Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, 2nd edition

384 Pages·2007·2.12 MB·English

by  Richard Swinburne

REVELATION
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Revelation
From Metaphor to Analogy
SECOND EDITION
RICHARD SWINBURNE
1
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Preface to the Second Edition
Revelation is concerned with how we can recognize a revelation from
God,thegroundsforrecognizingtheoriginalrevelationoftheteaching
of Jesus and his apostles as such a revelation, and the grounds for
recognizing later Christian teaching as properly derived from that
original revelation. The first edition was published in 1992. In this
secondeditionIhavesoughttogivemorethoroughhistoricalgrounding
tosomeoftheclaimsofPartIII,andtotakeaccountofrelevantwritings
(including my own) published since 1992. But the major change has
beentheadditionofalongchapterinwhichIdiscussChristianclaims
aboutGod’srevelationofdetailedmoraltruths.InconsideringChristian
teachinginthefirsteditionIwasconcernedonlywithChristianclaims
about revelation of the metaphysical and historical matters which are
incorporatedintheNiceneCreedandothertheologicaldefinitions(e.g.
thatJesusChristwasbothdivineandhuman,androsefromthedead).
But,likeJudaismandIslam,ChristianityhasalsoclaimedthatGodhas
revealed certain truths about the right way to live our personal lives;
and in this second edition, in a new Chapter 11, I look also at these
claims. I consider the most controversial topics on which Christians
have claimed the authority of revelation for their views. These include
bothtopicsofcurrentpopular interest(and among them,mainlyones
concernedwithsexualmatters,suchasdivorceandhomosexuality)and
topics which provoked considerable controversy in the past (such as
usuryandslavery).Thebookissubtitled‘FromMetaphortoAnalogy’,
to make the point that much doctrinal truth was expressed in highly
metaphorical ways in books of the Old Testament, and that while the
ChristianChurchtriedtoexpressdoctrinaltruthsaspreciselyaspossible
initsdefinitions,itoftenhadtousewordsinanalogicalsenses.
EvidenceforandagainstthetruthofChristiandoctrinescomesfrom
severalsources.First,sinceallChristiandoctrinesassumetheexistence
ofaGod(ofacertainkind),anyevidenceforandagainsttheexistenceof
aGod(ofthatkind)isimportantlyrelevant.Secondly,wemustconsider
anyapriorireasonsarisingfromthenatureofGodforsupposingother
doctrines to be true of him. Thus there are, I believe, a priori reasons
for believing God to be a Trinity (‘three persons of one substance’ in
thetraditionalformula),andapriorireasonsforbelievingthatthereisa
vi PrefacetotheSecondEdition
significantprobabilitythathewouldbecomeincarnate(takeonhimself
a human nature for a period of time). Then, thirdly, there is detailed
historical evidence relevant to the historical claims of Christianity,
and in particular relevant to the doctrine of the Resurrection. I have
provided some a priori justification for the three central metaphysical
doctrinesofChristianityelsewhere—foradoctrineoftheAtonementin
ResponsibilityandAtonement(1989),andforthedoctrinesoftheTrinity
and the Incarnation in The Christian God (1994). And in this second
editionofthepresentbookIseektoprovidesomeapriorijustification
of detailed Christian moral claims. I discussed the historical evidence
forthebodilyresurrectionofJesusinmybookTheResurrectionofGod
Incarnate (2003). But all Christian doctrines also claim support from
thepurportedfactthattheyhavebeenrevealed(andnormallyreported
intheChurch-authenticatedBible), and themajor task of thisbookis
toexaminethesupportwhichtheygetfromthatsource.
I claim that the Resurrection of Jesus provides God’s signature
on the teaching of Jesus and the Church which he founded, and so
gives us reason for believing what the Church claims to have been
revealed.Butphilosophyandsystematictheologyarehighlyintegrated
subjects—someone’sviewsononetopicinevitablydependcruciallyon
their views on many other topics. And among the a priori reasons for
believing in the Resurrection is that God might be expected to reveal
to us various truths which we need to know, and to put his signature
on the teaching of some prophet to show that that prophet’s teaching
was indeed revealed teaching by means of a miraculous event such
as the Resurrection. So any reason for supposing that the teaching of
Jesus or of the Church was false, or that the Church did not derive
its teaching from the teaching of Jesus in the proper way, would be
evidenceagainstGodhavingputhissignatureontheteachingofJesus,
and so evidence against the occurrence of the Resurrection. And any
evidenceforsupposingthattheteachingofJesusortheChurchistrue,
and that the latter was properly derived from the former, is evidence
in favour of the Resurrection. In The Resurrection of God Incarnate I
passedverybrieflyovertheissueoftheextenttowhichthelaterhistory
of the Church provides evidence relevant to the Resurrection of Jesus.
So one way of looking at the present book is as a discussion of an
issue with which I dealt too quickly in considering the evidence for
the Resurrection of Jesus. But if you look at it in the way primarily
intended—howtoassesswhataretheclaimsoftheChristianRevelation
andhowtoassesstheirtruth—youwillfindthatitpassesveryquickly
PrefacetotheSecondEdition vii
overcrucialmatterswhichIhavediscussedelsewhere;andIsummarize
at relevant places in this book what I have written elsewhere on these
othermatters.
The book adduces much historical evidence—both about the life,
death, and Resurrection of Jesus, and about the history of Christian
doctrine.Argumentsofthiskind(andinparticulartheargumentofthe
first edition of Revelation) using historical data as part of a cumulative
case for the truth of Christian doctrine have been subject to a general
criticismbyAlvinPlantinga.Hehasgivenanargumentfrom‘dwindling
probabilities’,designedtoshowthatChristiandoctrinecouldobtainin
thiswayonlyalowprobability.InanewAppendixIusetheprobability
calculustogiveformalshapetotheargumentofthisbook,andtoshow
whyIregardPlantinga’sargumentasmistaken.
The first edition used material from four previous papers of mine:
‘Analogy and Metaphor’, originally published in G. J. Hughes (ed.),
ThePhilosophicalAssessmentofTheology(SearchPress,1987);‘Meaning
intheBible’,inT.A.RobertsandS.Sutherland(eds.),Reason,Religion
and the Self (University of Wales Press, 1989); ‘Interpreting the New
Testament’, in T. P. Flint and E. Stump (eds.), Philosophical Theology
and Biblical Exegesis (University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); and
‘Revelation’, in K. J. Clark (ed.), Our Knowledge of God (Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1992). This edition uses additional material
from ‘Natural Theology, its ‘‘Dwindling Probabilities’’ and ‘‘Lack of
Rapport’’’,FaithandPhilosophy,21(2004),533–46.Ithanktheeditors
andpublishersofthesevolumesfortheirpermissiontousethismaterial,
andOxfordUniversityPressforpermissiontoreusesomepassagesfirst
published inpreviousbooksof mine.I amgratefultoBishopKallistos
Ware for helpful advice relevant to the revised version of Chapter 8
and the new Chapter 11. I remain grateful to Tom Wright and John
Barton for helpful comments on earlier versions of Chapters 7 and 10
respectively; and, as ever, to so many philosophers and theologians
whosecriticismshelpedmetodeveloporrethinkmyviews.Andmany
thanks,finally,toSarahBarkerfortypingvariousversionsofthisbook
(as of two previous books). In writing this book more than in writing
any other book, I was conscious of my intellectual debt to various
formermembersoftheUniversityofOxfordwhohavearguedthatthe
claims of theChristian Revelation stand up well beforethetribunalof
animpartialreason—toDunsScotusandJohnLocke,andespeciallyto
two former members of Oriel College, Joseph Butler and John Henry
Newman.
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Contents
Introduction 1
I. MEANING
1. Terminology 7
2. Presupposition 27
3. AnalogyandMetaphor 38
4. Genre 53
II. EVIDENCE OF A REVELATION
5. TheNeedforRevelation 79
6. TheFourTestsforaRevelation 107
III. THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION
7. TheOriginalRevelation 135
8. TheChurch 173
9. TheologicalDefinitions 219
10. TheBible 239
11. MoralTeaching 289
12. Conclusion 333
Appendix:FormalizingtheArgument 345
AdditionalNotes 357
Concordance 364
Index 365