All of Metaphysics of God

What are the two types of suffering?

Moral suffering: suffering that results from the bad actions of humans

Natural suffering: suffering that results from bad events of nature

What is the Logical Problem of Evil and Suffering?

• If God was omnibenevolent, he would want to stop evil and suffering

• If God was omniscient, he would know how to stop evil and suffering

• If God was omnipotent, he would be able to stop evil and suffering

• Evil and suffering exist.

• So God can’t be omnibenevolent, omnscient and omnipotent.

What is J.L Mackie’s Inconsistent Triad?

Only two of the following three statements can be true at once:

• God is omnibenevolent

• God is omnipotent

• Evil exists

Evil does exist so God is not both omnibenevolent and omnipotent and hence God does not exist.

What is Plantinga’s criticism to the logical problem of evil and suffering?

• A morally significant action is one that is either morally good or bad.

• A being that is significantly free is one that can do morally good or bad actions.

• A being created by God to only do morally good actions wouldn’t be significantly free.

• The only way God could create an evil free world is one with no significantly free beings.

• But a world that contains significantly free beings is more good than a world with no significantly free beings.

• So an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God would allow evil to exist for the greater good of free will

• CA: this only accounts for moral evil and not natural evil

• CCA: Plantinga argues that natural evil can be a form of moral evil from non human beings eg satan, demons etc. can also argue that past human actions cause natural evil eg global warming.

What is the Evidential Problem of Evil and Suffering?

• Allowing the fact that evil and God can coexist, argues that there would be less evil if God existed and it would be distributed more evenly.

• examples of disproportionate human suffering include the holocaust, babies born with painful congenital diseases, good people suffering through slavery and bad people reaping the rewards

What is Plantinga’s criticism to the evidential problem of evil and suffering?

If God made a world with less evil, there would be less free will.

CA: by this logic, God should have made a world with the most evil possible to give us more free will but this doesn’t seem right

CCA: God is omnipotent so he knows what amount of evil is good for us

What is John Hick’s criticism to the problem of evil and suffering?

Soulmaking:

• Evil is essential to our personal, ethical and spiritual development.

• God could have simply given us these virtues but virtues aquired with hard work are “good in a richer and more valuable sense”

• so evil is necessary to develop virtues like faith resilience and loyalty

• some examples include:

• animals suffering is a way for God’s existence to be doubted so that we can develop true faith (CA: is faith worth the pain of animals? CCA: salvation through grace is a way for christians to go to heaven and avoid pain of hell which would be worse)

• pointless suffering helps develop the virtue of sympathy. if we knew there was a reason for each act of suffering we would not feel bad

• also God can’t get rid of terrible evil because it is relative. if he got rid of the current most terrible evil, another terrible evil would take its place and so on until there’s no more evil.

What is a theodicy?

a theory attempting to prove that the existence of evil does not disprove God.

What is Anselm’s Ontological Argument?

• By definition, God is a being greater than which cannot be conceived.

• We can coherently conceive of a being.

• It is greater to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind.

  If you imagine two beings: One is maximally great but doesn’t exist and one is maximally great but does exist, the one who does exist is greater.

• Therefore God exists.

What is Descartes’ Ontological Argument?

• I have the idea of God

• The idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect being.

• A supremely perfect being does not lack any perfection.

• Existence is a perfection.

• Therefore God exists.

Descartes then goes on to say that since he proves God exists in his 3 a priori truths, the phrase ‘God does not exist’ has a logical contradiction. It’s like saying ‘ a being that exists does not exist’

What are the criticisms to Anselm and Descartes’ ontological argument?

• Gaunilo’s Island

• Hume: ‘God does not exist’ is not a contradict

• Kant: Existence is not a predicate (property)

What is Gaunilo’s Island?

If Anselm’s argument was valid, then anything could be designed into existence:

• By definition, the perfect island is an island greater than which can’t be conceived.

• We can coherently conceive of such an island

• It is greater to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind.

• So this island must exist

This is the same format as Anselm’s argument but the conclusion is obviously false. Same happens with Descartes: just because you can conceive of a supremely perfect island doesn’t mean it exists.

What is Hume’s ‘God does not exist’ is not a contradiction criticism?

• If ontological arguments work, then “God does not exist” is a contradiction.

• A contradiction can not be coherently conceived eg you can’t conceive of a four sided triangle.

