Is There a God?
Oxford University Press (1996)
| Abstract | At least since Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, it has increasingly become accepted that the existence of God is, intellectually, a lost cause, and that religious faith is an entirely non-rational matter--the province of those who willingly refuse to accept the dramatic advances of modern cosmology. Are belief in God and belief in science really mutually exclusive? Or, as noted philosopher of science and religion Richard Swinburne puts forth, can the very same criteria which scientists use to reach theories about everything from DNA to the Big Bang be used to argue for the existence of God? In Is There a God? Swinburne presents a powerful and approachable case for the existence of God. Using the methods of scientific reasoning, Swinburne rigorously argues that science, far from replacing God, provides good grounds for belief in God. With each new discovery and advance, from black holes to quarks, superstrings to continuing evolution, science brings us closer to a complete understanding of how things work--but science can only go so far. Though it can explain much of how the universe works, science doesn't tell us why there is a universe at all. We can understand much of how life evolved, but why is there any life on earth? We can name and explicate scientific laws, but how is it that they operate in the universe? The Darwinian theory holds that the complex animal and human bodies that are here today exist because, ages ago, there were certain chemicals on earth, and given the laws of evolution, it was probable that complex organisms would emerge. But why those laws rather than any other? Why those chemicals? In Swinburne's view, the ultimate grand unifying theory is possible only by a belief in what he calls theism, acknowledging the existence of God: it was God who brought about the natural laws so that humans and animals would evolve. The watch may have been made, Swinburne asserts in reference to Richard Dawkins, with the aid of some blind screwdrivers (or even a blind watchmaking machine), but they were guided by a watchmaker with some very clear sight. At the heart of his argument is Swinburne's belief that the very success of science in showing us how deeply ordered the natural world is provides strong grounds for believing there is an even deeper cause of that order. By embracing a belief in God that acknowledges the truth in science, Swinburne's elegant argument supplies an essential spiritual element to our understanding of order and beauty, the structure beneath the chaos of the natural world. This informed and provocative volume will be essential reading for all readers of popular science, philosophy, and religion. | |||||||||
| Keywords | God (Christianity | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Buy the book | $99.00 direct from Amazon Amazon page | |||||||||
| Call number | BT102.S96 1996 | |||||||||
| ISBN(s) | 9780198235446 9780199580439 0198235445 | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRichard Swinburne (1988). Could There Be More Than One God? Faith and Philosophy 5 (3):225 - 241.
Richard Swinburne (2010). Was Jesus God? Religious Studies 46 (2):265 - 269.
Victor Cosculluela (1997). Death and God: The Case of Richard Swinburne. Religious Studies 33 (3):293-302.
Jeremy Gwiazda (2010). Richard Swinburne, the Existence of God, and Exact Numerical Values. Philosophia 38 (2):357-363.
Charles E. Gutenson (1997). What Swinburne Should Have Concluded. Religious Studies 33 (3):243-247.
Richard Swinburne (2004). The Existence of God. Oxford University Press.
Quentin Smith (1998). Swinburne's Explanation of the Universe. Religious Studies 34 (1):91-102.
Richard Swinburne (2003). The Argument to God From Fine-Tuning Reassessed. In Neil A. Manson (ed.), God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science. Routledge.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads32 ( #37,849 of 548,999 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,999 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
