Richard Swinburne | |
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 Swinburne in 2009 | |
| Born | Richard Granville Swinburne (1934-12-26)26 December 1934 (age 90) Smethwick, England |
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| Alma mater | Exeter College, Oxford |
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| School or tradition | Analytic philosophy |
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| Main interests | Christian apologetics |
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| Website | users |
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Richard Granville SwinburneFBA (/ˈswɪnbɜːrn/; born 26 December 1934) is an Englishphilosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at theUniversity of Oxford. Over the last 50 years, Swinburne has been a proponent of philosophicalarguments for the existence of God. Hisphilosophical contributions are primarily in thephilosophy of religion andphilosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting ofThe Coherence of Theism,The Existence of God, andFaith and Reason. He has been influential in revivingsubstance dualism as an option inphilosophy of mind.[4]
Swinburne was born inSmethwick,Staffordshire, England, on 26 December 1934. His father was a school music teacher, who was himself the son of an off-licence owner inShoreditch. His mother was a secretary, the daughter of an optician. He is an only child. Swinburne attended a preparatory school and thenCharterhouse School.
Swinburne received an open scholarship to studyclassics atExeter College, Oxford, but in fact graduated with afirst-classBachelor of Arts degree inphilosophy, politics, and economics. Swinburne has held various professorships throughout his career in academia. From 1972 to 1985, he taught atKeele University. During part of this time, he gave theGifford lectures atAberdeen from 1982 to 1984, resulting in the bookThe Evolution of the Soul. From 1985 until his retirement in 2002, he wasNolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at theUniversity of Oxford (his successor to this chair wasBrian Leftow). He has continued to publish regularly since his retirement.[5]
Swinburne has been an active author throughout his career, producing a major book every two to three years. He has played a role in the recent debate over themind–body problem, defending asubstance dualism that recalls the work ofRené Descartes in important respects (seeThe Evolution of the Soul, 1997).
His books are primarily very technical works of academic philosophy, but he has written at the popular level as well. Of the non-technical works, hisIs There a God? (1996), summarising for a non-specialist audience many of hisarguments for the existence of God and plausibility in the belief of that existence, is probably the most popular and is available in 22 languages.[6]
In 1992 he was elected a Fellow of theBritish Academy.[7] He is a recipient ofJames Joyce Award from the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. Also, he was awarded honorary doctorates by theCatholic University of Lublin (2015),[8]Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University in Bucharest (2016), the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein (2017), andNew Georgian University in Poti (2023).[9]
A member of theOrthodox Church, Swinburne is noted as one of the foremostChristian apologists, arguing in his many articles and books that faith in Christianity is rational and coherent in a rigorous philosophical sense.William Hasker writes that his "tetralogy on Christian doctrine, together with his earlier trilogy on the philosophy of theism, is one of the most important apologetic projects of recent times."[10] While Swinburne presents many arguments to advance the belief that God exists, he argues that God is a being whose existence is not logically necessary (seemodal logic) butmetaphysically necessary in a way he defines in hisThe Christian God. Other subjects on which Swinburne writes includepersonal identity (in which he espouses a view based on the concept of asoul), andepistemic justification. He has written in defence ofCartesian dualism andlibertarian free will.[11]
Although he is best known for his vigorous defence of Christian intellectual commitments, he also has a theory of the nature of passionate faith which is developed in his bookFaith and Reason.
According to an interview Swinburne did withFoma magazine, he converted fromAnglicanism (Church of England) toEastern Orthodoxy around 1996:
I don't think I changed my beliefs in any significant way. I always believed in theApostolic succession: that the Church has to have its authority dating back to the Apostles, and the general teaching of the Orthodox Church on the saints and the prayers for the departed and so on, these things I have always believed.[12]
Swinburne's philosophical method reflects the influence ofThomas Aquinas. He admits that he draws from Aquinas a systematic approach to philosophical theology. Swinburne, like Aquinas, moves from basic philosophical issues (for example, the question of the possibility that God may exist in Swinburne'sThe Coherence of Theism), to more specific Christian beliefs (for example, the claim in Swinburne'sRevelation that God has communicated to human beings propositionally inJesus Christ).[13]
In an interview withVeery journal, Swinburne summed up his place in philosophy: "I’m very much in the modern Anglo-American tradition of philosophy which I believe is basically the tradition of philosophy since Plato."[14]
Swinburne moves in his writing program from the philosophical to the theological, building his case and relying on his previous arguments as he defends particular Christian beliefs. He has attempted to reassert classical Christian beliefs with an apologetic method that he believes is compatible with contemporary science. That method relies heavily oninductive logic, seeking to show that his Christian beliefs fit best with the evidence.[15]
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1672/15) with Richard Swinburne in 2015–2016 for its Science and Religion collection held by theBritish Library.
Media related toRichard Swinburne at Wikimedia Commons – Includes a curriculum vitae and more complete list of publications| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion 1985–2003 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Gifford Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen 1982–1984 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | President of theBritish Society for the Philosophy of Religion | Succeeded by |
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