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Swinburne's argument for the existence of God: a critical comment on conceptual issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

JULIA BRAUNSTEINER-BERGER*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, Austria e-mail: julia.braunsteiner-berger@univie.ac.at

Abstract

In this article I discuss two interrelated problems found in Richard Swinburne's cumulative case argument for the existence of God. First, I argue that the probabilistic proof apparatus introduced by Swinburne in The Existence of God (1979; 2004) would require him to provide a normalized preference order of God's intentions based on a measure of the ‘relative moral goodness’ of possible-world states. However, the approach offered in the second edition of The Existence of God (2004) fails to do so for various reasons. Second, a slightly different version of the argument briefly indicated by Swinburne might avoid the problems of normalizability but falls apart when meeting the criteria of relevant confirmation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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