Mitchell & FLEW (1971) "THEOLOGY & FALSIFICATION: A SYMPOSIUM"
Part 1
Part 1
The Falsification Symposium concludes with Basil Mitchell's response to Antony Flew's challenge to religious language. Flew had previously set out the Falsification Principle and applied it to religion, challenging other philosophers to explain what would count for them as evidence against the love (or the very existence) of God.
In this section, Mitchell admits the problem of unfalsifiable religious language but responds with his Parable of the Partisan. He argues that religious believers do regard their beliefs as falsifiable and wrestle with the difficulty of maintaining them in the face of contradictory evidence, but that religious faith involves a commitment to trust in the existence of God despite a certain amount of contradictory evidence. |
Mitchell argues that believers are not 'burying the heads in the sand'. They recognise that evil and suffering seems to falsify their beliefs about God. Despite this, they do not allow this contradictory evidence to count "decisively" against God's goodness or love. Mitchell thinks this is because believers are committed - they choose to trust in God, while admitting that the evidence looks bad.
Mitchell calls this the difference between being a "believer" and being a "detached observer". A detached observer will drop a theory or hypothesis the moment some contradictory evidence turns up, but a believer will hold on to her beliefs to see if the contradictory evidence turns out to be mistaken. Scientists are supposed to be detached observers but Mitchell doesn't think this is what religious beliefs are like. |
It is because I mind very much about what goes on in the garden in which I find myself, that I am unable to share the explorers' detachment - R.M. Hare
Mitchell sets his story "in a time of war in an occupied country". He is probably thinking of WWII and Occupied France. The Maquis (French Resistance) were brave men and women who resisted Nazi rule in France. Many were arrested, tortured and executed.
In 1944, Maquis fighter Georges Blind faced death by firing squad if he didn't reveal the identities of fellow Resistance fighters. He refused to break and smiled into the gun barrels. (Interestingly, this was a mock execution; Blind was not shot but was sent to a concentration camp to be executed.) The Nazi SS would execute civilians until Resistance members gave themselves up or their fellow civilians turned them in. |
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Mitchell's story works just as well in other settings. Historically, Catholics in Tudor England were persecuted as were Protestants in Catholic countries, the Underground Railroad smuggled African-American slaves to freedom and dissidents in the Soviet Union risked publishing samizdat literature supporting democracy.
In fiction, Baroness D'Orczy's hero of The Scarlet Pimpernel runs a secret underground rescuing people from the French Revolution. In movies, Star Wars features a Rebel Alliance defying an evil Empire "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away". |
If the analogy of God and the leader of a secret organisation of freedom fighters or terrorists seems a bit weird, try reading G.K. Chesterton's novel The Man Who Was Thursday, which pursues the same idea in a detective story. You might also enjoy the SF film Contact, in which Jodie Foster is the scientist who keeps her trust in her encounter with aliens (representing God), despite all the evidence that it didn't happen.
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The Man Who Was Thursday (1907) by G.K. Chesterton
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Contact (1997), directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jodie Foster & Matthew McConaughey
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Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moodS - C.S. Lewis
If you have a friend who has promised to attend an important event (like to be the Best Man at your wedding), how long should you wait for him if he fails to show up on time? Obviously, some waiting is in order, since he is your friend and he did promise to turn up. But eventually, you just have to go through with the wedding without him. But if you started the wedding, with someone else acting as Best Man, and your friend suddenly arrived with an understandable excuse, you'd feel guilty for not trusting him and waiting that bit longer.
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It seems reasonable to agree with Mitchell that trusting a friend or believing in your marriage are things that can be falsified - but people quite rightly refuse to falsify these things the first time some contradictory evidence comes along. In fact, things we care deeply about, we persevere with. Even scientists don't abandon an important theory with the first bit of contradictory evidence that appears; they persevere with the theory and try to fit the awkward evidence into it. If this counts as "qualifying" the theory (as Flew would say), then this is something all good scientists do as well as religious believers.
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When he is crucified, Jesus cries out that he feels God has abandoned him:
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’) - Matthew 27: 46 In The Passion of Christ (2004, dir, Mel Gibson), actor Jim Caviezel speaks the Aramaic language Jesus would have spoken. The film dwells upon the horrific experience of pain and suffering at the heart of the Christian story.
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The Bible contains a striking story of a father who comes to Jesus hoping for a cure for his sick son. Jesus asks the father if he believes that Jesus can cure the boy. The father replies:
I believe. Help my unbelief - Mark 9: 24 The father is wishing he had more faith. This links to Flew's original challenge, because Flew also used the example of a father with a sick child to ask the question, what should someone do when faced with great suffering that God doesn't seem to want to help? Flew seems to think the father should stop believing but Mitchell - and the Bible - suggests he should continue to have faith.
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Mitchell thinks religious beliefs aren't supposed to be "provisional hypotheses". He quotes from a story in the Bible. The Devil tempts Jesus to show that he is the Son of God by jumping from a mountain to see if God will send angels to save him from being hurt. Jesus answers
You shall not put the Lord youR God to the test - Matthew 4: 7 This is a more modern translation; Mitchell says "tempt the Lord thy God"
Mitchell takes this passage to mean that true believers should trust in God and not try to 'catch him out' by testing his love.
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Mitchell concludes that it isn't easy being religious. You have to be prepared to question your beliefs, recognise that things contradict them and admit that you might be wrong - but you have to persevere in your faith as well. This is a bit of a mental balancing act.
However, it's not just religious people who have to do this sort of balancing act. People with strong political convictions have to put up with setbacks that make their beliefs seem mistaken. Scientists often persevere with theories even when the evidence is stacked against them. Sometimes people trust in their friends or loved ones, even when the evidence points to them having carried out some crime. All of these people can admit that they were mistaken, that the thing they believed in was wrong the whole time. But they will put off admitting that as long as they can - not because their assertions are meaningless but because they are committed to them
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In Game of Thrones (Season 1, 2011), Arya Stark is taught to fight by Syrio Forel. Forel believes a warrior must admit he could die but say to death "Not today". That seems to me to be similar to what Mitchell is saying about giving up your faith in God. One day, perhaps, but "not today".
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