Description: In Saints as Divine Evidence, Robert MacSwain explores 'the hagiological argument' for God, that is, human holiness as evidence for divinity. Providing an overview of the contested place of evidence in religious belief, and a case study of someone whose short but compelling life allegedly bore witness to the reality of God, MacSwain then surveys sainthood as understood in philosophy of religion, ethics, Christian theology, church history, comparative religion, and cultural studies. With epistemological and hagiological frameworks established, he further identifies and analyses three distinct forms of the argument, which he calls the 'propositional', the 'perceptual', and the 'performative'. Each version understands both evidence and sainthood differently, and the relevant concepts include exemplarity, inference, altruism, perception, religious experience, performativity, narrative, witness, and embodiment. MacSwain's study expands the standard list of theistic arguments and moves the discussion from purely logical and empirical considerations to include spiritual, ethical, and personal issues as well.
Brief description: Robert MacSwain is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He is the author of Solved by Sacrifice: Austin Farrer, Fideism, and the Evidence of Faith (Peeters, 2013) and Essays Anglican and Analytic: Explorations in Critical Catholicism (Eerdmans, 2025). He has also edited or co-edited seven books, including The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis (2010). An Anglican priest of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, his research has been supported by the Episcopal Church Foundation, the Appalachian College Association, and the Templeton Religion Trust.
Review Quotes: 'This book asks afresh what are the 'evidences' for God's existence, and answers that question with painstaking attention to the often-neglected issue of the manifest holiness of the saints. Readers will find here not only an illuminating orientation to the current state of play in analytic philosophy of religion in general, but a creative stretching of its usual boundaries to include considerations of affective, moral, and spiritual efficacy. This is a book of unusual insight and suggestive theological discernment.' Sarah Coakley, FBA, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, emerita, University of Cambridge