"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (VIII/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Epilogue: So What?
Summary
     This may be unfair, but this epilogue is so short that it can best be summarized in the following quote from it's own text: "The conclusion of this book was that, on significant balance of probability, there is a God. If you accept it, it follows that you have certain duties. God has given us life and all the good things it contains, including above all the opportunities to mould our characters and help others. ...if we have any sense and any idealism, we cannot leave [duty] at [a moderate amount of worship and obedience]" (122-3). Swinburne then proceeds to introduce new points like so (is that really necessary in an epilogue?) and then explain that god wants us to do our best and achieve great things, and since he created us we have a duty to do our best and achieve great things--he might choose to help us, but it is our duty to try whether he does or not, because he has already paid it forward more than we can ever compensate for.
Christian Response
     This isn't so much a Christian response as it is my response to this book and Christianity, but I feel like I am on the same page as Swinburne right up until the epilogue. I guess it's because worship is a weird thing for me. I've always felt like saying thank you and doing my best were the best ways to honor a god, rather than getting down on my knees and telling him/her/it how awesome he/she/it is and how I cower before him/her/it. I guess I feel like that would be awkward for god, because it's always really awkward when someone does that kind of thing to me. I am only human, though. I don't know. That's unrelated.
     What IS related is that I think a Christian would maybe feel a bit unfulfilled at the end of this book, just because it is, in the end, a theist book and not a Christian book. It is a book about there being a god, not about Jesus being the son of god and so on, and I don't think this book ever once mentioned Jesus. If Christianity decided Jesus and the biblical stories weren't so big a deal, though, and decided instead to just concentrate on ethics and being a moral person, then I think a good Christian could feel wholly supported by this book. That is, after all, what it's about: there is mostly likely a god, therefore you should do good stuff. If you're looking for more detail, read my previous eight blog posts or check out the book itself.
Personal Response
     Throughout this book, Swinburne provided plenty of support for the idea that there being a god makes sense. According to the points he makes, it does indeed make sense, and it obviously makes sense to me as I do believe in a god (that the god I believe in is not the Christian God is irrelevant). However, only in chapter 4 do I see him provide anything that could be considered proof of a god. Of course, there may not be such thing as proof--perhaps a better way to say it would be to say that chapter 4 is the only chapter in which he actually argues for a god being the most reasonable solution rather than simply saying that the existence of god is one reasonable solution among many he does not describe. That said, the reasons he gives in chapter 4 are the reasons, among others, that I believe in a god, and perhaps it is a good thing that the whole book does not read like a door-to-door evangelist, as I would have enjoyed reading that even less than reading what Swinburne did, in fact, write.

THE END

(...of this project, anyway; I fully intend to continue posting on this blog!)

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (VII/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter VII: How the Existence of God Explains Miracles and Religious Experience
Summary
     Swinburne makes many points in this chapter, very few of which really act towards the claim in the chapter title. The only point he makes which does seem to prove that the existence of god explains miracles and religious experience is that "humans need help" (108), and therefore it is in god's best interest to help us to see his creation work towards beautiful, good ends, and as a purely good being (established in chapter 1), that is something he would do. This does make sense. We as humans are limited beings, and we cannot accomplish everything we set out to do unless we sorely limit what we set out to do--even then it is still likely we will fail once or twice. But, God wants us to succeed, because if there is a god, he is good (according to Swinburne, anyway--this is one point I do not feel he ever fully addressed), and we are his creation, and a good creator would want his creation to succeed at doing good things. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that God would intervene to help us achieve good ends every now and then, though not too often, as I will talk about in my Christian response below.
Christian Response
     The first thing that struck me in this chapter is the following sentence: "[God] will not... intervene in the natural order at all often, for if he did, we would not be able to predict the consequences of our actions and so we would lose control over the world and ourselves" (100-1). That is to say, referring to the previous chapter, God cannot allow us to experience the greater goods and happinesses of responsibility for ourselves and our world if he intervenes too much. This is, I think, a very valid point and a fantastic response to the common Christian supposition that the age of miracles is over, that the world we live in now is mundane. I do not think that just because Jesus does not walk the earth in human form any longer we are doomed to live unmiraculous lives every second that we are alive, but miracles are obviously rare--rare enough that when they do occur to you, most people will not believe you. We are a world full of skeptics, even those among us who call ourselves Christians. It is smart to be a skeptic to an extent, but if Christianity teaches one thing beyond simply a moral code, it is that faith is a necessary component of happiness, whether it is faith in the universe or faith in god or faith in other people, and I think it would be good for Christians to show the learning of that lesson by having in faith in the possibility that miracles could still occur, and knowing when to trust the word of another human being. I know this is a delicate line to walk,  the line between being trusting and being gullible, but it is just something to think about.
Personal Response

     I'll admit I was a little surprised at first when I read the title of this chapter. I thought, "Well, of COURSE the existence of God explains these things. How could it not?" But I then thought back to chapter one, and there really isn't anything that says God would do this kind of thing, and I thought about science, and over time it seems both more likely and less likely that science will be able to explain "supernatural" experiences--more likely because we get closer and more advanced, and less likely because the closer we get, the more complex everything appears to be.
     I also really liked a point Swinburne brought up about how "we may be mistaken in believing that an event is not a divine intervention when really it is, as well as the other way around" (106). This is so true. We have no right or reason to expect that we should know when god intervenes in our world or not, that we should be privy to his actions on our plane. God may have intervened in our lives several times when we passed events off as mere coincidences (although I no longer believe in coincidence, which makes me more likely to ascribe something to an act of god which was in fact only happenstance). This doesn't prove that there is a god, so may not be entirely relevant to the purpose of the book, but it shows that a healthy agnosticism in all things is a good thing, because we never know everything, and we never really know anything for certain, whether there is a god or no.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (VI/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter VI: Why God Allows Evil
Summary
     In a nutshell, the reason Swinburne gives for God allowing evil is this: God would like to allow greater and more fulfilling goods into our life than simple happiness and contentment, such as "great responsibility for ourselves, each other, and the world, and thus a share in his own creative activity of determining what sort of world it is to be" (85), but those greater goods are simply not possible without allowing evils to pass. For example, he cannot give us responsibility for our successes if we do not experiences consequences for our failures. Some of this is simply that physical negative events must take place for great positive events to take place, but part of it is that we cannot properly experience great happiness, joy, and good without having something to contrast it to, without having properly experienced sadness, trouble, and evil.
Christian Response
     Swinburne's reference to God wanting us to take part in creation tickled me a bit, as this is a point J.R.R. Tolkien makes over and over in his writings, especially in the writings compiled in Tree and Leaf, and most especially in the poem "Mythopoeia" (a poem written to C.S. Lewis to convince him to believe in God--it worked). 
     I cannot think that the Christian response to Swinburne in this chapter could be anything but complete agreement. Swinburne makes sense, and his proposition explains many of the ills that come to pass both in the bible and throughout history since then. Without darkness, there cannot be light; without death, there cannot be life; without hardship, there cannot be success; without evil, there cannot be good.
     I always find myself in an interesting predicament when it comes to assessing the Christian response--as a Wiccan (who is in this sense best described as a monotheist, something for which many Wiccans would not call me such) I certainly believe in god and I certainly consider myself a moral being, but I am never certain just how that aligns with Christianity and where it splits off into something else. More and more as I examine Christianity I find that at it's core it is so similar to my religion and to every other well-respected religion (though I'm not sure it is fair to say that mine is among the well-respected religions of this world, and it is likely not), and that the only real difference is how we connect with god. But then, maybe I am being too forgiving and too openly interpretive of Christianity in the hopes that it will align with my own morals.
     There is one thing Swinburne mentions in this chapter that is a very Christian concept not in the sense that it is unique to Christianity (because it isn't), but in the sense that it is necessary to Christianity: "Being allowed to suffer to make possible a great good is a privilege, even if the privelege is forced upon you" (89), he says. Many times throughout the bible and across history post-bible, you hear of people acting as God's servants, or of God acting through people, or of people sacrificing themselves to God's cause, and this, when done properly, is what I think Swinburne is talking about. It is a very Christian view of suffering, and honestly a very beautiful one.
Personal Response

