 Jim Laws PhD JD This research is concerned with a discussion between A. G. N. Flew, R. M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell, which was first printed in New Essays in Philosophical Theology.[i] It is centered on what has become known as, “Flew’s Challenge.” This research will review, compare, and criticize the work of each of these philosophers in an attempt to determine if Flew’s challenge has been adequately answered. This means it will be necessary to state precisely the position of each philosopher and compare one with the other to understand the issues being raised. INTRODUCTORY MATTERS PRESUPPOSITIONS AND LIMITATIONS To accomplish these purposes, this research is divided into three sections. The first section covers Dr. Flew’s position and how such constitutes a challenge to the Christian religion. This information includes, among other things, a presentation of Flew’s case, and detailing certain background matters to help the reader understand the significance of the challenge in regard to Flew’s metaphysical-type statements. As it will be shown, Flew regards all such statements as “God does exist or “man has an immortal soul,” as meaningless or nonsensical. This presentation will, also, include a brief look into the position of logical positivism and its use of the “verification principle,” as such relates to the present discussion. This research does not attempt to prove such statements are, in fact, true, but, rather, analyzes the efforts of Flew, with others of his same approach, to determine if they are successful in rendering such statements to be meaningless and of no value. The second section sets forth the responses, which are made to Dr. Flew's initial article, “Theology and Falsification.” A brief evaluation will be included to the responses given by R. M. Hare and Basil Mitchell, and will answer the question, “Do they save religious language from Flew’s attempted reduction into meaninglessness?” The third and final section will present this author’s answer to Flew’s challenge, which will prove to be the only credible solution. This research will conclude with evidence to show Flew’s challenge to Christianity is not supportable. Further it is presupposed for this discussion one is capable of and must accept the law of rationality. Flew himself has so stated, “to be ill-rational precisely is to refuse to consider relevant evidence although knowing it to be relevant, to accept one position while refusing to accept its plain logical consequences, or while insisting also on holding something else flat inconsistent with it, and so on.”[ii] SECTION
ONE: FLEW’S CHALLENGE PRESENTED Flew’s challenge to the theist asks the question, “What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for the theist a disproof of the Love of, or of the existence of God?” Flew’s challenge asserts no matter what happens, the believer will not give up his claim that an omnipotent and loving God exists.[iii] Before one may understand the issue at stake, it is important to understand the philosophical position Flew expresses and to give an educated analysis. Basically, Flew is concerned with the problem of religious language.[iv] Flew advances the idea the best way to test a religious statement is to see if it is an assertion, or not, and to apply the “falsification test” to determine if it is falsifiable. Flew, in a sense, appeals to a modified form of what is called the “verification principle.” As early as 1907, small groups of teachers and students in Vienna were meeting, discussing philosophical issues, and desiring to discover a philosophy, which would totally eliminate the study of metaphysics and its related issues.[v] Not until Moritz Schlick became professor of philosophy at Vienna, did the small group take on any kind of shape or direction.[vi] Schlick, with the help of Ludwig Wittgenstein, gave the movement form, which later became known as “logical positivism.” In 1936 A. J. Ayer published his Language, Truth, and Logic. This work, more than any other, perhaps, explained the basic tenets of logical positivism and placed Ayer’s name on the list of important philosophers. The basic instrument of the logical positivist is the “verification principle.” The aforesaid principle is a method, which the logical positivist devised to determine if statements are genuine, or merely pseudo-statements.[vii] If a statement can be verified in a scientific way, then that statement is said to be meaningful or genuine. If no verification can be made, then statements, which previously appeared factual, are, in reality, proven to be meaningless by the positivist. A. J. Ayer discusses this principle at length in Language, Truth, and Logic. A proposition is said to be meaningful, that is, it makes a genuine and factual claim about the state of the world, when the one, who made the statement, recognizes a possible set of conditions lead him to believe in the truthfulness of the statement, or when he acknowledges the possibility of a given set of conditions would lead him to retract the statement and state, “If this were to happen, then the statement would be false and, in turn, meaningless.” Ayer’s book clarifies this principle.[viii] Logical positivism has boiled down every statement into one of three categories. The first category consists of those statements, which prove themselves to be true; simply because of the consistent nature shared, not only with themselves, but with every other statement. An example would be the statement, “I am a bachelor.” This statement is said to be meaningful, simply because the definition of the term, “bachelor” refers to an unmarried male. Therefore, the “definition” of a term declares a statement to be meaningful. The Positivist places all logical and mathematical-type statements into this category. They are viewed as being tautological in nature. Wittgenstein viewed such statements as empirically, or factually empty, though still important.