The Verification Principle & Religious Language

The Logical Positivists, led by the philosophers of the Vienna Circle and then further developed by A.J.Ayer claimed that

only factually verifiable statements are meaningful.

Religious Language & Strong Verification

• Metaphysical Being – “beyond the physical world” there is nothing in the universe which corresponds to God.

• Transcendent – beyond time and space. The laws of nature cannot apply to God as God is not part of the natural world

Therefore, there is no way we can use empirical methods to test the truth of claims we make about God – any statement made about God, afterlife, soul, the divinity of Christ etc are completely meaningless according to the Strong VP.

God is…

Religious Language & Weak Verification

• The Weak version of the VP as put forward by Ayer states that for any proposition to be meaningful…:

• The probable truth of statements must be established through observation

Or• We know in principle what is necessary to

ascertain it’s truth, even if we cannot currently do so.

Let’s have a look at this…

Look carefully at the following statements – can any of them be verified according to the Weak VP?

• The universe is carefully and purposefully designed by God

• Intelligent Design? Could order and design in the universe count as evidence to verify the statement “God is the Creator”

• Richard Swinburne claims that when viewed together, the classical arguments (cosmo, teleo, onto, rel exp) demonstrate a cumulative probability of God’s existence.

• At death, we will face judgment which will determine our afterlife.

– This particular point was picked up on by John Hick…

John Hick – Eschatological Verification• Born 1922• Religious Pluralist• Believed that

statements about God can be factual & meaningful

• Used Ayer’s Weak version of the verification principle to argue in favour of religious statements being meaningful.

John Hick – Eschatological Verification

• Hick challenges the claim by Ayer that there are claims that can in principle be verified.– Eg: There is life on Planet Neptune

– This may not be verifiable at the moment, but it may be verifiable in the future: it is in principle, verifiable. We know what we would have to do in order to establish the truth of the claim.

John Hick’s The Parable of the Celestial City

• Hick argues that the potential verifiability of religious statements makes them meaningful

• ESCHATOLOGICAL VERIFICATION(We find out when we die)

Many Religious statements rest on the claim that there is an afterlife and that means they can be verified in an afterlife.

NB: Hick’s Eschatological Verification only works if we retain our consciousness & personal identity after death. We will return to this in our next unit!