     I had been particularly excited to get to this chapter since I read chapter 1, which explained that God, if there was such a thing, was entirely good, and thus everything he created was perfectly good. How then would he explain evil? I will say that in the form of Wicca which I practice, the explanation is that while there is a perfectly good force within all things, everything happens for a good reason, and sometimes bad things need to happen to teach good lessons, or to set bigger good things into motion. 
     I think this is one of the most important chapters in this book if not the most important, as it is one of the biggest questions people ask when doubting the existence of a god. Many people become atheists in times of hardship because they feel god has not answers their prayers or seen to their needs, without realizing that there is indeed a sound reason for all evils. This is also the first chapter of this book in which I have been thoroughly interested.

     

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (V/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter V: How the Existence of God Explains the Existence of Humans
Summary
     Swinburne essentially states that god is a limitless superhuman soul unlimited by a human body. He describes the difference between physical events (things anyone can observe just as well as anyone else) and mental events (things that can only be observed by the person actually experiencing them), and then argues that the life of mental events each person experiences is our soul, and that "me" is greater than the sum of "my" parts. Christian Response
     It is difficult for me to respond to this section in a distinctly Christian way, because they bible is not a good reference when it comes to modern science--the bible says nothing about sub-atomic particles to my knowledge, and as far as I know it says nothing about brain surgery and the Frankenstein-ing process.
     However, I suppose that part of what I am  supposed to be learning in this class is not just the factual content of the bible, but Christianity and Christian ethics as practiced by real Christians, and real Christians tend to look to custom, intuition, and reason as well as to the bible's scripture. Reason gives us no means to argue with Swinburne on the value of "me" versus "my physical parts," and intuition certainly does not, for where does our intuition come from but from the "me" that is greater than its parts? I don't know how much experience can teach us about this, although I suppose comatose patients are a good example of a functioning body (sum of parts) without a functioning soul ("me"), even though recovery sometimes occurs. If recovery from a comatose state occurs, it is rarely full recovery, and often the "me" is very changed. A logical Christian would have no choice but to agree with Swinburne on this matter. Personal Response

     ...and, for that matter, a logical person. I'm not sure philosophy books are my thing, though. It's a little (read: incredibly) annoying having someone write out thoughts over pages and pages that my brain can process in a few milliseconds.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (IV/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter IV: How the Existence of God Explains the World and its Order
Summary
     Swinburne explains his personal viewpoint that the simplicity of god as a solution makes it the best possible answer for anyone asking "but why?" past the level of the materialistic existence of sub-atomic particles and their properties. He agrees completely with science on evolution and scientific theories of creation (the Big Bang), but denies chance as a possibility for why it all happened because the improbability of things happening the way they did is so high that it simply makes more sense for everything to have been caused by a limitless person with intent, viz., god. Christian Response
     I think the average Christian does not arrive at this conclusion because of repeatedly asking "why?" until there is not more scientific "why." Faith is a big part of Christianity, and I think, at this point, that actually trying to prove the existence of god goes against that faith, that it is a way of saying "the bible is not enough, I need to KNOW." I have never been a Christian, and I am well aware that there are many different kinds of Christians, but I think there is a point where Christian faith says "stop asking." Personal Response

