Abstract

This book is a version of a D.Phil. thesis done at Oxford under the direction of Richard Swinburne and Basil Mitchell. Its basic premise is one shared by both these philosophers, namely, the putative inadequacy of traditional deductive and inductive arguments in philosophical theology. The central argument of the book is that the alternative proposed by Mitchell is superior to the one proposed by Swinburne. Roughly half the book is devoted to supporting this claim. Particular attention is given to showing that Bayes' theorem as used by Swinburne is inadequate for assessing the probability of a theistic hypothesis. Other chapters are devoted to informal reasoning in philosophical theology, criteria of explanatory adequacy within a nondeductive framework, causality, and God as a logically necessary being. In these chapters the author attempts to develop further Mitchell's work. A final chapter undertakes to defend the book's basic thesis against some positions that in various ways contradict the author's approach. It includes replies to two attacks on the very idea of philosophical theology by J. L. Mackie and Stewart Sutherland, a response to John Hick's most recent attack on the personhood of God, and a criticism of the version of Thomistic philosophical theology held by E. L. Mascall.