[ix] Consequently, all such statements are said to be “analytic.” The second category of meaningful statements is statements concerning scientific laws. If the statement can be proven by scientific experiment, then it is said to be meaningful to the positivist, because it can be verified by one of the five senses. For example, by direct human experience, one can tell whether or not it is raining. This type of statement has been called ‘synthetic” by the positivist. For this reason the “verifiability principle” became the criterion for judging the meaningfulness of all non-tautological assertions. Wittgenstein stated the principle this way: “To understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true.” For the statement to be meaningful, one must be able to state the conditions under which the proposition can be verified. Sensory observation, or information ultimately derived by means of one’s, senses, is necessary for verification. Such approaches led Moritz Schlick and others to conclude the work of philosophy is without any real, factual content, that is, the realm of science must explain the empirically verifiable.[x] The third category of statements is called the “nonsensical” or “meaningless” statement. Every statement can be placed in one, and only one, of these three categories. If it cannot be said to be analytically meaningful, or if it cannot be verified by the five senses or scientific experiment, then it must be nonsensical. This linguistic analysis is not merely saying God does not exist, or that man does not have an eternal soul, but it goes beyond the realm of denying such assertions to conclude, such issues, as these and other such questions, are meaningless. Logical positivism does not only deny the truthfulness of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, but this philosophy tries to destroy the entire study of metaphysics by affirming such a study is meaningless and contains no real questions at all.[xi] Therefore, according to the positivist, out go Plato’s forms, Aristotle’s entelechy, Augustine’s God, Descartes mind, Kant’s noumena, and Hegel’s absolute spirit. Any attempts to know beyond what the senses may verify, now belongs to the nonsensical, or meaningless class of statements. It should be noted such dogmas are not limited to the theist, but to the atheist and his knowledge claim there is no God, for such would be equally meaningless. Such a claim is without a “sensory” argument (for or against) the existence of God, so all such arguments are equally meaningless. To the credit of the Positivist, they have seen and tried to deal with the rather embarrassing question, “What type of statement is the verification principle.” Since it is neither analytic nor synthetic, it too must be nonsensical. Even though efforts have been made to refine the process of verification, still the self-contradiction is forceful. Logically, it may be set forth by the following, logical syllogism: 1. If the verification principle espoused by A. J. Ayer cannot be said to be
analytical or synthetic, then it
is nonsensical, meaningless, and absurd. 2. The verification principle espoused by A. J. Ayer cannot be said to be
analytical or synthetic. 3. Therefore, the verification principle espoused by A. J. Ayer is nonsensical, meaningless and absurd. It is clear the argument set forth is in valid form, the modus operandi of which is modus ponens. The minor premise affirms the antecedent. From the previous discussion, both the major and minor premises are true. Since the argument is in valid form, and the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true, i.e., the verification principle, espoused by A. J. Ayer, is nonsensical, meaningless, and absurd. Since the verification principle itself is unverifiable, a door is opened to a new challenge to metaphysical knowledge, i.e., falsifiability.[xii] The falsifiability principle owes its original discussion to Karl Popper, who would later influence the work of Anthony Flew. Popper used the principle as a means of a criterion in science, rather than for meaning, which was the purpose of the verification principle. If a theory is not refutable by any conceivable event, then it is accounted to be non-scientific. Popper reasoned scientific laws can never be verified conclusively, but they can be falsified. If such laws can be falsified, then their statements are considered to add to our knowledge of science; therefore, they are scientific. Flew moves the discussion along by applying the “falsifiability principle,” a negative form of the verification principle, to religious beliefs and statements. He asserts any statement or proposition is meaningless, unless it is subject to falsification; that is, unless one would allow some event or information to count “against’ his statement, then nothing should be allowed to count “for” it, either. If nothing can count “against” a statement, then it cannot be meaningful; let alone true. He uses the Wisdom’s Parable of the Gardener to illustrate how theists refuse to allow anything to falsify their belief in God or other religious beliefs, which make those types of belief statements meaningless. Briefly stated, the parable asserts two explorers find a clearing in the jungle; one explorer believes a gardener attends the garden; while the other explorer disagrees with his conclusion. The two set up various tests to determine if a gardener really exists. When all experiments fail, the believing explorer asserts the gardener must be intangible. Flew uses this parable to demonstrate how believers in God qualify their belief, when faced with evidence of the non-existence of God. He claims believers in God are reduced to admitting the existence of God is incomprehensible, since their belief “dies the death of a thousand qualifications.” For Flew, to admit “God exists,” he must find a possible circumstance where God does not exist. For a theist to modify his belief to fit a thousand qualifications renders his statement “God exists” to have no real meaning or empirical implication. From this philosophy we learn the reason Flew’s challenge constitutes such a threat to the Christian religion. Statements, such as, “An omnipotent and loving God exists,” and “Man has an eternal soul” are meaningless to Flew. According to him theological statements are non-assertions. In fact, he espouses such statements as, “God exists,” asserts nothing. Before a statement can be a genuine assertion, it must describe how the world is, and in turn, it must count for something. An assertion can only count “for” something, if it counts “against” something. If the believer, who makes the statement, refuses to allow any conceivable evidence to disprove his statement, the statement remains meaningless. Flew concludes religious statements seem to be immune to falsification, and therefore, remain meaningless. SECTION
