The sufficiency and necessity of (Swinburne’s) Natural Theology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26512/2358-82842015e17380Keywords:
Epistemology of Religion. Natural Theology. Justification of theism. Existence of God. Basic theistic belief.Abstract
The conclusion of Swinburne’s book The existence of God is that “On our total evidence theism is more probable than not”. I will not dispute that conclusion, as others have done. I will concede that the conclusion is supported by Swinburne’s argument and that the argument is in fact “good”. I will question, however, the impact of that conclusion ”“ with the use of the argument that supports it - for the epistemological enterprise of justifying theistic belief, that is, the belief that God exists. Developing criticism given by Alvin Plantinga (2001), I will question the sufficiency and necessity of Swinburne’s probabilistic argument for the epistemic justification of a subject S’s belief that God exists, where S is a religious person, say, a Christian.
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