Swinburne's Existence Of A Triune God: Chapter Analysis

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In the first chapter, the metaphysical grounds for Swinburne’s concept of a triune God have been examined and reached the conclusion that there is a higher probability of the existence of a divine individual. In the second chapter, Swinburne’s reasons for considering if there is a divine individual, then there must be three and exactly three divine individuals were presented. The third chapter demonstrated that, despite the considerable complexity of Swinburne’s concept of a triune God in comparison to other three-self theories concerning the Trinity, the former has a better explanatory power, the most reasonable interpretation and coherency. The third chapter also presented the Swinburne’s concept of a triune God avoids some of the difficulties …show more content…

Response to Objections
Even if one resonate with Swinburne in his concept of a trinune God, some questions needs to be clarified such as whether the perfection of the divine beings requires dependence (even among themselves), the necessity of being loved for the divine persons, the difference between the Father’s creation of the Son (admitting the inevitable existence of the Son) and the creatures, the justification for the use of the term «create» to denote the existence of the Son and the Holy Spirit, the causal dependence relations among the divine persons. The responses to these questions are presented with the help of objections from the various scholars and at the end the necessary modifications are presented.
Since Swinburne’s concept of a triune God has gone through a process of further modifications and clarifications, the latest versions are always considered for study. Thus for example, Swinburne is more careful in The Christian God than in «Could there be More than One God» to use the term ‹God› as such only when refers the Trinity and not to the divine persons individually.

4.1.1. Tritheism Peter van Inwagen on his article in the Routledge Encylopedia of Philosophy points out that even after a positive evaluation of Swinburne’s concept of a triune God, the suspicion of tritheism is debatable

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