Famous atheist philosopher (though he's a deist now) Antrony Flew published a short essay which is one of the most famous essays in skeptical literature. It's the basis for the oft made claim that religion is unfalsifiable. I believe that his essay is based on an error, so I wanted to post his essay, to be followed by my critique.
Theology and Falsification
By Antony Flew
New Essays in Philosophical Theology
1955
Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revelatory article 'Gods'.[1] 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 fence. 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 he 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, insensible 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?"
In this parable we can see how what starts as an assertion that something exists or that there is some analogy between certain complexes of phenomena, may be reduced step by step to an altogether different status, to an expression perhaps of a 'picture preference'.[2] The Sceptic says there is no gardener. The Believer says there is a gardener (but invisible, etc.) One man talks about sexual behaviour. Another man prefers to talk of Aphrodite (but knows that there is not really a superhuman person additional to, and somehow responsible for, all sexual phenomena).[3] The process of qualification may be checked at any point before the original assertion is completely withdrawn and something of that first assertion will remain (Tautology). Mr. Wells's invisible man could not, admittedly, be seen, but in all other respects he was a man like the rest of us. But though the process of qualification may be, and of course usually is, checked in time, it is not always judiciously so halted. Someone may dissipate his assertion completely without noticing that he has done so. A fine brash hypothesis may thus be killed by inches, the death by a thousand qualifications.
And in this, it seems to me, lies the peculiar danger, the endemic evil, of theological utterance. Take such utterances as "God has a plan," "God created the world," "God loves us as a father loves his children." They look at first sight very much like assertions, vast cosmological assertions. Of course, this is no sure sign that they either are, or are intended to be assertions. But let us confine ourselves to the cases where those who utter such sentences intend them to express assertions. (Merely remarking parenthetically, that those who intend or interpret such utterances as crypto-commands, expressions of wishes, disguised ejaculations, concealed ethics, or as anything else but assertions, are unlikely to succeed in making them either properly orthodox or practically effective.)
Now to assert that such and such is the case is necessarily equivalent to denying that such and such is not the case.[4] Suppose then that we are in doubt as to what someone who gives vent to an utterance is asserting, or suppose that, more radically, we are sceptical as to whether he is really asserting anything at all, one way of trying to understand (or perhaps it will be to expose) his utterance is to attempt to find what he would regard as counting against, or as being incompatible with, its truth. For if the utterance is indeed an assertion, it will necessarily be equivalent to a denial of the negation of that assertion.[5] And anything which would count against the assertion, or which would induce the speaker to withdraw it and to admit that it had been mistaken, must be part of (or the whole of) the meaning of the negation of that assertion. And to know the meaning of the negation of an assertion, is near as makes no matter, to know the meaning of that assertion. And if there is nothing which a putative assertion denies then there is nothing which it asserts either; and so it is not really an assertion. When the Sceptic in the parable asked the Believer, "just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?" he was suggesting that the Believer's earlier statement had been so eroded by qualification that it was no longer an assertion at all.
Now it often seems to people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by sophisticated religious people to be a sufficient reason for conceding "There wasn't a God after all" or "God does not really love us then." Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then we see a child dying of inoperable cancer of the throat. His earthly father is driven frantic in his efforts to help, but his Heavenly Father reveals no obvious sign of concern. Some qualification is made -- God's love is "not a merely human love" or it is "an inscrutable love," perhaps -- and we realise that such sufferings are quite compatible with the truth of the assertion that "God loves us as a father (but, of course, ...)." We are reassured again. But then perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exist"? I therefore put to the succeeding symposiasts the simple central questions, "What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?"
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A Critique, by Ron Morales
In this essay Flew relies on an incorrect understanding of what falsification is. Take this comment in particular:
"Now it often seems to people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by sophisticated religious people to be a sufficient reason for conceding "There wasn't a God after all" or "God does not really love us then."
But that has nothing to do with falsifiability. What will convince a believer regarding the truth of a proposition is distinct from whether the proposition is in fact falsifiable. For example, though some believers would never reject their belief in the face of any evidence as Flew suggested, there are in fact some people who do lose faith in God as a result of tragedy. But that doesn't entail that belief in God is falsifiable for some and unfalsifiable for others. A scientist could put forward a very falsifiable hypothesis and yet never believe any evidence that falsified his cherished hypothesis. The proposition that the earth was the center of the solar system and that the earth was flat were very falsifiable hypotheses (and of course were in fact falsified) regardless of the fact that some people continued to believe in them after there was very good public evidence that they were falsified.
Falsifiability is objective, not subjective. A hypothesis is falsifiable if there are observable conditions which could obtain which contradict the predictions of the hypothesis, regardless of whether anyone chose to believe those observations.
So is belief in God falsifiable? That depends on the nature of the belief in God. Beliefs in God are usually part of a larger theology, some parts of which are often clearly falsifiable. For example, Christian theology is not only dependent on the existence of God but also on the historicity of Christ, not to mention Christianity's belief in the resurrection of Christ. The historicity of Christ is in fact falsifiable, namely by demonstrating that there probably was no Christ (say documents are discovered tied to the original apostles showing that they made him up to justify some heretical theology they were pushing). As to the resurrection, it could be shown historically that Christ's body was in fact disposed of somewhere else and some good evidence is found showing that some discovered remains are in fact those of Jesus of Nazareth. Even if many Christians refused to believe that evidence (just like many refused to believe in a heliocentric solar system even after it was proven), it would still objectively falsify the life (vis a vis the former hypothetical) and/or resurrection (vis a vis the latter hypothetical) of Christ, making Christian theology in fact falsifiable. Another part of Christian theology is the idea that prayer is efficacious. Not that prayer always is answered in the way we want it to be answered, but at least in the sense that prayer has at least some positive effects, as opposed to being completely useless. We test the efficaciousness of pharmaceuticals all the time with double blind tests. If double blind tests show that prayer has no statistically significant effects, then prayer is in fact useless, contrary to the claims of Christian theology.
Even if someone had a barebones belief in God, the foundation of that belief could be falsifiable. For example, suppose someone believed that there must be a God who created life because they don't believe that any nonsentient processes or mechanisms could have created life. If, however, it was demonstrated that nonsentient forces could in fact have created life, then the foundation of that individual's belief in a god would then be falsified, regardless if he chose to believe that evidence or not.
Theology and Falsification
By Antony Flew
New Essays in Philosophical Theology
1955
Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revelatory article 'Gods'.[1] 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 fence. 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 he 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, insensible 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?"
In this parable we can see how what starts as an assertion that something exists or that there is some analogy between certain complexes of phenomena, may be reduced step by step to an altogether different status, to an expression perhaps of a 'picture preference'.[2] The Sceptic says there is no gardener. The Believer says there is a gardener (but invisible, etc.) One man talks about sexual behaviour. Another man prefers to talk of Aphrodite (but knows that there is not really a superhuman person additional to, and somehow responsible for, all sexual phenomena).[3] The process of qualification may be checked at any point before the original assertion is completely withdrawn and something of that first assertion will remain (Tautology). Mr. Wells's invisible man could not, admittedly, be seen, but in all other respects he was a man like the rest of us. But though the process of qualification may be, and of course usually is, checked in time, it is not always judiciously so halted. Someone may dissipate his assertion completely without noticing that he has done so. A fine brash hypothesis may thus be killed by inches, the death by a thousand qualifications.
And in this, it seems to me, lies the peculiar danger, the endemic evil, of theological utterance. Take such utterances as "God has a plan," "God created the world," "God loves us as a father loves his children." They look at first sight very much like assertions, vast cosmological assertions. Of course, this is no sure sign that they either are, or are intended to be assertions. But let us confine ourselves to the cases where those who utter such sentences intend them to express assertions. (Merely remarking parenthetically, that those who intend or interpret such utterances as crypto-commands, expressions of wishes, disguised ejaculations, concealed ethics, or as anything else but assertions, are unlikely to succeed in making them either properly orthodox or practically effective.)
Now to assert that such and such is the case is necessarily equivalent to denying that such and such is not the case.[4] Suppose then that we are in doubt as to what someone who gives vent to an utterance is asserting, or suppose that, more radically, we are sceptical as to whether he is really asserting anything at all, one way of trying to understand (or perhaps it will be to expose) his utterance is to attempt to find what he would regard as counting against, or as being incompatible with, its truth. For if the utterance is indeed an assertion, it will necessarily be equivalent to a denial of the negation of that assertion.[5] And anything which would count against the assertion, or which would induce the speaker to withdraw it and to admit that it had been mistaken, must be part of (or the whole of) the meaning of the negation of that assertion. And to know the meaning of the negation of an assertion, is near as makes no matter, to know the meaning of that assertion. And if there is nothing which a putative assertion denies then there is nothing which it asserts either; and so it is not really an assertion. When the Sceptic in the parable asked the Believer, "just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?" he was suggesting that the Believer's earlier statement had been so eroded by qualification that it was no longer an assertion at all.
Now it often seems to people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by sophisticated religious people to be a sufficient reason for conceding "There wasn't a God after all" or "God does not really love us then." Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then we see a child dying of inoperable cancer of the throat. His earthly father is driven frantic in his efforts to help, but his Heavenly Father reveals no obvious sign of concern. Some qualification is made -- God's love is "not a merely human love" or it is "an inscrutable love," perhaps -- and we realise that such sufferings are quite compatible with the truth of the assertion that "God loves us as a father (but, of course, ...)." We are reassured again. But then perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exist"? I therefore put to the succeeding symposiasts the simple central questions, "What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?"
--------
A Critique, by Ron Morales
In this essay Flew relies on an incorrect understanding of what falsification is. Take this comment in particular:
"Now it often seems to people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by sophisticated religious people to be a sufficient reason for conceding "There wasn't a God after all" or "God does not really love us then."
But that has nothing to do with falsifiability. What will convince a believer regarding the truth of a proposition is distinct from whether the proposition is in fact falsifiable. For example, though some believers would never reject their belief in the face of any evidence as Flew suggested, there are in fact some people who do lose faith in God as a result of tragedy. But that doesn't entail that belief in God is falsifiable for some and unfalsifiable for others. A scientist could put forward a very falsifiable hypothesis and yet never believe any evidence that falsified his cherished hypothesis. The proposition that the earth was the center of the solar system and that the earth was flat were very falsifiable hypotheses (and of course were in fact falsified) regardless of the fact that some people continued to believe in them after there was very good public evidence that they were falsified.
Falsifiability is objective, not subjective. A hypothesis is falsifiable if there are observable conditions which could obtain which contradict the predictions of the hypothesis, regardless of whether anyone chose to believe those observations.
So is belief in God falsifiable? That depends on the nature of the belief in God. Beliefs in God are usually part of a larger theology, some parts of which are often clearly falsifiable. For example, Christian theology is not only dependent on the existence of God but also on the historicity of Christ, not to mention Christianity's belief in the resurrection of Christ. The historicity of Christ is in fact falsifiable, namely by demonstrating that there probably was no Christ (say documents are discovered tied to the original apostles showing that they made him up to justify some heretical theology they were pushing). As to the resurrection, it could be shown historically that Christ's body was in fact disposed of somewhere else and some good evidence is found showing that some discovered remains are in fact those of Jesus of Nazareth. Even if many Christians refused to believe that evidence (just like many refused to believe in a heliocentric solar system even after it was proven), it would still objectively falsify the life (vis a vis the former hypothetical) and/or resurrection (vis a vis the latter hypothetical) of Christ, making Christian theology in fact falsifiable. Another part of Christian theology is the idea that prayer is efficacious. Not that prayer always is answered in the way we want it to be answered, but at least in the sense that prayer has at least some positive effects, as opposed to being completely useless. We test the efficaciousness of pharmaceuticals all the time with double blind tests. If double blind tests show that prayer has no statistically significant effects, then prayer is in fact useless, contrary to the claims of Christian theology.
Even if someone had a barebones belief in God, the foundation of that belief could be falsifiable. For example, suppose someone believed that there must be a God who created life because they don't believe that any nonsentient processes or mechanisms could have created life. If, however, it was demonstrated that nonsentient forces could in fact have created life, then the foundation of that individual's belief in a god would then be falsified, regardless if he chose to believe that evidence or not.
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