Dr Greg Bahnsen - Philosophy of Christianity: The Problem of Religious Language (Part 9)

Okay, we can get started. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you that you've given us this day. We thank you for the sunshine. We thank you especially for your son, Jesus Christ. We pray that as we look at the beauty of the weather about us, we might be reminded of the beauty of your son, Lord. We might dwell upon him and all of his perfection. Indeed, we might bow before him as our Lord, as our Maker, as our Savior, as our King. We pray that you would teach us to serve him well through this hour in the way that we use our minds and the way we think about our language. We pray, Father, that we do these things for the glory of Jesus Christ. We ask that his kingdom might be advanced because of our time together. For it's in his name we pray. Amen. We're beginning a new section of our discussions today. We have been looking at the theistic proofs and the whole notion of proving God's existence up until today. And now we're going to change the subject to that of religious language. This has been a popular area of discussion over the last 20 years or so. Actually, the last 25 years, quarter of a century now, in fact. When I was an undergraduate student in college, this was the big issue in Christian apologetics. To talk about contemporary problems and defending the faith was to talk about the problems of religious language. And so you can see it receives something of prominence in your textbook as well. And although I think the fadism of the discussion of theological language is somewhat fading now, the issues are certainly quite important and merit our attention. I'm sorry that we only have time for one hour's discussion of it, in fact, but we'll do the best we can while we have the time. The issue, as we look at theological language has to do with the meaningfulness of religious claims. That meaningfulness of religious claims has been challenged lately. Now. It was first challenged in the Middle Ages. You should be aware of that fact. The medieval challenge, or the medieval debate, was over the meaningfulness of attributing properties to God. And we'll be getting into that in our next class hour as we look at the older debate about the meaningfulness of religious language. But the old debate was over the meaningfulness of attributing properties to God, as it is possible to attribute properties to God in any sensible way or cognitive way. But the claim today is that no religious claim in general is meaningful. Not just the process of attributing properties to God, but any religious claim at all. Can it be that it is Meaningful. It's possible for a person to hold that a religious claim is true. Let's say the claim that God loves his people is true. It's possible for a person to say that that claim is false, that God loves his people is false. That doesn't express what is the case and probably comes as a surprise to most Christians who haven't studied contemporary apologetically, that you can do worse than to say that that claim is false. You can say that that claim is not even good enough to be false because it is in fact meaningless. It is meaningless. It does not assert anything at all. And because it doesn't assert anything at all, it can't even be false. It doesn't even have the merit of being a cognitive assertion. And so you see how this is one step under being false, if you will. The attack on religious language that claims that it is meaningless is much worse than any other previous historical attack in one sense, because previous historical attacks have simply been to the effect that Christianity and its claims is false. Now it's being claimed that what Christians say in terms of the most religious premises of the Christian faith is not even meaningful. It asserts nothing whatsoever. Now you read an article, a little piece by Anthony Flew, in which he tells a story about two men who are arguing over the possible existence of a gardener. They have come across the clearing in the fort, and to the one traveler, it appears that there is a patch of ground there that has been tended by somebody. The flowers seem to be growing in such a way as to indicate a gardener, a gardener's presence, a gardener's care. The other traveler doesn't see it that way at all. He says, oh no, there's no gardener whatsoever. What is the point that Flew is trying to make through use of this parable? The parable of the gardener? You don't understand it?

I've heard that story several times and I still don't understand what they're talking about.

Okay, let's put it this way. Get this into your notes and then listen for a minute or two. Flew is making this philosophical thrust. If nothing is ruled out by an assertion, then it in fact asserts nothing. If an assertion rules out nothing, then it asserts nothing. To put it another way, asserting a fact ought to make a difference in things. The fact which is asserted ought to make a difference in things. Alright, now let's look at this little story. Flew talks about the two travelers in the. In the forest. They come across this possible garden plot, okay? And the believer says, a gardener has tended this. This portion of land. The Unbeliever says, oh no, there is no gardener. And so what do they do? They decide to pitch camp and they'll wait for the gardener to come the next morning to tend the plot of ground. And so they set up camp and they wait overnight and they wait all the next day and no gardener appears. And so the unbeliever says, see, there you have it, there is no gardener. We waited and he didn't come. Well, the believer can say, maybe we didn't wait long enough. And so they wait some more. And after the gardener doesn't appear after a few days, the unbeliever says, isn't it clear to you now that there is no gardener? The believer says, no, the gardener came, but he is invisible. And the unbeliever is a little mystified by this. He says, oh, it's an invisible gardener alright. So they set up a barbed wire fence and electrify the fence and have the bloodhounds out so they may not see him. But lo and behold, they wait and wait. They don't hear any shrieks, any howls of pain. The dogs never bark or even stir for that matter. And so finally the unbeliever says to the believer, there is it not clear to you that there is no gardener? He did not come, we did not see him. There is no evidence. And at that point the believer, holding on tenaciously to his conviction about there being a gardener, says, oh no, he came, but he's invisible and incorporeal, which is to say there would be no evidence whatsoever possible. And at that point the unbeliever, of course despairs and he says, what I want to know is what's the difference between there being no gardener at all and your assertion that the gardener is an invisible incorporeal being? What is the difference between these things? What are you ruling out when you say that there is a gardener? It doesn't appear that there's any difference between your beliefs and my beliefs. It's just a difference in the way you express yourself. And so since you haven't ruled anything out, you haven't actually said anything at all. And flew makes the now famous comment that here you see a fine brash hypothesis dying the death of a thousand qualifications. And he says, isn't this like religious people claiming that God loves them? They say God loves them and yet tornadoes come and destroy their homes, and they say still God loves them. They say he is chastening them. And then they see what is apparently meaningless suffering in their children, and they see sickness and death, and they see meaningless warfare and all these other things, and yet they persist, qualifying and qualifying and qualifying and qualifying. The statement that God loves us in the end, hasn't their claim about the love of God died the death of a thousand qualifications? They aren't really saying anything at all. It's not that what they're saying is false, it's that what they're saying is not asserting anything. It's meaningless. It's worse than false, because it's not saying anything at all, since there is no difference between an invisible gardener and no gardener at all. The dispute between the skeptic and the believer is not about the facts. It's not a dispute over an empirical assertion about the world. And so God talk is taken by Anthony Flue to be cognitively meaningless, that there is no cognitive meaning. Please keep that in mind as you're taking your notes, that it's cognitive meaning we're talking about. He will grant that there might be emotive meaning, that there might be some emotional thrust involved in saying God loves us, or there is a God. There may be some volitional meaning that may mean that you're committing yourself to a particular kind of lifestyle, but it has no cognitive meaning because it's not making any assertion about anything that makes any difference in the world whatsoever. The point of the parable, very simply, is the challenge that can be expressed in this question. What would have to happen to constitute for you a disproof of God's love or existence? What would have to happen to constitute for you a disproof of God's love existence? Now, I'm going to elaborate on Flew's parable for just a minute, because over the last 15 to 20 years. 15 years more exactly. It usually takes evangelical Christians about a decade to catch up to what's happening in philosophy. But over the last 15 years or so, the popular evangelical answer, apopulary evangelical answer, has been, well, of course, we as evangelicals have an easy response to that challenge. What would have to happen if Christ didn't rise from the dead that would disprove Christianity? Paul says that, right, if Christ be not risen, then everything that we have as Christians is in vain. It's for nothing, it's lost, and we of all men are most miserable. However, that in a very real sense misses the point of Flew's parable. And the reason it misses the point of the parable is because although Christians can say, if Christ be not risen, then our faith is nothing, and therefore we are making genuine assertions the difficulty persists because we'll never admit that anything proves that Christ did not rise from the dead. Okay, so here's somebody who says to Flew, if you disprove the Resurrection, then you have falsified Christianity. And since it's possible to falsify Christianity, in that sense, Christianity is cognitively meaningful. It is making a definite assertion. But you see, those who know the evangelical faith and what the biblical requirements on belief are, should be able to advance Flew's challenge in this way. We would go on to say, well, then what would have to occur to constitute a disproportionate proof for you of the resurrection? What would have to happen before you would believe the resurrection had been disproved? Let me give you an illustration. Let's say some first century manuscripts were unearthed which refute the Pauline and Gospel claims in detail. Let's say these first century manuscripts that we find next year are interviews with alleged witnesses, critiques made by the experts of the day, evidence that would have been used by the Sanhedrin against the claims of the apostles had it not been suppressed. Let's add to this now that in addition to the first century manuscripts that give all this counter evidence to the resurrection, the top 25 New Testament scholars in the world today, including the top evangelical New Testament scholars in the world today, all acceded to the evidence said that Christ did not rise from the dead. Would that then constitute a disproof for you? You know very well it wouldn't. No, even then, someone who has experienced the precious love of Christ would question the bias of the witnesses, would question the integrity of the scholarship, would trust Paul's declaration in First Corinthians 15 more than they trust the opinion of some scholars based on extra scriptural material. You see, to give in right there would be more than changing your opinion about the resurrection. It would be renouncing your faith. And God calls us to believe His Word even when the evidence is contrary to it. You read Romans, the fourth chapter, about the faith of Abraham, who believed in hope against hope according to the Word. The lord read Hebrews 11, where Abraham is commended for his faith, knowing that God could even bring Isaac back from the dead and consequently was willing to sacrifice his only son of promise. God calls us to believe His Word even when all the empirical evidence is against it. When it appears that the world has the goods on us, God requires us to be faithful to His Word. Let God be true, though every man is a liar. Paul says in Romans 3, verse 4, the heroes of biblical faith believed God's word without their own self sufficient corroboration. They believed it on the authority of God's saying it because they walked by faith rather than by sight. They wouldn't allow other evidence to take precedence over the evidence of God's Word. And thus, in a real sense, although it's true that if Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain for the Christian, nothing will constitute evidence that he did not rise. Christian language resists falsification. There are no terms which we can specify that will decisively make us renounce our faith. For faith excludes and prohibits renouncement. Okay, I'm only. I'm giving this as an appendix to Flew's parable because I want you to realize that the problem he's formulated is a problem for evangelicals as well as a problem for Tulikians. It isn't just those who meander in the neo orthodox land of pseudo language that have problems specifying the meaning of their terms. Flu would say to us, if you resist falsification of your claims, there's some question whether your claims have any meaning at all. Okay, now you.

Yes, two things. Does he stand in part of tradition.

That gave rise to the God is dead movement? Flu. As a matter of fact, on my reading, and I've read and done a lot of work in this area, I think it's fair to say he is really after the Neo Orthodox and the radicals. The only reason he doesn't write more pointedly to evangelicals is he probably thinks that we're fossilized creatures that nobody has to pay attention to. I think he's dead wrong. But I think that's the fact that the reason he doesn't go into his parable any further in the way that I have to make it very clear that, look, this very easy claim about a resurrection isn't good enough either because you won't let anything falsify it. It's because I don't think anybody takes that seriously. Anybody in his circles, and of course anybody outside of his circles is very close to not existing. And so I think he's writing for the John Robinson and the Karl Barths and the Paul Tillich's of the world. And maybe this is a good place to just add in that sense. I think his parable is very telling because I think modern unorthodoxy has played so many games with language that it probably needs to have its bubble burst by saying, well, just what are you saying, Tillich? I mean, is this, you know, being beyond being? Is this thing make any difference to the world at all. And if it doesn't make any difference, if every state of affairs is congenial with this, whatever you want to call it, God, then are you saying anything at all? So, I mean, that's probably fair. But on the other hand, the fact that he was directed. Directing his comments probably more pointedly at those fellows doesn't mean that we're off the hook just yet. Although I hope by the end of the hour we will be.

What does he do with the garden then? I think this is what has mystified me at times. I mean, admittedly, that's maybe a poor analogy to try to talk about God.

Oh, no. As a matter of fact, it's a very good one. The Christian story begins in a garden. So I think that's a very good analogy.

It was always unresolved in my mind because we ended up with this garden. They said, well, it doesn't exist. But what about the garden? That's still there. That's out of sequence with everything else.

Okay, let me. Let me put the cup of cold water dousing you now. There is no garden. You see, the point of the parable is some people think there's a garden. And when they go about trying to defend that claim, it dies the death of a thousand qualifications. There isn't a gardener. You see, you're still holding onto that incorporeal, intangible, invisible gardener that nobody ever sees. But that's as good as no gardener at all. That's Blue's point.

Well, are they, in a sense, walking.

Into, like, a vegetable patch in the.

Middle of a redwood forest? Or are they just walking through a redwood forest and deciding that this delineates a garden?

They're walking through the forest and they come across a patch of ground that appears to be tended by a gardener, by one of the travelers. The other traveler doesn't see it that way at all.

Oh, I thought they both did.

No, no, no, no. The other one says, there's no gardener here. Just a few flowers growing. So what? The other guy says, well, now, look, there must be a gardener. There are flowers. Somebody must tend them. Somebody must weed this patch. And so then they wait, and no gardener shows up. That shows that there's no gardener, right? No, because the believer says he's an invisible gardener, and then it turns out he's an incorporeal gardener. And then over and over and over again, these qualifications crop up. And pretty soon the skeptic says, what's the difference between your incorporeal invisible gardener and no gardener? At all. You're not saying anything. You're not saying anything that's incompatible with any state of affairs. Anything could happen here and you'd still believe there was a gardener. Well, are you going to try to answer flu, or do you want to get questions about flu? Because I'm going to go through this step by step before we get to the punchline. Okay? Okay, Good. Let's do this patiently, though. What is Basil Mitchell's response? Now, Mitchell responds to Flew's little parable. In the editor's introduction to these readings. You'll notice that Brody says that it really makes a difference whether flu Flew is claiming that a meaningful assertion rules out only certain states of affairs or whether it must rule out certain experiences. I'm afraid it might have, but I hope it didn't pounce your attention. The significance of that difference. Brody says to Flew, are you claiming that a meaningful assertion must rule out certain states of affairs, for instance, meaningless suffering? There must be no meaningless suffering if your religious claim has some substance to it. Or are you saying that it rules out certain experiences, for instance, suffering itself? And Brody makes the remark, if Flew says that it rules out only certain states of affairs, then there's no problem at all. Okay, let's say flu is making the claim that a religious approach to the world. Statements about a religious approach to the world rule out meaningless suffering. Okay, why is that no challenge? Because the believer never has to say that state of affairs been ruled out. He'll say, that's right. If there was such a thing as meaningless suffering, then there wouldn't be a God. But no suffering is meaningless. We may not know the meaning of it, we may have to trust him, but none of the suffering that we have is meaningless. You see, if he says it only rules out this state of affairs, and we have to say, that's right, it does rule out that state of affairs. But that's no challenge to our faith because we don't think that state of affairs ever occurs. Meaningless suffering. And so the stronger claim is that it rules out certain experiences, namely suffering itself. Now, is Flew claiming that Christian assertions rule out any suffering in order to be meaningful? Now, that would be a very strong indeed, a strong claim indeed. And that's what Brody says he has to go for, because this one is far too easy to deal with. Now, I'm telling you that by way of introduction to Basil Mitchell's response to flu, where, you see, this is at the heart, philosophically, of what Mitchell's trying to say. Mitchell says a religious person recognizes that suffering does indeed count against his claim for God. This is a religious person recognizes that suffering does count against his claim. He sees that there's some incongruity there. If there's a God of love, then this suffering is problematic. It counts in some degree against my claim about God. And the fact that he recognizes that suffering counts against the claim shows that his claim claim is meaningful. Mitchell says, if a religious person recognizes the incongruity of a God of love and suffering, then his claims about there being a God of love are meaningful. As long as he sees that the suffering is in some form a challenge to his faith, then the claims of his faith are meaningful. And then Mitchell adds, however, it's just because of his faith. However, it's just his faith that makes him not take the counter evidence as conclusive. Okay, here we have suffering. The religious person recognizes the challenge involved here. And yet the religious person has faith now because he recognizes the challenge to his claims found in the suffering. That means that the claims are meaningful. Okay, they wouldn't be meaningful at all if he says, oh, yeah, suffering, sure, God of love and suffering go hand in hand and say, well, that would make the claim absolutely without any meaning. But if he says, well, now wait a minute. Why is there suffering? If God is loving, then that shows there's some meaning to what he's saying. However, because of his faith, because he is a man of faith, that challenge will never become conclusive. It presents evidence against his faith, but never conclusive evidence against his faith. You see, it's like this situation here. That's why I was telling you about Brody. There's a connection between his remark and what Mitchell is doing. Brody says, well, sure, certain states of affairs are a problem to us. Certain experiences. Excuse me, certain experiences are a problem to us, but because of our faith, we'll never grant that they are meaningless. We'll never say that this suffering is without purpose. So there is a challenge to our faith, but it's never a conclusive challenge to our faith. Now, that preserves both faith and the meaningfulness of the assertion. Any questions about how Mitchell approaches this before I move on to Aren't Hare? You all understand, it's really kind of a simple answer in a sense. He says, look, we don't take it for granted, all this counter evidence. And so since we're challenged by it, it shows that our religious assertions have some cognitive meaning. But on the other hand, while we don't take it for granted, while we see the challenge, we will not be overwhelmed by the challenge because we are men of faith.

And here he means faith in the sense of epistemological confidence.

This type of thing. Yes. What else would it be?

Saving faith.

Biblical faith. I'm not sure you want to rent.

It as number two. Who is the one who has faith in the believer or anybody?

It's the believer. Yes. Oh, he's the believer? Yes. It's the Christian who says, there is a God of love. Okay, okay.

I thought it was anyone who believed in his own assertions.

No, no. We're talking about believing certain kinds of assertions, religious ones. Was there another question? When they talk about a statement or language being meaningful, are they talking about meaningful to both the believer and the unbeliever? Only within the context and mindfulness believers. Well, they're saying it can't be meaningful for anybody. If it doesn't rule out something, if there isn't some condition that you can specify that would falsify the belief, then it isn't asserting anything at all. If your assertion is congenial with every state of affairs in the world, every conceivable state of affairs, then necessarily you're not asserting anything whatsoever. If it doesn't rule out something, then it doesn't rule in anything. Okay. Rm hera takes another approach. He doesn't talk about there being a challenge involved in the experience of suffering, but the challenge is never overwhelming. He says rather that religious assertions, that religious claims are a very special kind of statement. As a matter of fact, they don't assert anything. And so he wants to give flew that part of the challenge. He wants to say, that's right. Religious claims don't assert anything. Nevertheless, they are a very special kind of statement which is meaningful nonetheless. What does he call this kind of statement? A blick. Right. Anybody want to translate that for us? What's a blick? You didn't make it up. It's a German word. What's a blick? Nobody.

Belief, experience. All kind of tied up together somehow.

Mindset. A mindset. It's kind of like the salt psychology, isn't it? It's an organizing picture or a vision. It's a seeing of a certain sort. It's an organizing seeing of things. It's a blip. Now, he says, while assertions about Blix, or assertions which constitute a do not assert anything, they are nevertheless meaningful. Why are they meaningful? Because they make a great deal of difference to the way you approach the world. And he gives the counter illustration of a don who is studying, I believe, at Oxford and This don has a particular kind of blick. What does he call it? Am I properly perceiving that we haven't done the reading today? This is very enjoyable and easy reading. If you haven't done it today, by all means pick it up and do it. This will be the easiest reading of the term. It's just a bunch of stories. If you can understand the point of a story, you can do philosophy. Now, all the other stuff required modal logic and all that. This is philosophy for all of us.

Insane blick.

An insane blick, right? What is the insane blick? He has the blick. He has the worldview. He has his perception that everybody's out to kill him. He's an extreme paranoid. All right. Now what happens? His fellow dons try to give him evidence of how his friends care for him. They give him parties, they go out of their way to help him. And all the while, as they are giving this evidence, he's looking at the evidence as just a way to dupe him all the further, to draw him in, you see, to suck him into this web of deception so that when he's not looking, they'll be able to kill him. And so every bit of evidence turns out to be a two edged sword because of his blip. Now, does it make any difference at all that he has this blick? You say every piece of evidence you give him is congenial with his blick. I mean, all the counter evidence turns out not to be counter evidence for him. Nothing will falsify his belief that people are out to kill him. Nothing. Now, on Flew's basis, he's not asserting anything at all because what he's saying, saying is congenial with everything. He's not asserting anything because he's not ruling anything out. No possible state of affairs is going to take that belief away. Now what Hare is saying is, you're right, Flew, he's not asserting anything, but he certainly has a meaningful statement nonetheless. It's meaningful because there's all the difference in the world between an insane and a sane blitz. And the religious person has a particular blip on the world. Now we want to ask ourselves more particularly, what is a blick? And unfortunately, this is where Hare lets us down at this point. He offers us only stories and analogies. And so you get no real sophisticated philosophical analysis of what a blick is. You only get a feeling for it on the basis of the analogies he offers. I want to go on to John Hick's response to the challenge of flu in just A moment. But before I do that, I think it's important to make one aside as an evangelical, to what Hare is doing. Please. I'm going to come back and I'm going to answer this in a way that's different from Mitchell, Hare and Hick. But right now I have to at least point out that this, this approach by way of Blix is really, I think, a selling out of the faith. It's a selling out because it amounts to radical conformism to science, a conformism to counter evidence. Conformism is one of the basic strategies that has been adopted through the history of the Christian church with respect respect to apologetical defense. Conformism characterizes that school of thought that says Christianity is congenial with whatever the scientists or the experts say because Christianity is not saying anything definite about the world. Science and religion can never conflict because science and religion are talking about different things. And that's called a radical conformism, because what it means, what that amounts to is conforming to the scientific worldview of your day or the scientific assertions of the day or the experts of the whatever opinion may be reigning at that particular time. Science, according to the conformist approach to apologetics, is and always will be all right just the way it is. And for that reason, we are precluded from doing any Christian critique science internally. To Flew's conclusion that religious commitment does not involve holding certain propositions to be true and that to express one's commitment is not to make any assertion. What Hare is actually pleading is nolocotende right. We will not answer. There is nothing to be said. We're neither guilty nor innocent because we're not in that ballpark at all. We're not interested in making assertions. By regarding Flew's argument for the meaninglessness of religious assertions as decisive, Hare, I think, has in fact surrendered the entire field of facts and the assertion of facts to the scientist. Religious commitment, for Hare, consists of simply having a distinctive blip on the world. Now, if Hare's theory of the Blick approach to religious commitment is meant to be a theory about Christianity, then I think he's surely mistaken, because as a matter of fact, people sometimes do surrender their Christian commitments. People do sometimes, in the face of counter evidence from the scientists, surrender what was their previous profession of faith, what they have come to believe from the source, the Bible. They give up in the face of what they think is overwhelming evidence. And so if nothing else here is certainly wrong descriptively about what Christian commitment is, because that isn't the way Christian commitment Historically has functioned. As a matter of fact, most Christians will look into what kind of revision is necessary in their thinking when a conflict emerges between the claims of the experts and the claims of the Bible. However, I don't think Hare is telling us how Christian commitment has in fact functioned. He's not trying to give us a description of Christian commitment. I think he's really giving us a prescription. I think he's saying this is how religious people ought to react to counter evidence. He's recommending very tacitly that Christians revise their commitments in such a way that no conflict can ever emerge between them and the scientific establishment. And in that sense, he represents a radical conformism, which as an evangelical, I have to object to because science and religion can conflict because religious people are making statements that have a bearing on our scientific worldview. Okay, let's go on and look at Hick's response. Unless you want to stop there. As I read the article, it seemed that a blick might be on the level of worldview class.

On that level, he does have something to say.

That's right. You could reinterpret pair in terms of a worldview that a man will not relinquish. The difficulty is that he explicates by way of analogy and story what this blick is in such a way that facts have nothing to do with it whatsoever. And as you know, the Christian worldview is not immune from factual considerations. As Machen said in the years ago, it's a historical religion and it's based on history. And consequently we can't say it's simply a floating kind of attitude toward which toward the facts. And that's why I don't give him that favorable interpretation. I think, in fact, he represents a radical conformism toward counter evidence. Okay, let's look now, John Hick's response. Can somebody tell me how Hick responds to flu's challenge that we aren't asserting anything at all and therefore our religious claims are meaningless? Yeah. Doesn't Hick understand try to say that claims and assertions are meaningful in and of themselves? No, he doesn't. No, he does not. He does not affirm that all. In fact, if you got that from the reading, then I think it would be good to go back and look at it again. He would not agree with what you said. They are not meaningful in and of themselves. Hick again accepts the challenge. He says, you're right, Flew. If religious claims are to have any meaning, then they must rule something out. They must rule something in. And so what Is the concrete meaning lying behind religious assertions? No, falsifiability can't be verified. Verification and falsification are opposite ends of the spectrum. Falsification means you can specify conditions under which the falsity of the assertion will would be recognized. Verification is you can specify conditions under which the truth of the assertion has been found out. He discusses the verification possibilities of life after death. Exactly. It's what's called the eschatological verification. Hicks says the believer's claims stand or fall on a certain future expectation. The believer expects a certain future future experience to take place. And his eschatological claims about man surviving death and encountering God therefore make his religious assertions meaningful because those claims rule out annihilation and they rule out atheism. And since they specifically rule out the experiences associated with atheistic or annihilistic views, therefore Christianity is meaningful because of this possibility of eschatological verification. What immediately strikes you as somehow unsatisfactory with this answer? Well, you see the slight problem that it's verifiable but it's not falsifiable. Is that right? You can verify an eschatological claim, but you cannot falsify an eschatological claim. Why can't you falsify an eschatological claim? So it's further down. Well, not just because it's down the road. I mean the day will come where decisively a person could know that it's true or false. But if it's false, then there's no consciousness to know that it's false. You see, if it's true, if there is the batific vision waiting for us to use Thomistic categories, then it'll all be verified in the end. And those who go to hell would be verified for them too. But if it's false, if after all we should have eaten and drink and been merry because tomorrow we die and that's the end. Click. Darkness, it's all over. Then there's nobody there to know that it was wrong. You see, if you could know that it's wrong after you die, then it would have verified it because that would show that there's consciousness after death. You can always verify it if you're conscious, but if it's wrong, then you can't verify or falsify it. And so there's this kind of one sidedness to the venture. Now Hick does say that he thinks that he's still making an assertion, even if that assertion makes no difference in this life. And he likens that to two men who are traveling on a road. And he says they can argue about the condition of the road as much as they want and agree about it or disagree about it and still differ as to the destination of the road. And so he says, in this life, it may not make any difference at all. The road of life up to the point of our destination. The believer and the unbeliever can agree about what they see, what the state of the war in Vietnam is, or what the state of poverty may be. All these things we're taking taking place at the time he was writing, he said, look, the believer and the unbeliever, they don't have to differ about anything there, but they certainly differ as to where the road is leading, the war in Vietnam is, or what the state of poverty may be. All these things were taking place at the time he was writing. He said, look, the believer in the end believer, they don't have to differ about anything there, but they certainly differ as to where the road is leading. Okay, so he says, I'm making an assertion, even if it doesn't make any difference in this life. But as I pointed out, what he's really saying is that he has a verifiable assertion if it is true, but he doesn't have a falsifiable assertion by anyone under any conditions. I think something further can be said about Hicks approach. I think we can legitimately ask, is Hick giving us a religious point of view that requires a transcendent God? To rephrase the question more meaningfully now, do all conceptions of an afterlife require a transcendent God? Could not the unbeliever say to Hick, well, maybe we will survive our death. Maybe there will be consciousness, afterlife. That isn't to say there's going to be a beatific vision of God. Doesn't mean we're going to encounter our maker. Maybe we just live in a. In a world of spirits. Maybe when all is said and done, the animists are right. Maybe there is an afterlife, but one that doesn't require a God. And so if that's the case, even what Hick says is verifiable. That is, an afterlife doesn't show the meaningfulness of religious assertions, or at least Christian religious assertions. And in that case, do religious claims really differ from secular claims? After all, it may turn out that since he hasn't shown the need for a transcendent God in the eschatological religions, that he hasn't given us a difference between secular claims about the World and religious claims. After all, Christian claims about love, defined as, there is meaning to humanity, there's a dignity to humanity because men live after they die, could simply be statements that any secularist could make if he knew that there was consciousness after death. It wouldn't call for bringing God into the picture at all. So in all these ways, it appears that Hick's proposal, while challenging in one sense, has not been convincing to very many philosophers. And I guess my own opinion is it's not very convincing when all is said and done, either. Okay, Any questions about the readings? All I've been doing is excavating your reading assignment for today. Up to this point, I would like to offer my own analysis of the situation and answer to the problem. Go ahead.

Do any of these guys ever confer like this? Hick ever confer with Mitchell and say, hey, how does this sound? Just poke some holes in it, or do they just write it and then send it back to the publisher?

To Brody? Oh, I. No, no. Brody chose these pieces from published works. And there are conferences sometimes where a person will present a paper and there's a response. And there's certainly interaction in the philosophical journals between these men. But whether these particular individuals have shared their contributions prior to publication with each other, I couldn't tell you. My guess is that they have not, but I really have no way of knowing. Yeah. Are the tones of universalism in Hick a result of this philosophical views here or some other presuppositions? He has gone? Yes. Oh, you put me in an awkward position. Commenting on Hick, I find it very hard to see any uniformity or connection between most of the things Hick writes. I'm not sure the man has a unified world and life view. And besides that, he's just. He's shifted positions in the last 30 years. I mean, his recent views on the incarnation, you know, are just radical in comparison even to the new orthodox views he once defended. And so I guess the answer to your question, when all said and done, is, no, I don't think it is the logical outward of what he said here. But then again, I'm not sure that anything he has said is logical outworking of what he said elsewhere, either is my point. So. All right, let me give you something of the background to this claim. I mean, to this challenge to the meaningfulness of religious claims. Let me do a little philosophical background for you. The background that is of interest to us is that school of thought called logical Positivism. Certain Viennese scientists and philosophers, earlier in the 20th century were quite intrigued by a book written by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his earlier period, the Tractatus Philosophicus. Logical, philosophical, the Tractatus had tried to develop a system by which the world could be adequately pictured in language. However, it turned out that the perfect language of the Tractatus, a development of Russell and Whitehead's elementary first order logic, led to mysticism, stating that if the picture theory of reality or the picture theory of language about reality were true as presented in the Tractatus, then everything said in the Tractatus could not itself be meaningful. The Tractatus was its own reputation, and Wittgenstein recognized that at the end of the Tractatus, the well known assertion is made whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. And therewith Wittgenstein closed his philosophical books and went to the Black Forest for about seven years, as I recall, and just left philosophy altogether. He was convinced that the Tractatus had taken him to the point of mysticism. Now, the Viennese scientists and philosophers that formulated the school of thought or constituted the school that comes to be called Logical Positivism, were very impressed with the work of Wittgenstein and the Tractatus, and they adopted it as something of a program for them, although they tried to strip the Tractatus of its mysticism and its self refuting character. In addition, they adopted some of the more messianic ideas and pretensions of European Positivism as you see it in August Comte and others. And hence they were called logical following the Tractatus and Positivist following Comte. So you have logical Positivism. And during the ascendancy of this position or this school, Wittgenstein, as I said, had already abandoned philosophy, refusing to speak of philosophical matters. Okay, let's talk about the revisions logical Positivism made. They rejected Wittgenstein's picture theory of language. They said language is not, nor ought it to be necessarily a perfect picture of the world. And they rejected all metaphysics whatsoever, even the metaphysics that was implicit in the Tractatus. Philosophy is not concerned with discovering any facts which might be unavailable to other disciplines. That's just a way of saying philosophy has no metaphysical claims to make whatsoever. Philosophers only talk about what scientists talk about. And therefore the task of philosophy, according to logical Positivism, is simply to analyze and clarify the language of science. Okay, what kinds of language do we find then, when we do an analysis of the language of science? Well, we find tautologies. Okay, a tautology is a statement like this, chair is a chair. A is a. A is not, not a logical formulations like that, and we know that tautologies are true merely by knowing the meanings of the terms involved. If you know what a chair is, then you know that the chair is a chair. Must be true. Okay, now, in addition to tautologies or logical truths, there are contradictions in our language. Okay, it is raining, but it is not raining. That would be a contradictory statement. In addition to tautologies and contradictions, the logical positivist said we can find empirical statements. The barn is red is an empirical statement. This statement can be true or this statement can be false. If the barn is black and you say it is red, then it's a false statement. If it happens to be red when you say it's red, then it's a true statement. These can be true or false, determined by the meaning of their terms and our investigation of the facts about the world. Only empirical statements convey any information about the world. World. In addition to tautologies, contradictions, and empirical statements, the logical positivist said, was one other category of language, emotive language. And this became something of a catch all for the logical positivist. For poetry, for ethics, for religious statements, for anything they didn't think had any cognitive meaning. Okay, so you have tautologies and contradictions, empirical statements, the only ones that are really important giving us information about the world. Then you have emotive slop. Now, in addition to their categorization of language and the kinds of language we find, the logical positivists propose what is called the verification principle of meaning. For any statement to be empirically meaningful, for any statement to be caught cognitively meaningful. If any statement is going to be empirically or cognitively meaningful, it must be verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. Any statement that's going to fall into this category right here, an empirical statement, a cognitively meaningful statement, must be verifiable by the methods of natural science. Now, by that test, all ethical statements, all metaphysical statements, all religious statements, all poetic statements become cognitively meaningless. Although they may have emotive value, they may fall into this slop category down here. They do not count for the dignified status of empirically or cognitively meaningful statements because they convey no information about the world. At best, they express an attitude toward the world. Now, this is the background to Flu's challenge. Now I'm going to do some criticism of the background and eventually work up to criticizing Flu's challenge. Let me give you some criticisms of the verifiability principle. The first criticism would be its vagueness. One of the earliest formulations of the principle was that a statement is cognitively meaningful if it is conclusively verifiable through empirical evidence. However, that version of the principle turns out to rule out as meaningless all general statements. All general statements. Not simply all religious, metaphysical or ethical statements, but any general statement. Let me give you an example. All bodies tend to fall to the ground. That's a perfectly general statement, if you want to use the medieval phrase. It's like a universal all bodies tend to fall to the ground, at least in our atmosphere, if you want the qualification to make it true. But you see, natural science cannot conclusively verify that, can it? Why can't natural science conclusively verify that? Why is it that science can't verify that all swans are white?

Because we haven't observed all of them.

That's right. Nobody is able to observe all swans or all falling bodies. And consequently there can be no verification of general statements. And so it turns out that this vagueness in the verifiability principle is intolerable to natural science, because natural science relies upon certain universal statements about gravity or swans or what have you. And so, in the name of exalting natural science, the verifiability principle ruins natural science. And so an alternative was suggested by Carl Paffer. Please put that name in your notes. I'll expect you to know this. Karl Popper, one of the most influential philosophers of science in our age, proposed an alternative. Then he said, a statement is cognitively meaningful, not if it's verifiable, not using the verification principle. He says it's meaningful if it is conclusively falsifiable. If it is falsifiable, That is, if there are empirical means of showing conclusively that the statement is false, if indeed it is false, if there are empirical means by which we could falsify the statement. If it is false, then it is a meaningful statement. Now you've got to be awake. I realize it's after lunch and maybe warm in the room and everything. He is not saying that a statement is meaningful if it's false. He's saying it's meaningful if you can specify empirical ways of falsifying it. Should it be false, that is, it's subject to empirical testing and falsification. If it's subject to empirical falsification, even though it may be true and therefore never falsified. But if it's subject to falsification through empirical means, then it is a meaningful statement. Now, I hope you recognize that this is what lies behind Anthony Flew's claims about religious matters. He's not asking for verification of religion. He's asking for falsification. He says, is there any conclusive way through empirical channels you could falsify a religious statement? He is resting directly upon Karl Popper's reformulation of the logical positivist thrust about meaning or cognitive meaning. What's the problem with the falsification approach of Popper? Well, philosophically, it turns out that this version of logical positivism rules out as meaningless all particular assertions. Remember I said the verification principle rules out all general statements about all swans or all falling bodies or what you may have? Well, it turns out that the falsification principle rules out all particular statements. No particular statement can ever be conclusively falsified. What's a particular statement? It's not a statement about all bodies or all swans. That's a statement or assertion about this particular body or this particular swan or something like that. If somebody says black holes exist, that there are yellow cows or something like that, those statements can never be conclusively falsified. Never conclusively falsified. You're probably wondering why not. Well, this has to do with the problems of modus tollens in logic. It turns out that when you encounter some falsifying experience in the empirical world, that what is really being contradicted is not a particular theory that you hold, but a whole web of beliefs that you have. It turns out that every individual, when he encounters the world, comes to the world with a web of beliefs and not just a particular theory. So that if this theory is out there, you see on the cutting edge of everything, and then it runs into some counter evidence, then the theory gets smacked down in your mind. You say, well, I can't hold it. That theory, what in fact happens, is like a spider web going out to the world. And when something gets in the way of the spider web, you never know what's going to give in the spider web. There's no conclusive way to say what a man must give up. All right, let us say that I believe monkeys eat bananas, that this thing over here is a monkey because it is eating bananas. And somebody says that thing over there is not a monkey because monkeys don't meow. And now listen, and you do something to this creature and it goes meow. Person says, it's a cat, not a monkey. Now, did I go out there looking for the evidence verifying or falsifying simply with the belief that monkeys eat bananas or that this is a monkey? No, I went out with both of those beliefs, didn't I? In fact, I went out with the whole web of beliefs. I could. If somebody says, okay, that is not a monkey, therefore I've proven that it's not a monkey and it's been falsified, you've got a meaningful statement. You said, it's a monkey, but it's been falsified. It's subject to falsification. It's very meaningful. I say, oh, no, no, that's a monkey. It's just that monkeys meow. Hmm. Somebody says, well, we're gonna go through all this other kind of experimentation with this creature, and we're gonna show you once and for all that this is not a monkey. You go through all the folderol and so finally the evidence has been given, it's not a monkey. And the person says, no, it's still a monkey. But we can't trust our senses. You see, all along he's been part of the web of his beliefs, is you could trust what you're seeing. But you see, he could decide to give up his belief that his senses are reliable rather than give up the cherished belief that that thing out there is a monkey. You never know when you meet a counter factual, or you never know when you meet something that is contrary to your beliefs, which belief you will give up. And so there is no conclusive falsification of any particular belief. You see what I'm getting at? Let me tell you a little story. This one will parody the story that Flew has told. Okay? And now this. You see, though, is directed against the scientist. We're going to put the shoe on the other side foot here. My story goes like this. It's a story about an imaginary case of planetary misbehavior. A physicist of the pre Einsteinian era takes Newton's mechanics and his law of gravitation, the accepted initial conditions for astronomy, and calculates with their help, the path of a newly discovered planet that we'll call P. But the planet turns out to deviate from the calculated path. You use Newtonian principles, and the planet is not following what it should, the calculated path. Now, does our Newtonian physicist consider that the deviation was forbidden by Newton's theory and therefore that once established, it refutes his theory? No, he suggests that there must be a hitherto unknown planet Q which perturbs the path of P. He calculates the math, excuse me, the mass, the orbit, and all the rest of this hypothetical planet. And then he asks an experimental astronomer to test his hypothesis. The planet Q is so small that Even the biggest available telescopes cannot possibly observe it. However, the experimental astronomer applies for a research grant then to build yet a bigger1. In three years time, the new telescope is ready. Were the unknown planet Q to be discovered, it would be hailed as a new victory of Newtonian science. But it is not discovered. Does our scientist abandon Newton's theory then and his idea of the perturbing planet? No. Now he suggests that a cloud of cosmic dust hides the planet from us. And he calculates the location and properties of this cloud. And he asks for a research grant to send up a satellite to test his calculations. Were the satellite's instruments possibly new ones, based on a little tested theory to record the existence of this conjectural cloud? The result would indeed be hailed as an outstanding victory for Newtonian science. But the cloud is not found. Does our scientist now abandon Newton's theory together with the idea of the perturbing planet and the idea of the cloud which hides the perturbing planet? No. He suggests that there is some magnetic field in that region of the universe which disturbed the instruments of the satellite. And so now a new satellite is sent up. Were the magnetic field to be found, Newtonians would celebrate a sensational victory. But it's not. Is this regarded as a refutation of Newtonian science? No, either yet another ingenious auxiliary hypothesis is proposed, or, as usually happens, the whole story is buried in the dusty volumes of periodicals. In the story never again mentioned, what do we learn from my story? We learned that scientists sometimes have theories that are not subject to falsification too. And yet nobody would doubt that all the claims I've made in the process here are meaningful claims. They just happen to be false ones. Now, the problem with falsification is that no particular claim ever gets falsified. Okay, I'm going to take a step further down the line. Now we go from the vagueness of the verification principle to the unreliability of the falsification principle, to yet a third version of logical positivism that says a statement is cognitively meaningful if there is some empirical evidence relevant to its truth or falsity. Just as long as there is some empirical evidence relevant. A statement is cognitively meaningful just as long as there is some empirical relevance to it. Now, the problem with that version is that it allows back into the picture all the metaphysical, ethical and religious language that the positivists originally wanted to reject. Because every ethical, metaphysical and religious view has some empirical relevance, albeit small or trivial or insignificant in the eyes of others, there is some relevance and that's all it takes. Okay, so the first thing I wanted to point out in terms of the verification principle is its vagueness, its inability to be stated in a way that will do the job that it was supposed to do. The second thing I want to point out is its arbitrariness. First its vagueness and now its arbitrariness. The positivists appeared to be involved in a frenzied search for a formulation which would allow for scientific language, while ruling out the language of metaphysics, religion and ethics from the sphere of cognitive meaning. And you can see the frenzied search just because they kept posing and reposing and reformation formulating ideas for a principle about cognitive meaning without concern for whether it was actually true or false, just would it do the job? Obviously they were looking for something that would do the job and therefore had a faith commitment in advance. And indeed, once logical positivism, as the school of philosophical thought collapsed in about the 1950s or the late 50s, it turned out that the positivist did, did not give up their trough to natural science. They said they were wrong about their views of cognitive meaning, but that nevertheless only the language of natural science should be the language of philosophy. And after 20 years of searching for a principle of cognitive meaning, it turns out they didn't care about that at all. Now I'm exaggerating, I'm drawing a caricature, but I want you to get the point. They had a faith commitment to the language of natural science and therefore you can see the arbitrariness of what was going on here. Thirdly, I want to point out the self refuting character of what they were doing. The verification principle itself never turned out to be verifiable under any of its formulations. And therefore, if the verification principle were true, the principle itself would have to be rejected as cognitively meaningless. That is, if it's true that only those statements which can be empirically verified or falsified are meaningful, then the statement that only statements which are verifiable are meaningful is itself verified. And what experience did anybody run into the falsification principle? In your experience today? You may have sat in a car, you may have seen a cow, you may have run across a lot of things, but I dare say you didn't run across the verification principle when you're out at the store today. That's not the sort of thing we encounter in our natural experience. Consequently, the verification principle itself could not be cognitively, could not be empirically verified or falsified, in which case it would have to be concluded to be meaningless. And given the positivist outline, it would turn out that it would have to be a quasi religious or emotive utterance when all is said and done. And if that's true, then logical positivism is a religion, just like Christianity is a religion. And that I think is probably the toughest criticism that can be made of any philosophical theory. It turns out to be the very thing it's opposing. I think that this contradiction actually arises from a rationalist irrationalist dialectic. You've heard that a few times from me. Now, as rationalist, the positivist attempted to reduce all, all meaningful utterances to their own rational scheme of natural science. But that scheme turned out to be what vacuous and trivial as most rational schemes are. For it defined a concept of cognitive meaning which did not correspond with any concept actually being used in science anywhere. And then secondly, it turned out to be irrational because it was self refuting and arbitrary, calling for a faith commitment to the rationality of the whole scheme that has actually been put into serious question. Okay, now I really don't think it's fair for Christians to try to answer Anthony Flew without knowing something of the background to what was inspiring Flew's challenge. And now that you know something of the background, I dare say that challenge doesn't look nearly so big. In fact, it will turn out that the challenge is going to be self refuting. And I've run out of time and we're not going to be meeting on Friday, it turns out. So next Monday, Lord willing, we come together. I'll continue my response to Anthony Flew and I'll try to explain what it is that makes religious language unfalsifiable and then point out that Anthony Flew is in the same boat with the rest of us. It's just that he has a different faith commitment. Just a history question.

The demise of logical positivism came in the 1950s.

I should say by the, by the mid-1950s, most people recognized the program would not work.

Give me a date for Wittgenstein. Is Wittgenstein considered the father of logical positivism?

Well, only in the sense that the Tractatus was the, was taken as programmatic for the logical positivist. Wittgenstein by that time had given up philosophy. And Wittgenstein then comes back in the 30s. In the 1930s?

Yes, those 20 years.

Right. And then Wittgenstein dies in the late 50s. I have to get the actual date. But the heyday of Wittgensteinian scholarship is the 60s and 70s in philosophy that's right he comes into his own language philosophy, ordinary language philosophy John Austin Ludwig Wittgenstein would be the most recent, if you will, school that has dominated Anglo.

American philosophy and Whitehead is in the 40s is he?

Oh, Whitehead would be earlier than that. Whitehead is a kind of an enigmatic figure. He was very important in terms of his logical theories with Russell in the early. I meant Russell 1900s oh Russell. I meant Russell yeah Russell said it would be the 1400-1900 of course he lived much further than that he was respected long beyond that. I mean this is all arbitrary in one sense There are still Russellians today who think he was right and all that but I should say the heyday of his influence waned with the coming of with ordinary language analysis with Wittgenstein and Austin okay, when we come back together I will give you a more direct answer to flu then.