PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
British philosopher A.J. Ayer used Logical Positivist ideas to develop the Verification Principle:
A statement is held to be meaningful if and only if it is analytically or empirically verifiable - A.J. Ayer What Ayer means is that meaningful statements (Ayer sometimes says "literally significant" statements) are ones which can be translated into factual observations ("empirically verifiable") or logical observations ("analytically verifiable").
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How does this affect the Design Argument?
If we are describing unusual patterns or regularities in nature, we are making factual statements. Ayer thinks it is perfectly meaningful to say that the human eye is staggeringly complex or the probability of life evolving on Earth is mindbogglingly unlikely. Because these are factual statements, they are meaningful statements: they communicate something. But when we move to the conclusion that there is a Designer, who exists outside the physical universe and cannot be perceived by the 5 senses, Ayer thinks we are moving to a meaningless statement that doesn't communicate anything at all. |
Notice, Ayer is not saying believers are WRONG to claim God exists. He's saying the statement itself DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. It doesn't even get to be wrong! Only meaningful statements get to be right or wrong.
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You could compare "God exists" with "The Loch Ness Monster exists". Ayer would say that "The Loch Ness Monster exists" is a meaningful statement because it's verifiable. You could see the Loch Ness Monster. You could photograph it or find one of its footprints. Of course, we don't know whether Nessie does or doesn't exist, but it's a meaningful question about a factual subject. Ayer argues that God isn't like this at all: God can't be perceived with the 5 senses, so nothing could ever verify God's existence. That's why "God exists" is meaningless but "Nessie exists" is not.
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YES
The Verification Principle exposes "God-talk" for the waste of time that it is. Unverifiable statements can never be proven true or false, so why bother arguing? We can dispense with the Design Argument and move on to more important topics.
The Verification Principle allows us to observe that the universe is complicated, that there seem to be laws of nature, that life on Earth is very improbable. Isn't this enough? By bringing in a metaphysical being like God, you aren't in fact adding anything to your explanation of the universe. As Richard Dawkins says: "God is not a good explanation."
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NO
If belief in God is meaningless, then disbelief in God is meaningless too. The Verification Principle leaves the problem where it was before. However, by giving up on the Design Argument you are in fact siding with non-believers. This shows Ayer's atheist bias.
The Verification Principle causes problems for scientists too, because a lot of scientific ideas can't be verified. We can't see sub-atomic particles or black holes in space; we can't see evolution either. But if we weaken the Verification Principle to allow things we can't see, then God stops being meaningless and Design becomes worth arguing about.
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