Faith and the Existence of God

I: R. G. SWINBURNE

Arguments for the Existence of God1

Arguments move from premises to conclusions. The premises state things

taken temporally for granted; if the argument works, the premises provide
grounds for affirming the conclusion. A valid deductive argument is one in
which the premises necessitate, that is, entail, the conclusion. (It would
involve a self-contradiction to assert the premises but deny the con-
clusion.) What I shall call a 'correct' inductive argument is one in which the
premises in some degree probabilify the conclusion, but do not necessitate
it. More precisely, in what I shall call a correct P-inductive argument the
premises make the conclusion probable (i.e. more probable than not); in
what I shall call a correct C-inductive argument, the premises add to the
probability of the conclusion (i.e. confirm it, make it more probable than it
was; but do not necessarily make it overall probable). Arguments only
show their conclusions to be true if they start from true premises; argu-
ments of the above types which work (i.e. are valid or correct) and do start
from such premises I will call sound arguments. Arguments are only of use
to show to an individual that the conclusion is true if he already knows the
premises to be true. Most of what I shall have to say today concerns
arguments with respect to which there is no doubt that the premises are
true.
Philosophical arguments for the existence of God may he a priori or a
posteriori. A priori arguments have as their premises purported logical
or conceptual truths; a posteriori arguments begin from purported
observable facts of experience. A logical or conceptual truth is one
which could not but be true whatever the world is like, or even if there is
no world at all; 'All squares have four sides', '2+3=5', and 'If there is a
God, he is omnipresent' are logical truths. A priori arguments to the
existence of God begin from some such purported logical truths,
including some truth about what God would have to be like, if he
existed; and they they go on to claim that it follows that he must exist.
Such a priori arguments include the traditional ontological argument
put forward by Anselm and Descartes; but there have been plenty of
other arguments put forward which conform to this general pattern.
They normally purport to be deductive arguments. My own view of
such arguments is that either they are invalid or (more usually) their

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 R. G. Swinburne

premises are highly dubious. However, occasional eminent philos-

ophers have thought otherwise.2
Much more interesting to my mind art a posteriori arguments, which
begin either from very evident general phenomena of experience or
from some fairly special phenomenon alleged to have occurred, and
then claim that God's action explains the occurrence of the phenom-
enon and so he must exist. Among such arguments are the cosmological
argument (which argues from the existence of the Universe), versions
of the teleological argument or 'argument from design' (which argues
from the universe being orderly in various respects), the argument
from consciousness (which argues from the existence of conscious
animals and men), all of which argue from very evident general observ-
able phenomena. Then there are arguments from miracles and religious
experience, which argue from special phenomena within the world. All
these arguments may be construed either as inductive or as deductive.
But the arguments have much more plausibility if we regard them as
inductive, and I shall so construe them. Arguments of this type, unlike
a priori arguments, do, I believe, attempt to codify in a rigorous form
the vague reasons which many ordinary believers have for believing in
God. They all seem to me to have a common pattern.
Some phenomenon E is considered. It is claimed that E is puzzling,
strange, not to be expected in the ordinary course of things; but that E
is to be expected if there is a God; for God has the power to bring about
E and (with some probability) he might well choose to do so. Hence the
occurrence of E is reason for supposing that there is a God. If the
arguments are correct C-inductive arguments, then they will 'add up'.
Each phenomenon by itself will not make its conclusion on balance
probable, but several of the phenomena put together may do so, and
thus, in my terminology, provide a correct P-inductive argument. This
pattern of argument is one much used in science, history, and all other
fields of human inquiry. A detective, for example, finds various clues—
John's fingerprints on a burgled safe, John having a lot of money hidden
in his house, John being seen near the scene of the burglary at the time
when it was committed. He then suggests that these various clues,
although they just might have other explanations, are not in general to
be expected unless John had robbed the safe. Each clue is some evi-
dence that he did rob the safe, confirms the hypothesis that John
robbed the safe; and the evidence is cumulative—when put together it
makes the hypothesis probable.
Let us call arguments of this kind arguments to a good explanation.
Scientists use this pattern of argument to argue to the existence of
unobservable entities as causes of the phenomena which they observe.
For example, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists
observed many varied phenomena of chemical interaction, such as that

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 Faith and the Existence of God

substances combine in fixed ratios by weight to form new substances

(e.g. hydrogen and oxygen always form water in a ratio by weight of
1:8). They then claimed that these phenomena would be expected if
there existed a hundred or so different kinds of atom, particles far too
small to be seen, which combined and recombined in certain simple
ways. In their turn physicists postulated electrons, protons and neu-
trons and other particles in order to account for the behaviour of the
atoms, as well as for larger-scale observable phenomena; and now they
postulate quarks in order to explain the behaviour of protons, neutrons
and most other particles.
Arguments of this kind give significant probability to their hypo-
thesis in so far as they satisfy three criteria.3 First, the phenomena
which they cite as evidence must not be very likely to occur in the
normal course of things. We saw in the burglary example how the
various clues, such as John's fingerprints on the safe, were not much to
be expected in the normal course of things. Secondly, the phenomena
must be more to be expected, to be much more likely to occur if the
hypothesis is true. If John did rob the safe it is quite likely that his
fingerprints would be found on it. Thirdly, the hypothesis must be
simple, That is, it must postulate the existence and operation oifew
entities, few kinds of entities, with few easily describable properties
behaving in mathematically simple kinds of way. We could always
postulate many new entities with complicated properties to explain
anything which we found. But our hypothesis will only be supported by
the evidence if it postulates few entities, which lead us to expect the
diverse phenomena which form the evidence. Thus in the detective
story example we could suggest that Brown planted John's fingerprints
on the safe, Smith dressed up to look like John at the scene of the crime,
and without any collusion with the others Robinson hid the money in
John's house. This new hypothesis would lead us to expect the
phenomena which we find just as well as does the hypothesis that John
robbed the safe. But the latter hypothesis is supported by the evidence
whereas the former is not. And this is because the hypothesis that John
robbed the safe postulates one object—John—doing one deed—rob-
bing the safe—which leads us to expect the several phenomena which
we find. Scientists always postulate as few new entities (e.g. subatomic
particles) as are needed to lead us to expect to find the phenomena
which we observe; and they postulate that those entities do not behave
erratically (behave one way one day and a different way the next day)
but that they behave in accordance with as simple and smooth a
mathematical law as is compatible with what is observed. There is an
old Latin saying, simplex sigillum veri, 'The simple is the sign of the
true'. To be rendered probable by evidence, hypotheses must be
simple.

