Philosophy of Religion

Faith and Reason

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Richard Swinburne

1981

Faith and Reason is Swinburne's account of the rationality of religious faith, completing his trilogy on theistic belief. Having established the coherence of theism and argued for its probability, Swinburne here asks: what is it rational to believe, and how should one act on that belief? He develops an account of faith as a complex disposition — involving both belief and trust — and argues that it is rational to have faith in God even under conditions of uncertainty, provided one's total evidence makes theism significantly probable. Swinburne explores the relationship between faith and works, between revealed and natural theology, and between the rationality of individual belief and the social and institutional dimensions of religion. The book also addresses the rationality of religious practice: prayer, worship, and the obligations that faith generates. Together with its companion volumes, it remains the most systematically developed philosophical defence of orthodox Christian belief in analytic philosophy.