RL2

VP

AJ Ayer

“we know the meaning of a statement if we know the conditions under which the statement is true or false”

• synthetic statements meaningful if know how to test empirically

• analytic statements true by definition (tautology)

• supported by Hume

• claims about God cannot be verified

• saying issue of God not one worthy of serious philosophical discussion

🙂 VP

• < strict than VP from Vienna Circle

• religious and ethical claims rightly excluded as diff in nature

• focus on empiricism, truth not just explored theoretically

• not just against religious claims, also non-religious

• weak verification

  • in principle, not practice, not conclusive and definite

☹ VP

• rules out too much, even historical statements and general claims

  • Eliz I died a virgin

• advancements in science also cannot be verified by sense experience

  • uses artificial sense, e.g. x-rays

• there are statements that can’t be checked but seem meaningful

• weak VP rendered some religious statements meaningful

  • e.g. evidence of design → designer God

    • “Jesus rose from dead2”

• Keith Ward: If God possible, can verify all sorts of things

• VP self-refuting

  • VP itself not tautology or verifiable

  • Ayer himself claimed VP “mostly false”

Hick and eschatological verification

• parable of the journey to the celestial city

• one of travellers will be proved right at eath

  • leads to celestial city or road ends

BUT

• If road ends, cannot verify

• may not be these 2 options

John Wisdom - Gods

• neglected garden

• invisible garden (no evidence)

• 1 continues to believe in unseen gardener

• POINT: beliefs about God have diff quality, lang has diff purposes

  • about faith

  • CA/ Dawkins: faith is a cop out

FP

Antony Flew

• explorers in jungle (which has growing flowers and leaves)

• believers qualify assertions (lots of buts)

  • lots of qualifications = end up with description of God that is “vacuous”

  • “death by a thousand qualifications”

• find out what would go against claim

• e.g. need to know what world would look like if God didn’t love us if want to claim God is loving

• assertive and meaningful statements absent in religious discourse

  • e.g. if Dan came top of class, rules out state of affairs where Dan got lowest score

FP and erotomania

• when stalker convinced that victims love them and will maintain claim against all facts

• BUT

  • can establish facts by interviewing victims

  • not all religious believers same

  • many areas of life involve trusting and belief

  • Flew too quick to speak of “endemic evil of theological utterances” as if only religious claims involve trust despite conflicting evidence

🙂 FP

• reasonable

• > straightforward than VP

• evil - theodicies

• strong critique at religious discourse

• science - “God caused it”

☹ FP

• qualifications actually have depth and resonance

• falsely categorised God

• not all believers same

• Dorothy Emmet

  • VP didn’t recognise univocal lang of science cannot be compared to analogical lang of religion

  • reduces religious statements, loses sense of meaning

• Vincent Brummer

  • misunderstanding

  • equates scientific lang with theological lang

  • foolishly condemned anything immeasurable as insignificant

Basil Mitchell

Parable of the Partisan and the Stranger

• time of war, partisan and stranger have deep night convo

• stranger sometimes helping resistance, sometimes in police uniform, handing over patriots to occupying power

• if evidence all one way, wouldn’t be faith

• ambiguous behaviour

• some situations CANNOT be resolved by empirical evidence

• character of God/ stranger sufficient for belief

• absence of conclusive evidence not unreasonable

• arg that believers recognise evil and suffering seem to falsify belief

  • don’t count as contradictory evidence

  • bc committed

• diff between “believer” and “detached observer”

RM Hare

Parable of Paranoid Man

• lunatic convinced all dons want to murder him

• lots of evidence for lunatic to confirm paranoia

• about perspectives/ bliks / filters

• religious statements =/= assertions of facts but expression of particular blik

• blik = profound and life-altering attitude

  • =/= verifiable or falsifiable, but still important

• radical, non-cog

☹ bliks

• some bliks better than others

• not flattering analogue to religious belief

Wittgenstein

Language Games

• non cog

• anti-realist

• Peter Vardy Puzzle of God on anti-realist believer

  • RL tells us something about human condition

• Fr Gareth Moore: God exists true bc has use and purpose within form of life within believing community

• “form of life” = “Lebensform”

• diff language games = diff rules

• lang = tool

• e.g. famous duck-rabbit illustration

• diff “world pic”

• sui generis = of its own kind

• Wittgenstein fideism: religion will never be in same lang game as empiricism

  • non engagement

• DZ Phillips:

  • ‘God is love’ =/= description of actual existent being, but way of showing how word “God” can be used

🙂 W

• recognises that religious and scientific statements = 2 diff categories

• meaning not fixed

• recognises that we just have to accept some beliefs are groundless

  • “brute fact” Bertrand Russell

☹ W

• trivialising religious talk

• believers don’t see as 1 game, see as THE truth

  • John Searle: ‘you have to be a very recherche sort of religious intellectual to keep praying if you don’t think there is any real God outside the language who is listening to your prayers'‘

• some world pics disagreeable e.g. sexism and racism

• how to resolve disagreements

• lang games = circular: game itself = collectino of words

• overanalyses lang

  • Gellner: “takes perfectly working clock and then wonders why it doesn’t work”

• prevents discussion

• Kai Neilson

  • full understanding of tribe’s culture doesn’t require full immersion in it

    • can still judge if unfounded, incoherent or contradictory

  • justifies any language game e.g. where withces and fairies exist

    • doesn’t question “coherence of concepts”

Aquinas vs Wittgenstein
Aquinas

• analogy

• non-literal but cognitive

• > popular among religious believers

• practical level, offers some insight into NoG without reducing God to human level

• diff context: 13th Cent, committed C priest and leader

  • addressed mainly other C

• CA/

  • whether assertions as truth-claims can be regarded as meaningful if person making claim cannot produce evidence to support/ against (Ayer + Flew)

Aquinas vs Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein

• non-cognitive

• diff context

  • 20thCent, Jewish background, agnostic philosopher

• CA/ goes too far for some C, weakens some key elements of C

  • e.g. ‘J rose from the dead’

  • doesn’t resolve big q of whether there is God

    • cannot be known

  • religious believers argue rev. from God does give us facts to be known

    • even if with faith rather than empirical evidence