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Is there a God?
a review by Gert Korthof
4 June 1998 ( updated 24 Oct 2007 )


cover Richard Swinburne (1997)
Is there a God?
Oxford University Press
paperback edition 1997
144 pages.
Index, no bibliography, no footnotes. This edition is a shorter version of The existence of God, 1979.

guestbook 		GOD Professor Richard Swinburne formulates theism as a theory to explain facts. This sharply contrasts with the view that theology deals with revealed truths. This fact alone deserves respect and interest. Theism can now be examined as a theory. It wouldn't make sense to evaluate revealed truth. There is no other theory available to compare with evolution theory. This book is an answer to Richard Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. It also shows that it is possible for a theist to accept evolution and Darwinism (1).
Swinburne gave a clear, modern and general account of theism, accessible to a wider public.
Professor Richard Swinburne is one of the most influential theistic philosophers of our time and is Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. 		 
Chapter 1: God To many God is a theory in crisis. Swinburne is going to refute that claim. In the first chapter he explains what the 'God-theory' is. Swinburne is quite confident in his knowledge of God. He knows quite a lot about God, including rather personal details (5) such as God's reasons for doing or not doing things . How could Professor Swinburne know, from a scientific point of view, God's reasons? It looks as if all this information results from pure thinking, because Swinburne does not (openly) use the Bible as a source of information. In fact he sees his activity as formulating a scientific hypothesis to explain all the facts of the world. But one cannot simply observe reasons. On the other hand if Swinburne uses reasons as explanations for facts, how does he test if it is a correct explanation? So Swinburne should show where his information comes from and how he did validate it or eliminate it from his theory altogether.  
Chapter 2: How we explain things Swinburne explains how science explains things. It is a short description, but well done. In the end he decides to use 'simplicity' as the criterion to choose between possible scientific hypotheses. Nothing wrong with that. He tries to show that theism is an explanation of the facts of the world, and does not violate the standards of scientific explanation. The scientific language he uses demonstrates his intention: 'the evidence gives a significant degree of probability to the claim that God exists'.  
Chapter 3: The 'simplicity' of God Swinburne claims that humans seek ultimate explanations. Materialism fails to give ultimate explanations, whereas theism provides the ultimate explanation of all phenomena. It appears that God has all the properties to explain the universe.  
Chapter 4: How the existence of God explains the world and its order A fact that needs to be explained by both materialism and theism is that the world is orderly. Matter behaves. The existence and regular behaviour of material objects provide good evidence for the existence of God, says Swinburne. God made an orderly world to make it suitable as a theatre for humans. He (uncritically) accepts Paley's argument from design: "This analogy of animals to complex machines seems to me correct, and its conclusion justified." (3, see also box). [by conclusion he means that animals and humans must have had God as their maker]. However, he says, this argument does not give any reason to suppose that God made humans and animals on one particular day in history, rather than through a gradual process of evolution. (This is in direct conflict with the creation story in Genesis). Remarkably he accepts Darwinism as told by Richard Dawkins, including the involvement of chance in evolution. It seems to me in conflict with his own statement that chance cannot produce beautiful adapted organisms (Paley's argument from design). It is unlikely that he did read creationists like Johnson or Denton. It is amazing that he did not detect any atheism in Dawkins, where creationists like Johnson found it with great ease. The explanation for his paradoxical acceptance of Darwinian evolution is that according to Swinburne evolution theory does not give an ultimate explanation. The laws of nature and especially the laws of evolution were set up to produce life. The universe is a machine to produce animals and humans. God did not directly create humans and animals, but indirectly via the laws of nature, via the law of natural selection. This explains why Swinburne is a theist and an evolutionist. For Swinburne evolution is not the crucial point. After reading Phillip Johnson I need to get used to the idea that a theist accepts evolution. The beneficial effect as I see it is that scientists can now study the origin of humans, animals and plants without being hindered by supernatural intervention.
    Materialism cannot explain the fine tuning of the laws of nature, it is a brute fact for materialism. Theism claims the fine tuning was done by God. Swinburne objects to the Anthropic Principle because it explains away the need for fine-tuning. It is true that we would not be there if there was no order, but the fine tuning itself is still in need of an explanation. If we find such arrangements, that is reason for supposing that a person is doing the arranging. Swinburne objects also to the many-worlds theory as an explanation of the fine tuning. "To postulate a trillion trillion other universes, rather than one God in order to explain the orderliness of our universe, seems the height of irrationality". Swinburne states not to postulate a 'God of the gaps'.
 

