Swinburne Richard (b.1934), British philosopher of religion and of science. In philosophy of science, he has contributed to confirmation theory and to the philosophy of space and time. His work in philosophy of religion is the most ambitious project in philosophical theology undertaken by a British philosopher in the twentieth century. Its first part is a trilogy on the coherence and justification of theistic belief and the rationality of living by that belief: The Coherence of Theism (1977), The Existence of God (1979), and Faith and Reason (1981). Since 1985, when Swinburne became Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford, he has written a tetralogy about some of the most central of the distinctively Christian religious doctrines: Responsibility and Atonement (1989), Revelation (1992), The Christian God (1994), and Providence and the Problem of Evil (1998). The most interesting feature of the trilogy is its contribution to natural theology. Using Bayesian reasoning, Swinburne builds a cumulative case for theism by arguing that its probability is raised by such things as the existence of the universe, its order, the existence of consciousness, human opportunities to do good, the pattern of history, evidence of miracles, and religious experience. The existence of evil does not count against the existence of God. On our total evidence theism is more probable than not. In the tetralogy he explicates and defends such Christian doctrines as original sin, the Atonement, Heaven, Hell, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence. He also analyzes the grounds for supposing that some Christian doctrines are revealed truths, and argues for a Christian theodicy in response to the problem of evil.
See also BAYESIAN RATIONALITY, PHILOSO- PHY OF RELIGION , TRINITARIANIS. P.L.Q.