Swinburne, Richard Granville

(1934-)

   The Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford from 1985 to 2002, Swinburne exercised a strong influence over analytical philosophy of religion, not only in his native Britain but also in the United States and, lately, in Russia, with which country he has developed strong ties. Swinburne began his philosophical career working on probability theory; this was to play an important part in his subsequent attempt to bring theism in general, and Christianity in particular, on an epistemic par with science. Swinburne's early work in the philosophy of religion was a trilogy on theism: The Coherence of Theism (1977; revised 1993), explicating and defending the logical consistency of the claim that God exists; The Existence of God (1979; 2nd edn 2004), his most famous work, arguing that God actually exists using a rigorous Bayesian formulation of the argument to design; and Faith and Reason (1981; 2nd edn 2005), elucidating the place of rationality in religious belief. More recently Swinburne has turned his attention to specifically Christian themes. This has led to a tetralogy in Christian philosophy: Responsibility and Atonement (1989), an analysis of the problem of sin and God's solution to it; Revelation (1992), looking at how God might communicate with humans; The Christian God (1994), a rigorous philosophical analysis of the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation; and Providence and the Problem of Evil (1998), his attempt at a theodicy. Swinburne has also written in defence of the resurrection of Jesus and the existence of the soul. Swinburne's writings are marked by clarity, thoroughness and a defence in the traditional, reasonable, manner of an orthodox Christian outlook.

   See argument from/to design; theodicy; theology, natural

   Further reading: Swinburne 1989a, 1991, 1993a, 1993b, 1994, 1998, 2004 and 2005