جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "richard swinburne" در نشریات گروه "علوم قرآن و حدیث"

The problem of evil is one of the issues that has long been considered by theists and atheists. Atheists have always used evil as evidence against theism, and theists, on the other hand, have made various analyses to justify the existence of different evils in the universe. The theodicy1 of "man's free will and the universe based on Divine Providence" is one of the theodicies expressed by Richard Swinburne, the contemporary philosopher of religion, in justifying the existence of evil in the universe. According to this theodicy, on the one hand, he believes in man's free will, and on the other hand, he considers the world to be ruled based on laws and characteristics that both bring about the effects that human beings choose based on their own free will and enable human beings to predict and control evil by studying nature. Using a descriptive-analytical method, this research first explains this theodicy and then mentions its problems along with the answers that Swinburne himself has offered.

Argument through religious experience is one of the arguments presented for proving the existence of God (which in this article is briefly and less accurately called "religious experience argument"). This argument uses religious experience, which some people undergo, as an indication of the existence of God. Richard Swinburne is among those who raise such an argument in his book, “The Existence of God”. One of his basic arguments is a principle that he calls "credibility principle". Briefly stated, this argument says that if the object A is understandable, it can be concluded that the object A probably exists. The present article is a critical assessment of the possibility of using this principle in religious experience argument. Furthermore, it is concluded from all the critiques of the writer (of the article) and the critiques brought up by others concerning the use of this argument in religious experience argument that because of facing with serious challenges, this principle is not applicable.

In answer to the question “can we consistently see God as the origin of moral duties” Richard Swinburne believes that the divine commands have something to do with moral problems. Since God is gives us the greatest blessing, if God asks us to do something, it will be our duty to comply with it. However, it is obvious that God cannot make something our duty when it is not our duty in fact. As to the problem of God’s power and morality, Swinburne draws a distinction between necessary and contingent moral judgements, maintaining that God cannot change necessary judgements even if he wants to. As to contingent moral judgments, however, in virtue of his absolute power for creating any contingent world, God can select one world in which the contingent moral judgments are different from those in other worlds. Our objection is that, on the one hand, Swinburne’s claim cannot provide a good answer to the question of what the relation is between God’s absolute power and contingent moral judgments because his position can resolve the contradiction resulting from the requirements of the necessary moral judgments, while in solving the contradictions arising from the contingent moral judgments, he faces questions which render his argument incomplete. On the other hand, his argument for the requirement of complying with God’s commands because he bestows his favors and blessings upon us is implausible. At best, he can just claim that praising someone who bestows blessings upon us can provide a motivation for complying with God’s commands and, in the most developed version, we can say that it provides a motivation for complying with moral obligations.