ABSTRACT
In the two preceding chapters I have tried to assess the most important of the detailed arguments of Butler’s apologetic in the Analogy. While the assessments have inevitably varied, I think they can fairly be summarised as follows. In the first place, the various uses of religious analogy by which Butler seeks to persuade us that there is probably a future life, that we are probably rewarded or punished in it for our actions here, and that the Christian revelation is shown by miracles and prophecies to hold the key to our future salvation, are quite unsuccessful. They are unsuccessful even if one approaches them with the minimal deistic assumptions that the world is created by a divine intelligence, and is some sort of teleological system. Hume has made it abundantly clear that if one approaches them without such assumptions, the natural phenomena on which Butler bases his arguments do not suggest the Christian world-view at all. On the other hand, it has to be conceded that a reader who approached Butler’s case presupposing not only that our world is created by a divine intelligence, but also that that intelligence is a moral and just one, would find good reason to treat Butler’s doctrine of probation with seriousness, and little reason to resist his claim that the Christian revelation is a possible source of light regarding God’s purposes, and is supported by testimony that merits consideration. The most important judgment to make, however, in the context of our own world, is whether a reader making no presuppositions about God can properly be persuaded by what Butler says.
