Online research in philosophy

Immanuel Kant’s position on special revelation is a matter of debate. Here I discuss Kant’s position in detail and compare it to that of Richard Swinburne. I examine both philosophers’ views on the assertability of special revelation, its contingency, whether it is necessary, the possibility of error, and appropriate methods of interpretation. I argue that, like Swinburne, Kant finds belief in special revelation to be acceptable, even beneficial, under certain circumstances.

The focus of this paper is the social trinitarian account in Richard Swinburne's "The Christian God." After setting out the route Swinburne follows in reaching his conclusions about the Godhead, I endeavour to show two things: (i) that his account does not avoid the charge of tritheism and thus is not faithful to key elements in the Christian creeds; (ii) the philosophical moves behind his conclusions are not compelling if, as we can, we challenge his assumptions about divine necessity. A better account of divine necessity takes us away from Swinburne's version of trinitarianism/tritheism.

According to how we treat others, we acquire merit or guilt, deserve praise or blame, and receive reward or punishment, looking in the end for atonement. In this study distinguished theological philosopher Richard Swinburne examines how these moral concepts apply to humans in their dealings with each other, and analyzes these findings, determining which versions of traditional Christian doctrines--sin and original sin, redemption, sanctification, and heaven and hell--are considered morally acceptable.

"Faith and Reason is the final volume of a trilogy on philosophical theology.

1 Proponents of the ST strategy include Timothy Bartel, “Could There Be More Than One Almighty?” Religious Studies 29 (1993): 465–95, and “Could There Be More Than One Lord?” Faith and Philosophy 11 (1994): 357–78; David Brown, The Divine Trinity (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1985), and “Trinitarian Personhood and Individuality,” in Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, ed. R. Feenstra and C. Plantinga (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 48–78; Stephen Davis, “A Somewhat Playful Proof of the Social Trinity in Five Easy Steps,” Philosophia Christi 1, no. 2 (1999): 103–5; Peter Forrest, “Divine Fission: A New Way of Moderating Social Trinitiarianism,” Religious Studies 34 (1998): 281–97; C. Stephen Layman, “Tritheism and the Trinity,” Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988): 291–8; Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Gregory of Nyssa and the Social Analogy of the Trinity,” Thomist 50 (1986): 325–52, “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” Calvin Theological Journal 23 (1988): 37–53, and “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” in Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, 21–47; Richard Swinburne, The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); and C. J. F. Williams, “Neither Confounding the Persons nor Dividing the Substance,” in Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honor of Richard Swinburne, ed. Alan Padgett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 227–43. The position is also commonly attributed to the Cappadocian Fathers. See especially Brown, Divine Trinity; Plantinga “Gregory of Nyssa and the Social Analogy of the Trinity,” and H. A. Wolfson, Faith, Trinity, Incarnation, vol. 1, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964).

What is it for there to be a God, and what reason is there for supposing him to conform to the claims of Christian doctrine? In this pivotal volume of his tetralogy, Richard Swinburne builds a rigorous metaphysical system for describing the world, and applies this to assessing the worth of the Christian tenets of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Part I is dedicated to analyzing the categories needed to address accounts of the divine nature--substance, cause, time, and necessity. Part II begins by setting out, in terms of these categories, the fundamental doctrine of Western religions--that there is a God. After pointing out some of the different ways in which this doctrine can be developed, Swinburne spells out the simplest possible account of divine nature. He then goes on to clarify the implications of this account for the specifically Christian doctrines of the Trinity (that God is "three persons in one substance") and of the Incarnation (that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ). Swinburne finds that there are good reasons to believe the Christian additions to the core Western idea of God. The Christian God builds upon Swinburne's acclaimed previous work to form a self-contained text which will no doubt become a classic in the philosophy of religion.

These essays represent an important contribution to modern philosophical theology. They begin with an appreciation of Basil Mitchell's work and then discuss the role of reason in the justification of Christian theism, giving special attention to the nature of informal reasoning in religion and science. The latter essays examine particular arguments raised by specific religious concepts, covering such topics as the problem of evil, conspicuous sanctity, atonement, and the Eucharist. Drawn from a wide spectrum of philosophers and theologians, the contributors include Maurice Wiles, Grace M. Jantzen, Gordon Kaufman, J.R. Lucas, Rom Harr'e, Richard Swinburne, and Michael Dummett.