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 R. G. Swinburne

We have available to us for explaining phenomena two different ]

kinds of explanation which we use in ordinary life. One is scientific I
explanation, whereby we explain a phenomenon E in terms of some i
prior state of affairs F (the cause) and some regularity L in the :
behaviour of objects involved in F and E. We explain why a stone took '
two seconds to fall from a tower to the ground (E) by its having been
liberated from rest at the top of the tower 64 feet from the ground (F)
and the regularity derivable from Galileo's law of fall that all bodies fall i
towards the surface of the Earth with an acceleration of 32 ft/sec2 (L). E
follows from F and L. Science can also explain the operation of a
regularity or law in some narrow area, in terms of the operation of a
wider law in the particular conditions of that narrow area. Thus it can
explain why Galileo's law of fall holds for small objects near the surface
of the Earth. Galileo's law follows from Newton's laws, given that the
Earth is a body of a certain mass far from other massive bodies and the
objects on its surface are close to it and small in mass in comparison.
The other way which we use all the time and see as a proper way of
explaining phenomena is what I call personal explanation. We often
explain some phenomenon E as brought about by a person P in order to
achieve some purpose or goal G. The present motion of my hand is
explained as brought about by me for the purpose of writing a
philosophical paper. The cup being on the table is explained by me
having put it there for the purpose of drinking out of it. In these cases I
bring about a state of my body which then itself causes by processes
susceptible of scientific explanation some state of affairs outside my
body. But it is I (P) who bring about the bodily state (E) conducive to
producing that further state (G) rather than some other. And the kind
of explanation involved here is a different way of explaining things from
the scientific. Scientific explanation involves laws of nature and pre-
vious states of affairs. Personal explanation involves persons and pur-
poses. In each case the grounds for believing the explanation to be
correct are, as stated earlier, the fact that to explain the cited phenom-
enon and many other similar phenomena we need few entities (e.g. one
person rather than many), few kinds of entities with few, easily
describable properties, behaving in mathematically simple kinds of way
(e.g. a person having certain capacities and purposes which do not
change erratically) which give rise to many bodily phenomena. In
seeking the best explanation of phenomena we may seek explanations of
either kind, and if we cannot find a scientific one which satisfies the
criteria, we should look for a personal one.
We should seek explanations of all things; but we have seen that we
only have reason for supposing that we have found one if the purported
explanation is simple, and leads us to expect what we find when that is
otherwise not to be expected. This history of science shows that we

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 Faith and the Existence of God

judge that the complex, miscellaneous, coincidental and diverse needs

explaining, and that it is to be explained in terms of something simpler.
The motions of the planets (subject to Kepler's laws), the mechanical
interactions of bodies on Earth, the behaviour of pendula, the motions
of tides, the behaviour of comets, etc., formed a pretty miscellaneous
set of phenomena. Newton's laws of motion constituted a simple theory
which led us to expect these phenomena, and so was judged a true
explanation of them. The existence of thousands of different chemical
substances combining in different ratios to make other substances was
complex. The hypothesis that there were only a hundred or so chemical
elements of which the thousands of substances were made was a simple
hypothesis which led us to expect the complex phenomena. When we
reach the simplest possible starting-point for explanation which leads
us to expect the phenomena which we find, there alone we should stop
and believe that we have found the ultimate brute fact on which all
other things depend.
The cosmological argument argues from the existence of a complex
physical Universe (or something as general as that) to God who keeps it
in being. The first three 'ways' of St Thomas Aquinas are forms of such
an argument,4 but the best classical statement of it to my mind is to be
found in the version given by Leibniz.5 He, however, represented it as a
deductively valid argument, and that, I suggest, it cannot be; for there
is no apparent inconsistency involved in supposing there to be a Uni-
verse and yet no God. Rather, it is an inductive argument to the best
explanation of the existence of the Universe.
Here is my own version of the argument, based on Leibniz, but put
in the form of an inductive argument rather than a deductive one. The
premise is the existence of our Universe for so long as it has existed
(whether a finite time or, if it has no beginning, an infinite time). The
Universe is a complex thing. There are lots and lots of separate chunks
of it. The chunks have each a different finite and not very natural
volume, shape, mass, etc.—consider the vast diversity of galaxies, stars
and planets, and pebbles on the seashore. Matter is inert and has no
powers which it can choose to exert; it does what it has to do. There is a
limited amount of it in any region, and it has a limited amount of energy
and velocity. There is a complexity, particularity, and finitude about
the Universe which looks for explanation in terms of something sim-
pler. The existence of the Universe is something evidently inexplicable
by science. For, as we saw, a scientific explanation as such explains the
occurrence of one state of affairs in terms of a previous state of affairs
and some law of nature which makes states like the former bring about
states like the latter. It may explain the planets being in their present
positions by a previous state of the system (the Sun and planets being
where they were last year) and the operation of Kepler's laws which

