Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

130 Theism and Explanation
do not constitute background knowledge (k). As we have seen, Swinburne’s
argument tacitly concedes this point, since he justifi es his position by arguing
that the theistic hypothesis covers everything that exists (other than
its own explanans). More precisely, he holds to the view that “the theist
argues from all the phenomena of experience, not from a small range of
them.” 59 But is this true? Well, there is a sense in which the theistic hypothesis
could cover all the phenomena of experience. For since ex hypothesi
God is the cause of all that is, then if theism were true, any fact at all could
be explained by reference to God. If God exists and if he is the cause of all
that occurs, presumably he has some reason for acting as he does and the
theist could (in principle) identify this reason. So it is true that, on the theistic
hypothesis, the existence of God could explain everything. If we take
p to represent any true proposition about the world, then the existence of
God could explain not merely p 1 , p 2 , p 3 . . . p n , taken disjunctively. It could
also explain the conjunction of all these true propositions.
Now if the theist were explaining the conjunction of all true propositions
about the world, then what Swinburne says about background knowledge
might be correct. But no theist ever does this, nor is it conceivable that any
theist could. For even assuming that it makes sense to speak of “explaining
everything”—that the world can be divided into discrete, independently
existing states of affairs, waiting to be explained—we could never know
the vast, conjunctive proposition that would describe everything. In practice,
all the theist can do is to offer an explanation of some particular fact
or relatively restricted set of facts about the world. And even if we restrict
p 1 , p 2 , p 3 . . . p n to all those propositions we know to be true, the theist does
not argue from all these propositions either. What he does is to appeal to
particular facts about the world in support of his hypothesis. So it is simply
not true that: “the theist argues from all the phenomena of experience, not
from a small range of them.” 60
Once we grasp this, we can see that it is always possible to distinguish
between those facts about the world that the theist claims to be explaining
(e) and those facts about the world that his proposed explanation takes
for granted (k). It is, I have argued, the latter that constitute the relevant
background knowledge. For instance, when arguing that the existence and
action of God explains the existence of “a complex physical universe,” the
theist is not trying to explain why there exist embodied agents. Perhaps he
thinks he can offer another theistic explanation, which explains this fact,
too. But that explanation will posit a different divine intention—it will be
a different explanation—and in so doing it will take the existence of the
universe for granted.
In fact this is precisely what Swinburne does. He offers a series of reasons
(not just one reason) why God would create a complex physical universe,
morally free agents, morally embodied agents, animals, a beautiful
universe, and so on. 61 For as he implicitly recognises, these are distinct facts
about the world requiring distinct divine intentions. He may not specify