TWO: THE RESPONSE OF R. M. HARE AND BASIL MITCHELL Flew presents the positivistic challenge in an able way. What conceivable event, which, if it were to occur, would decisively refute theism?[xiii] R. M. Hare and Basil Mitchell seek to rescue religious language. Hare proceeds to answer Flew with the “blick.” Hare says religious assertions are of such a nature as to be unverifiable or unfalsifiable. They cannot be either proven to be true or false. The obvious question to this argument is, “If this is the case, what then are they?” Hare says they are “blicks.” Case in point: regardless of how much persuasion is used, John continually affirms that all taxi-cab drivers are out to kill him.[xiv] To introduce dozens of friendly taxi-cab drivers do nothing to change his mind. John simply replies, “Their friendly appearance is merely part of their cunning to do away with me.” Hare says this is a blick, an insane one, but a blick, nevertheless. He points out we all have “blicks;” even though ours are different from John’s. Hare asserts the lunatic has an “insane” blick, whereas his friends have a “sane” blick.[xv] He seems to make a distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive language. A cognitive approach to religious language would be an objective, or literal stance, in which a person would grasp statements to be “real.” However, a non-cognitive approach to religious language would constitute a subjective, or non-literal stance in which a person could interpret the language in an alternative way. Suppose a child, who listens to the stories in his nursery-rhyme book, asks if the particular characters therein are real. One may answer, “No, they are not real (cognitively).” Whereas, someone else may respond, “Yes, they are real;” used in the same sense people often approach life and its problems (non-cognitive). “Blicks” are a way of looking at the world through assumptions people make in everyday life. Applying this to the present discussion, Hare asserts the religious believer would not be dissuaded from his beliefs, because he takes a non-cognitive approach to life. In similar fashion Hare avows the lunatic, who thought his colleagues were out to kill him, would not be dissuaded; despite the evidence; hence, it is his “blick.” It becomes clear Hare’s answer to Flew’s challenge is no answer at all. It is true religious beliefs are important to the believer, but such importance says nothing about the reality of the ultimate question of God and the meaningfulness of such a question. If religious statements are unverifiable and unfalsifiable, then exactly what are they? Who then is to say which blicks are the sane, or right blicks, and which ones are the insane, or wrong blicks. If John’s blick concerning taxi-cab drivers is unverifiable or unfalsifiable, who then can genuinely say John’s blick is insane? The answer is no one. Hare has abandoned the claim that religious statements are assertions and verifiable. By doing so Hare implicitly accepts the position set forth by Flew, i.e., in reality such statements are meaningless. Consequently, his position finds itself renouncing the traditional view of religious statements. It has been properly criticized as failing to achieve a proper defense for the Christian position and even avoiding Flew’s challenge.[xvi] Hare merely maintains such statements are meaningful to the believer, which is inadequate to show the reality of an all-loving God. [xvii] Therefore, Hare’s reply has not met Flew’s challenge. Basil Mitchell tries to answer Flew by taking a different line of approach. Mitchell contends religious statements are meaningful, but, according to him, they are not straightforwardly verifiable, or falsifiable. Mitchell relates his own parable concerning the stranger and the resistance movement, the parable of the “partisan and the stranger.” In the parable a trust-based relationship exists between the partisan and the stranger. The stranger urges the partisan to have faith in him. It is easily surmised how this parable could be applied a theist and his belief in God. Religious language is cognitive, and the importance of empirical evidence is accepted. However, Mitchell’s trust-based relationship wants to progress further. The difference between Mitchell’s stranger and Hare’s “blick” is that no matter what happens, nothing changes the lunatic’s attitude concerning the “Dons,” but the partisan’s faith toward the stranger in Mitchell’s parable matures, until the friend says, “Yes, he is still on our side, but he has reasons for doing what he does.” Mitchell says the statement, “God loves men,” resembles, “The stranger is on our side.”[xviii] Even though the nature of God’s dealings with man is sometimes ambiguous, it will eventually become clear, when the war is over and the smoke has cleared. In other words, when all the factors have been considered, the ambiguity of his behavior will be resolved, and his true nature will be made clear. According to Mitchell it is possible to say religious truths are
meaningful, and in turn, factual. This
is a better answer to Flew’s challenge than Hare’s. Yet, it is still inadequate.