Four ways to create life:

  1. Direct and individual creation of non-selfreproducing artefacts or living individuals
  2. Direct and individual creation of selfreproducing artefacts or living individuals
  3. Creation of first life only. Evolution creates the rest of life
  4. Creation of natural laws and initial conditions that guarantee the origin of life and its evolution
An example of method 1 is the creation of artefacts like watches. Since they cannot reproduce themselves, they must be created one by one. Similarly, God could create every human being one by one (6). An example of method 2 is the creation of Adam and Eve who subsequently produced all human beings. And another example is that, to my amazement, Paley considered self-reproducing watches! (3,4). This implies that every watch does not have to be created individually. Furthermore, add heritable variation and natural selection to this, and one has the natural origin of geographical varieties, subspecies and species. (Paley did not know about evolution, because he wrote his Natural Theology before Darwin's Origin of Species). An intermediate between method 2 and 3 are the so-called 'created kinds' or 'basic types' such as the 'dog basic type' from which the species dog, wolf, fox, coyote evolved. Method 3 is the creation of first life with the capacity to evolve all other species. Method 4 adds to method 3 the natural origin of life caused by the laws of nature ('fine-tuning'). Swinburne beliefs in this method of creation. It means no direct creation of any individuals. Therefore, he must reject method 1,2 and 3. So he must reject Paley. It would be helpful if Swinburne had made the above distinctions and discussed Paley in his book.    [Dec 2002]
 
Chapter 5: How the existence of God explains the existence of humans
update 		Swinburne defends body-soul dualism. Humans and animals have two parts: body and soul. The body is material, the soul is immaterial. The soul is connected to the body. He uses 'soul' as synonymous with consciousness and mental life. By definition the mental is that to which the subject has privileged access. At some stage of animal evolution, an animal brain became so complex that that caused the existence of the soul. Darwinism can explain the evolution of animal bodies and human bodies. But neither Darwinism nor any other science can explain how the bodies came to be connected to the soul. Theism can provide an explanation of these things. God, being omnipotent, is able to join souls to bodies. He can make souls in the first place and choose to which brain each soul is to be connected. He may have a reason to join this body to that soul, or He may have no reason at all and leave it to chance.
Problems are:
  1. Swinburne defines the soul in such a way that it is not measurable, and then concludes that science can never explain body-soul connections. So, Swinburne defines a body-soul dualism and subsequently concludes that science cannot connect the two. Science accepts mental life and consciousness, but not the soul defined as a non-material substance.
  2. Even if we accept his definition of a soul, the question is: does God really explain the soul-body connection if the assignment of a particular soul to a particular body can be random?
  3. Swinburne: "when the foetal brain reaches a certain state of development it gives rise to a soul connected with it." (p.89) Here he admits that a brain can produce a soul. Mystery solved. He continues: "But what it could not cause is which soul is connected with it." (p.89) Which soul? The soul that is produced by the brain, of course! That soul naturally and intimately belongs to that individual. There is no need to postulate a pre-existing soul anymore! We don't need God to create a soul and connect it to a body.

Swinburne about Darwinian evolution:

Swinburne accepts to a large extent standard evolutionary reasoning:
  1. The Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection is able to provide an explanation of human and animal bodies (p.86)
  2. At some stage of animal evolution, an animal brain became so complex that that caused the existence of a soul connected to it. All vertebrates have a mental life because all have a brain similar to the human brain. (p.79)
  3. Darwinism explains why animals with true beliefs are more likely to survive than animals with false beliefs. Desires and purposes are similar to beliefs. (p.87) (8)
   [Oct 2007]
 
