The Justification of Religious Belief

by Basil G. Mitchell

Can the existence of God be demonstrated? Is the very idea of God logically incoherent? What is the nature of the arguments for and against the existence of God, and how do they relate to other kinds of arguments? Is a rational choice between belief and non-belief possible?

Genres: Philosophy

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and interesting at points but not easy to read.

[David Mahfood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant little book pioneering the "cumulative case" approach to justifying Christian belief. Mitchell does a very nice job identifying a key problem with the modern concept of rationality, namely that there can be rational decisions between viewpoints even if the rational process cannot be reduced to proof or to probabilistic arguments. Instead, there must be a process of building up a cumulative case by showing how the viewpoint in question makes better sense of all the relevant evidence better than the alternatives. Along the way, he touches very nicely on reasoning in the humanities, the sciences, and in philosophy, to show that the specific difficulties with religious claims which appear to motivate some to claim that they are outside the realm of rationality are actually not at all unique to the domain of religion.

Like all philosophy in the analytic traditon, it requires careful attention to catch precisely what moves are being made. But in my opinion it's well worth the effort. Mitchell is careful and fair to his opponents, and in my judgment his reasoning holds up quite nicely even many years later.