Eastern Orthodox ChurchEastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
, he is noted as one of the foremost Christian apologists, arguing in his many articles and books that faith in Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
is rational and coherent in a rigorous philosophical sense. While he presents many arguments to advance the belief that God exists, he argues that God is a being whose existence is not logically necessary (see modal logic
Modal logic
Modal logic is a type of formal logic that extends classical propositional and predicate logic to include operators expressing modality. Modals — words that express modalities — qualify a statement. For example, the statement "John is happy" might be qualified by saying that John is...
), but metaphysically necessary in a way he defines in his The Christian God. Other subjects on which Swinburne writes include personal identity
Identity (philosophy)
In philosophy, identity, from , is the relation each thing bears just to itself. According to Leibniz's law two things sharing every attribute are not only similar, but are the same thing. The concept of sameness has given rise to the general concept of identity, as in personal identity and...
(in which he espouses a view based on the concept of a soul), and epistemic justification.
Though he is most well-known for his vigorous rational defense of Christian intellectual commitments, he also has a theory of the nature of passionate faith which is developed in his book Faith and Reason.
According to an interview Swinburne did with Foma magazine, he converted from the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
to the Greek Orthodox Church around 1996:
- I don’t think I changed my beliefs in any significant way. I always believed in the Apostolic succession: that the Church has to have its authority dating back to the Apostles, and the general teaching of the Orthodox Church on the saints and the prayers for the departed and so on, these things I have always believed.
Swinburne's philosophical method reflects the influence of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
. He admits that he draws from Aquinas a systematic approach to philosophical theology. Swinburne, like Aquinas, moves from basic philosophical issues (for example, the question of the possibility that God may exist in Swinburne's The Coherence of Theism), to more specific Christian beliefs (for example, the claim in Swinburne's Revelation that God has communicated to human beings propositionally in Jesus Christ).
Swinburne moves in his writing program from the philosophical to the theological, building his case rigorously. Swinburne relies on his previous arguments as he moves into his defenses of particular Christian beliefs. Swinburne has attempted to reassert classical Christian beliefs with an apologetic method that he believes is compatible with contemporary science. That method relies heavily on inductive logic, seeking to show that his Christian beliefs fit best with the evidence.
Swinburne's categories
Swinburne formulated five categories into which all religious experiences fall:- Public - a believer 'sees God's hand at work', whereas other explanations are cited (e.g., looking at a beautiful sunset).
- Public - an unusual event that breaches natural law (e.g., walking on water).
- Private - describable using normal language (e.g., Jacob's vision of a ladder).
- Private - indescribable using normal language, usually a mystical experience (e.g., "White did not cease to be white, nor black cease to be black, but black became white and white became black.").
- Private - a non-specific, general feeling of God working in one's life.
Swinburne also coined two principles for the assessment of religious experiences:
- Principle of Credulity - with the absence of any reason to disbelieve it, one should accept what appears to be true (e.g., if one sees someone walking on water, one should believe that it is occurring)
- Principle of Testimony - with the absence of any reason to disbelieve them, one should accept that eye-witnesses or believers are telling the truth when they testify about religious experiences.
Major books
- The Concept of Miracle, 1970
- The Coherence of Theism, 1977 (part 1 of his trilogy on Theism)
- The Existence of God, 1979 (new edition 2004). (part 2 of his trilogy on Theism)
- Faith and Reason, 1981 (new edition 2005). (part 3 of his trilogy on Theism)
- The Evolution of the Soul, 1986, ISBN 0-19-823698-0. (1997 edition online)
- Miracles, 1989.
- Responsibility and Atonement, 1989 (part 1 of his tetralogyTetralogyA tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
on Christian Doctrines) - Revelation, 1991 (part 2 of his tetralogyTetralogyA tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
on Christian Doctrines) - The Christian God, 1994 (part 3 of his tetralogyTetralogyA tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
on Christian Doctrines) - Is There a God?, 1996, ISBN 0-19-823545-3
- Simplicity as Evidence of Truth, The Aquinas Lecture, 1997
- Providence and the Problem of Evil, 1998 (part 4 of his tetralogyTetralogyA tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
on Christian Doctrines) - Epistemic Justification, 2001
- The Resurrection of God Incarnate, 2003
Spiritual autobiography
- Richard Swinburne, "The Vocation of a Natural Theologian," in Philosophers Who Believe, Kelly James Clark, ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), pp. 179–202.
Critical assessment
- Brown, Colin. Miracles and the Critical Mind. Exeter: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1984. 180-4.
- Chartier, GaryGary ChartierGary William Chartier is an American legal scholar, philosopher, theologian, and "left-wing market anarchist." He currently serves as Associate Professor of Law and Business Ethics and Associate Dean of the School of Business at La Sierra University in Riverside, California...
. "Richard Swinburne." BlackwellBlackwell PublishingWiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley's Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing, after Wiley took over Blackwell Publishing in...
Companion to the Theologians. 2 vols. Ed. Ian MarkhamIan MarkhamDr. Ian S. Markham was appointed as Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary in August 2007. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom where he focused on Christian Ethics. He previously earned an M.Litt. in Philosophy and Ethics from the University of...
. OxfordOxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
: BlackwellBlackwell PublishingWiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley's Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing, after Wiley took over Blackwell Publishing in...
2009. 2: 467-74. - Parks, D. Mark. "Expecting the Christian Revelation: An Analysis and Critique of Richard Swinburne's Philosophical Defense of Propositional Revelation." PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 1995.
- Parsons, Keith M. God and the Burden of Proof: Plantinga, Swinburne, and the Analytic Defense of Theism. Buffalo: Prometheus 1989.
- Wolterstorff, NicholasNicholas WolterstorffNicholas Wolterstorff is an American philosopher and currently the Noah Porter Emeritus Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale University...
. Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks. Cambridge: CUP 1995.
See also
- Theodicy in contemporary philosophy of religion
- List of science and religion scholars
External links
- Personal Homepage at Oxford University - Includes a curriculum vitae and more complete list of publications
- Presentation at Gifford lectures
- Radio interview on Philosophy TalkPhilosophy TalkPhilosophy Talk is a talk radio program co-hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor, who are professors at Stanford University. The show is also available as a podcast, available for purchase. The program deals both with fundamental problems of philosophy and with the works of famous philosophers,...
- Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason review from Diapsalmata
- Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies video interview with Richard Swinburne May 31, 2010.