Faith and Reason by Richard Swinburne (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 805 tion of theism. On the rationality of belief in revelation, Kenny is more negative. What, he asks, would rationally justify the unshakeable commitment demanded by faith 7 Belief in a divine revelation has two elements -that there is a God who might reveal himself; and that certain historical events constitute an actual revelation. Now I know some historical factsfor example, the existence of Hitler-with the same kind of certainty as I know of the existence of Australia. But can the belief that Moses or Jesus said and did what it is essential for the Jewish or Christian faith that they did do and say really be rationally affirmed with the requisite degree of conviction? I strongly agree with Kenny that a good case for the existence of God -not necessarily known, of course, to every simple believer-is a necessary condition for the rationality of any theistic faith. I have argued elsewhere that it is available, on the basis of a conception of rationality which has something in common with Kenny's, something in common with the 'foundationalist' one which he rejects. But I wonder whether, granted the reasonableness of belief in God, the requirements for rationality in a faith with historical truth-conditions might not be a little less stringent than Kenny proposes. (I believe that they ought to be considerably more stringent than is presupposed by much modern Protestant and some very recent Roman Catholic theology; but this is not the place to argue the point.) If there were a putative revelation which could be shown to be uniquely appropriate to the plight of man, and for the historical truthconditions of which at least as good a case could be made for as against-might not this be enough for faith? However, it is an indication of the excellence of this book that it forces the mind to exercise itself on such fundamental and frequently-evaded problems. University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta Canada HUGO MEYNELL Faith and Reason. By RICHARD SWINBURNE. Oxford: The Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. 206. $23.00. Complementing Swinburne's earlier works, The Coherence of Theism and The Existence of God, this volume rounds out a very significant achievement in philosophical theology/philosophy of religion. In Faith and Reason Swinburne attempts to put into perspective the judgment of probability which was the conclusion of The Existence of God; he thereby addresses the question at the heart of a very important (and sometimes 806 BOOK REVIEWS divisive) intramural debate between believers-namely, the question of the relevance (possibility, appropriateness, necessity) of rational justification to religious belief. The book is an impressively detailed defense of the relevance of such rational inquiry and justification; its contribution, in great part, lies in its extreme starkness, providing a paradigm example of one end of the spectrum on the question of the cognitivity of religious belief. The assumption which informs the entire book is stated quite straightforwardly at the outset: "well-justified conclusions about religious faith can only be reached through a thorough understanding of the nature of belief" in general (2). Beginning what he admits is a "dry and secular road" (readers will probably find even the religious road "dry" in this presentation), Swinburne highlights several aspects of belief which have implications for religious discussions: (1) beliefs, as probability judgments , need to be specified with respect to alternatives; (2) beliefs are not directly voluntary, though they can be voluntarily cultivated through an indirect process; (3) beliefs have consequences for action, though they do not consist simply in dispositions to act; (4) a belief-that-p (that is, "that p is more probable than any alternative" [6]) is to be distinguished from 'acting on the assumption-that-p' (which implies only belief that there is a " small probability that p " [31]). Continuing along the road, we are provided in the following chapter with a very detailed consideration of five kinds of rational (irrational) belief. The first two kinds are judged in terms either of coherence with the agent's own standards or conformity with the "correct" standardsat the time of the agent's assessment. The other three are judged with respect to...