Philosophy of Religion

The Existence of God

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Richard Swinburne

1979

The Existence of God is the central work of Swinburne's philosophical theology: a sustained probabilistic argument that the existence of God is more probable than not, given the total evidence available to us. Swinburne applies Bayesian inductive logic throughout, treating the theism hypothesis as one that explains a wide range of phenomena — the existence of the universe, its lawfulness, the presence of conscious beings, the occurrence of religious experience — better than any rival hypothesis. He argues that theism has high prior probability (it is a supremely simple hypothesis, positing a single ultimate explanation), and that each body of evidence raises its probability further. The book is remarkable both for its philosophical rigour and for its breadth: it engages seriously with the problem of evil, the nature of miracles, and the evidential value of religious experience. It remains the most sustained and technically sophisticated probabilistic case for theism in contemporary philosophy.