The Problem of Religious Language
Sandra LaFave
1. Meaning and
Verifiability You remember the logical positivists from Palmer’s chapter
on ontology. They were the 20th-century
radical empiricist heirs of David Hume.
The logical positivists said statements about the world (a posteriori
statements) had to pass the verificationist test in order to be meaningful.
According to the verificationist test, an empirical statement is meaningful (not nonsense) if and only if you know, or you can imagine, what would verify it (what would make it true) and what would falsify it (what would make it false). Statements that do not pass the verificationist test are nonsense. A statement is nonsense, then, if nothing makes it true or
false. In other words, a statement is nonsense if it is compatible with all
states of affairs. The verificationist principle applies only to a
posteriori statements. True statements about a priori matters
(relations of ideas) are compatible with all states of affairs, but not in a
dangerous way. For example, nothing falsifies “2 + 2 = 4” but according to the
positivists, that’s not a statement about the world; it’s a statement about how
we think. You’d probably agree that lots of statements are
nonsense. For example, consider the
statement “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” That statement comes from
the famous linguist Noam Chomsky. Now, what would make that true? False? You
don’t know where to look, because the statement is internally contradictory –
whereas the universe isn’t. Many statements of pseudo-science (bogus science) are
compatible with all states of affairs.
Consider statements of astrology. Suppose your horoscope says “You may
be disappointed today.” That’s going to be true whether or not you’re
disappointed today. In other words, the claim is not falsifiable. And according
to the logical positivists, if it’s not falsifiable, it’s meaningless nonsense. “The universe came into existence five minutes ago,
complete with so-called historical records and memories.” You can’t prove that’s
false either, can you? Anything you
bring forward as evidence to the contrary is either a “historical” record (like
“yesterday’s” newspaper, which of course came into existence with all the other
“historical” records five minutes ago) or a memory (a false memory). Because
you can’t prove the statement false, the statement does not pass the
verificationist test for meaning. The
statement is not false; it doesn’t say anything at all, so it’s nonsense. That’s an important point. “False” and “nonsense” are two different things. The statement “Bill Clinton is on my roof”
is meaningful, because I know how my roof would be different if it were
true. The statement is not compatible
with all states of affairs. However, the statement “God is in this room” would
be classified as meaningless, since I don’t know how the room would be any
different if God were in it or not (assuming God is a non-material being that
can’t be sensed – the usual definition of “God”). 2. Antony Flew and the
Parable of the Gardener I’m talking about these questions to introduce the topic
of religious language in general. Antony Flew, a logical positivist
philosopher, says exactly what you’d expect a positivist to say about religious
assertions such as “God exists” and “God loves me.” What would you expect?
Think. Yes, he says these
statements are nonsense. (Was that an easy question or what?) Antony Flew, in an exchange called “Theology and
Falsification”, makes the point by means of the
following parable: “Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, ‘Some gardener must tend this plot.’ The other disagrees, ‘There is no gardener.’ So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. ‘But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.’ So they set up a barbed-wire fenced. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the believer is not convinced. ‘But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensitive to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.’ At last the Sceptic despairs, ‘but what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?’” Flew says the original assertion that a gardener exists
has been so qualified by the end of the exchange that nothing remains of
it. A “qualified” claim is one that’s partly taken back; for example, “Jack said he loved his girlfriend more than
he’d ever loved any woman. Then he qualified
his statement: ‘Except my mother, of course.’” Flew’s point is that the original assertion doesn’t mean
anything by the time the believer has finished qualifying it. The original
claim (“There’s a gardener – a regular, flesh and blood fellow whom you’d see
if he were standing in front of you”) could have been falsified. The flesh and
blood gardener doesn’t exist if he’s invisible. But the qualified claim can’t be proved false. And if it
can’t be proved false, it doesn’t pass the verificationist test of
meaningfulness; it is nonsense. The gardener is a metaphor for God, of course. Thus Flew challenges two other philosophers, R. M. Hare
and Basil Mitchell, to respond to the question: “What would have to occur or to
have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or the existence
of, God?” He is, of course, setting a trap.
If they say “nothing,” then their claims can’t be falsified and thus
fall into Flew’s nonsense category. So the other two philosophers must find a
way to respond to Flew that evades the trap.
See if you think they succeed. 3. R. M. Hare and the
Parable of the Paranoid Man The philosopher R. M. Hare writes: “I must begin by
confessing that, on the ground marked out by Flew, he seems to me to be
completely victorious.” Hare thinks
Flew’s conclusions follow if you accept Flew’s assumptions, particularly Flew’s
assumptions about what counts as verification and falsification. But, Hare says, Flew does not realize that different
people have very different standards for verification and falsification. What counts as falsifying evidence for one
person might not count for another. In Hare’s terms, not everyone has the same blik. A blik is a frame of reference in
terms of which data is interpreted – a mental filter in terms of which the
notion of evidence is defined. Hare says: “ ... without a blik there can
be no explanation; for it is by our bliks that we decide what is and
what is not an explanation.” Hare illustrates this with the parable of the paranoid
man. “A certain lunatic is convinced that all dons want to
murder him. [A “don” is a tutor at a British university.] His friends introduce
him to all the mildest and most respectable dons that they can find, and after
each of them has retired, they say, ‘You see, he doesn’t really want to murder
you; he spoke to you in a most cordial manner; surely you are convinced now?’
But the lunatic replies, ‘Yes, but that was only is diabolical cunning; he’s
really plotting against me the whole time, like the rest of them; I know it, I
tell you.’ However many kindly dons are produced, the reaction is still the
same.” The paranoid man’s entire frame of reference is
paranoid. Any evidence that might count
to falsify the claim that dons are all killers (e.g., a large number of mild,
kindly dons) simply does not count as evidence in a paranoid’s frame of
reference. Many kindly dons would
eventually convince a non-paranoid man that not all dons are killers. But for the paranoid man, the kindly dons
only serve to reinforce the paranoid belief.
What does this have to do with religious belief? Hare says religious people have a religious blik. Once you accept the religious blik,
you have a brand-new way of looking at the world. Your frame of reference is
radically altered, and with it, your evidentiary standards. Suddenly all sorts
of things that previously did not count as evidence for God begin to count.
Your evidentiary filter becomes much more porous. The existence of God becomes
so obvious that nothing can falsify it. In other words, Hare is implicitly agreeing with Flew that
meaningful assertions must be falsifiable; he tries to avoid Flew’s trap by
arguing that what appear to be religious assertions aren’t really assertions at
all (rather, they are expressions or affirmations of frames of reference for
interpreting data). As frames of reference, they aren’t falsifiable, and can’t
be falsifiable (because verification
and falsification occur only within frames of reference). But this seems odd.
Consider what this would mean. For a
religious person, “God exists” expresses a fact about the universe. When a
religious person says “God exists,” he means that the universe is actually
different from how it would be if no God existed, i.e., the claim is
falsifiable. So when Hare depicts religious “assertions” as non-falsifiable, he
is actually far removed from Christian orthodoxy. As Flew says, “If Hare’s religion really is a blik,
involving no cosmological assertions about the nature and activities of a
supposed personal creator, then surely he is not a Christian at all?” Furthermore, although Hare is probably right when he says
explanations explain only within a blik, Hare gives no way to rank-order
bliks. Religion is a blik, science is a blik, paranoia is
a blik. But surely we don’t want
to leave it there. Some bliks are
surely better than others. Surely Hare
does not want to say paranoia is every bit as legitimate a blik as
science or religion. Paranoia is a sick blik. 4. Basil Mitchell and the Parable of the
Stranger Basil Mitchell agrees with Flew that religious assertions are genuine assertions. However, Mitchell takes issue with Flew’s implicit assumption that religion is a matter of being intellectually convinced of the truth of certain propositions. Mitchell points out that the truth is not always cut-and-dried; we may be more or less convinced that a claim is reasonable to believe; and we might reasonably believe claims whose truth is objectively unknown. Mitchell emphasizes that religion is a matter of
relationship, rather than intellectual conviction. He illustrates this in his
parable of the Stranger: “In time of war in an occupied country, a member of the
resistance meets one night a stranger who deeply impresses him. They spend that
night together in conversation. The Stranger tells the partisan that he himself
is on the side of the resistance – indeed that he is in command of it, and
urges the partisan to have faith in him no matter what happens. The partisan is
utterly convinced at that meeting of the Stranger’s sincerity and constancy and
undertakes to trust him. “They never meet in conditions of intimacy again. But
sometimes the Stranger is seen helping members of the resistance, and the
partisan is grateful and says to his friends, ‘He is on our side.’ “Sometimes he is seen in the uniform of the police
handling over patriots to the occupying power. On these occasions his friends
murmur against him: but the partisan still says, ‘He is on our side.’ He still
believes that, in spite of appearances, the Stranger did not deceive him. Sometimes he asks the Stranger for help and
receives it. He is then thankful. Sometimes he asks and does not receive
it. Then he says, ‘The Stranger knows
best.’ Sometimes his friends, in exasperation, say, ‘Well, what would he have
to do for you to admit that you were wrong and that he is not on our
side?’ But the partisan refuses to
answer. He will not consent to put the Stranger to the test. And sometimes his
friends complain, ‘Well, if that’s what you mean by his being on our side, the
sooner he goes over to the other side the better.’” What does this parable mean? According to Mitchell, statements like “The Stranger is on
our side” or “God loves us” are genuine assertions, in that they can be
falsified. But, given the partisan’s
experience of the stranger, “The Stranger is on our side” is not obviously
false. The partisan has reasons to believe it; the partisan has met the
stranger and been impressed by him. When the partisan asks the stranger for
help and doesn’t receive any help, the partisan is not logically compelled to
say “The Stranger is not on our side.” The partisan can say instead “The
Stranger is on our side but he has reasons for withholding help.” In other
words, the partisan can give the Stranger the benefit of the doubt – just as
you would give the benefit of the doubt to a friend. The real question is: “How
long can he uphold [this position] without its becoming just silly?” How many
times must you give a friend the benefit of the doubt? Mitchell’s answer: “I
don’t think one can say in advance.” Mitchell is insightful here. He says the partisan can’t
just “blow it off” when the Stranger appears to betray him. If the partisan has
faith in the Stranger, the faith is only really tested if the partisan feels
the full force of the apparent betrayal. The problem of evil is just as real
for a believer as for an unbeliever. There is no solution but faith. But it’s not unreasonable or illogical to
maintain faith in a person with whom you have a relationship. For many Christians, the essence of their faith is a
personal relationship with God. So
Mitchell’s analogy speaks to them. But there are numerous philosophical problems with
Mitchell’s parable. For one thing, Mitchell seems to miss the point of Flew’s argument. Flew’s point is that religious assertions
are nonsense. It’s not that we don’t know whether religious claims are
true or false; in order to be true or false in the first place, religious
assertions must mean something, and according to Flew, they don’t mean
anything. When religious people say “Just believe,” Flew replies, “Believe
what? There’s nothing to believe; the
claims don’t say anything in the first place!” Statements like “The Stranger is
on our side” or “God loves us” are potentially compatible with all states of
affairs, especially since you can’t say when to stop giving God the benefit of
the doubt. Furthermore, there is the pesky problem of religious
encounter. The parable of the Stranger
works if you’ve had an impressive encounter (religious experience), but not
everyone has religious experiences; and mental hospitals are full of people who
claim to have religious experiences. Finally, Mitchell’s parable is especially weak as a
“solution” to the problem of evil. The analogies do not hold. The Stranger of
Mitchell’s parable is a man; he is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. “But
suppose the Stranger is God. We cannot say he would like to help but cannot:
God is omnipotent. We cannot say he
would like to help if only he knew: God is omniscient. We cannot say that he is
not responsible for the wickedness of others: God creates those others.” Thus, Flew (who gets the last word in the exchange) thinks
his case has been proved: religious assertions can’t be falsified. Therefore they fail the verificationist test
of meaningfulness, and fall into the category of nonsense.
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