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 R. G. Swinburne

state that states like the latter are followed a year later by states like the
former. And so it may explain the existence of the Universe this year in
terms of the existence of the Universe last year and the laws of cosmo-
logy. But either there was a first state of the Universe, or there has
always been a Universe. In the former case, what science cannot
explain is why there was the first state; and in the latter case it still
cannot explain why there was ever any matter (or, more cqrrectly,
matter-energy) for the laws of nature to get a grip on, as it were. By its
very nature science cannot explain why there are any states of affairs at
all.
But a God can provide an explanation. The hypothesis of theism is
that the Universe exists because there is a God who keeps it in being and
that laws of nature operate because there is a God who brings it about
that they do. He brings it about that the laws of nature operate by
sustaining in every object in the Universe its liability to behave in
accord with those laws. He keeps the Universe in being by making the
laws such as to conserve the matter of the Universe, i.e. by making it the
case at each moment that what there was before continues to exist. The
hypothesis is a hypothesis that a person brings about these things for
some purpose. He acts directly on the Universe, as we act directly on
our brains, guiding them to move our limbs (but the Universe is not his
body—for he could at any moment destroy it, and act on another
universe, or do without a universe). As we have seen, personal explana-
tion and scientific explanation are the two ways we have of explaining
the occurrence of phenomena. Since there cannot be a scientific
explanation of the existence of the Universe, either there is a personal
explanation or there is no explanation at all. The hypothesis that there
is a God is the hypothesis of the existence of the simplest kind of person
which there could be. A person is a being with power to bring about
effects, knowledge of how to do so, and freedom to make choices of
which effects to bring about. God is by definition an omnipotent (that
is, infinitely powerful), omniscient (that is, all-knowing), and perfectly
free person; he is person of infinite power, knowledge and freedom; a
person to whose power, knowledge and freedom there are no limits
except those of logic. The hypothesis that there exists a being with
infinite degrees of the qualities essential to a being of that kind is the
postulation of a very simple being. The hypothesis that there is one
such God is a much simpler hypothesis than the hypothesis that there is
a god who has such and such limited power, or the hypothesis that there
are several gods with limited powers. It is simpler in just the same way
that the hypothesis that some particle has zero mass or infinite velocity
is simpler than the hypothesis that it has 0.32147 of some unit of mass or
a velocity of 221,000 km/sec. A finite limitation cries out for an

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 Faith and the Existence of God

explanation of why there is just that particular limit, in a way the

limitlessness does not.
That there should exist anything at all, let alone a universe as
complex and as orderly as ours, is exceedingly strange. But if there is a
God, it is not vastly unlikely that he should create such a universe. A
universe such a ours is a thing of beauty, and a theatre in which men and
other creatures can grow and work out their destiny, a point which I
shall develop further below. So the argument from the Universe to God
is an argument from a complex phenomenon to a simple entity which
leads us to expect (though does not guarantee) the existence of the
former far more than it would be expected otherwise. Therefore, I
suggest, the argument is a correct C-inductive argument.
The teleological argument or 'argument from design' has various
forms. One form is the argument from temporal order, from the fact
that almost all natural phenomena conform to simple natural laws. It
argues not from the existence of a universe, but from its orderliness. St
Thomas Aquinas gave such an argument as his 'fifth way' to prove the
existence of God. He may or may not have intended it as a deductively
valid argument. I shall expound his argument in a more modern and
clearly inductive way.
The phenomenon which forms the premise of the argument is the
operation of the most general laws of nature, that is, the orderliness of
nature in conforming to very general laws. What exactly these laws are,
science may not yet have discovered—perhaps they are the field equa-
tions of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, or perhaps there are
some yet more fundamental laws. Now, as we have seen, science can
explain the operation of some narrow regularity or law in terms of a
wider or more general law. But what science by its very nature cannot
explain is why there are the most general laws of nature that there are;
for, ex hypothesi, no wider law can explain their operation.
The conformity of objects throughout endless time and space to
simple laws cries out for explanation. For let us consider what this
amounts to. Laws are not things, independent of material objects. To
say that all objects conform to laws is simply to say that they all behave
in exactly the same way. To say, for example, that the planets obey
Kepler's laws is just to say that each planet at each moment of time has
the property of moving in the ways that Kepler's laws state. There is,
therefore, this vast coincidence in the behavioural properties of objects
at all times and in all places. If all the coins of some region have the same
markings, or all the papers in a room are written in the same handwrit-
ing, we seek an explanation in terms of a common source of these
coincidences. We should seek a similar explanation for that vast coinci-
dence which we describe as the conformity of objects to laws of
nature—e.g. the fact that all electrons are produced, attract and repel

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 R. G. Swinburne

other particles, and combine with them in exactly the same way at each
point of endless time and space.
That there is a Universe and that there are laws of nature are
phenomena so general and pervasive that we tend to ignore them. But
there might so easily not have been a Universe at all, ever. Or the
Universe might so easily have been a chaotic mess. That there is an
orderly Universe is something very striking, yet beyond the capacity of
science ever to explain. Science's inability to explain these things is not
a temporary phenomenon, caused by the backwardenss of twentieth-
century science. Rather, because of what a scientific explanation is,
these things will ever be beyond its capacity to explain. For scientific
explanations by their very nature terminate with some ultimate natural
law and ultimate physical arrangement of physical things, and the
questions which I am raising are why there are natural laws and
physical things at all.
There is available again the same simple explanation of the temporal
orderliness of the Universe, that God makes protons and electrons
move in an orderly way, just as we might make our bodies move in the
regular patterns of a dance. He has ex hypothesi, the power to do this.
But why should he choose to do so? The orderliness of the Universe
makes it a beautiful Universe, but, even more importantly, it makes it a
Universe which men can learn to control and change. For only if there
are simple laws of nature can men predict what will follow from what—
and unless they can do that, they can never change anything. Only if
men know that by sowing certain seeds, weeding and watering them,
they will get corn, can they develop an agriculture. And men can only
acquire that knowledge if there are easily graspable regularities of
behaviour in nature. It is good that there be men, embodied mini-
creators who share in God's activity of forming and developing the
Universe through their free choice. But if there are to be such, there
must be laws of nature. There is, therefore, some reasonable expecta-
tion that God will bring them about; but otherwise that the Universe
should exhibit such very striking order is hardly to be expected.
The form of 'argument from design' which has been most common in
the history of thought and was very widely prevalent in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries was the argument from spatial order.
The intricate organization of animals and plants enabling them to catch
the food for which their digestive apparatus was suited and to escape
from predators suggested that they were like very complicated
machines and hence that they must have been put together by a master
machine-maker, who built into them at the same time the power to
reproduce. The frequent use of this argument in religious apologetic
came to an abrupt halt in 1859, when Darwin produced his explanation
of why there were complexly organized animals and plants, in terms of

