♠ Four of Spades
the cosmological family
The Inductive Cosmological Argument
Richard Granville Swinburne
The Existence of God
EvidentialConcludes that a feature of the world is better explained by one hypothesis than by a named rival.
- Argument form
- Inference to the best explanation (Bayesian; comparative likelihood)
- Concludes to
- Better explanation (the universe's existence is evidence for God; explanans is God)
- Premise ground
- Epistemic (what is more to be expected on a hypothesis is evidence for it; probability judgments in P3–P4)
- Modal strength
- None (comparative explanation)
- What it licenses
- Period
- Twentieth Century (1979)
- Tradition
- Analytic (Bayesian natural theology)
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
The Existence of GodNot Available - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full - Further reading
The Existence of God, 2nd ed. (2004), records the revised statement; the card cites the 1979 first edition.
This formulation is ours, composed from the primary source and compressed to fit the card; the argument admits of other statements. Objections have been made to every argument in the deck; where one is linked above, it is chosen by us, not written by us.
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