Linguistic Analysis and Inference about God

LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS AND INFERENCE ABOUT GOD I. THE CHALLENGE OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY NYONE WITH even a superficial knowledge of analytic philosophy will readily grant that some of its currents represent a great challenge, if not a threat, to theistic philosophers. And it would be unscientific, if not puerile, to dismiss this challenge with a few well-chosen words and rest secure in the sanctuary of tradition. The purpose and limits of this presentation are indicated in its title. Hence, it will not be necessary to trace the history of analytic philosophy. As far as this topic is concerned, practically all analytic philosophers would refuse to admit the validity of any philosophical demonstration of the existence of God based upon the inference from empirical data. Some, still under the spell of Hume and Kant, would dismiss any claim for our philosophical knowledge about God. Thus, after discussing the principle of causality and the notion of a timeless being, John Hospers concludes: However a timeless God (or any timeless entity) might be related to the temporal universe, the relation could hardly be a causal one, for the causal relation is a relation among temporal events.1 Others would reject a philosophical demonstration for the existence of God on the grounds that the conclusion of such a demonstration is meaningless and absurd. In discussing the existence of God, J. J. C. Smart has this to say: The greatest danger to theism at the present moment does not come from people who deny the validity of the arguments for the 1 John Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (New York: PrenticeHall , 1958), p. 881. 9l01 VINCENT V. FONTANA existence of God, for many Christian theologians do not believe that the existence of God can be proved, and certainly nowhere in the Old or New Testament do we find any evidence of people's religion having a metaphysical basis. The main danger to theism today comes from people who want to say that " God exists " and " God does not exist" are equally absurd.2 And the author goes on by assuming that the question " Does God exist? " is a proper question. He then asks himself: Can a study of the traditional proofs of the existence of God enable us to give an affirmative answer to this question? I contend that it can not.3 And the author's argument for defending his contention is based on the logical analysis of the expression " necessary being " used by traditional philosophical theism to describe God. In modern logic the term " necessary " is a predicate of propositions, not of things. The conclusion of the cosmological argument, therefore, would be a proposition that is only logically necessary.4 Faced with this atheistic attitude, a number of theistic analysts have limited themselves to making an attempt to show that theistic convictions are significant independently of any philosophical grounding. Farrer, for example, takes the position that, since nothing can be really demonstrated, religious utterances , as well as statements about science and art, find their own justification in their own use. The old method of philosophizing about theology was the endeavor to prove. . . . Such a method or proceeding is now out of fashion, not so much because theology cannot be philosophically demonstrated as because nothing can; not, that is, in the implied sense of "demonstrated." Every science, art, or manner of speaking is now supposed to find its own justification in its own use.5 2 J. J. C. Smart, "The Existence of God," in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. by A. Flew and A. Macintyre (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. ftS-9. 3 Ibid. • Ibid., p. 38. 5 Austin Farrer, "A Starting-Poi~t for the Philosophical Examination of Theological Belief," in Faith and Logic, ed. by Mitchell (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1957)' p. 9. LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS AND INFERENCE ABOUT GOD 208 Farrer does not seem to realize that statements about God, if they are to possess any universal validity and significance, should be grounded in a philosophical demonstration of the existence of God. A similar line of thought is persued by Crombie. In his reply to A. Flew and A. M. Quinton, who contend that religious utterance are meaningless, he...