Chapter 6: Why God allows evil. By evil Swinburne means the pain and suffering of humans and animals. Swinburne paints a picture of the universe, where pain and suffering are intended by the creator, not accidental by-products. This gives a whole new meaning to the concept fine-tunedness of the universe: a universe fine tuned for suffering. Paley's seemingly innocent design argument has unexpected distressing consequences. One has to read the chapter, to believe it. One wonders why God created the paradise for Adam and Eve, where no pain and suffering were included and no carnivores and parasites existed. Was the Garden of Eden His biggest mistake? Swinburne doesn't tell us about it. Swinburne redefines human experience to such an extent that his story ceases to be a neutral description of the facts. It is not only a reinterpretation of facts, it becomes a normative ethical theory. People and their values and emotions need to change to make his theory come true! In my view nobody would try to explain pain and suffering by a designer, if one had not already accepted a designer to explain perceived design. Although Swinburne made a serious attempt to explain evil, the chapter gives the impression of being an exercise in explaining away troublesome matters. No wonder that his conclusion is negatively formulated: 'the facts do not count against the God-theory' instead of: 'the facts do positively support the God-theory'. I think theism is extremely weak at explaining indiscriminate suffering, where atheism is strong. Diseases are accidental and unintended and science has good explanations: diseases have genetic, or bacterial, or viral or environmental causes. Disasters such as volcano eruptions, floods, tornadoes, earth quakes, droughts and forest fires are satisfactorily explained by geological and meteorological causes. Nothing mysterious about that. In my view this chapter unintentionally gives the strongest possible arguments against theism (2). It seems to me that the problem of pain and suffering in theism is partly caused by the assumption that there is only one God (monotheism) who is both good and all-powerful. There is nobody else to blame for pain and suffering. Polytheism partly 'solved' this problem. For example the goddess of smallpox, known as 'Shitala' in North India and 'Mariamman' in South India, is responsible for smallpox. Of course this solution does not answer the question why do smallpox gods exist? Why are they causing smallpox to humans? (7).  
Chapter 7: How the existence of God explains miracles and religious experience A miracle is a violation or suspension of natural laws, brought about by God. An example of a miracle accepted by Swinburne as real is 'the shadow cast by the sun reportedly went backwards ten steps' (2 Kgs. 20:11). An important factor in the validation of miracles is the background knowledge that there is a God able and having strong reason sometimes to suspend the operation of natural laws.  
Conclusion: Using a person (a creator) as an explanation provides Professor Swinburne with all the explanatory flexibility he needs. The concept of a person has the additional advantage of being an extremely familiar concept, since everybody is a person. However Swinburne next removes essential properties of his 'explanatory person', such as having a body, being born, having parents, growing up in a family, thereby transforming his explanatory person to the very opposite of a natural person and transforming it into a highly abstract unobservable theoretical entity. He does not hesitate to give this abstract person very humanlike thoughts and wishes. It is true that 'explaining' the whole universe with only one 'person', is simple (simpler than 2 Gods!), but what has to postulated as motives of that person, is far from simple (see chapter 6)! Add to this that the concept of free will is closely linked with the concept of a person, and it becomes clear that we cannot predict the actions and thoughts of a person, certainly not of such a highly unusual person. Fundamental unpredictability is not very attractive for science. When biologists talk about 'natural selection' or 'nature selects the fittest', they do so metaphorically. They, of course, do not believe there is an invisible person doing the selecting! From a scientific point of view, and that is the point of view Professor Swinburne adopted, it is a bad idea to use a person (a Creator) as an explanation.

    The advantage of theism is that it gives our existence a meaning. The disadvantage is that it tends to give everything a meaning, including things that don't have a meaning (accidents, coincidences, rainbows, solar eclipses, Siamese twins, Down syndrome, cancer, death). Theism has not been able to separate meaningful and meaningless events. Furthermore: explaining the world and giving everything a meaning are quite different activities. However, in theology they seem intimately linked.

    A remarkable 'explanation' of something not in need of explanation is Swinburne's claim that God is sustaining matter and the laws of nature from moment to moment. Is this matter-sustaining activity really the most simple hypothesis to explain matter? Why did God fail to create self-sustaining matter? The claim is in conflict with the basics of the natural sciences and with his Swinburne's statement that the universe is a machine. It would be a bad Watchmaker who needs to adjust his watch from moment to moment. If there is something in need of sustaining on this planet it is health, peace, justice.

    If theism is a testable theory about reality, and that is the point of view Professor Swinburne adopted in his book, what would falsify theism? If the atrocities of the Second World War are not enough, what on earth would induce Professor Swinburne to abandon his God-theory?

    Did Swinburne answer the question in the title of his book Is there a God?
Even if God is the best theory to explain the facts of this universe, does that imply that God exists?
God might be just a theory (9).

