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In this short essay, "Theology and Falsification", Anthony Flew argues that the idea of God is unfalsifiable.

Flew gives the following example: A person of faith asserts that God loves his children. A sceptic points out that there are innocent children dying of cancer, so how can God love them? The person of faith then answers that "God's love doesn't work that way" or that "God's love is inscrutable", essentially making their original assertion impossible to disprove.

He then challenges his readers:

‘What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of God?’

How can a theist respond to this argument and challenge?

MmmHmm
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Alexander S King
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    Neither falsifiability nor proof are criterions of faith. – MmmHmm Dec 12 '16 at 20:19
  • The question fallaciously assumes that such a disproof is possible. It doesn't make sense to ask what would constitute a disproof of something that is true. Any line of reasoning which could purportedly do so must necessarily be flawed. The truth is always unfalsifiable. –  Dec 12 '16 at 20:51
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    @PédeLeão Q.E.D. "The truth is always unfalsifiable"? First off, all true statements are falsifiable. To the point, you seem confused as to what constitutes [falsifiability](http://staff.washington.edu/lynnhank/Popper-1.pdf) - it is the capacity for a statement to be demonstrated as false. For example, "Obama is President" is true and falsifiable. After Jan. 20 it won't be true but in either case all one need do is cite instance of another person who is President of these United States to falsify the statement. – MmmHmm Dec 12 '16 at 21:26
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    @Mr.Kennedy. So what you're saying is that the truth is falsifiable when it's false. That's quite a theory. –  Dec 12 '16 at 22:27
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    What I don't get is why this is a challenge. I imagine the response to be "nothing can possibly occur that would do that, God willing" (something might actually do it, but typically such turning events have more to do with emotions than reasoning, so I would discard that here). But so what? Falsifiability is disputed as a requirement even for science, but even if a believer accepts Popper's prescriptions for *scientific knowledge* they can (and do) reject the idea that it exhausts all knowledge, there is unfalsifiable Scripture, revelation, etc. – Conifold Dec 12 '16 at 22:32
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    @PédeLeão no, that is quite a misread. You seem confused regarding what constitutes falsifiability - the ability to be demonstrated false. Or perhaps you are confusing truth and true. Truth is a condition of propositions, satisfied when what is said is is what is, e.g. the statement "Obama is President" is true as of today it satisfies the truth condition. Note as well the statement is falsifiable, but it fails a falsifiability criterion in that there is none other with claim to office. In ten years when the same statement is false, it will be falsifiable by the same means & demonstrably false – MmmHmm Dec 12 '16 at 22:45
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    "Theists" might be too big of a category. I've heard at least one Christian (in a video) report that if he became convinced that there was no historical Jesus, he could no longer be a Christian. That individual does (did) have criterion which he'd accept that his religious belief could be demonstrated to be false. – Dave Dec 13 '16 at 15:23
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    @PédeLeão That is nonsense, no false statement is falsifiable, it is instead refuted. Something cannot be 'made false' by a future observation if it is already false now. –  Dec 13 '16 at 15:54
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    @jobermark not quite. Regardless of refutation (or lack thereof) the false statement "all swans are white" is *falsifiable* - i.e. able to be demonstrated false, e.g. all one need to demonstrate it's falsehood is cite one single instance of a [non-white swan](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/61/9e/56/619e5625ef38eb2153ca3072e13c1050.jpg). And this the case whether proof or conjecture are offered or truth value is rationally assessed. Compare this to an unfalsifiable statement such as "it's silly to misconstrue falsifiability." – MmmHmm Dec 14 '16 at 08:10
  • @Mr.Kennedy Be as picky as you want. No one uses the word that way. Popper uses it of hypotheses taken to be true, and he pretty much invented the word. Once a statement is verified, it is just true, and once it is falsified it is just false. –  Dec 15 '16 at 01:19
