In depth and detailed notes and flashcards, covering all content in A Level Module 3: Metaphysics of God.
Specific to AQA specification.
Written by A* student.
Explain Anthony Flew's views on religious Explain
language: falsification.
Flew opens the symposium by attacking the meaning of religious Aquinas' 1s
statements, claiming that such propositions are only meaningful if
they are factually significant, i.e. if they make a genuine assertion It is based
about the world. He develops a parable of the invisible gardener by moves
Wisdom to illustrate how religious language is unfalsifiable. (potent
possibility (
Whilst walking in a jungle with both many flowers but dead weeds, actuality, o
one states that there is a gardener whereas the other states that there there mus
is not. After waiting in the night, no sight of the gardener is seen, cause actu
and so the believer concludes that this gardener is invisible, and cau
after placing barbed wire around and bloodhounds, with no sign. So
P1: Th
the believer concludes that this gardener must be 'invisibile,
intangible, insensible... no scent and makes no sound'. To which the
P2: N
non-believer asks 'Just how does what you can an invisible,
own
intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary
distin
gardener or even from no gardener at all?'
resp
Flew argues that we can see that what starts with an assertion has
P
been 'killed by inches the death by a thousand qualifications', the
mov
original statement eroded so much to the point where it is no longer
o
an assertion at all.
P4: I
When Flew questions whether how much evidence is required to
any
concede that something is against your beliefs, he answer to this
can
question is that nothing will count against the believer's assertion
wou
that "God exists" or "God loves us"; in the same way that nothing
will count against the believer's assertion that there is a gardener.
C1: Th
Flew argues that saying a religious claim is unfalsifiable does not
just mean that there are no actual circumstances which would prove
it to be false, but that there are no possible circumstances in which
it is false.
Explain
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