Richard Swinburne
Richard Swinburne Professor | |
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Born | Richard Granville Swinburne 26 December 1934 Smethwick, England |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Exeter College, Oxford |
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Academic work | |
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Main interests | Christian apologetics |
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Website | users |
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Theodicy |
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Richard Granville Swinburne (
Early life
Swinburne was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire, England, on 26 December 1934. His father was a school music teacher, who was himself the son of an off-licence owner in Shoreditch. His mother was a secretary, the daughter of an optician. He is an only child. Swinburne attended a preparatory school and then Charterhouse School.
Academic career
Swinburne received an open scholarship to study
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 the
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, his
In 1992 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.[6] He is a recipient of James Joyce Award from the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. Also, he was awarded honorary doctorates by the Catholic University of Lublin (2015),[7] Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University in Bucharest (2016), the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein (2017), and New Georgian University in Poti (2023).[8]
Christian apologetics
A member of the
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 book Faith and Reason.
According to an interview Swinburne did with Foma magazine, he converted from Anglicanism (Church of England) to Eastern Orthodoxy around 1996:
I don't think I changed my beliefs in any significant way. I always believed in the Apostolic 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.[11]
Swinburne's philosophical method reflects the influence of Thomas 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's The Coherence of Theism), to more specific Christian beliefs (for example, the claim in Swinburne's Revelation that God has communicated to human beings propositionally in Jesus Christ).[12]
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 on
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1672/15) with Richard Swinburne in 2015–2016 for its Science and Religion collection held by the British Library.
Major books
- Space and Time, 1968
- The Concept of Miracle, 1970,
- The Coherence of Theism, 1977 (new edition 2016) (part 1 of his trilogy on Theism)
- ISBN 0-19-927167-4) (part 2 of his trilogy on Theism)
- Faith and Reason, 1981 (new edition 2005). (part 3 of his trilogy on Theism)
- The Evolution of the Soul, 1986, ISBN 0-19-823698-0. (1997 edition online)
- Miracles, 1989
- Responsibility and Atonement, 1989 (part 1 of his tetralogy on Christian Doctrines)
- Revelation, 1991 (part 2 of his tetralogy on Christian Doctrines)
- The Christian God, 1994 (part 3 of his tetralogy on Christian Doctrines)
- ISBN 978-0-19-958043-9
- Simplicity as Evidence of Truth, The Aquinas Lecture, 1997
- Providence and the Problem of Evil, 1998 (part 4 of his tetralogy on Christian Doctrines)
- Epistemic Justification, 2001
- The Resurrection of God Incarnate, 2003
- Was Jesus God?, 2008
- Free Will and Modern Science, Ed. 2011, ISBN 978-0197264898
- Mind, Brain, and Free Will, 2013
- Are We Bodies or Souls?, 2019, ISBN 978-0-19-883149-5
Spiritual autobiography
- Richard Swinburne, "Natural Theology and Orthodoxy," in Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith, Rico Vitz, ed. (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2012), pp. 47–78.
- Richard Swinburne, "The Vocation of a Natural Theologian," in Philosophers Who Believe, Kelly James Clark, ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), pp. 179–202.
Further reading
- Brown, Colin (1984). Miracles and the Critical Mind. Exeter, England: Paternoster. pp. 180–184.
- ISBN 978-0-230-37128-6.
- ——— (1993). "Salvation Through the Blood of Jesus". The Metaphor of God Incarnate. London: SCM Press.
- Ozioko, Johnson Uchenna (2019). Rationality of the Christian Faith in Richard Swinburne. Rome: Urbaniana University Press.
- Parks, D. Mark (1995). Expecting the Christian Revelation: An Analysis and Critique of Richard Swinburne's Philosophical Defense of Propositional Revelation (PhD dissertation). Fort Worth, Texas: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
- Parsons, Keith M. (1989). God and the Burden of Proof: Plantinga, Swinburne, and the Analytic Defense of Theism. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus.
- .
- ISBN 978-0-511-59807-4.
References
- ^ Kai-man (2011), p. ix
- ^ Schellenberg (2016), p. 26
- ^ "Professor Mark Wynn". Faculty of Theology and Religion. Oxford: University of Oxford. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
- ^ Richard Swinburne - short intellectual autobiography
- ^ Ozioko, Johnson Uchenna (2019). Rationality of the Christian Faith in Richard Swinburne. Rome: Urbaniana University Press.
- ^ The British Academy for Humanities and Social Sciences.
- ^ Professor Richard Swinburne - Doctor honoris causa KUL
- ^ New Georgian University honors Professor Richard Swinburne
- ^ Hasker, William (2002). "Is Christianity Probable? Swinburne's Apologetic Programme". Religious Studies. 38 (3): 253–264. doi:10.1017/S0034412502006078. ISSN 1469-901X. JSTOR 20008419. S2CID 170888913.
- ^ Swinburne, Richard (2013). Mind, Brain, and Free Will.
- ^ "БЕЗОТВЕТСТВЕННОЕ ПРИГЛАШЕНИЕ К СЕРЬЕЗНОМУ РАЗГОВОРУ". Foma (in Russian). Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
- ^ Chartier, Gary (2013). "Richard Swinburne". In Markham, Ian S. (ed.). The Student's Companion to the Theologians. Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 522–526. doi:10.1002/9781118427170.ch75. ISBN 978-1-118-42717-0.
- ^ Schellenberg, J. L. (2016). "Working with Swinburne: Belief, Value, and Religious Life". In Bergmann, Michael; Brower, Jeffrey E. (eds.). Reason and Faith: Themes from Richard Swinburne. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 26–45. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732648.003.0002. ISBN 978-0-19-873264-8.
External links
- Media related to Richard Swinburne at Wikimedia Commons
- Official website – Includes a curriculum vitae and more complete list of publications
- Presentation at Gifford lectures
- Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason review from Diapsalmata
- The Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies video interview with Richard Swinburne 31 May 2010.