  
 


Notes:

  1. This is in contrast to a creationist-theist like Phillip Johnson who devoted his Darwin on Trial to attack evolution and Darwinism.
  2. An excellent introduction to many of the problems in Swinburne's book can be found in Chapter 7 (The Philosophy of Religion) of John Hospers' An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. Subjects discussed are: Arguments for the existence of God, The problem of evil and Meaning and Truth in Religion.
  3. (p58). See for a critical discussion of Paley's argument for design on this site "Relevant difference between organisms and artefacts destroys analogy".
  4. William Paley: Natural Theology, in: Philosophy of Biology,1998, edited by Michael Ruse, pp36-40.
  5. I guess Swinburne follows Paley in this respect, although I didn't find it in his book. Paley inferred personal details about God from his works of creation, not from the Bible.
  6. This would have a clear advantage because reproduction involves mistakes (mutations). The problem of mutations (and consequently of disease) is absent if God created every individual directly. Furthermore, it would be clear that every individual (including all properties) has a purpose, because he/she was directly designed and created by God.
  7. There is a good discussion of the explanation of suffering (reward and punishment, wishful thinking) in chapter 3 of Matt Young (2001) No Sence of Obligation.
  8. "If, when I tried to move my foot, my hand moved instead, predators would soon overtake me." (p.88) is a funny and beautiful example of Swinburne's evolutionary reasoning. This is an example of desire, or purpose: a mental activity. A Darwinian explanation sufficiently explains these.
  9. Creationists in the USA keep repeating that evolution is a just a theory and therefore unproven (Science 29 February 2008: 1168).


Further Reading:
  • A review of Swinburne's Is There a God? (1996) by John Polkinghorne in Scientific American, Nov 1996 pp102-104.
  • Review by Laura L. Garcia (teaches philosophy at Rutgers University).
  • The Existence of God. A useful collection of books and links about theism, atheism, the Anthropic Principle.
  • Design Arguments for the Existence of God by Kenneth Einar Himma in: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Contents: The Classical Versions of the Design Argument (including Paley's Watchmaker Argument and Guided Evolution), Contemporary Versions of the Design Argument (including The Argument from Irreducible Biochemical Complexity, The Fine-Tuning Arguments). [28 Mar 2004].
  • A.N. Wilson (1999) God's Funeral, Murray, 402 pp. Wilson is a prolific journalist and brillant biographer and this book includes a whole chapter on Swinburne. This book sets out to revisit the Victorian experience of faith and doubt. Thomas Huxley coined the word agnostic. The title God's Funeral is taken from a poem by novelist Thoams Hardy, a man of natural religiosity who lost his faith in the face of pointless suffering. Darwin became an agnostic largely through the premature death of a beloved daughter. This book was reviewed in Nature 401, 211-212, 16 Sept 1999.
  • The Craig-Pigliucci Debate: Does God Exist? Dr. Craig's Opening Speech
  • Massimo Pigliucci "God as a Falsifiable Hypothesis"
  • Richard G. Swinburne (2002) "The Justification of Theism", 14 July 2002. This online article presents in summary arguments given in more detailed form in Swinburne's book The Existence of God, and seeks to rebut criticisms of those arguments given in J.L. Mackie's book The Miracle of Theism. This article shows again that Swinburne accepts evolution. [23 Aug 2004]
  • Francois Tremblay (2004) Swinburne's Justification for Naivete is a critique of Swinburne's "The Justification of Theism" (above). [23 Aug 2004]
  • Richard G. Swinburne (1998) Providence and the Problem of Evil OUP Paperback. "This book offers an answer to one of the most difficult problems of religious belief: why does a loving God allow humans to suffer so much? Swinburne argues that God wants us to learn and to love". This is the most detailed treatment of the problem of evil. [21 Feb 2006]
  • Richard G. Swinburne (2003) The Resurrection of God Incarnate OUP Paperback. calculates the probability that God has resurrected as 97%. [21 Feb 2006]
  • Richard G. Swinburne (2007) The Evolution of the Soul, Oxford University Press, USA; Revised edition 376 pages.
 



guestbook (moderated) home: The Third Evolutionary Synthesis http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho24.htm
Copyright © 1998 G.Korthof . First published: 4 Jun 1998 update: 24 Oct 07 Notes/FR: 15 Jul 2008