     I was relieved that Swinburne not only addressed but agreed with science. I find his argument unconvincing because he relies on the idea that god is good--I have faith that god is good, but I have no real reason to suppose so. I personally have been very lucky. Others have not been so. Is it my business to know if god is good? Is he? I don't know. In any case, it bothers me that much of his argument relies on certain things being good, and whereas he tells us we need to ask for an ultimate explanation of things, he offers us no ultimate explanation for said things (people, beauty, god) being good other than that it is his personal opinion. You know there's something wrong with his argument when I agree with him and I still don't think he's convincing--clearly not biased.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (III/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter III: The Simplicity of God
Summary
      Swinburne talks about the search for an ultimate explanation. If you've ever been, been related to, conversed with, or met an annoying child, you'll know what I mean:
-"Where are we going?"
-"To the grocery."
-"Why?"
-"Because I need to buy groceries for dinner."
-"Why?"
-"Because we don't have everything we need to cook."
-"Why?"
-"Because we finished off the chicken last night."
-"Why?"
-"Because there was a limited supply of chicken in our house."
-"Why?"
-"Because it goes bad if you buy too much at once."
-"Why?"
-"Because bacteria break down the proteins."
-"Why?"
...and so on until you get to a "why" you can't answer. Swinburne says that there will always be a why to which no human can reliably provide a concrete answer, and with this he goes on to provide that "god" is that answer; that the reason for the basest laws of the universe is simply that god made it so because god is good, and so it goes. He does this after providing three solutions: materialism (that everything has an inanimate explanation), humanism (that personal action cannot be explained in inanimate terms, and inanimate action cannot be explained in personal terms), and theism (essentially).
     Theism is perhaps the simplest answer we have yet come up with, as it is literally a single simple answer to all of the most basic questions, leaving nothing unanswered if "Because god made it so" is a satisfactory answer for the querent.
Christian Response
      So far as I can see, the Christian should agree perfectly with the beginning of Swinburne's proof of theism. Christians believe in a god that is good, all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present, and this is absolutely an explanation for the basest laws of the universe, and can often be an explanation for events far above that basest level. If one is a Christian, it is in part because one has found completely inanimate explanations unsatisfactory.
Personal Response
     I honestly cannot tell whether Swinburne is biased or not in his description of materialism and humanism, because I agree with him, at least thus far. I, too, find materialistic explanations dissatisfying after a certain point, and I thought his explanation of humanism was too short to be clear in addition to sounding like a form of evasion of the questions asked--it provided not just an unsatisfactory answer, but really no answer at all. I cannot tell if this is simply because I do not understand it and Swinburne did not take the time to explain it, or if it is because I truly would find the answer unsatisfactory.
     It is so like me to complain every time Swinburne explains something I understand and then complain again when he doesn't explain the first thing I know nothing about.
     Also, I am interested to see how Swinburne goes about "proving" that his god figure is perfectly good. The only way for god to exist is for him/her/it to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, but all-good is not inherent in godliness. I do personally believe that the force within all things (which I guess I can refer to as "god") is all good, but I personally believe (along with Aristotle, Locke, and a good number of others) that people are, too, and that, as far as I am aware, is not the Christian doctrine.
     Lastly, I believe there is a rule that disallows one from proving a solution with reliance on that solution, similar to the rule which prevents one from defining a word using the word being defined. However, this seems to be exactly what Swinburne is doing. He tries to prove the existence of god with the nature of god. I'm not sure how fair or accurate this is. I almost wish I were an adamant atheist reading this so that I could perhaps more easily spot biases.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (II/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter II: How We Explain Things
Summary
     In which Swinburne spends 6 full pages trying to teach inductive reasoning without ever using the phrase "inductive reasoning." Swinburne then proceeds in a rather Holmesian manner, outlining the process of justifying a claim with 4 criteria: data; simplicity; background knowledge; and a criterion which, try I might, I cannot simplify into a short catchphrase ("However well some proposed law satisfies Criteria 1-3, if there is an incompatible law which satisfies those criteria even better, since they cannot both be laws, the former must be rejected." 26). He makes at least one good point that I have not seen better worded elsewhere, and that is this: "[Criterion 1] is satisfied to the extent to which a law or theory leads us to expect many events. The more it can explain, the better. The more varied events it can explain, the better." (29) Now at least I can see how this chapter will apply to the rest of the book--it would appear that Swinburne plans to show that the theory of god (theism) explains more and more varied events than any other claim possibly could.
Christian Response
     As I began to touch on at the end of my summary of chapter 2, Christians should very much approve of this chapter, as it prologues a "proof" of god, if there can be such a thing (it would perhaps be more accurate to use the phrase "argument in favor of," or the word "claim," as Swinburne does). This chapter does not, however, actually cover an ethical issue or in fact anything interesting at all, so I'm not sure how anyone could disagree with it.
Personal Response
     If I have to read another chapter of nothing but definitions I am going to vomit. If I wanted a step-by-step proof I would have read a geometry textbook. Perhaps that's where I went wrong in selecting the title "Is There A God?"