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God and Probability1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

D. H. Mellor
D. H. Mellor
Affiliation:
Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Extract

My object in this paper is to consider what relevance, if any, current analyses of probability have to problems of religious belief. There is no doubt that words such as ‘probable’ are used in this context; what is doubtful is that this use can be analysed as other major uses of such words can. I shall conclude that this use cannot be so analysed and hence, given the preponderance of the other uses that can, that it is misleading.

Type
Section II: Christian Philosophy and Ethics
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , December 1969 , pp. 223 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

page 223 note 2 Philosophical Theology, Cambridge, 1928. Vol. 2, pp. 78et seq.Google Scholar

page 223 note 3 Hick, J. (Faith and Knowledge, 2nd edition. London: 1967. Ch. 7) comes to the same conclusions. But Peirce's frequency analysis of statistical probability, and Keynes' ‘logical relation’ analysis of inductive probability, to which Hick appeals, have been too long superseded for his argument to be conclusive. His reference to Tennant's ‘alogical probability' is an inadequate presentation of modern subjective analysis.Google Scholar

page 224 note 1 E.g. Noüy, P. Lecomte du (Human Destiny. New York: 1947. Ch. 3); who uses a classical Laplacean definition of statistical probability in terms of numbers of equiprobable cases. But the well-known objections to this definition, and to the principle of indifference on which it relies, do not sufficiently dispose of the argument, for which it is not essential.Google Scholar

page 227 note 1 The frequency analysis is that most widely accepted by statisticians. The most influential exposition of it is probably in von Mises, R.: Probability, Statistics and Truth, 2nd English edition (London: 1957)Google Scholar. My own view of statistical probability is stated in ‘Chance’, Arist. Soc. Suppl. Vol. 43 (1969), pp. 11–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 228 note 1 As expounded, e.g. in Savage, L. J.: The Foundations of Statistics (New York: 1954).Google Scholar

page 231 note 1 The chief exponent of probabilistic inductive logic is Carnap, R.: Logical Foundations of Probability, 2nd edition (Chicago: 1962)Google Scholar. The chief opponent of it is Popper, K. R.: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: 1959)Google Scholar. See also Lakatos, I.: ‘Changes in the problem of inductive logic.’ The Problem of Inductive Logic. Ed. Lakatos, I. (Amsterdam: 1968).Google Scholar

page 233 note 1 Given, e.g., by Hacking, I. (Logic of Statistical Inference, Cambridge: 1965, p. 55), under the name of the ‘law of likelihood’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar