Chapter 6, The Inductive Theist of North Oxford, Interlude, The Supreme Brute Fact Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 6, Holt joins Swinburne for tea in Oxford, where Swinburne, a man in his mid-seventies and of great British charm and kindness, lives alone. Swinburne, who has argued with Grunbaum in the past, calmly explained that Grunbaum misunderstood his view (which Holt found to be an extremely charitable interpretation of Grunbaum's invectives against him). Swinburne defends God's existence on simplicity grounds, and argues that simplicity is a clear theoretical virtue. And for a universe with as much stuff in it as ours, the simplest explanation for it is the existence of God.

Holt then presses his question about an infinite universe, but Swinburne doesn't think the question is relevant. Even Aquinas thought the universe might be infinitely old...