SWINBURNE:RESURRECTION OF GOD INCARNATE PAPER

by Richard Swinburne

Whether or not Jesus rose bodily from the dead is perhaps the most critical and contentious issue in the study of Christianity. Until now, scholars have concentrated on explicit statements in the New Testament to support their views, but Richard Swinburne argues for a wider approach, asking instead whether the character of God and the life of Jesus support the probability of the Resurrection. His book will be of great interest not only to academics but to anyone with an interest in religious philosophy and doctrine.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Religion, Christianity, History, Catholic, Nonfiction

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Richard G. Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of natural theology, that is, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.

Reviews

[Amora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Swinburne’s approach for arguing for the resurrection. The book has three parts: (1) general background evidence, (2) prior historical evidence, and (3) posterior historical evidence. Swinburne argues for a number of principles for weighing evidence and argues that the available evidence makes it very likely that Jesus was God Incarnate and rose from the dead. Swinburne's argument, like Swinburne's arguments in his other books, is based on the Bayesian theorem.

Unlike other scholars, Swinburne argues that the life Jesus lead is very relevant when weighing evidence for the resurrection. After reading this book, I couldn't agree more!

[Aid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book a lot, I thought it was especially helpful when he talked about the existence of God as background evidence for the resurrection. The refutation of the various counter theories was also very well done. I can't read logical implication, so the last part was meaningless to me.

[Erik Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most apologists look at the historical evidence for the resurrection alongside alternative explanations and argue that the resurrection best explains the facts. While I like this approach, this style of argument doesn't address the posterior probability that God would be incarnate, or why God incarnate would be resurrected. Swinburne argues for this, showing that Jesus has the marks of an all-loving deity and that his resurrection is the super-miracle that would be the decisive proof of his ministry and claims. This book, along with N.T. Wright and Mike Licona's book are must reads for anyone interested in the resurrection.

[David Perde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swinburne's book related to the topic of the Resurrection and Incarnation of God is a useful book written from a primarily philosophical viewpoint about why and if these event have occurred as the biblical sources testify.

The main arguments that Swinburne proposses for the causation of the Incarnation are that if God were to become incarnate He would have to reveal and be conscious of that supernatural nature, to live a perfect life among other people (a point he heavily emphasises, and according to him, a not so emphasised argument in the theologians' and scholars' mind when discussing the Incarnation), that His followers would have an example to aspire to and to offer teaching and guidance, and that God would show solidarity with His creation through suffering.

Concerning the arguments for the Resurrection, Swinburne proposses that such an event would represent a violation of the natural laws (the same could be said for the Incarnation as well) and calls it a super-miracle, one that should only happen once and only once. One of the requirements that Swinburne mentiones for the Ressurection to occur is that the life that is brought back to life must be a life that was lived in perfection. The evidence for this super-miracle are mostly found in the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection and Swinburne assumes these accounts as being trustworthy on account of the Principle of Credulity and Testimony.

However, that being said, some criticism towards Swinburne's method is warranted as he easily dismissed the discrepancies related to the Resurrection accounts from the Gospels (of course that he doesn't treat the subject of the inerrancy of Scripture) and claims that such discrepancies (the chronology and identity of who went to the tomb, and when) are to be expected, but to my mind his argumentation on this topic is unsatisfactory and vague.

Overall Swinburne presents a good account of the Ressurection and Incarnation of God through the lenses of religious philosophy.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/201...

[John Rossitto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Logic and the Life of Jesus

This is a delightful book as to evidence of the plan of God in the person of Jesus. The author develops a logical step by step argument as the the basics of orthodox Christianity. Many of his insights regarding the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus were new and refreshing. Within my limited abilities of logic, I find his arguments compelling. I personally would take a different stance as to the authenticity of the whole of Scripture yet I am willing to give the author that latitude due to the processes he offers. Well worth ones time.

[Kenneth Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well argued. Swinburne argues well that the life and ministry of Jesus Christ is not a problem to be wrestled with, but rather, precisely what we would expect if God exists.

Swinburne makes good use of the Gospels, epistles, and extra-Biblical data. I disagree with his distancing himself from the historicity of John’s Gospel.

[Matthew Adelstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite good, as one would expect from Swinburne.

[Henry]

A philosophical and probabilistic argument that Jesus is God Incarnate who rose from the dead. Swinburne is definitely not an orthodox (small 1Co 1D) Protestant. I believe he 19s Eastern Orthodox, and in the book he comes off as a very liberal one at that. But it 19s fascinating to see him arrive at a very sound conclusion from non-Christian principles. The book for me seemed like it consisted in basically two parts. In the first half Swinburne works out why we would expect philosophically for God to become incarnate, to die an atoning death and to be resurrected. (Swinburne does not argue for deism - he did that in another book and borrows conclusions from that book here.) This is the most interesting part of the book for me. There is some fascinating discussion on the atonement that I 19d love to go back through in more detail at some point. (I got this book through interlibrary loan - note to self to buy it.) He comes at the atonement from a totally different vantage point than Protestants are used to, but he does have some discussion of substitutionary atonement. The second part of the book goes through the specific evidence that Jesus is God Incarnate who died an atoning death and was resurrected. Really this is the application part of the book, or the detective part. It was certainly interesting, but there was a lot of old hat to me and I thought Swinburne in some places gave up too much ground to skeptics in his arguments. (In his defense, he is throughout the book purposefully understating his argument - I would guess that his personal beliefs about various factual matters are more conservative than his arguments in the book. This is to make his conclusion more powerful.) At the end there is a formalizing of the argument - famously he comes to something like a 97% probability that his thesis is true. But that 19s based on various assignments of probabilities that he gives to various subsidiary matters - the point is not the number itself but how robust the conclusion is. This appendix at the end is also very interesting and I 19d like to go back and read through it again some time. Probably a book I 19d like to purchase at some point for a fuller study. Swinburne seems like a brilliant philosopher. Definitely a good book for a mature Christian.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm typically a fan of Swinburne given his clear thinking and typically his a priori reasons for belief. This work was good and did not disapoint in these aformenteiond areas, but not a favorite of mine (compared to his atonement and revelation).

[Jacob O'connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly rigorous, if stream of consciousness. The result is, a fun topic is less fun. Best toward the end when dealing with critical alternatives to the resurrection.