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 Faith and the Existence of God

the laws of evolution operating on much simpler organisms. There

seemed no need to bring God into the picture.
That reaction was, however, premature. For the demand for
explanation can be taken back a further stage. Why are there laws of
evolution which have the consequence that over many millennia simple
organisms gradually give rise to complex organisms? No doubt because
these laws follow from the basic laws of physics. But then why do the
basic laws of physics have such a form as to give rise to laws of
evolution? And why were there the primitive organisms in the first
place? A plausible story can be told of how the primeval 'soup' of
matter-energy at the time of the 'Big Bang' (a moment some 15,000
million years ago at which, scientists now tell us, the Universe, or at
least the present stage of the Universe, began) gave rise over many
millennia, in accordance with physical laws, to those primitive organ-
isms. But then why was there matter suitable for such evolutionary
development in the first place? With respect to the laws and with
respect to the primeval matter, we have again the same choice, of saying
that these things cannot be further explained, or of postulating a further
explanation. Note that the issue here is not why there are laws at all (the
premise of the argument from temporal order) or why there is matter at
all (the premise of the cosmological argument), but why the laws and
the matter-energy have this peculiar character, that they are ready
wound-up to produce plants, animals and men. Since it is the most
general laws of nature which have this special character, there can be no
scientific explanation of why they are as they are. And although there
might be a scientific explanation of why the matter at the time of the Big
Bang had the special character it did, in terms of its character at some
earlier time, clearly if there was a first state of the Universe, it must have
been of a certain kind; or if the Universe has lasted forever, its matter
must have had certain general features if at any time there was to be a
state of the Universe suited to produce plants, animals and men.
Scientific explanation comes to a stop. The question remains whether
we should accept these particular features of the laws and matter of the
Universe as ultimate brute facts or whether we should move beyond
them to a personal explanation in terms of the agency of God.
What the choice turns on is how likely it is that the laws and initial
conditions should by chance have just this character. Recent scientific
work has drawn attention to the fact that the Universe is fine-tuned.6
The matter-energy at the time of the Big Bang had to have a certain
density and a certain velocity of recession; increase or decrease in these
respects by one part in a million would have had the effect that the
Universe was not life-evolving. For example, if the Big Bang had
caused the quanta of matter-energy to recede from each other a little
more quickly, no galaxies, stars or planets, and no environment suitable

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 R. G. Swinburne

for life would have been formed. If the recession had been marginally
slower, the Universe would have collapsed in on itself before life could
be formed. Similarly, the constants in laws of nature needed to lie
within very narrow limits if life was to be formed. It is, therefore, most
unlikely that laws and initial conditions should have by chance a life-
producing character. God is able to give matter and laws this character.
If we can show that he would have reason to do so, then that gives
support to the hypothesis that he has done so. There is available again
the reason which (additional to the reason of its beauty) was a reason
why God would choose to bring about an orderly Universe at all—the
worthwhileness of the sentient embodied beings which the evolution-
ary process would bring about, and above all of humans who can
themselves makes informed choices as to what sort of a world there
should be.
The arguments which I have considered so far are all arguments from
phenomena which are too 'big' for science to explain; they start from j
the fact and general character of the Universe as described by science.
Either these things have no explanation or it is not of a scientific kind.
Other arguments start from phenomena which allegedly are too 'odd'
for science to explain. It has first to be shown that it is most unlikely that
science can explain these phenomena. One example of such an argu-
ment is the argument from consciousness. Locke gave a version of this
argument.' Here is my own tidied-up version.
Men have thoughts and feelings, beliefs and desires, and they make
choices. These are events totally different from publicly observable
physical events. Physical objects are, physicists tell us, interacting
colourless centres of forces; but they act on our senses, which set up
electrical circuits in our brains, and these brain events cause us to have
sensations (of pain or colour, sound or smell), thoughts, desires and
beliefs. Mental events such as these are no doubt largely caused by
brain events (and vice versa), but mental events are distinct from brain
events—sensations are quite different from electrochemical disturb-
ances. They are, in fact, so different—private, coloured or noisy or
felt—from public events such as brain events, that it is very unlikely
indeed that science will ever explain how brain events give rise to
mental events (why this brain event causes a red sensation, and that one
a blue sensation). Yet brain events do cause mental events; no doubt
there are regular correlations between this type of brain event and that
type of mental event, and yet no scientific theory can say why there are
the particular correlations there are, or indeed any correlations at all
(why did not evolution just throw up unfeeling robots?). Yet these
correlations which science cannot explain cry out for explanation, and
explanation of another kind is available. God brings it about that brain
events of certain kinds give rise to mental events of certain kinds in

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 Faith and the Existence of God

order that animals and men may learn about the physical world, see it as
imbued with colour and smell making it beautiful, and learn to control
it. Much of the value of the evolutionary process would be lost if the
embodied creatures to which it gave rise were not conscious. Brain
events caused by different sights, sounds and smells give rise to dif-
ferent characteristic sensations and beliefs in order that men may have
knowledge of a beautiful physical world and thus have power over it.
Darwinism can only explain why some animals are eliminated in the
struggle for survival, not why there are conscious animals at all.
Then there are arguments from particular events within history,
purported violations of laws of nature (miracles). If it can be shown that
some such event E occurred and that science is quite unable to explain
its occurrence, then that is grounds for supposing that it has a quite
different kind of explanation from the scientific;. and the simplest one
readily available is divine agency—so long as we can suggest a good
reason why God might have chosen to intervene in history to bring
about E. E might be an event good in itself, an answer to prayer, or an
event which helped the religious progress of men. Of course, historical
evidence that some event E occurred may be misleading; or it may be
that, while E is inexplicable by current science, the science of the future
will be able to explain it. But we are always in this kind of situation with
regard to any argument about anything—we may be mistaken. But the
reasonable man bases his conclusions on the evidence currently avail-
able while acknowledging that tomorrow's evidence may show some-
thing quite different. If today's evidence shows that probably a viola-
tion of a natural law occurred, we ought so to believe and to seek the
best explanation we can of it.
Then there is the argument from the existence of moral obligations,
made famous by Kant. 8 I do not myself think that this argument is of
any use for showing the existence of God. It does not seem to me
deductively valid; moral obligations could exist and yet there be no
God. Nor does it seem to me to have any inductive force. For an
argument has inductive force only if the phenomenon described in the
premise is such that it is more to be expected if the conclusion is true
than it would be otherwise. And it seems to me that, if there are, as I
believe, moral obligations, many of them will exist whether or not there
is a God—one ought to keep one's promises whether or not there is a
God. Hence the existence of obligation is no evidence for God's
existence.
And then finally there is the argument from religious experience, in
the sense of experience which seems to the subject to be an experience
of God. Since this is an argument which I believe to have some force, let
me put it again in my own words. To so many men it has seemed at
different moments of their lives that they were aware of God and his

