The Falsification Principle

Karl Popper: “science is more concerned with falsification of hypothesis than with the verification.”

Influenced by Karl Popper, Antony Flew applied the Falsification Principle to religious language and concluded that religious statements are nothing more than non-sensical utterances of little significance.

Flew cites his own version of John Wisdom’s parable of the gardener to illustrate how religious believers do not allow for the falsification of their belief. They are reduced to saying ‘God’s love is incomprehensible’ because they cannot explain why God should allow for the death of a child due to an inoperable illness. Flew maintains they are allowing their definition of God to ‘die a death of a thousand qualifications.’

Parable of the Gardener (Flew's version)

“Two explorers come across a clearing in a jungle. It contains a mixture of weeds and flowers. One claims that there must be a gardener who comes to tend the clearing. The other denies it. They sit and wait, but no gardener appears, however they try to detect him.”

One gardener continues to claim that there is a gardener; one who is invisible, inaudible, intangible and undetectable.

Flew argues that, in the same way, if a believer’s statement about God can be made to fit into any circumstance, it is not meaningful and has no empirical implications.

R.M. Hare argued that such statements are ‘bliks;’ “modes of cognition” which have significant importance to the way one orders their life.

He said that they are: “ways of regarding the world which are in principle neither verifiable nor falsifiable.”

A man may be convinced by the fact that his colleagues want to kill him despite evidence to the contrary. In the same way, believers will not be dissuaded from their belief in God or allow it to be falsified. However, this makes a significant difference to their lives and thus such statements are not simply utterances of little significance.

Parable of the Partisan and the Stranger

Basil Mitchell offers the Parable of the Partisan to illustrate the concept of non-propositional faith – a trust in God which may be held even when evidence or experience points to the contrary:

During the time of a war a Partisan meets a stranger claiming to be the leader of the resistance. The stranger urges the Partisan to have faith in him, even if he is seen to be acting against Partisan interests. The Partisan is committed to a belief in the stranger’s integrity, but his friends think he is a fool to do so. The original encounter with the stranger gives the Partisan sufficient confidence to hold onto his faith in him even when there is evidence to the contrary.

Richard Swinburne argues that there are many unfalsifiable statements like religious claims that have meaning. For example, the toys in a cupboard which to all appearances stay in the cupboard until no-one is watching and come out and dance in the middle of the night leaving no sign or trace of their activities.