Religious Language- 12 marker
Explain Flew’s attack on religious language and Hare’s response.
Religious language (RL) refers to the motifs, symbolism, and utterances used within religion but
it becomes a conflict between philosophers, as to whether or not there is meaning to such
language. According to Flew there is not, as meaningful statements are ‘falsilisable’- hence the
foundation of his argument is ‘The Falsification Principle’. The falsification principle says that a
statement is meaningful if and only if there are grounds for falsification. In other words, you
know what would have to happen to disprove the statement. For example, claiming that ‘all
swans are white’ cannot be proven true because it is impossible to check every swan. However,
you know that to falsify the claim, you just need to find one non-white swan. Flew considers the
denial of the inverse of a claim to be ‘necessarily equivalent’ to the claim itself. So in this case
the claim ‘all swans are white’ is equivalent to ‘no swans are non-white’. We know that ‘no
swans are non-white’ is false, hence the claim ‘all swans are white’ is false.
Regarding RL, Flew claims there is nothing that could possibly happen that could disprove it.
Taking an example from the problem of evil, we can ask if ‘God loves us like a father loves their
child’, why can people suffer so greatly (e.g. from disease and poverty)? Arguably, the extent of
suffering in the world ought to falsify the perfect nature of God’s love- it does not though. Flew
points out that attempts to falsify God’s nature or existence are met with the theists’ attempt to
further qualify the concept. So instead of admitting God lacks anything, his being becomes
unfalsifiable. Flew illustrates this with a parable:
There are two people who come across an area of flowers and weeds. Whilst one focuses on
the flowers and believes a gardener must tend to it, the other recognises the weeds and
disagrees. They never see or hear a gardener so the believer claims they must be invisible.
After setting up an electric fence, there is still no evidence of a gardener, so the believer also
claims they are insensible and cannot make a sound. The sceptic questions now what remains
of the original assertion because a gardener with all these additional qualities becomes no
different from an imaginary gardener, or no gardener at all.
This garden represents the good and evil in the world and the gardener represents God. With
every apparent ‘failure’, the believer never gives up on their idea of the gardener, only adjusts it.
The definition of God, such as that of the gardener, becomes so qualified that it loses any
meaning. This is what Flew refers to as ‘dying the death of a thousand qualifications’. So since
there is nothing that could possibly happen to disprove God, as well as any RL, RL is
non-propositional and all meaningless.
Hare, on the other hand, believes religious language can be non-propositional (non-cognitive)
and maintain meaning. He presents a parable also- ‘the parable of the killer dons’:
Explain Flew’s attack on religious language and Hare’s response.
Religious language (RL) refers to the motifs, symbolism, and utterances used within religion but
it becomes a conflict between philosophers, as to whether or not there is meaning to such
language. According to Flew there is not, as meaningful statements are ‘falsilisable’- hence the
foundation of his argument is ‘The Falsification Principle’. The falsification principle says that a
statement is meaningful if and only if there are grounds for falsification. In other words, you
know what would have to happen to disprove the statement. For example, claiming that ‘all
swans are white’ cannot be proven true because it is impossible to check every swan. However,
you know that to falsify the claim, you just need to find one non-white swan. Flew considers the
denial of the inverse of a claim to be ‘necessarily equivalent’ to the claim itself. So in this case
the claim ‘all swans are white’ is equivalent to ‘no swans are non-white’. We know that ‘no
swans are non-white’ is false, hence the claim ‘all swans are white’ is false.
Regarding RL, Flew claims there is nothing that could possibly happen that could disprove it.
Taking an example from the problem of evil, we can ask if ‘God loves us like a father loves their
child’, why can people suffer so greatly (e.g. from disease and poverty)? Arguably, the extent of
suffering in the world ought to falsify the perfect nature of God’s love- it does not though. Flew
points out that attempts to falsify God’s nature or existence are met with the theists’ attempt to
further qualify the concept. So instead of admitting God lacks anything, his being becomes
unfalsifiable. Flew illustrates this with a parable:
There are two people who come across an area of flowers and weeds. Whilst one focuses on
the flowers and believes a gardener must tend to it, the other recognises the weeds and
disagrees. They never see or hear a gardener so the believer claims they must be invisible.
After setting up an electric fence, there is still no evidence of a gardener, so the believer also
claims they are insensible and cannot make a sound. The sceptic questions now what remains
of the original assertion because a gardener with all these additional qualities becomes no
different from an imaginary gardener, or no gardener at all.
This garden represents the good and evil in the world and the gardener represents God. With
every apparent ‘failure’, the believer never gives up on their idea of the gardener, only adjusts it.
The definition of God, such as that of the gardener, becomes so qualified that it loses any
meaning. This is what Flew refers to as ‘dying the death of a thousand qualifications’. So since
there is nothing that could possibly happen to disprove God, as well as any RL, RL is
non-propositional and all meaningless.
Hare, on the other hand, believes religious language can be non-propositional (non-cognitive)
and maintain meaning. He presents a parable also- ‘the parable of the killer dons’:
