Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony

• Swinburne rejected attempts to prove god's existence through logic, but rather based his argument on the probability of god's existence
• what are Swinburne's two principles?

  credulity and testimony
• Swinburne's principle of credulity

  in the absence of special considerations, how things seem to a person is how they really are. this is essentially about the believability of the individual's own personal and private experience.
• Swinburne's principle of testimony

  in the absence of special considerations, were should believe what people tell us. this is essentially about the reliability of what others claim about their person experiences.
• what are swinburne's four special considerations?

  1. if the person claiming the experience has been known to tell lies in the past- testimony
  2. if the claim seems beyond the realm of possibility- credulity
  3. it is very difficult to show god was present- both
  4. there are other ways of accounting for the experience, e.g. Hildegard's migraines- both
• rejection of the exception 'if the person claiming the experience has been known to tell lies in the past'

  having lied in the past doesn't necessarily mean the person his lying now.
• rejection of the exception 'if the claim seems beyond the realms of possibility'

  just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it is impossible.
• rejection of the exception 'it is very difficult to show that god was present'

  if god is everywhere, the burden of proof is with the doubter, not the experient.
• rejection of the exception 'there are other ways of accounting for the experience'

  as god underpins all processes, there is no reason why he shouldn't work through the intense electrical activity of the brain.
• points against:

  • it is a huge leap to go from saying that normal observable sense experiences are reliable to claiming the same for religious experiences are metaphysical
  • others can conform claims about ordinary sense experience, whereas religious experiences are essentially private and incapable of scientific investigation
  • even f ever experienced t was convinced that it was an experience of god, that doesn't mean that god is in fact the right explanation.
• supporting points:

  • as James pointed out, transformation in lifestyle is a powerful argument for the genuineness of religious experience
  • other people's claims to such experiences combined with transformed lives give further support.