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Theological Statements, Phenomenalistic Language and Confirmation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
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In a recent paper Michael Tooley has argued that theological statements can be confirmed relative to a phenomenalistic observational language given a certain construal of confirmation. Consequently, he maintains that the verificationist challenge to theological statements, namely that in order to be significant they must be confirmable, can be answered. In this paper I will show that Tooley's argument has serious problems.
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page 217 note 1 Tooley, Michael, ‘Theological Statements and the Question of an Empiricist Criterion of Cognitive Significance’, in The Logic of God: Theology and Verification, Diamond, Malcolm L. and Litzenburg, Thomas V. Jr,. eds. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975) pp. 481–524.Google Scholar
page 217 note 2 Ibid. p. 483.
page 218 note 1 In a more recent paper Tooley argues that there is no general problem in confirming that God has certain infinite attributes. He argues, for example, that in order to confirm that a person has infinite knowledge one merely confirms that there is nothing that he does not know. Be that as it may, in the paper under discussion here Tooley's claim is that phenomenalistic language can be used to construct statements about an infinite being. How statements couched in phenomenalistic language can be used to construct that someone knows anything, let alone that there is nothing he does not know, is certainly not clear. See Tooley, Michael, ‘John Hick and the concept of eschatological verification’, Religious Studies XII (1976), 177–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 219 note 1 Ibid. p. 520.
page 220 note 1 Of course, it is true that one type of statement that might be construed as theological could be constructed from first-person phenomenalistic statements; namely statements that deny some being is God. Thus ‘I am not God’ is entailed by ‘I am not knowing’ which is entailed by ‘I am uncertain that p is true’. However, in this sense of theological statements physicalist statements can confirm theological statements. Thus ‘I have a body’ entails ‘I am corporeal’ which entails in turn ‘I am not God’. Presumably this sense of theological statements is not relevant to Tooley's argument.
page 220 note 2 Salmon, Wesley C., ‘Verifiability and Logic’, Mind, Matter and Method, Feyerabend, P. K. and Maxwell, G., eds. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), pp. 354–76Google Scholar; reprinted in The Logic of God: Theology and Verification, Diamond and Litzenburg, eds., pp. 456–80.
page 221 note 1 Hempel, Carl, Philosophy of National Science (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), chapter 6.Google Scholar
page 221 note 2 Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science (New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), chapter 6.Google Scholar
page 221 note 3 Elsewhere Tooley advocates a realistic interpretation of theoretical entities in science. See Tooley, Michael, ‘John Hick and the concept of eschatological verification’, loc. cit., especially pp. 193–5.Google Scholar But it is unclear why he does not believe that statements about such entities do not have the same problem as theological statements. For the same sort of argument that is given (p. 195) to show that theological statements cannot assert the existence of a transcendent person can be used to show that scientific statements cannot be used to assert the existence of unobservable entities. Consider two statements S and T. S describes some observable physical phenomenon; T describes this physical phenomenon as well as the workings of some unobservable entities that explain the physical phenomenon. Any verificationist would have to claim that T has empirical consequences different from S for if not, T and S have the same cognitive meaning. Suppose T does have different empirical consequences. Let us call all the empirical consequences T has that are different from S, E. Then the conjunction S and E has the same factual significance as T and thus T cannot be interpreted as referring to unobservable entities.