Theology and Falsification:
Anthony Flew
Because religious
“utterances” are not falsifiable, they are meaningless.
The assertion of any
claim (“P”) is equivalent to the denial of its negation (“not-P”).
P = ~(~P)
Asserting "P"
is logically equivalent of denying "not-P."
If there is nothing
that a person denies (if “not-P” = “0”) then there is nothing that this person
asserts either (“~~P” = “0” therefore P=0)
Since the theist will
accept nothing as irrefutable evidence that the proposition “God exists.” is
false, (~P = 0) then the statement is not really about any real or imagined
experience. Consequently this is not a
genuine assertion. Thus it is
pseudo-assertion. (P = 0) It is empty of
cognitive content and meaningless according to Flew.
|
1. |
If one asserts
something (“P”), then one must deny something (not-P”). |
Principle of
Logic: P = ~(~P) |
|
2. |
The theist denies
nothing. |
Follows from the fact
that Theistic “belief” is, apparently, compatible will all possible
experience; it is un-falsifiable since we cannot even imagine what would
prove a theist wrong. It seem they would accept nothing as convincing
evidence of God’s non-existence, etc.) |
|
Therefore: |
||
|
3. |
The Theist asserts
nothing. |
From 1 & 2 |
God's “love” seems to
be compatible with all of life's experiences- sickness, disease, horrible
suffering, torture, death; if nothing could count as evidence against
God's “love,” “justice,” “existence” then what does the purported assertion “God
exists.” mean? If a “loving God” allows
me (or innocent children and animals) to suffer horribly when he could have stopped
it then what sort of “love” is that?
What would he do if he didn’t
love me?
Flew is really asking
the Theist "What do you mean?"
“How would the world
look any different if there wasn’t a God after all?” “Would it make any difference if what
you were saying were false? If there was no God?”
Try this: Imagine that
you are trying to convince a friend of yours that her abusive boyfriend did not
really love her. You begin gently
enough.
You:
“He never gives you gifts and flowers you know, even on your birthday.”
Your Friend:
“Yes I know, but he loves me, he just doesn’t love me in that sort of way.”
You:
“He doesn’t take you special places, make you dinner, or care for you when you
are sick.”
Your Friend:
“Well, yes I know, but he does love me, just not in that sort of way either.”
You:
(getting exasperated) “But he goes out with other women, brings them candy
flowers and gifts, leaves for days at a time without calling you or telling you
where he is, takes your money and your car without asking you and hits you from
time to time.”
Your Friend:
“Yes but that doesn’t prove anything!”
You:
Doesn’t prove anything? Then what do you
think “LOVE” means?
You have to start asking
yourself then, “What in the world does the sentence “My boyfriend loves
me.” mean to your poor deluded
friend. Either it’s simply false (as the
evidence demonstrates) or she has some really weird notion of “love” so weird
in fact that it really doesn’t have anything to do with what we normally mean
by love and even she probably doesn’t know what she means by the phrase.
The Theist is in
exactly the same spot, according to Flew. That’s the idea of “death by a
thousand qualifications.” Both your
friend and the theist started out with perfectly intelligible claims. “My boyfriend loves me.” and “God loves us.”
But when presented with counter-evidence (his infidelity say or the horrible,
preventable suffering everywhere around us) instead of saying, “Gee, I guess you’re
right; he really doesn’t love me because “love” means “would be faithful.”
“would prevent preventable suffering” they instead change the meaning of their
words. “Love doesn’t mean that.” they say.
But note, by the end
they’ve changed it quite a lot! If
"Love" doesn’t mean brings presents, doesn’t mean care for you when
you’re sick, doesn’t mean be faithful or respectful, doesn’t mean treat
honorably, doesn’t even mean “refrains from striking me” WHAT THE HECK DOES IT MEAN?
Probably NOTHING AT
ALL.
(So too with “God
exists.” If it doesn't mean anything we can
see, hear, taste, touch, smell, weigh, then what does mean?)
Mitchell and Hare
criticize argument (not on form) on content
R. M Hare
Hare denies premise 1;
Hare claims that many
beliefs that are not falsifiable are, nevertheless, meaningful in the sense
that they guide or actions. The lunatic
“believes” that all university dons are out to do him evil and no experience,
real or imagined can dissuade him from that belief. But the utterance is meaningful for him, not
because he can conceive of a falsifying experience, but because it forms that
basis for his subsequent behavior. (e.g. If he sees a University don
approaching, he’ll cross the street.)
This is sort of a Jamesian/pragmatic account
of belief where a belief is not merely holding a noetic attitude towards some
propositional content, but rather a "power to act."
The Significance of “Blik”
In “Theology and Falsification” Hare introduces the idea of a “blik.” A blik, he maintains is unverifiable and unfalsifiable
because it is the very framework by which we interpret one’s experience.
A blik, as Hare conceived of them, cannot
therefore be recommended by evidential reason (or criticized by evidential
reason).
Hare says: “ ... without a blik there can be no
explanation; for it is by our bliks that we decide
what is and what is not an explanation.”
Or elsewhere:
“Certainly it is salutary to recognize that even our
belief in so-called hard facts rests in the end on a faith, a commitment, which
is not in or to facts, but in that without which there would not be any facts.”[1]
While unfalsifiable, the statement of a blik is
meaningful because of the role they play in organizing perception and the
behavior in which they result. An
example of a commonly held blik might be “Things
don’t just happen for no reason whatsoever.”
