Book Review: Was Jesus God? (2008) by Richard Swinburne.

Former University of Oxford professor Richard Swinburne answers his own question: "probably".

Swinburne isn't hedging his bets or laying odds for Vegas. He's revealing his philosophical methodology. Was Jesus God? represents Swinburne's extensive use of Bayes' Theorem, although he never mentions it by name.

Swinburne starts with his conclusion from his "prequel", Is There a God? (reviewed here on July 10, 2009) that God probably exists (p. 1), which he briefly revisits in Chapter 1. From there, he concludes that it's probable that God is a Trinity (Chapter 2); that God would become a human to identify with humanity's suffering and to atone for their sin (Chapters 3 and 4); that He would give us teaching for living (Chapters 5 and 11); and He would found a church to propagate it (Chapter 10), among other things.

In particular, Swinburne's defense of Trinitarian doctrine (as enunciated in the Nicene Creed) is something to behold. Swinburne writes: "The love of the Father for the Son must include a wish to cooperate with the Son in further total sharing with an equal, and hence the need for a third member of the Trinity...the Holy Spirit, whom they will love and and by whom they will be loved. A universe in which there was only sharing and not cooperation in further sharing would have been a deficient universe; it would have lacked a certain kind of goodness. The Father and the Son would have been less than perfectly good unless they sought to spread their mutual love of cooperating in further sharing with an equal." (p. 29.)

Swinburne draws the line at three. "So the perfect goodness of the Father would be satisfied by his bridging about only two further divine persons. He does not have to bring about a fourth divine person in order to fulfil his divine nature. But then any fourth divine person would not exist necessarily, even in the sense of metaphysical necessity. His existence would not be a necessary consequence of the existence of an ontologically necessary being and hence he would not be divine. So there cannot be a a fourth divine person. There must be and can only be three divine persons." (p. 33.)

In so defending the Trinitarian formulation, using Bayes' Theorem, Swinburne somewhat undercuts his prior use of Ockham's razor for God's existence (i.e. the simplest explanation holds). (See my July 10, 2009, post about Swinburne's Is There a God?). No matter how one articulates it, the Trinitarian doctrine is not a model of simplicity. Swinburne seems to concede this apparent inconsistency (calling the Trinity "a very sophisticated" concept [p. 38]), but he labors to reconcile it by claiming that the Trinity is actually a simple construct because it "depends on two very simple moral intuitions: that perfect love requires total sharing with an equal and requires cooperating in spreading that love further, so that anyone you love has someone else to love and be loved by." (p. 38.) Here we see fissures erupting where Swinburne's two primary philosophical methodologies abut each other; they simply don't meld seemlessly in this context.

In any event, this book represents an elegant extrapolation from Swinburne's premise that God "probably exists". He traces probabilities from God's existence through the primary tenets of Christian doctrine, and in so doing produces an innovative approach for Christian philosophy of religion worthy of study and discussion.

Book Review: Is There A God? by Richard Swinburne.

Since Is There A God? kept appearing as source material in the recent philosophical literature I've been reading (some reviewed here), I thought it about time I went to the source.

Too, I wanted to read it as a prelude to Richard Swinburne's follow-up, Was Jesus God? (2008) (which I'm reading now).

Formerly the Nolloth Professor of Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford, Swinburne's "big idea" in Is There A God? is applying "Ockham's razor" (p. 31) to argue that theism is more reasonable than atheism to explain our existence (or the earth's or the universe's) because it's the simplest explanation. "The thesis of this book is that theism provides by far the simplest explanation of all phenomena. Materialism is not...a simple hypothesis, and there is a range of phenomena which it is most unlikely ever able to explain. Humanism is an even less simple hypothesis than materialism." (p. 41.)

Theism's persuasively simple, according to Swinburne. "Theism claims that every other object which exists is caused to exist and kept in existence by just one substance, God. And it claims that ever property which every substance has is due to God causing or permitting it to exist. It is a hallmark of a simple explanation to postulate few causes. There could be in this respect be no simpler explanation that one which postulated only one cause." (p. 43.)

In addition to offering affirmative evidence of God's existence, Swinburne attempts to answer objections. First, in dealing with evolution, he more than acknowledges it; he essentially appropriates it. Swinburne writes: "And, as we now know, humans and animals did come into existence through the gradual process of evolution from a primitive soup of matter which formed as earth cooled down some 4,000 million years ago. In that process natural selection played a central role. Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) taught us the outlines of the story, and biologists have been filling in the details ever since. The clear simple modern presentation in Richard Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker (1986) is deservedly popular." (p. 58; emphasis supplied.) I doubt Dawkins thought he would be cited approvingly in a book arguing for theism.

Swinburne continues: "So, in summary, the Darwinian explanation of why there are the complex animal and human bodies there are today is that once upon a time there were certain chemicals on earth, and, given the laws of evolution..., it was probable that complex organisms would emerge. This explanation of the existence of complex organisms is surely a correct explanation, but it is not an ultimate explanation of that fact." (p. 60; emphasis supplied.) Thus, Swinburne incorporates Darwinism, and then simply adds a step of regress to place God at the beginning of the process. Here, Swinburne partially undermines his simplicity argument, since he's adding steps (and complexity) into the creation process. Swinburne likewise paints himself into a corner for his later book with respect to the Trinity (but that will have to wait for the review of Was Jesus God?).

Second, Swinburne deals with the "problem of evil" (also known as the problem of suffering or the problem of pain) in Chapter 6, entitled "Why God Allows Evil". To his credit, Swinburne does not posit the ubiquitous "free-will defense" and leave it at that. He attempts to grapple with "natural evil" (i.e. events that cannot be explained by human choices, called "moral evil") such as natural disasters. Some may not find his explanations satisfactory, but Swinburne does provide a lucid theodicy for both types of evils.

The book curiously ends with dissatisfaction--from the author. Swinburne laments: "I reach the end of this book with some dissatisfaction. I am well aware of objections other than the ones which I have discussed which can be made to almost every sentence which I have written... I am also aware of counter-objections which can be advanced to turn against every objection to my views, and also of the need for qualifications and amplification of most of the assertions in this book. Argument and counter-argument, qualification and amplification, can go on forever." (p. 140.)

This apologetic tone seems unnecessary and defensive. Either Swinburne could have expanded the book to deal with more objections (it was only 139 pages before this epilogue) or have stated its limited scope or purpose at the outset. Nevertheless, I can see why Swinburne's book has been cited because it represents a straightforward and thought-provoking assertion and defense of theism. Recommended for those interested in this genre.