as the Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne has argued, the theistic design hypothesis constitutes a simpler and less ad hoc explanation for cosmic fine tuning.21 Swinburne affirms here the principle of Ockham’s razor, which states that when attempting to explain phenomena we should, as much as possible, avoid “multiplying (theoretical) entities.” In other words, when evaluating competing hypotheses, we should prefer, all other things being equal, the simpler hypothesis with fewer such theoretical entities. Swinburne notes that the God hypothesis requires the postulation of only one
...more