• So “God does not exist” shouldn’t be able to be coherently conceived but it can be

• So “God does not exist” is not a contradiction.

• So ontological arguments do not work.

What is a response to Hume’s “God does not exist” is not a contradiction criticism?

Descartes argues it is possible to conceive the logically impossible:

• We can all conceive the idea 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1 and 1/3 = 0.333… but upon closed inspection this is logically impossible since 0.333… + 0.333… + 0.333… = 0.999…

• So there’s proof we can conceive coherently of the logically impossible.

• So because we conceive coherently that “God does not exist” does not mean it isn’t logically impossible.

What is Kant’s existence is not a predicate (property) criticism?

Existence is not a property the same way green is a property to grass. Yet ontological arguments use existence as a property.

For example the concept of 100 real pounds is not the same as the concept of 100 pounds that exist. You pay a shopkeeper with 100 real pounds, you do not pay the shopkeeper with the concept of 100 pounds that do exist.

When people say ‘God exists’ they mean ‘God exists in the world’. But in ontological arguments they only prove God has the property of existence not that he exists in the world.

What is Malcolm’s Ontological Argument?

• Either God does or doesn’t exist

• God is a being greater than which cannot be conceived

• A being greater than which cannot be conceived cannot come or go out of existence.

• If God exists, God can’t stop existing

• If God exists, God’s existence is necessary

• If God does not exist, God can’t start existing

• If God does not exist, God’s existence is impossible

• God’s existence is either necessary or impossible

• God’s existence is impossible only if the concept of God is self-contradictory

• The concept of God is not self-contradictory

• So God’s existence is necessary

How does Malcolm overcome Kane’s criticism to the ontological argument?

Necessary existence is a real property unlike simply existence.

What are criticisms to Malcolm’s ontological argument?

• the problem of the stone

• Euphythro problem

• Problem of evil

• Fallacy of equivocation

What is the fallacy of equivocation criticism to Malcolm’s ontological argument?

Malcolm changes the definition of necessary existence. At first it means just a property but at the end it is a necessary truth. Just because the concept of God has the property of necessarily existing doesn’t mean it actually exists outside the concept. It remains a hypothetical God that hypothetically necessarily exists.

What are the two types of teleological arguments?

• From spatial order - certain features within nature must be designed and the designer is God

• From temporal order- the laws of nature must be designed and the designer is God

What are the spatial order teleological arguments?

Paley and Hume

What are the teleological arguments from temporal order?

Swinburne

What is Paley’s Design Argument?

• if you were walking along a beach and found a watch, you would not assume the watch had randomly appeared, you would assume the watch had a designer

• This is because the watch has many parts organised for a purpose ( this is called the hallmark of design)

• The world also has the hallmark of design ( many parts organised for a purpose)

• So we must assume the world has a creator and didn’t appear randomly

• God must be the designer since the world is so great.

What is Hume’s Design Argument?

• The “fitting of means to an end” in nature (eg the many parts of the eye to enable vision) resemble the “fitting of means to ends” in human design (eg many parts of watch to tell the time)

• Similar effects have similar causes

• The cause of human designs are minds

• So cause of nature’s design must also be a mind

• This mind is God given the grandeur of the world

What are Hume’s criticisms to teleological arguments from spatial order?

• Weakness of analogy

• Fallacy of composition

• Infinite time, finite matter

• Spatial disorder

• Causation

What is Hume’s weakness of analogy criticism to teleological arguments?

• Man-Made objects are very different to natural objects eg clocks and legs

• We can observe man made objects being designed but not natural objects

What is Hume’s fallacy of the composition criticism to teleological argument?

• To have a designer, an object must have many parts organised for a purpose or “fitting of means to an end”

• Many parts of nature have parts organised for a purpose eg the eye, the brain, the tree

• However just because there are many parts of nature which have a purpose does not mean the universe as a whole has a purpose

• Eg a tv is made of small squares (pixels) but the image is not a small square

• So if the universe does not have a purpose, it does not have a designer

What is Hume’s infinite time, finite matter criticism to teleological arguments from spartial order?

• If time is infinite and matter is finite, it is inevitable that matter will eventually organise itself to appear designed.

• if you imagine a monkey sat at a typewriter for eternity, it will eventually click the letters in the order of shakespeare’s play as it writes out every single combination of letters possible.

• similarly matter can organise itself into every combination of matter in the infinite time it has

What is Hume’s Spatial Disorder criticism to the teleological argument?

