Was Jesus God?
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The orderliness of the universe and the existence of human beings already provides some reason for believing that there is a God - as argued in Richard Swinburne's earlier book Is There a God ? Swinburne now claims that it is probable that the main Christian doctrines about the nature of God and his actions in the world are true. In virtue of his omnipotence and perfect goodness, God must be a Trinity, live a human life in order to share our suffering, and found a church which would enable him to tell all humans about this. It is also quite probable that he would provide his human life as an atonement for our wrongdoing, teach us how we should live and tell us his plans for our future after death. Among founders of religions, Jesus satisfies uniquely well the requirement of living the sort of human life which God would need to have lived. But to give us adequate reason to believe that Jesus was God, God would need to put his 'signature' on the life of Jesus by an act which he alone could do, for example raise him from the dead. There is adequate historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The church which he founded gave plausible interpretations of his basic message. Therefore Christian doctrines are probably true.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Swinburne, British philosophy professor and the author of books on religious belief, the philosophy of mind and epistemology, explains the point of this book: to show that God conforms to specifically Christian definitions of God and that Christian doctrines and theology are true. By comparison with the author's earlier Is There a God? this book focuses particularly on the foundational Christian doctrine that Jesus was (and is) God. Swinburne uses the Nicene Creed as a road map, but the defining paradigm is God's love, particularly how God's love for us characterizes God and necessitates Jesus. Despite the sophistication of his argument, Swinburne depends on a sympathetic audience predisposed to his conclusions. For example, not everyone will agree that we exist in a state of original sinfulness from which we can only be reconciled to God by "offering a perfect human life which might well... end in a death by execution." Although regular use of boldface words and phrases help direct readers through Swinburne's reasoning, many will find the academic language of philosophy daunting.