Digital Gnosis | Bad Apologetics Ep 23 - Richard Swinburne "Is There A God?" @DigitalGnosis | Uploaded October 2022 | Updated October 2024, 4 days ago.
In this episode James and Nathan take on the work of Oxford Christian Philosophy Richard Swinburne in his book "Is There a God?"
James' Channel: @JamesFodor
Swinburne's Assumptions offered without justification:
1. A basic action is one which a person does intentionally just like that and not by doing any other intentional action.
2. Free agents require regular laws to make choices.
3. Infinity is simpler than any finite number.
4. A perfectly free person will inevitably do what he believes to be (overall) the best action and never do what he believes to be an (overall) bad action.
5. Desires are a limitation or restriction on freedom.
6. We have an obligation to do favours for those who provide a great benefit to us.
7. Creating free agents is good.
8. It is intrinsically good for God to allow us to learn and grow in the world.
9. Beauty is a good thing, even if no one observes it.
10. God has a reason to create animals who don’t have free will.
11. It is good for God to create embodied life?
12. Every object has some essential properties and some accidental properties.
13. In discussing the laws of nature, what scientists are discussing are the powers and liabilities of innumerable particular substances.
Timestamps (thanks @svezhiepyatki )
0:00 Countdown
0:27 Some housekeeping
4:45 Nathan's preliminary remarks
8:04 James' preliminary remarks
13:40 "Naturalists can't explain x"
15:09 "Is There A God?" as a response to J. L. Mackie
19:05 Contents
23:15 What Swinburne is arguing for
24:41 "God explains everything we observe"
29:36 Chapter 1
29:54 Swinburne's God
31:51 Personhood of God
33:06 Basic/non-basic action
36:11 Does/Could God have beliefs/purposes
40:44 Basic/non-basic action (cont.)
44:29 Personhood of God (cont.)
45:47 Basic power and seemings
49:07 "God's basic powers are supposed to be infinite"
51:51 "God is supposed to be omniscient"
56:03 "He is perfectly free" and desires
1:02:41 Logical impossibility and God
1:09:00 Open theism
1:11:42 Human free will and desires
1:14:33 "God being eternal"
1:17:47 Open theism and prophecies
1:18:17 "God is supposed to be bodiless" and omnipresence
1:25:42 "God normally brings about ordinary historical events..."
1:31:28 Perfect goodness and God's freedom
1:39:57 "...being in London as good..."
1:43:05 Desires and best actions
1:47:58 Objective moral truths
1:51:07 "Some moral truths are clearly moral truths..."
1:52:12 Duty "to please our major benefactors"
1:56:59 God and our duties
1:59:04 Moral truths independent of God
2:00:08 God and obligations
2:01:26 "It is good that God should create persons..."
2:02:41 What perfect goodness amounts to
2:05:22 "Mental toss-up"
2:11:57 "So it follows..."
2:14:39 Essential and accidental properties
2:16:08 Essential properties of a desk
2:19:52 God's essential properties
2:22:57 God's existence
2:24:15 Necessity as an explanation
2:25:03 Chapter 2
2:25:36 Substance
2:28:38 Two kinds of explanations of events
2:31:03 "But no one can think consistently in that way."
2:38:53 Laws of nature
2:42:43 Criteria for evaluating explanations
2:45:22 Background knowledge
2:47:54 The criterion of background knowledge
2:49:06 The criterion of simplicity
2:53:49 Prediction vs accommodation
2:59:18 "The support given by observations to theory..."
3:02:26 Four criteria and personal explanations
3:06:54 Chapter 3
3:07:36 "Imanimate and personal causations interact."
3:08:37 The human quest for explanation
3:13:18 3 possible ultimate explanations
3:14:20 Materialism
3:15:19 The existence of persons given materialism
3:16:37 Humanism (mixed theory)
3:18:31 Theism
3:20:26 "God thus keeps the laws of nature operative"
3:21:00 Theism as the simplest explanation
3:25:56 "...innumerable different stopping points"
3:28:02 Present continuing in existence given materialism
3:29:30 Existential inertia
3:38:31 The simplicity of theism
3:43:52 Infitive degrees vs very large finite degrees
3:55:27 "Zero and infinity are opposites."
3:59:56 The simplicity of theism (cont.)
4:03:16 Infinite power is simpler than a very large one
4:26:36 God as an explanation: the universe and its natural laws
5:35:30 God as an explanation: the existence of humans
5:41:55 Physical events and the knowledge argument
5:59:30 A puzzle about continuity
6:18:15 Animal souls
6:24:46 Why philosophers and scientists are reluctant to accept the souls existence
6:34:20 Scientific laws require measurable things
6:49:43 Evolutionary advantage of consciousness
6:52:57 Male brains and souls
6:56:35 Summary of the previous arguments
6:57:35 How theism explains the mentioned phenomena
7:04:22 Quantum Theory and how the brain and the mind iteract
7:11:44 Why god allows evil
7:13:10 Free will and evil
----
Support the channel by becoming a Patron: patreon.com/digitalgnosis
Links to all my stuff: https://linktr.ee/digitalgnosis
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In this episode James and Nathan take on the work of Oxford Christian Philosophy Richard Swinburne in his book "Is There a God?"