• there is a lot of “vice and misery and disorder” in the world which wouldn’t exist with an all-loving, all-powerful designer.

• eg many parts of the world are uninhabitable and serve no purpose

• volcanos, earthquakes hurricanes

• animals feel pain when killed

What is Hume’s Causation criticism to the teleological argument?

• argues we never experience causation and only “ the constant conjunction of one event following another”

• eg if i let go of my pen (A) and the pen falls (B) every single time i can infer A causes B

• if i drink my tea (A) and my friend coughs (B) but this does not happen every single time then A does not cause B

• so hume argues that God designing the world (A) and the world existing (B) can not be proved as a causal relationship since it only happened once. we don’t have enough experience to view it as a cause rather than coincidence

What is Darwin’s criticism to the teleological argument?

• teleological arguments say that since the world is full of ‘parts organised for a purpose” (hallmark of design) it must have been created by God

• darwin argues that the world was not originally created with the hallmark of design and it came to exist through evolution

• eg people believed god created giraffes with long necks because he knew it would help them reach tall branches but the truth is evolution gave giraffes long necks

• we could even say this applies to humans, aristotle argues that our ergon as humans is to reason but we didn’t always have the aretes for this if you compare cavemen to us now.

• so god created humans and animals with faults at first which doesn’t align with the teleological argument.

What is Swinburne’s Argument from Temporal Order?

• there exists two types of explanations: scientific and personal

• we can give a scientific explanation as to why this sentence exists eg because the ink in my pen stains the paper but we can also give a personal explanation eg because i chose to write it

• by analogy we can give similar personal explanations of why laws of nature are the way they are eg because god chose to create them

• there is no scientific explanation as to why laws of nature are the way they are

• so this leaves the personal explanation of god creating them

• so god exists

What is a strength of Swinburne’s teleological argument?

overcomes the criticism of evolution because unlike nature that can change the laws of nature have stayed the same since the beginning of time

What is a criticism of Swinburne’s Teleological Argument?

Multiple Universes:

like hume’s infinite time, finite matter criticism we can argue that instead of infinte time there are an infinite number of universes which is a view held by many physicists. so if an infinite number of universes exist then eventually there will be universes with perfect laws of nature that appear to be designed but are not. so he fact we have perfect laws of nature could be because we got lucky and got the universe with the perfect combination rather than because God created it.

What is a strength/ weakness of the multiple universes criticism to Swinburne?

Molinism argues that we have free will because God knows all possible actions we can take but we still get to decide which of those actions we do. therefore he is still omniscient and we have free will. however if multiple universes exist, this means god knows all possible actions we can take and we do every single one of those actions so we have the decision taken from us. so the multiple universe criticism can either be seen as weak since it disproves free will which is something strongly believed in or it can be seen as strong for disproving god because it shows there is less proof of god being the designer and coexisting with free will.

What are the two types of cosmological arguments?

• From Causation: argue everything has a cause so universe has a cause and this cause is God

• From Contingency: things which exist contingently ( reliant on something else to exist) cannot be explained without reference to a necessary being and that necessary being is God.

What are the names of cosmological arguments from causation?

The Kalam Argument
Aquinas First Way: argument from motion
Aquinas Second Way: argument from causation
Descartes’ Cosmological Argument

What is the Kalam Argument?

• Whatever begins to exist has a cause (evidenced by babies needing parents to exist)

• The universe began to exist

• So the universe has a cause

• That cause is God because who else would be powerful enough to cause the universe

What is Aquinas’ First Way?

• Some things in the world are in motion eg football rolling on the floor

• Whatever is in motion must have been put in motion by something else eg someone kicked the football

• If A was moved by B then something else must have put B in motion and so on.

• If the chain goes on, then there is no first mover.

• If there is no first mover then there are no subsequent movers and there is nothing in motion.

• But things are in motion.

• So there must be a first mover.

• The first mover is God.

What is Aquinas’ Second Way?

• Everything in the universe is subject to cause and effect eg throwing a rock caused the window to smash

• C is caused by B and B is caused by A and so on

• If this chain of causation was infinite there would be no first cause.

• If there was no first cause, there would be no subsequent causes or effects.

• But there are causes and effects in the world

• Therefore there must have been a first cause

• The first cause is God

What is Descartes’ Cosmological Argument?

• If I was the cause of my own existence, I would give myself all perfections ( omnipotent, omniscient etc)

• I do not have all perfections so I am not the cause of my existence.

• I am a thinking thing and have the idea of God

• The cause of an effect must have at least as much reality as the effect.

• So what caused me must be a thinking thing with the idea of God.

• Whatever caused me to exist must cause their own existence or be caused by something else.

• If what caused me was caused by something else, that cause must cause itself or be caused by something else and so on.

• There can’t be an infinite chain of causes

• There must be something that caused its own existence.

• Whatever caused their own existence is God as God has all perfections ( refer back to first point)

What is the Is the First Cause Necessary criticism?

it’s possible there was an infinite chain of causes and the universe never began to exist it just always was. CA: if there an infinite chain of causes then that means an infinite amount of time has passed. if an infinite amount of time has passed then the universe can’t get any older because infinity+1= infinity. but the universe is getting older so an infinite amount of time has not passed so there is no infinite chain of causes.

What is Hume’s criticism to cosmological arguments from causation?

• If you apply Hume’s Fork to ‘everything has a cause’, it shows that the statement is not knowledge

• Hume argues that knowledge is either a relation of idea (analytical truth) or a matter of fact (synthetic truth)

• ‘Everything has a cause’ is not a relation of idea as you can imagine a chair existing without a cause whereas you can’t imagine a four sided triangle.

• ‘Everything has a cause’ is not a matter of fact because we don’t experience causation, only constant conjunction and we never experienced God creating the universe.

• Since it doesn’t fall into either category of knowledge, it is not a certain statement.

What are the cosmological arguments from contingency?

• Aquinas Third Way

• Leibniz: Sufficient Reason

What is the difference between contingent and necessary existence?

Contingent existence means something that might not have existed as it is dependent on something to exist eg a tree. Necessary existence means something that must always exist and can’t go out of existence and needs nothing to exist eg God.

What is Aquinas’ Third Way?

• Everything that exists contingently didn’t exist at some point

• If everything exists contingently, then at some point nothing existed.

• If nothing exists, then nothing can start to exist.

• Since things did begin to exist, there was never nothing in existence.

• So there must be something that does not exist contingently but necessarily.

• This necessary being is God.

What is Leibniz’s Sufficient Reason Argument?

• The Principle of Sufficient Reason states every truth has an explanation for why it is the case

• The sufficient reason for necessary truths is revealed by analysis eg a triangle has three sides is true in itself.

• But we can’t provide sufficient reason for contingent truths without referring to other contingent truths which also need sufficient reasoning. eg tree exists because the seed was planted, seed planted bc bought at shops, bought at shops because had money etc

• In order to provide sufficient reason for contingent truths we need a necessary substance.

• This necessary substance is God.

• The universe existing is a contingent truth and so requires the necessary substance of God to have sufficient reason to be true.

Give a quote about the principle of sufficient reason.

“ No fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless it has sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise”

What is a criticism to Leibniz’s Sufficient Reason and its counter argument?

RUSSELL: Fallacy of the Composition:

Just because each part has a quality doesn’t mean the whole has that quality eg a screen is made up of pixels but the image projected is not a single coloured square.

So just because everything within the universe requires sufficient reason, it doesn’t mean the universe as a whole requires it.

Russell says “ the universe is just there and that’s all”

CA: the universe depends on everything in it to exist and everything depends on the universe to exist, so both the universe and everything exist contingently, so the qualities of everything in the universe also apply to the universe, so the universe requires sufficient reason

What is a criticism to Aquinas’ Third Way and a counter argument?

HUME: “God does not exist” is not a contradiction

• If God existed necessarily then ‘God does not exist’ is a contradiction

• Contradictions can’t be conceived coherently

• ‘God does not exist; can be coherently conceived

• So it is not a contradiction

• So God does not exist necessarily

CA: it is not saying that God has to exist, it is saying that if God did exist he would have to exist.

What are the divine attributes of God?

Omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal/everlasting

Define omnipotence:

God is all-powerful and there is no being stronger than God. Being all powerful doesn’t mean God can do the logically impossible. St Thomas Aquinas this doesn’t limit his power as the logically impossible is meaningless.

Define omniscience

God is all knowing- knows everything there is to know. (Use epistemology?)

Define omnibenevolence

God is all-loving - always does what is morally good.

Define eternal

God exists outside of time. He has no start or end.