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 R. G. Swinburne

guidance. It is a basic principle of knowledge, which I have called the

principle of credulity, that we ought to believe that things are as they
seem to be, unless and until we have evidence that we are mistaken. If it
seems to me that I am seeing a table or hearing my friend's voice, I
ought to believe this until evidence appears that I have been deceived.
If you say the contrary—never trust appearances until it is proved that
they are reliable, you will never have any beliefs at all. For what would
show that appearances were reliable, except more appearances? And if
you can't trust appearances as such, you can't trust these new ones
either. Just as you must trust your five ordinary senses, so it is equally
rational to trust your religious sense. An opponent may say, you trust
your ordinary senses (e.g. your sense of sight) because it agrees with the
senses of other men—what you claim to see they claim to see; but your
religious sense does not agree with the senses of other men (they don't
always have religious experiences at all, or of the same kind as you do).
However, it is important to realize that the rational man applies the
principle of credulity before he knows what other men experience. You
rightly trust your senses even if there is no other observer to check
them. And if there is another observer who reports that he seems to see
what you seem to see, you have thereafter to remember that he did so
report, and that means relying on your own memory (i.e. how things
seem to have been) without present corroboration. Anyway, religious
experiences often do coincide with those of many others in their general
awareness of a power beyond ourselves guilding our lives. If some men
do not have our experiences, even when our experiences coincide with
those of others, that suggests that the former are blind to religious
realities—just as a man's inability to see colours does not show that the
many of us who claim to see them are mistaken, only that he is colour-
blind. It is basic to human knowledge of the world that we believe
things are as they seem to be in the absence of positive evidence to the
contrary. Someone who seems to have an experience of God should
believe that he does, unless evidence can be produced that he is mis-
taken. And it is another basic principle of knowledge that those who do
not have an experience of a certain type ought to believe any others
when they say that they do—again, in the absence of evidence of deceit
or delusion. Hence there became available to those of us who do not
ourselves have religious experiences the reports of others who do, and
to which therefore we can apply the principle of credulity. In the
absence of counter-evidence, we ought to believe that things are as they
seem to others to be; and we do, of course, normally so assume. We
trust the reports of others on what they see unless we have reason to
suppose that they are lying, or deceiving themselves, or simply misob-
serving. We ought to do the same with their reports of religious
experience.

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 Faith and the Existence of God

These are complicated matters. Both where I have defended an

argument for the existence of God and where I have attacked it, there
are one hundred and one counter-arguments which can be given. I
believe that I have available one hundred and one replies to them. But
that is a promise; one lecture does not give me time to fulfil it.
Inevitably, in order to give unity to my lecture, I have given an overall
view of the field, and to some extent defended one overall position. I
have claimed that many of the arguments which I have discussed have
some inductive force (i.e. are correct C-inductive arguments). Induc-
tive arguments are, as we saw, cumulative. They add to or subtract
from the force of each other. I have considered only arguments for the
existence of God. They need to be weighed against any arguments
against the existence of God, of which the most famous is the argument
from evil. Whether all the arguments taken together make the con-
clusion, that there is a God, more probably than not (i.e. form a correct
P-inductive argument) is a very important question. I have expressed
elsewhere my own view on this matter; it would be inappropriate to
press it too hard in this context.

Notes
1
This paper is based on the much fuller and more rigorous account which I
gave of a posteriori arguments for the existence of God in my book, The
Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). (Some of the wording of
this present paper is taken from a small pamphlet which I wrote for a different
purpose, Evidence for God, published by Mowbrays for the Christian Evi-
dence Society, 1986. I am grateful to the society for permission to re-use this
material.) For detailed criticism of my approach, see J. L. Mackie, The
Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).
2
See A. Plantinga (ed.), The Ontological Argument (London: Macmillan,
1968), and many other collections of writings on the philosophy of religion for
the versions of the ontological argument given by Anselm and Descartes, and a
modern version given by Norman Malcolm.
3
More formally, they are correct C-inductive arguments if the phenomena
cited as evidence are more likely to occur if the hypothesis is true than
otherwise; and the more each of the criteria is satisfied, the more probable on
the evidence is the hypothesis.
4
See A. Kenny, The Five Ways (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1969), for exposition and criticism of Aquinas' 'ways'.
5
G . W. Leibniz, On the Ultimate Origination of Things.
6
See, for example, the simple description of this fine-tuning in John Leslie,
'Anthropic Principle, World Ensemble, Design', American Philosophical
Quarterly 19 (1982), 141-151.
'John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 4.10.10.
8
See (e.g.) I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1.2.2.5.

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 I I : D. C. BARRETT

Faith and Rationality

In the previous lecture Professor Swinburne discussed arguments for

the existence of God. I do not propose to put forward arguments for the
non-existence of God, precisely. Rather I want to discuss the view that
the whole enterprise of putting forward arguments for the existence of
God is misguided. Moreover, I hold that it distorts the nature of
religious belief. This in turn raises the question of the rationality of
religious belief. A belief that cannot be based on argument, however
broadly understood, does not seem to be a rational belief. Is religious
belief, therefore, irrational, contrary to reason? We shall see. This, at
least, is my programme.
Before embarking on it two points have to be made clear: what I
mean by religious belief, and what makes a belief 'religious'. I shall deal
with these questions more closely later in the paper. For the moment we
can say that, on the one hand, religious belief has got to be dis-
tinguished from scientific, commonsense and other such beliefs that
have no claim to be considered religious; on the other hand, it has to be
distinguished from superstition and beliefs that claim to be religious for
various reasons, including tax relief. Clearly the great religious
beliefs—Judaic, Christian, Hindu, Islamic—as well as those of pagans,
animists and even so-called primitives are religious beliefs or, at least,
regarded as such. Provisionally, I have these in mind. It is not my
intention to adjudicate between them. I have not mentioned Budd-
hism, especially Zen Buddhism. It is arguable that it is a form of
mysticism and asceticism, rather than a religion. This is as may be; it
does not concern me in this paper. What I am concerned with is the
concept of religious beliefs. What does it mean to say that a belief is
religious simply because one thinks it is?

But to return to arguments for the existence of God. As I have said I do

not think that they have anything to do with religious belief.
At least four principal arguments can be advanced in favour of the
proposition that whether or not there is a God or gods, his existence
cannot be proved. These I label: (1) presumptive, (2) cosmological, (3)
semantic, and (4) ontological. Whether there are ancillary arguments I
do not know, nor have I been able to devise any.

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 D. C. Barrett

(1) The Presumptive argument for the non-existence of God. This

has been proposed by Professor Flew. It is a good argument which can
be summarized as follows. Since we have no direct evidence of the
existence of a Deity, the onus of proof that there is one lies with those
who believe that there is. However, whatever proof they could pro-
duce, the world would still look the same. That is an uncreated, godless
world would not differ in any particular from a created world depend-
ing on a Deity.
(2) What I call the Cosmological argument for the non-existence of
God is better known as the 'problem of evil'. (It might also be called the
Moral argument.) This argument takes its colour from the argument it
is attempting to refute. Thus, if it is Paley's argument from design, it
says simply that the world has been so badly designed that there are no
grounds for believing in a divine Designer. At a somewhat more
sophisticated level it can be argued that in a world full of natural
disasters, there cannot be an intelligence governing it: it is out of
control. But the strongest argument is moral. How can an all perfect
intelligence, which is wise, just and merciful, allow not only physical
disasters, pain and agony to take place—wars, famine, poverty, etc.—
but also moral evil—torture, murder, extortion and exploitation—to
happen?
This is not the place to discuss the problem of evil. I merely wish to
note and outline it. But I cannot refrain from two observations. The
first is that it does notprove the non-existence of God. At most it proves
that he is not very nice. The second is that it still has to make sense of
what Aquinas noted as the order and seeming purpose in the world.
Undoubtedly the problem of evil is a problem for theists of whatever
persuasion. But it is not a knock-down argument for the non-existence
of a Deity. It can be coped with in various ways, scandalous, persuasive
or neutral according to one's extra-philosophical views.
(3) The Semantic argument has a certain charm. It is that: not only is
there nothing that could answer to what could claim to be a Deity, but
there could be nothing. The notion of a Deity is vacuous. It is like
asking do smoos exist without having a coherent concept of a smoo, or
indeed, any concept whatsoever. This, indeed, is the difference
between smoos and God, that, whereas we have no idea what a smoo
might be—it could be a furry mammal, a splodge in print, a suave way
of brushing off a difficult question, a type of cleric, a rare Alaskan
cactus, the detritus of a Tuareg cooking vessel, a ravine, a piece of
computer software—we do have at least a quasi-concept of God as, for
example the being on whom we and everything else depends, the
omnipotent, omniscient, all just, all wise, all merciful. Kant was prob-
ably the first to hold this concept was inapplicable, though he held,
rightly or wrongly, that it was a necessary assumption for comprehend-

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 Faith and the Existence of God

ing the world, as a reality, not as a conglomerate of things. But he did

not think that the concept was meaningless. That task was left to his
successors, the Logical Positivists and linguistic philosophers of vari-
ous hues. It is, in their various opinions, either unverifiable in principle
(and hence meaningless) or incoherent, i.e. internally contradictory.
This is a highly convenient way of disposing of God. If the notion of
God is meaningless for whatever reason, then one does not have to
argue for his non-existence, since the question of the existence or non-
existence of something, the notion of which is meaningless, is itself
meaningless, or at best purely verbal. One can construct the sentence:
does God exist?, just as one can construct the sentence: are there square
circles? And one can answer these pseudo-questions in the negative and
support the negation by proving that both are impossible because they
are either incoherent or inapplicable notions.
This line of attack on proofs for the existence of God poses problems
for the rationality of religious beliefs that are not based on arguments
for the existence of God. I shall deal with these in due course.
(4) The Ontological argument for the non-existence of God is most
ingenious. It was proposed by Professor Findlay, who later repudiated
it, but for reasons other than those which I shall offer. In effect it turns
Anselm's and later ontological arguments for the existence of God on
their heads. As Findlay says: 'it was an ill day when St Anselm
proposed his proof for the existence of God . . .'
Findlay agrees with Anselm and the others that, if there is a God, he
must be a cut above every other kind of being. He must be in a class of
his own, a class totally distinct from all other classes. (Strictly speaking,
in no class at all. But that is a refinement into which we need not go at
present.) The notion of a being greater than which none other can be
conceived fits the bill nicely. But the notion of a necessary being, that
is, a being that cannot not exist, fits even better, since it clearly
distinguished between those beings that can not-exist (ourselves and all
we know) from this one being that cannot not-exist.
Thus, argues Findlay, if there is a God, he must be such a being: i.e.
greater than any that can be conceived, i.e. necessary, i.e. whose non-
existence is impossible. If there cannot be such a being, then there
cannot be a God. But, Findlay continues, there cannot be such a being.
Why not? because, as Kant had pointed out long before, existence is not
a predicate. There is nothing whose non-existence is not conceivable.
One has to establish first what the being is before deciding whether it
can exist or not; and much more, whether its non-existence is possible
or not. If this is so, Findlay argues, the non-existence even of a being
that cannot not exist is conceivable. Therefore the non-existence of
God—the being that cannot not exist—is conceivable, and hence pos-
sible. So God is no different from creatures, in that, like any contingent

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 D. C. Barrett

being, it is possible to conceive of the necessary being not existing. But

this cannot be God, the being greater than which none other can be
conceived, the truly necessary being. He is contingent like the rest of
us. Hence there cannot be a God, or not one worth his salt, one whose
non-existence is absolutely unthinkable.
One could take issue with this line of argument by challenging the
shibboleth that existence is not a predicate. But a simpler way to deal
with it is to right the boat, to turn the ontological argument back onto
even keel. Put briefly, Findlay's argument is as dependent on the
ontological argument to prove the impossibility of, and hence, non-
existence of God, as Anselm's and the other arguments are to prove the
existence of God. If one sinks, they all sink: they all go together. So
Findlay's argument founders with the rest, which is a pity, since there
are few proofs for the non-existence of God. It would be nice to have the
matter settled philosophically once and for all. But that is not to be, as I
hope to argue in the next section