Mitchell’s parable is addressed by Flew’s in the next few pages. Basically, Flew focuses on the difference
between Mitchell’s stranger and the Christian concept of God. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and
omni-benevolent, why should there be any ambiguity or room
for doubt regarding his goodness? In
Mitchell’s stranger parable, the partisan’s faith was sorely tried at times;
for which reason Flew asks, “Why?” If
religious statements concerning God mean anything, is there any room for doubt
whatsoever? SECTION THREE: FLEW’S CHALLENGE FAILS, JUST AS THE VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE FAILED At this point this author takes issue with Flew. Religious statements are assertions and are verifiable. Religious statements are set forth in propositional form, which express those propositional truths God would have us to know. Both “form” and “truth” are understandable to the reader in a “cognitive” way. That is to say, we can know certain statements to be true. Such statements are both cognitively meaningful and affirm a true condition of the world. The challenge presented by Flew is based on the falsifiability of a given statement. The difference between a genuine assertion and a pseudo-assertion can be determined by finding a set of conditions, which would falsify that statement to the one who uttered it; causing him to retract the statement. One may ask, “What type of statement is the falsification statement?” “What set of conditions, if they were to occur, would falsify the falsification principle?” “Would Ayer call it analytical?” Certainly not, because it is not self-evident the statement is true. “Is it scientific?” Again, Ayer would be forced to say, “No,” because the statement cannot be verified by the use of scientific experiment. Therefore it must fail, as the verification principle puts itself into the meaningless, or non-cognitive category. To put the falsification principle in the meaningless category is to discard it, as handily as Ayer tried to do with metaphysics. One might ask, “What possible set of conditions may be raised to falsify the falsification principle set forth by Flew?” By applying the falsification principle to itself, it, too, dies the death of a thousand qualifications, as Flew declares all religious-type statements do. Flew is active in presenting this falsification principle to Christianity; though for some reason in Flew’s own mind his position seems to be immune to the same type of test. However, consider for a moment counter-factual hypotheses. Let us grant, hypothetically, the validity of the falsification principle. If one were to assert such statements, as “God does exist,” would be falsified, if it were the case, in principle, absolutely nothing existed, then it would be the case God would not exist. If such, in principle, were true, then the proposition, which asserts God does exist, would be falsified; making the statement God does exist, at the least, a meaningful, cognitive statement. If it truly were the case absolutely nothing existed, then the theist would have to grant God did not exist, either. However, the truth of the matter is that something does exist. I exist, and I know that I exist, and I have special understanding and knowledge as to my own existence. Therefore, we are brought back full circle to the discussion of accounting for one’s own existence. Both the verification principle of A. J. Ayer and the falsification principle of Anthony Flew have failed to discard the meaningfulness of such assertions, as God does exist, or man has an eternal soul, etc.[xix] Sufficient criticism has been offered to prove the viewpoint of
Flew, based on Ayer’s verification principle, is an inconsistent view. Flew is guilty of making the same mistake,
which he forbade others to make.[xx]
Flew's principle is too restrictive, since not
everything need be empirically falsifiable. As has been argued, Flew's principle is not
itself falsifiable. However, this does
not mean propositions are not testable, or arguable. One must accept only such propositions as true that are so warranted by
sufficient evidence. The inconsistency of the falsification principle fails to
reduce all metaphysical-type statements as meaningless, or non-sensical. From this prospective,
Flew’s
case is revealed to be untenable, that is, it cannot be held, and at the same
time, avoid inner inconsistency. Therefore, Flew has not thrown the theist into a logical contradiction,
as he claimed, rather he himself has embraced the contradiction with his
so-called “falsification principle.” Even though Flew might insist all such statements as "God exists;
God loves you" are meaningless to him, everyone else in the history of
philosophy understands them to have at the very least cognitive meaning. [i] Anthony Flew and Alasdair Macintyre, eds., New Essays in Philosophical Theology. (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1955), pp. 96-130. (Hereinafter referred to as N. E. P. T.) [ii] This work accepts Flew’s position regarding rational thought. A failure in this aspect, will render one in a position that is irrational and, hence, untenable. See Antony Flew, God and Philosophy, (London: Hutchinson, 1966) p. 11 and Thinking Straight, (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1977) p. 15. [iii] N.E.P.T. p. 98. [iv] Logical positivism involves the philosophical problem of making religious language meaningful. Flew’s theory treats religious language as being non-cognitive, and in doing so Flew has called into question the meaningfulness of all religious statements. “Professor Flew, in his Theology and Falsification, has attacked the claim to cognitivity and factual meaningfulness of religious statements.” John F. Miller III, “Theology, Falsification, and the Concept of Weltanshauung,” Canadian Journal of Theology, XVI (1970, 54-60). [v] Basically, this is what the verification principle is designed to do. By using this linguistic device, logical positivists attempt to reduce everything to the point of saying the empirical sciences are one’s only source of real, or true knowledge. G. J. Warnock, in his article, Verification and the Use of Language, makes this point clear. In discussing Schlick and the verification principle, Warnock makes clear Schlick had more than just a passing interest in metaphysics. “But first it has to be remembered that most advocates of the so-called verification principle were by no means disinterested. They were not merely concerned to analyze and to clarify the concept of meaning but also to eliminate metaphysics.” G. J. Warnock, “Verification and the Use of Language,” Revue Interationale de Philosophie, XVII (1951), 308. [vi] Since Schlick and Wittgenstein, there have been more prominent advocates of logical positivism. Such men, as Carnep, Ayer, Hempel, and Mach have promoted this particular position. [vii] The positivist, when using the term “genuine” relative to any given statement, has reference to the statement being cognitively, or factually meaningful. Schlick in, The Philosophical Review, in an article called “Meaning and Verification,” coined what became the slogan of the positivistic camp when considering religious statements, “The meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification.” [viii]
“We say a
sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows
how to verify the proposition, which it purports to express – that is, if he
knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the
proposition to be true, or to reject it as [ix] All the Logical Positivist’s claims can be recognized in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1921. Wittgenstein was not a member of the Vienna Circle himself; however, his work became one of the foundation treatises of Logical Positivism. [x] Moritz Schlick has been credited with the founding of Logical Positivism as a philosophic movement, which was active during the period between the two World Wars. A. J. Ayers, who became part of the Vienna Circle, later wrote Language, Truth and Logic (1936), which popularized the movement in England. [xi] John Hick, Philosophy of Religion (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 77. [xii] The reader should be aware the verification principle has gone through a number of revisions in an effort to save it from obvious problems. Some have tried to broaden the theory to include experiences not strictly empirical; others prefer to speak of confirmation, rather than verification. However, the original form of the principle is all but rejected. Ayer himself said the criticism of the positivistic position is that it simply did not work, though he continued to maintain the principle has never really been properly formulated. An interesting discussion may be viewed between A. J. Ayer and Bryan Magee on the subject, “Logical Positivism and its Legacy” (BBC Broadcast: March 17, 2008). [xiii] N.E.P.T., p. 98. [xiv] The word “blick” is coined by Hare to explain the unverifiable and unfalsifiable view of one’s experiences. In Hare’s parable, he uses the illustration of a man being convinced all taxi-cab drivers are out to kill him. Other instances which Hare offers, as sane blicks, are confidence in the steel of one’s car. When one is driving his car, there is the possibility of having a steel failure. Normally, one will trust the steering of his car, but he does not know he will not have a steering problem. The believer of the car has a “blick” about the steel. N.E.P.T., p. 100. [xv] N.E.P.T., pp. 99-103. [xvi] H. J. N. Horsburgh, “Mr. Hare on Theology and Falsification,” The Philosophical Quarterly XXIV (July, 1956), p. 45. [xvii] Hare confessed, “On the ground marked out by Flew, he seems to me to be completely victorious.” N.E.P.T., p. 96. [xviii] In this parable, a member of a resistance movement in an occupied country meets a stranger, who finds him to be truthful and trustworthy. The stranger, while claiming to be the leader of the movement, urges the newly-found member to have faith in him, regardless what may happen. Sometimes, the leader is found collaborating with the enemy, but the member continues to trust. There are times when the member’s faith in the leader of the movement is sorely tried. Mitchell compares this story with the Christian’s belief in God. N.E.P.T., p. 105. [xix] I am not asserting the truth of these propositions has been proven in this research, but only such propositions are cognitive propositions; that, in fact, they do have meaning and that both Ayer and Flew failed in their attempt to ditch all such considerations as “meaningless,” or “non-sensical.” [xx] The reader is referred to a discussion regarding Flew’s use of the falsification principle in The Warren – Flew Debate on the existence of God (Moore, Oklahoma: National Christian Press, 1977), pp. 92-103.
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