James' Channel: @JamesFodor
Swinburne's Assumptions offered without justification:
1. A basic action is one which a person does intentionally just like that and not by doing any other intentional action.
2. Free agents require regular laws to make choices.
3. Infinity is simpler than any finite number.
4. A perfectly free person will inevitably do what he believes to be (overall) the best action and never do what he believes to be an (overall) bad action.
5. Desires are a limitation or restriction on freedom.
6. We have an obligation to do favours for those who provide a great benefit to us.
7. Creating free agents is good.
8. It is intrinsically good for God to allow us to learn and grow in the world.
9. Beauty is a good thing, even if no one observes it.
10. God has a reason to create animals who don’t have free will.
11. It is good for God to create embodied life?
12. Every object has some essential properties and some accidental properties.
13. In discussing the laws of nature, what scientists are discussing are the powers and liabilities of innumerable particular substances.
Timestamps (thanks @svezhiepyatki )
0:00 Countdown
0:27 Some housekeeping
4:45 Nathan's preliminary remarks
8:04 James' preliminary remarks
13:40 "Naturalists can't explain x"
15:09 "Is There A God?" as a response to J. L. Mackie
19:05 Contents
23:15 What Swinburne is arguing for
24:41 "God explains everything we observe"
29:36 Chapter 1
29:54 Swinburne's God
31:51 Personhood of God
33:06 Basic/non-basic action
36:11 Does/Could God have beliefs/purposes
40:44 Basic/non-basic action (cont.)
44:29 Personhood of God (cont.)
45:47 Basic power and seemings
49:07 "God's basic powers are supposed to be infinite"
51:51 "God is supposed to be omniscient"
56:03 "He is perfectly free" and desires
1:02:41 Logical impossibility and God
1:09:00 Open theism
1:11:42 Human free will and desires
1:14:33 "God being eternal"
1:17:47 Open theism and prophecies
1:18:17 "God is supposed to be bodiless" and omnipresence
1:25:42 "God normally brings about ordinary historical events..."
1:31:28 Perfect goodness and God's freedom
1:39:57 "...being in London as good..."
1:43:05 Desires and best actions
1:47:58 Objective moral truths
1:51:07 "Some moral truths are clearly moral truths..."
1:52:12 Duty "to please our major benefactors"
1:56:59 God and our duties
1:59:04 Moral truths independent of God
2:00:08 God and obligations
2:01:26 "It is good that God should create persons..."
2:02:41 What perfect goodness amounts to
2:05:22 "Mental toss-up"
2:11:57 "So it follows..."
2:14:39 Essential and accidental properties
2:16:08 Essential properties of a desk
2:19:52 God's essential properties
2:22:57 God's existence
2:24:15 Necessity as an explanation
2:25:03 Chapter 2
2:25:36 Substance
2:28:38 Two kinds of explanations of events
2:31:03 "But no one can think consistently in that way."
2:38:53 Laws of nature
2:42:43 Criteria for evaluating explanations
2:45:22 Background knowledge
2:47:54 The criterion of background knowledge
2:49:06 The criterion of simplicity
2:53:49 Prediction vs accommodation
2:59:18 "The support given by observations to theory..."
3:02:26 Four criteria and personal explanations
3:06:54 Chapter 3
3:07:36 "Imanimate and personal causations interact."
3:08:37 The human quest for explanation
3:13:18 3 possible ultimate explanations
3:14:20 Materialism
3:15:19 The existence of persons given materialism
3:16:37 Humanism (mixed theory)
3:18:31 Theism
3:20:26 "God thus keeps the laws of nature operative"
3:21:00 Theism as the simplest explanation
3:25:56 "...innumerable different stopping points"
3:28:02 Present continuing in existence given materialism
3:29:30 Existential inertia
3:38:31 The simplicity of theism
3:43:52 Infitive degrees vs very large finite degrees
3:55:27 "Zero and infinity are opposites."
3:59:56 The simplicity of theism (cont.)
4:03:16 Infinite power is simpler than a very large one
4:26:36 God as an explanation: the universe and its natural laws
5:35:30 God as an explanation: the existence of humans
5:41:55 Physical events and the knowledge argument
5:59:30 A puzzle about continuity
6:18:15 Animal souls
6:24:46 Why philosophers and scientists are reluctant to accept the souls existence
6:34:20 Scientific laws require measurable things
6:49:43 Evolutionary advantage of consciousness
6:52:57 Male brains and souls
6:56:35 Summary of the previous arguments
6:57:35 How theism explains the mentioned phenomena
7:04:22 Quantum Theory and how the brain and the mind iteract
7:11:44 Why god allows evil
7:13:10 Free will and evil
----
Support the channel by becoming a Patron: patreon.com/digitalgnosis
Links to all my stuff: https://linktr.ee/digitalgnosis
Tips:
One-off PayPal donations welcome - paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=Q7SGRS5855UEL
