Swinburne's Principle of Credulity and Testimony

• The Principle of Credulity


  We should accept what appears to be the case until we have clear evidence of the contrary
• The 4 Considerations

  1. reliability of the claim

  2. truth of the claim

  3. difficulty showing God's presence in the claim

  4. what is claimed can be accounted for in other ways
• Principle of testimony

  we should trust that those who tell us they had a religious experience unless there is a reason to not believe them. It is the sceptics job to show the experience should be rejected, not the believers job to prove them
• Swinburne concludes:

  1. Someone who has had a religious experience has good reason for believing there is a God

  2. Testimony of others who report similar experiences support such a claim

  3. Without religious experience, the probability of God's existence is 50/50. With experiences, it is greater: God probably exists