Nature of Belief Flashcards
What is Ayer Verification principle
A sentence is only meaning iff it was either:
1 It is a tautology – true by definition e.g. unmarried bachelor
2. It can be proved true or false in principle i.e. verifiable
Why can’t we meaningfully speak about God
Because we cannot, even in principle, verify the existence of God through empirical proof
What is his strong and weak version of his principle
Strong - statements are only meaningful if we can verify it by observation and establish its truth for certain
Weak – statements are meaningful if there are some observations that can establish the probable truth of a statement – science fell in this category
Sutherland’s criticism
The principle renders most of what humans talk about meaningless – art, beauty, inner feelings, any subjectivity. Sutherland compares Ayer’s principle to that of George Orwell’s Newspeak from 1985: Newspeak is a language created by a totalitarian government which forces people only to speak about practical matters and restricts them from talking about anything that would promote heretical behavior
Why is the principle itself meaningless
The principle is also itself meaningless by its own definition – it is not a tautology or verifiable thus it is meaningless
What is John Hicks Eschatological verification
In terms of religious statements, you can never falsify them – if you died, you wouldn’t be able to exclaim there is no afterlife or God as you are dead. However, as long as we could verify religious statements, then they are meaningful i.e. if you died and there was an afterlife, then you would be able to verify these statements
What is the parable of the celestial city
Two men travel down a road, one believes it leads to the celestial city, the other thinks it leads nowhere. Since there is only one road, they both must travel it, and there are lots of dangers and delights along the way – one believes this the test of pilgrimage, the other thinks it is for nothing but enjoys the delights and endures the bad, as he must travel down this road. At the end they turn a corner, and one of them will be proved right
What does the parable of the celestial city show?
This parable points towards the possibility of Hicks’ eschatological verification – (eschatology concerns what happens at the end of things) – we could verify the truth of religious statements if when we died there was an afterlife, which would remove all rational doubt about the existence of God.
What is Hick’s case for the survival of PI after death
- A person X disappears in America while instantaneously someone else, who is a replica of X appears in Australia. If this happened, Hicks thinks we would consider the person in Australia to be X
- Instead of X disappearing, he now dies while his replica appears in Australia – Hicks thinks if we accept he was the same as X in the first scenario, we must accept he is the same in the second scenario
- Finally, imagine someone dies in America, and the replica appears in heaven – we must accept this is the same person
Replica criticism
If we imagine in all these cases the original sticks with the replica, then we can see that they are distinct and not the same – therefore a replica cannot be used to show personal identity survives as it isn’t “me” which survives, but a replica
Comprehension criticism
God may be beyond our comprehension, and thus because we don’t have the skills to recognize God, we are unable to verify it is God and heaven before us and therefore we may not be able to verify religious statements
What does Exegesis mean
“Reading out” of the bible - the test has a meaning which we can interpret - what does the text mean
What does Eisegesis mean
“Reading into” the bible - we have an agenda which we may apply to the bible to make it relevant to an particular audience - what does the text mean for me
What can we do with exegesis and eisegesis
Used to accommodate the bible for a contemporary readership - makes it easier to read in modern times
Why does interpreting the bible undermine it?
It weakens the authority if we can simply pick and choose which part of the bible is meaningful and relevant
What do fundamentalists believe
We should take the bible at face value and except it’s truth
What is synchronic exegesis
Interprets the bible in its final form (excepts the text as it is - not as it has developed)
Narrative criticism - look at the plot, characters, links and stories and the role of the narrator
Deconstructionism - focuses on what has not been said and lies beneath the surface
What is diachronic exegesis
Focuses on way text had developed over time - analyses to find intentions of what final form of the bible should mean
Form criticism - looks at genre to see why and who wrote certain passages
Source criticism - looks at historical sources and draws conclusions about authors in that basis
Redaction criticism - how many different editors there was
What does eisegesis entail
Process whereby reader become involved in text when the text becomes meaningful - no intrinsic authority in the bible or meaning, meaning is created by accommodating the bible to a worldview
What is hermeneutics?
The art of interpretation
What are the eisegesis reader criticisms
Reader response - draws attention to aspects the reader brings to the text (imagination, creativity, desire etc). One fills gaps to create meaning - Kierkegaard interpreted the texts to create meaning
Gender, race and social - construct meaning by discerning how the text affects or speaks to a specific audience - e.g. feminist critics interpreting the lack of women apostles
Key features of fundamentalism/literalists
- Comes from a fear of losing authority of the bible
- extreme propositional Reading
- the bible is the true word of god
- we should therefore not try and interpret or change the bible in any way
- reject all claims which contradict the bible as anything that contradicts it contradicts God, and therefore is incorrect
Criticisms of fundamentalism
- Harmonisation: so many different accounts of same events in the Scripture, which one is right, and how can there be multiple if written by God (multiple accounts of resurrection of Christ)
- Use of Old Testament: Jesus continually interprets the Old Testament
