Mathematics, Probability, and God

This post comes courtesy of Joseph Delaney. It is a meaty article and topic, so to provide incentive to take it on, I am making the following offer: If your comment makes it readily apparent that you have read and are responding to a legitimate aspect of the article, your comment will count as two journal entries.

Review of The Resurrection of God Incarnate by Richard Swinburne

This article is a review of a book called The Resurrection of God Incarnate by Richard Swinburne. He essentially is presenting a philosopher's response to the arguments in the book and covers almost all the topics we have dealt with in class. It is interesting to see an actual philosopher using phrases like "justification of one's beliefs" or "epistemic probabilities". Clearly he picks apart Swinburne's logic until the core is exposed and only the most stable of arguments are upheld. To be noted is how the reviewer hardly seems to question his use of mathematics in his argument but instead focuses on the reasons and presuppositions behind the numerical values. Probability and certainty are weaved into every argument leading to the fact that this is not a proof and was not meant to be. This of course brings up ideas of "degrees of beliefs" and "relative certainty" about even our most passionate of beliefs. A few decades ago, people would have dismissed this as being too vague and not poignant enough to bring about change. Today, people are just relieved if the probability numbers fall their way.