Hare seems to be agreeing
with Flew in claiming that meaningful assertions about objective reality must be falsifiable; but his response
to Flew holds that while theological utterances might appear to be assertions
about objective reality, they are not really assertions about objective reality
at all. Rather, they are expressions or
affirmations of frames of reference for interpreting data. They aren’t
falsifiable, because verification and falsification can only occur within a frame of reference.
It is not clear why we hold the bliks we do,
but according to Hare, we all do hold bliks. In fact, if Hare is correct, we MUST hold bliks or else we cannot make sense of our experiences. Perhaps we hold them for pragmatic reasons (i.e.
this blik is more useful in solving my problems than
its alternatives). Perhaps there are biological reasons we hold certain blik just as there are biological reasons which explain why
most human perception conforms to Gestalt principles.
But as Flew points out later on in his reply to Hare, this is certainly
is not the traditional understanding of what a religious person thinks himself
to be doing when uttering “God exists.” The Theist takes herself to be expressing a
fact about the universe.
As Flew says,
“If Hare’s religion really is a blik,
involving no cosmological assertions about the nature and activities of a
supposed personal creator, then surely he is not a Christian at all?”
Also, let’s go back
to what he says about lunatic (and our) bliks.
Let
us call that in which we differ from this lunatic, our respective bliks. He has an insane
blik about dons; we have a
sane one. It is important to realize that we have a sane one, not no blik at all; for there must be two sides to
any argument if he has a wrong blik, then
those who are right about dons must have a right one.
Even if Hare has
succeeded in showing that a blik does not consist in
an assertion or system of them, nevertheless it remains very important to have
the right blik.
But:
When speaking about a
normal blik about steal and a crazy one he claims:
“No
amount of safe arrivals or bench-tests will remove my blik
(that steal can
spontaneously become malleable and/or fragile) and restore the normal one; for
my blik is compatible with any finite
number of such tests.
But this suggests
that his blik is not just about steal, but rather
about the reliability of induction and indeed he references Hume’s critique of
induction. In brief, Hume’s critique of
induction runs something like this. My
belief that this bread that I am eating will nourish me and not kill me is
justifies by two claims:
1.
is has been nourishing in the past and
2.
the universe will behave in the future pretty much according to patterns it has
exhibited in the past.
The first of these is
verifiable by observation. The second,
what is sometimes understood as the “principle of induction,” cannot be
verified, either by examining the meaning of the terms involved (as a relations
of ideas), nor by observation (as a matter of fact). Therefore Hume concluded that the principle
of induction cannot be justified at all and therefore nothing depending on the
principle of induction was justified either.
But Hume did NOT
think that the principle of induction was a meaningless non-assertion. He believed it to be true, as most of us do,
but did not think was had justification for that belief. And he worried that it might be false.
Hare concludes:
There
is an important difference between Flew’s parable and
my own which we have not yet noticed. The explorers do not mind about
their garden; they discuss it with interest, but not with concern. But my
lunatic, poor fellow, minds about dons; and I mind about the steering of my
car; it often has people in it that I care for. It is because I mind
very much about what goes on in the garden in which I find myself, that I am unable
to share the explorers’ detachment.
Basil Mitchell
Mitchell attacks premise 2;
Theist accepts evil as
(some) evidence against the existence of God, but does not accept it as final
and conclusive evidence against belief.
The theist means exactly what you think he means; that God is omni...., etc.;
For Mitchell, the
apparent indifference of God in the face of human suffering does indeed count
as evidence against the truth of claims to God's love and concern. What prevents the faithful from accepting it
as final and conclusive evidence is the strength of his or her personal
meeting/relationship with God. Just as
the resistance fighter is confused, frustrated and alarmed when the partisan
seems to behave in ways inconsistent with the claim "He's on our
side." nevertheless the phrase retains its meaning. Indeed that why the resistance
fighter finds the actions troubling. A
question arises at to when, holding out faith is just plain silly, but that's a
question for another day.
Flew’s response to Mitchell
Flew claims the analogy
fails because stranger in the parable is a mere mortal human being, not a
deity. That makes it easy to explain why
the stranger does not always appear to be “on our side.” But an O-God does not
human limitations. Therefore there seems
to be nothing seems excuse apparent unloving, indifferent behavior on His
part.
Mitchelll
might counter that “faith” is the position of believe there is a reason we do
not understand at this time. The danger
here is that while this might salvage the meaning of the utterances, it can
make the faithful person seem silly and irrational.
My take:
I can think of a few
things that they just overlooked, perhaps because they were not looking at the
many empirically verifiable claims that actual world religions make. I recall the old joke:
Old Joke:
Did
you hear the cancelled Easter?
Yea,
they found the body.
Ba
bump bump.
I mean no
disrespect. I mean only to say that the
claim of the resurrection is subject to evidential revision. Also, if a die and don't meet God –or anyone
else mind you- doesn't that prove there isn't one? Christians, and others, claim that individual
personal consciousness continues after that death of the body. Now if that doesn't happen, then they're
wrong. Granted, the fact arrives too
late to prove it to them, but that does go someway to fleshing out what these
claims mean.
[1] R. M. Hare in Faith and Logic, ed. by Basil
Mitchell (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1957), p. 192.