No one has, to my knowledge and satisfaction, so far proved either that

a God exists or does not exist. (By 'proving' here I mean giving
sufficiently cogent argument so that dissent would be irrational.) That
is the conclusion of the previous section.
In this section I want to argue that even if the existence of God and
certain other religious beliefs could be proved philosophically that
would have nothing to do with religious belief as such.
Religious belief is not based on logical argument. How could you
prove that Jesus of Nazareth was (a) God incarnate, (b) the Saviour of
the world through his death on a cross, (c) now living, and (d) will come
again to judge the living and the dead? (I give instances from Christian
belief simply because I feel on safer ground, but instances could be
given from other religions.) There are no premises on which to base
anything remotely resembling a logical argument for such beliefs.
Allowing the historicity of the Gospel narrative—that Jesus was born
(not necessarily in Bethlehem), died on a cross, was claimed to have
been seen after his death and foretold a Judgment Day—it does not
follow that he was God incarnate, saved the world, rose from the dead
or will come in judgment. Christian belief may be based on the Gospel
narrative, but that narrative is not evidence for Christian belief in any
logical sense, even the broadest and loosest. What is believed—the
Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection and Last Coming—goes far,
far beyond anything that can be based on the historical evidence. Even
if we accept the historicity of the angel's message to Mary, what Jesus
said about his death, the testimony of the apostles, and so forth, this in
itself is not evidence for the belief. A child being born and a man dying

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 Faith and the Existence of God

is evidence for nothing but itself. An empty tomb is not evidence that its
former occupant is still living. And even if we could prove by some
scientific principles that the world would some day come to an end, that
would not be evidence for a Day of Judgment.
Hume and other sceptics saw in this a reason for doubting the beliefs
of Christians. Positivists saw in it a positive reason for disbelieving. In
so doing they exposed the true nature of religious belief or faith. Faith
gives a significance to events and people and even inanimate and non-
human objects which they do not have in themselves. The animist who
sees a rushing stream as a manifestation of a spirit gleefully leaping from
rock to rock or a pagan who sees in a thunderstorm the wrath or warning
of a deity, or in a plague a punishment for some serious communal
offence, is not regarding these phenomena as a hydrologist, a meteor-
ologist or a bacteriologist would. The explanations of the phenomena
by the latter would be totally different. This is not to say that the
religious believer ignores the phenomena, whether witnessed or
recorded. It is simply that the phenomena—natural or historical
events—taken in themselves have no religious significance. It is faith
which endows them with it.
For this reason faith and science are not in conflict. Science cannot
refute faith nor faith science. The religious believer who believes that a
plague was a punishment of God or the gods is not proved wrong by the
bacteriologist who diagnoses its cause as a particular kind of bacterium.
Nor is the bacteriologist proved wrong by the religious believer who
attributes the cause of the plague to the gods. They are talking two
different but compatible languages. But, more importantly, their
methods are totally different. The bacteriologist needs hard evidence to
support his diagnosis—symptoms, laboratory tests, previous cases, etc.
He must be able to show that a particular bacillus was the cause of the
plague, otherwise the cure may be ineffectual. The religious believer
does not have to provide anything like such a rigorous proof. But at least
he has to give reasons, if not very good ones. He has to point to some
wrong-doing or suspected wrong-doing that caused the gods to punish
the community as they had done before to the same or other
communities.
This raises the question of the rationality of religious belief, which is
my third topic.

If religious belief is not a matter of evidence or strict proof in the logical

sense, however broadly understood, can it in any sense be called
rational? If not, is one morally justified in indulging in such beliefs, at
least when one knows that they have no scientific—astronomical, bio-
logical, archaeological, physical, etc.—or historical basis?

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 D. C. Barrett

In answer to the first question I would say: no, religious belief is not
rational; it is beyond reason; it is in the unknown, if not the unknow-
able. That is its nature. That is what makes it religious a6 against
scientific, historical or commonsense belief in the first place, though
not all non-rational beliefs are religious.
Is it then irrational? Tertullian in a fit of madness wrote: Certum est
quia impossible est ('It is certain because it is impossible') (De Carne
Christi, 5). This is not only untrue, but if it were, every daft belief
would have to be dubbed 'religious'. Even Tertullian made distinctions
among impossibilities. Some were acceptable, some not. There are
reasons for accepting some beliefs and not others. To that extent faith is
rational. But what are these reasons?
Reasons in faith are difficult to establish. One must bring in the
distinction between a reason for believing and someone's reason for
believing. The former may be reasonable, if not rational in the sense of
logically provable; the latter may be irrational—'The vicar told me and
I like the colour of his hair'. But in general the reasons supporting faith
are contained in the word 'faith' (fides) itself. 'Faith' in its root means
'trust'. If someone promises to look after my cat and plants while I am
away, I believe him, particularly if (a) I have no reason to doubt his
word, and (b) he has never let me down before. If someone tells me that
Spinks is a good mechanic and that person knows something about
mechanics, I will believe him. If someone whom I trust in other
respects tells me he is an adviser to the government on financial
matters, and I do not think he is just bragging, I will believe him. Are
these irrational beliefs? Surely not. It is not irrational to believed
something on the testimony of someone whom one has learnt by
experience to trust, even though what he says cannot be rationally
justified.
This, it might be said, is good enough in everyday or scientific or
other acadmic affairs. It can be rationalized thus. A is both knowledge-
able and trustworthy; A tells me that X; therefore either X is true or, at
least, I have reasonable grounds for believing that X. But what is the
criterion of trustworthiness in religious matters? In ordinary and even
extraordinary cases of expert advice we have at least some criteria of j
trustworthiness. Does the thing work as he said it would? Do other |
experts agree with him? Does it make sense, i.e. is it non-contradictory? j
Does he tell lies, romanticize, deceive to tease, etc.? Are any of these J
criteria applicable to religious belief? I would not say that none of these 1
criteria, particularly the last, apply; but there are other criteria. 1
Obviously there cannot be criteria based on pragmatic or experiential •*
evidence such as one gets in everyday life. What a prophet or an j
evangelist tells us is beyond any ordinary criteria or credibility. If |
someone said he had seen flying saucers on many occasions, one might |

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 Faith and the Existence of God

treat his testimony with some respect, since such objects might just be
possible and his testimony was otherwise good. If someone said that he
regularly saw leprechauns or fairies at the bottom of his garden, how-
ever reliable he might be in other respects, we would not take his word
for it. So why should we take the word of a prophet or evangelist who is
telling us things that not only cannot be verified, but neither can his
testimony?
The criterion Wittgenstein offers is the way of life that is contained in
the prophecy or revelation. To this might be added the way of life of the
prophet himself (or herself). I think this latter is essential if one is to
take the prophecy seriously. If the way of life is appealing on moral
grounds, that is, if the way of life that is implied by an incomprehens-
ible utterance seems not only acceptable but superior to any other way
of life, then one may accept the incomprehensible part from which it
subtends or to which it is inextricably united. An illustration of this is
St Peter's remark after the discourse on the Eucharist (which was too
much for most of the disciples of Jesus) when asked: 'Will you also go
away?' He replied: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life' (John vi. 68-69).
One might ask how one can judge and assess a way of life if one is not a
moral expert oneself, and, hence, how can one adjudicate between one
faith and another—Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc.
Is it just a matter of what suits you that you are prepared to accept the
incomprehensible doctrine that goes with it? Or is it that you genuinely
assess its moral content and come to the conclusion that the way of life it
prescribes is preferable to any other? If the latter, how is this conclusion
reached, if one is not oneself a prophet? This is not a great problem.
One does not have to be a good mathematician or solver of crossword
puzzles to see that a mathematical problem or a crossword puzzle has
been successfully solved. Nor does one have to be a moral genius to see
that, say, slavery is wrong, once the arguments against it are properly
presented to you. Nor, again, does it require great expertise to see that
there is something wrong with allowing others to go hungry or homeless
or badly clothed or neglected in hospital and prison. What might not be
so obvious is that such negligence was in some mysterious way directed
not only at the person concerned but also at Jesus Christ himself. And
yet, having accepted the moral principle, the doctrinal mystery may
help to enforce it. The great St Peter Clavier who tended the sick and
dying slaves arriving at Cartegena once called after a black helper who
could no longer bear the stench and revolting condition of the slaves:
'Martha, come back. These people have been redeemed by the blood of
Christ.'
I am not here suggesting a moral or pragmatic argument for religious
belief, whether it be Atonement, Redemption, the Mystical Body of

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 D. C. Barrett

Christ, or whatever. I am merely suggesting that the moral conse-

quences or at least the moral content of a religious belief may lead one
into that belief. No more than that. Even if the religious belief—the
Fatherhood of God, Redemption, a Last Judgement, Life Everlast-
ing—may help to sustain a way of life, this in itself is not sufficient to
justify the religious belief.
Religious belief is ultimately, as Kierkegaard so dramatically pre-
sented it, a leap in the dark: the leap of faith. For Kierkegaard there are
three stages on life's way: the aesthetic, where one follows one's whims
and is committed to nothing; the ethical where one makes rational
choices and commits oneself; and faith, which is beyond reason and
without rational justification, based solely on faith in the word of Jesus
Christ. Of course, it need not be Jesus Christ, it could be the word of
God to Moses or the Prophets, of Allah to Mohammed, or any other
religious source. But the important point is that it is beyond reason. It is
an act of trust.
If this is so then it is clear that arguments for God's existence, or
anything to do with faith, cannot be reasons for believing. At best they
are elucidatory. This is especially true of St Anselm, who showed that
God had to be a necessary being. (I am not so sure of Aquinas. I think
that he thought he was proving something.) They may also serve to
show that faith is compatible with reason. This works well enough with
the doctrine of immortality. While it cannot be proved philosophically,
Aquinas did a good rearguard action in showing that immortality is not
unreasonable, given the nature of the human mind. But the theory of
transubstantiation, as propounded by Aquinas and defended (or inter-
preted) by Leibniz, does more harm than good to an understanding of
the mystery of the Eucharist.
It is equally clear where religious belief differs from superstition.
Superstition, as I see it, is false scientific belief masquerading as
religious belief. It resembles religious belief in so far as it has no rational
foundation. It differs from religious belief in that, though purporting to
invoke supernatural agencies by means of spells, curses, incantations
and other rituals, it believes in the efficacy of natural powers. In turn it
differs from bad or pseudo-science in that the latter does not invoke the
supernatural.
# #
If, as I have argued, religious belief is essentially non-rational, is one
morally justified in believing it? Is one not being irrational in believing
in something that is not only not susceptible of rational proof but defies
and repudiates it? And, moreover, if one is prepared to base one's whole
way of life on these non-rational beliefs—celibacy, indissolubility
of marriage, fasting and abstinence, regular observance at church,

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 Faith and the Existence of God

asceticism, and so forth—is there any moral justification for all this?
Some people would say this life of renunciation and rigid religious
observance was immoral. That seems to go too far, though one can see
why someone should think so. Such behaviour is certainly not normal
human (i.e. humanist or pagan) behaviour. Nor is it moral in the sense
of rational, since it is based on non-rational beliefs. What, then, is the
justification for such behaviour and such beliefs?
To answer this one has to distinguish between the rationality of the
beliefs and the rationality or reasonableness of believing them. We hold
innumerable beliefs—scientific, geographical, social, i.e. about family
history, local gossip, etc.—that one cannot rationally justify because
one cannot justify them personally. Yet no one would say that it was
irrational to hold such beliefs. Now religious beliefs are, admittedly,
not quite in that category. There are what might be called vulgarly
'whoppers', i.e. monstrous lies such as fishermen and Irishmen are
wont to tell. One is expected to see through them and one usually does.
One does this because they exceed the bounds of possibility or, at least
probability. Religious beliefs, however, are super-whoppers. Notions
such as 'possible', 'probable', 'likely' are inapplicable to them. It would
be reasonable to say that it is likely that Uncle George did steal the
family jewellery but not that it is likely that Jesus rose from the dead, or
even that it is possible, much less probable. The claim is too monstrous
a whopper to merit these adjectives. And yet in the context of the
gospels as they are narrated by two one-time ignorant fishermen, a tax
collector and a not-so-ignorant doctor, not to mention a scholar who
came late on the scene, however much their testimony has been tam-
pered with, it is not unreasonable to believe the Gospel story, mon-
strous though it may seem. This is not to say that it compels acceptance
by a rational person. Nor is anyone who rejects it less moral for doing
so.
But one must emphasize the monstrousness of religious belief and its
non-rationality in order to bring out its true nature. On the other-hand
one must emphasize the fact that it is not irrational, much less that its
virtue lies in its irrationality. Tertullian went much too far.

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