The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne

In this paper I shall examine Swinburne’s argument from the anthropic coincidences. The anthropic principle or the associated anthropic coincidences have been used by philosophers such as John Leslie (1989), William Lane Craig (1988) and Richard Swinburne (1990) to support the thesis that God exists. The Anthropic Coincidences, Evil and the Disconfirmation of Theism (1992) by Quentin Smith Moreover, it only promises a threadbare deity who is almost robotic in nature, and who offers little assurance of benefit to his adherents in this life or any other. An unsympathetic reader would have difficulty overlooking its major structural flaws, particularly where the argument does not live up to its promise of being grounded in premises undisputed by all. But Gabe Czobel questions both the rigor of Swinburne’s overall argument, and whether it really yields the conclusion that Swinburne expects the reader to reach. On first appearance, Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God offers a highly structured, coherent, and rigorous argument for God’s existence grounded in Bayes’ theorem, inductive reasoning, confirmation theory, the intrinsic probability of simple hypotheses, substance dualism, and moral realism. An Analysis of Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God (2010) by Gabe Czobel

The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne