POSITIVISM AND CHRISTIANITY A STUDY OF THEISM AND VERIFIABILITY

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1 POSITIVISM AND CHRISTIANITY A STUDY OF THEISM AND VERIFIABILITY

2 POSITIVISM AND CHRISTIANITY A STUDY OF THEISM AND VERIFIABILITY by KENNETH H. KLEIN MARTINUS NIJHOFF / THE HAGUE / 1974

3 To myfather 1974 by Martinus NijhoJ!, The Hague, Netherlands Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1974 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form ISBN-13: e-isbn-13: : /

4 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION VII Chapter I. STATEMENT OF THE ISSUES A. Overview of the Positivist stand upon theism 1 B. Exposition of the Positivist stand on the issues 5 1. "The statement that God exists is, at least putatively, a statement of fact" 5 2. "A necessary condition of a genuine statement of fact is that it must be Verifiable" "The statement that God exists is not Verifiable". 21 Retrospect 37 C. Appendix: Unintelligible words and unintelligible sentences 38 Chapter II. THEISM WITHOUT BELIEF IN GoD. 49 A. Religious belief construed as a moral commitment 51 B. Religious belief construed as "slanting". 57 C. Religious belief construed as the contemplating of a "symbol picture". 61 Discussion 68 Transition to Chapters III and IV 73 Chapter III. TESTABILITY AND FACTUAL SIG1"1FICANCE. 75 A. The search for a criterion of factual significance. 76 B. Formulations and difficulties The paradigm case: The criterion of verifiability The criterion of verifiability in principle The extended criterion of verifiability in principle The criterion of falsifiability in principle. 91

5 VI CONTENTS 5. The criterion of partial verifiability 6. The criterion of Verifiability C. Further problems 1. Statements about other minds. 2. Statements about "unobservables" in science Retrospect Chapter N. ARE THEOLOGICAL SENTENCES TESTABLE?. A. Terrestrial falsifiability. B. Eschatological verifiability C. Terrestrial verifiability Retrospect Chapter V. DILEMMAS A. Summary of the argument. B. Objections and dilemmas. 1. Conclusive Verifiability. 2. Verifiability in principle 3. Ad hoc exceptions 4. The translatability criterion 5. Falsifiability and theological statements 6. The transcendence of God. SELECTED BmLlOGRAPHY INDEX

6 INTRODUCTION This essay is conceived as a critical exposition of the central issues that figure in the ongoing conversation between Logical Positivists and neo Positivists on the one hand and Christian apologists on the other. My expository aim is to isolate and to describe the main issues that have emerged in the extended discussion between men of Positivistic turn of mind and men sympathetic to the claims of Christianity. My critical aim is to select typical, influential stands that have been taken on each of these issues, to assess their viability, and to isolate certain dilemmas which discussion of these issues has generated. I am convinced that the now commonly rejected verifiability theory of meaning is very commonly misunderstood and has been rejected by and large for the wrong reasons. Before it is cast off-if it is to be cast off-what is needed is a reconsideration of that theory and of the objections that its several formulations have elicited. Furthermore, at least partially because of a misconstruing of the verifiability doctrine, there have been some interesting-though in my opinion unsuccessful-claims advanced about the testability-status of sentences expressive of Christian belief. Moreover, in their haste to vindicate Christianity, some apologists have been fairly cavalier, in my opinion, about what "Christianity" involves. This volume offers what I hope will be a clear statement and analysis of the principle points at issue between Positivism and Christianity, together with my own assessment of where the argument stands now. My attempt throughout has been to provide for teachers, students, and interested laymen an orderly, concise discussion of several of the most crucial, interrelated issues that figure prominently in this manifestly vivid, still-unclosed chapter of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. My claim will be that the problems posed by Positivism for Christianity, and for any theism of this type, have not yet been resolved either by the alleged discrediting of Positivism or by the apologetic efforts formulated thus far. The issues examined here are historically associated with the formulation,

7 vm INTRODUCTION dissemination, and eventual widespread influence of the doctrines of Logical Positivism, a philosophical movement which enjoyed prominence in Austria, England, and America during the second and third decades of this century. Although Logical Positivism, considered as a philosophical movement, is passe, its influence upon recent philosophy of religion is massive, its philosophical afterbirth-linguistic analysis-has been sanguine, and some of its own tenets are still defended, albeit in usually sharply modified form. The doctrines of Logical Positivism have a complicated genealogical history, stemming not only from the writings of Kant and the tradition of British empiricism, but also from writers of more recent vintage-physicists, logicians, sociologists, and philosophers of science. The immediate progenitors of Positivism were a small group of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians more or less loosely gathered together by Moritz Schlick in the early 1920's at the University of Vienna who gave themselves the name of "the Vienna Circle." The officially recognized precursors of Positivist ideas are remembered in a sort of Positivist manifesto-wissenschaftliche Weltauf!assung, Der Wiener Kreis-written in 1929 by Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, and Hans Hahn. No attempt will be made in this volume at historical completeness, completeness either with respect to the full evolution and variety of Positivist doctrines or with respect to the burgeoning variety of responses offered in service to Christian apologetics. Readers interested in the broader conceptual picture would do well to look at A. J. Ayer's Logical Positivism and at Frederick Ferre's Language, Logic, and God and to follow up some of the generous bibliographical leads provided there. My focus in this essay is with-so to speak-hard-core Positivism as it bears on Christianity and with more or less direct, first-generation responses to Positivism in defense of Christian orthodoxy. Developments in Christian apologetics within the last decade or so have been very interesting indeed. These developments, however, open an entirely new chapter and I have thought it best, in the interest of preserving singleness of theme, to neglect them in this study. My book takes a dual look at one of the central doctrines of Logical Positivism-dual, in that I will be looking both at the doctrine itself (the verifiability-doctrine) and also at the impact which this doctrine has made in one field of inquiry (Christian apologetics). That portion of the book which will be devoted to examining the doctrine itself will try to ascertain whether or not the doctrine is tenable and, if so, in what form. If the doctrine is tenable, it constitutes, or appears to constitute, a challenge to-indeed an attack upon-the intelligibility of that type of religious belief exemplified by Christianity. Of course the Positivists' attack upon Christianity was but

8 INTRODUCTION IX one instance of their hostility to "metaphysics" in general. By focusing upon this one instance of their attack, I do not mean to suggest that Christianity was singled out for special disfavor. But since the Positivistic bite was forcefully felt by philosophers of religion and particularly by Christian apologists, it is appropriate to field the argument at the point of one of its foci of conflict, even though there were others as well. Whether or not the doctrine which the Positivists employed to undermine Christianity is tenable, there are many writers of contemporary philosophy of religion who certainly think that it is. Certain writers are sufficiently worried about the potential destructive fecundity of the doctrine in question that they have tried to answer the Positivists in some way or another. What these answers characteristically have in common is the attempt to vindicate Christianity, or some more general religious orientation of which Christianity is a special case, from Positivist objections. Given this common concern, however, two quite different types of response occur. Some hold that Christianity is not really susceptible to the Positivist's attack in the first place, since Christians are not really disposed to hold what the Positivists think they hold, although they sometimes appear to do so. Others hold that although Christianity is susceptible, in principle, to the Positivists' objection, sentences expressive of a Christian's basic beliefs are not unintelligible in the way the Positivists alleged since these sentences, in their typical use, meet the requirements of intelligibility. These replies to the Positivists' argument, whether the argument is initially sound or not, are interesting in their own right since they highlight topics of concern both to Christian theologians and to philosophers of religion, notably the distinction between the first and the second persons of the Trinity and, more generally, the topic of the transcendence of God. There is another sort of reply to the Positivists which is relevant to their attack upon Christianity. One might raise objections to the doctrine from which the Positivists argued. Professional philosophers have in fact raised such objections, although not necessarily for the purpose of vindicating Christianity or metaphysics. The raising of objections to Positivist doctrine will be considered here as a type of response relevant to their sort of attack upon Christianity, first, because it was indeed a response to Positivism, albeit not one offered in behalf of Christianity, and second, because this type of response is obviously adaptable to the intent of the Christian apologist: if there is no satisfactory formulation of a Positivist type criterion of factual significance, then the Positivist attack upon Christianity fails. Assaying the force of the Positivist attack, therefore, requires assaying the force of the principal objections that have been raised against the several formulations of the Positivists' criterion of factual significance.

9 x INTRODUCTION The organization of the five chapters of this book is as follows: The purpose of chapter one is to set forth the Positivists' attack upon that type of religious belief exemplified by Christianity and in particular to describe the Positivists' stand on each of the three issues upon which their argument turns. Chapters two, three, and four will discuss each of these three issues in tum by examining three different types of reply, each keyed to one of the constituent issues. The reply considered in chapter two is illustrated by reference to several kinds of meta-theological approach which were influential during the early years of the last decade. Writers who took approaches such as these either explicitly deny, or tend to deny by suggestion, that sentences expressive of a Christian's fundamental belief are of the sort that would make Christianity even open to objections of the Positivist type. The reply considered in chapter three consists in urging that the various formulations of the criterion of factual significance, upon which the Positivists' program rests, are open to very strong objections. The reply considered in chapter four is exemplified by certain attempts neither to circumvent the attack, nor to nullify it, but rather to meet it directly, that is, by trying to show how statements expressive of Christian belief might be tested. Chapter five looks back over my argument and attempts to concede the force of certain recent non-trivial objections to some of its crucial steps without conceding their individual or collective force to overthrow it altogether. I have also tried there to isolate certain dilemmas which the issues discussed generate. A few words of explanation about my notational devices might be in order. I have tried to restrict the employment of single quotation marks, over and above the usual occasions of marking quotations-within-quotations and direct quotations from authors who use them normally, to occasions when the expression so quoted-a word or sentence-is mentioned, as they say, rather than used; that is, when the expression itself is talked about. Double quotation marks acknowledge direct quotation or, where undocumented, indicate the use of the expression so designated in some typical, atypical, or merely specially featured sense. An example might help to make this clear. 'There is a God' (note single quotation marks) is a use-neutral utterance-inscription, or a verbal token when spoken, which could be and normally would be used by someone to make the statement that there is a God. "There is a God" (note double quotation marks) is an inscription of the statement made by someone who uses the utterence 'There is a God' (single quotes) to assert that there is a God. Since I shall usually be discussing not the use-neutral utterance-inscriptions but the statements which typical Positivists and theists could use and normally would use such inscrip-

10 INTRODUCTION XI tions to make, these inscriptions will ordinarily be enclosed within double quotation-marks. I have also found it convenient to employ some shorthand conventions for locating sources; these are explained in the footnotes where they are introduced. In all cases the pagination of each citation will always be to the volume originally mentioned in locating the citation; for example, all references to an article cited from its reprinting in a larger volume will be to the pagination of that larger volume, even though that volume is mentioned only on the occasion of its first reference. I would like to express my thanks to the many colleagues and students who furthered my labors and to exculpate them one and all for faults and shortsightednesses which remain. Special thanks are due in three quarters. First and foremost, I wish to remember Rogers Albritton, who was my mentor at Harvard University where this book took its original shape as my doctoral dissertation. I should also like to thank the Committee on Creative Work and Research-notably John Strietelmeier- at Valparaiso University, which released me from my teaching duties for half a year to revise the manuscript. I also give thanks to my wife, Mary, whose encouragement and patience were crucial in bringing this phase of the work to completion. Valparaiso University July, 1973

145 Philosophy of Science

Logical empiricism Christian Wüthrich http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/ 145 Philosophy of Science Vienna Circle (Ernst Mach Society) Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, and Philipp Frank regularly meet