Define everlasting

God exists within time. God was at the beginning and will last forever.

What is Boethius’ description of an eternal God?

Imagine a circle. Humans experience time by going around the circle while God experiences time as the circle itself.

Give a quote by Boethius about an eternal God

“the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of boundless life”

Who gave an explanation about an eternal God?

Boethius

What are Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann’s 2 types of simultaneity?

• T-Simultaneity : applies to temporal (within time) beings. Is when you perceive two thing happen simultaneously ONLY in the present.

• E-Simultaneity: applies to atemporal beings (outside time) beings. Is when you perceive two or more things happen simultaneously in ALL the past, present and future.

What are the criticisms of the divine attributes of God?

• The Problem of the Stone

• The Euphythro Dilemma

• Omniscience vs Free Will

What is the Problem of the Stone?

If God is omnipotent, can he create a stone that he can’t lift?

If he can’t lift it, then he is not powerful enough to do so and not omnipotent.

If he can’t create a stone that heavy, he is not powerful enough to do so and not omnipotent.

Either way there is a task he isn’t powerful enough to do so he isn’t omnipotent.

What is the response to the problem of the stone?

George Mavrodes argues this is a logically impossible task. “A stone an omnipotent being can’t lift” is a logical contradiction.

According to St Thomas Aquinas, God not doing logically impossible tasks don’t limit his power as they are meaningless.

So the stone does not limit God’s power.

What is The Euphythro Dilemma?

Asks if morality is created by or independent of God.

If you take the statement “torturing babies is wrong”, is it wrong because God says it’s wrong or does God order to not torture babies because it is wrong?

If the 2nd statement is true, it challenges omnipotence because it means morality has more power than God.

If 1st statement is true, it challenges omnibenevolence. Means there is no reason behind morality since God could say torturing babies is good and there would be no reason as to why it isn’t. So when we say God is good it just means God is God so omnibenevolence just loses all its meaning.

Either way God isn’t omnipotent or omnibenevolent.

What is a response to the Euphythro Dilemma?

God bases morality on love. He could make torturing babies good but chooses not to do so out of love. In this case he is still omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

Rather than say God is good you say God’s WILL is good so there is no tautology.

Meta-ethics

What is the Omniscience vs Free Will criticism?

• God knows everything

• God knows what I will do in the future

• If God knows what I will do in the future, then it will definitely happen.

• If it will definitely happen, I can not do anything else.

• If I can’t do anything else, I do not have the choice to do anything else.

• So I have no free will.

What are the counter arguments to the Omniscience vs agree Will criticism?

• Impossible to know future

• Observing the future like the present

• Molinism

What is the “Impossible to Know Future” counter argument?

Free will makes it impossible to know the future

God being omniscient means God knows everything that is possible to know

If knowing the future is impossible, God does not know the future and our actions are not predetermined.

CCA: only works if God is everlasting and not eternal

What is the “Observing the Future Like the Present” criticism?

• An eternal God views ‘tomorrow’, ‘yesterday’, ‘last week’ etc the same way we view ‘now’.

• When we observe someone choosing what to wear in the present we don’t see that as evidence they have no free will.

• God observes all our actions in his version of the present.

• The same way in which we only observe someone choosing what to wear in the present, God observes all of our actions in his version of the present.

• So we still have free will because in the same way observing someone choose an outfit doesn’t limit their free will, God observing our actions doesn’t limit our free will.

What is the Molinism counter argument?

The view that God has counter factual knowledge of all possible worlds.

Stump and Kretzmann say God can see in the past, present and future and molinists add that he can see in the conditional (what would/might happen).

So God knows all possible choices you would make based on your circumstances and when you choose one of these actions (bc free will), God technically already knew it as part of all the options.

CCA: epistemology (fake barn county?)

What is a cognitive statement?

statements which aim to literally describe how the world is, are either true or false

What are religious cognitive statements?

religious statements are literal statements that can be true or false eg when someone says god exists they mean he is present in the universe.

What are non-cognitive statements?

describe attitudes rather than facts about the world and are neither true or false

What is a non-cognitive religious statement?

religious statements express someone’s attitude eg when someone says god exists it is an expression of commitment to a set of values and way of living

Define verificationism

the belief that only statements that can be verifies are meaningful

Define falsificationism

belief that only statements that can be falsified are meaningful

Who made the verification principle?

AJ Ayer

What is the Verification Principle Argument?

Verification Principle states a statement is meaningful if:

it is an analytical truth

it is empirically verifiable

argues ‘God exists’ is not an analytical truth as ontological arguments fail

argues ‘God exists’ is not empirically verifiable either (as it is unfalsifiable)

so religious statements like ‘God exists’ are meaningless

What are the criticisms to the verification principle and their counter arguments?

History has meaning but it is neither analytically or empirically verifiable. CA: weak verification principle: For an assertion to be true, one simply has to state what kind of evidence would be needed to verify its contents eg churchill made a speech declaring world war 2, you could check this by listening to the old tapes

God exists is an analytical truth if ontological arguments succeed. God exists could be eschatologically verified according to Hick.

Ayer’s Verification Principle fails its own test as it is neither an analytically or empirically verifiable truth. CA: Ayer argues that the principle only works on statements and the principle itself is a definition and not a statement.

What is an unfalsifiable statement?

a statement where it is impossible for it to be potentially proven false and so is meaningless

Who created the Invisible Gardener?

Anthony Flew

What is the Invisible Gardener argument?

it proves ‘God exists’ is unfalsifiable and hence meaningless

imagine two explorers come across a garden that has well-groomed flowers and weeds. explorer A says it is the work of a gardener and explorer B disagrees. so they decide to keep watch for a gardener but after a few days there is no sight of a gardener. explorer A argues it is because the gardener is invisible so they set up traps and sniffer dogs to catch the gardener. a few more days pass and still no gardener appears so explorer A states that the gardener must simply be invisible, intangible and make no smell or sound. Explorer B then asks explorer A what the difference between his version of the gardener existing and the gardener in general not existing. he says there is no difference.

this story is an analogy for god. God is the gardener; explorer A is a theist; explorer B is an atheist; the flowers are good; the weeds are evil. Flew shows the ways in which theists will come up with an explanation for any argument proving god exists and how their version of god doesn’t differ to a non-existent god and is therefore meaningless.

Who created eschatological verification/ parable of the celestial city?

Hick

Define eschatological verification

when a statement can only be verified after death or at the end of time

What is the parable of the celestial city argument?

Two men are travelling on the only available road in the universe. Man A believes the road leaves to a celestial city and Man B believes the road leads to nowhere. During the travel, both men experience “refreshment and delight” and “hardship and danger”. If A is correct, they will eventually arrive to a celestial city and his statement will be proved right. If B is correct, both men will keep walking forever and his statement will never be proved right or wrong. A represents a theist and B represents an atheist.

Hick shows that ‘God exists’ being unfalsifiable is dependent on if the statement is true or false. If God exists is true then it can be eschatologically verified. If God exists is false, then it is unfalsifiable. Can use this as a response to the verification principle.

Who created the Resistance Fighter argument?

Basil Mitchell

What is the Resistance Fighter argument?

Argues it is ok for religious statements to be falsifiable as it doesn’t mean you have to withdraw your belief.

Imagine you live in an occupied country during a war. You meet a stranger who claims to be the leader of a resistance mivement and you trust this man. At times, the stranger will act ambiguously and appear to perform actions that seem to help the enemy. However you can still continue to trust this stranger by believing he has good reasons for his actions. The same goes for God and problem of evil.

Since we can accept that the problem of evil is evidence against God, ‘God exists’ is falsifiable without having to lose faith.

What 3 types of belief does Mitchell think there are?

provisional hypothesis - a belief that is abandoned as soon as evidence goes against it

Significant article of faith - a belief that is maintained whilst still accepting and seeking an explanation for evidence that goes against it

Vacuous Formulae - a belief that is always maintained no matter how much or how strong the evidence against it is

Who created the Bliks argument?

R.M Hare

What is the blik argument?

Argues that unfalsifiable statements can still be meaningful.

Imagine there is a student who is certain his university professors are out to murder him. You assure him that it is not true and even take him to talk with the professors. The professors act normal but the student is certain they were pretending to hide their plan. Nothing will convince the student his belief is false but it still clearly has meaning to him.

So even if religious statements can be unfalsifiable, they still hold meaning.

Can argue that ‘religious language has/ has no meaning’ is unfalsifiable in general because there are always two sides with strong arguments (like in all of philosophy) but this statement (and philosophy) still have meaning. Strong argument because if don’t agree with Hick, philosophy is meaningless.