1001Philosophers

Richard Swinburne Quotes on God

Richard Swinburne is a British philosopher of religion, long associated with the University of Oxford, and the most prolific defender of natural theology in late-twentieth-century analytic philosophy. This page collects quotes attributed to Richard Swinburne on the topic of god, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Richard Swinburne:

    “On balance, the existence of God is more probable than not.”

  • Attributed to Richard Swinburne:

    “The simplicity of theism counts in its evidential favor.”

  • Attributed to Richard Swinburne:

    “Religious experience is evidence for what it appears to be experience of.”

  • Attributed to Richard Swinburne:

    “Christian doctrine is to be defended by the same canons of evidence that govern any historical inquiry.”

  • Attributed to Richard Swinburne:

    “Reason is not the enemy of faith; it is its proper guardian.”

  • “I thus understand by a «theodicy» not an account of God’s actual reasons for allowing a bad state to occur, but an account of his possible reasons”

    p. 15