  • The quoted argument isn't really compelling. Compare to "We're suffering Global warming? This has been an unusually cold winter...." It's the sort of thing you say to win points, not to make a serious argument. –  Dec 15 '16 at 14:44
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    @jobermark It is false that "no one uses the word that way" - e.g. see the OP's question for a use of the term "that way". It is also false that Popper "invented the word" - see the [etymology](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=Falsifiability) of the term. The statement "Obama is President" was false prior to 2008, currently it is true and it will be false again in a couple of weeks, so no - not at all is something "just true" or "just false" once verified or falsified. Like the condition of correspondence, falsification is a condition of statements. – MmmHmm Dec 15 '16 at 17:29
  • @jobermark both you and PeDeLeao could do well do read Popper's "[The Logic Of Scientific Discovery](https://ia800409.us.archive.org/34/items/PopperLogicScientificDiscovery/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf)" to get a clearer understanding of falsifiability and how it fits into an epistemological framework. Note that even though your claim has been falsified by counter-example, the statement is still able to be falsified by each and every instance of use other than you have falsely claimed. If there comes a time when no one actually does use the term so, then the statement would be true. – MmmHmm Dec 15 '16 at 17:31
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    @jobermark, *"falsifiable"* is not the same as false. and it is certainly not the case that *"Once a statement is verified, it is just true.."* That claim of yours is just false. – robert bristow-johnson Dec 17 '16 at 02:36
  • @robertbristow-johnson If you can get the idea that 'falsifiable' is the same as false out of anyting I said, you are not paying attention. –  Dec 18 '16 at 01:20
  • @Mr.Kennedy The word applies to hypotheses -- things that might still be true or false, and not to things that are already considered false. Anyone who cannot understand the context of a paradigm does not understand how a theory just takes facts as true. But we simply do not live in a world where Popper's logic applies directly, and we constantly see everything as perpetually hypothetical forever. –  Dec 18 '16 at 01:24
  • they are going to chase us into an offline discussion (and i choose not to go there). without getting into religious or metaphysical notions of *"truth"* and *"falsity"*, if we were to leave those meanings to *"factual"* and *"nonfactual"*, to be within the lexicon of empirical science, we would mean *"factual, as far as we can discern"*, to mean *"true"*. there are harder, more solid, notions of truth in the context of logic and mathematics, but those disciplines are not empirical as is any science. – robert bristow-johnson Dec 18 '16 at 01:39
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    Popper's logic is **not** in contention with *"perpetually hypothetical forever"*. the Standard Model (SM) and General Relativity (GR) are the best understanding of physical reality we have so far, but if someone developing another theory (let's say *string theory* or *M-theory* or a *Theory of Everything* (TOE)) can make the theory say something that is empirically **different** from SM or GR, **then** the theory is saying something that is **falsifiable**. it might be *"true*" (or consistent with observation) or *"false" (not consistent, empirically), but it's falsifiable. – robert bristow-johnson Dec 18 '16 at 01:45
  • @jobermark, that your paradigm has already concluded a statement is false does not make it so. Again, it is false now that Trump is President, after January 20 the statement "Trump is President" will be true. – MmmHmm Dec 27 '16 at 22:55
  • Dying at an early age in some group's means automatic Heaven due to the "age of accountability" concept. Is that fair to people that make it past the threshold age, I don't think so. The skeptic is assuming God gave the child cancer and it didn't occur from an unclean house or other cause. How does the skeptic know that it wasn't the love of God that took the child's life early for the child's own sake? – Breakskater Jan 08 '19 at 23:58
  • Malachi 1:3: “As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated'”. That verse would prove that God can love less or is it actual hate someone. Perhaps, God does not love everyone all the time. Because as skeptics say, "How can a loving God send someone to burn and be tortured in Hell for all eternity?" Or, could that afore mentioned verse be a mistranslation? The skeptics original point about the innocent child with cancer could be considered an emotional fallacy – Breakskater Jan 09 '19 at 00:16

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There's two general answers I perceive to this. One is that the Flew argument targets a god with no fixed traits (that is hence infinitely mutable). In other words, the argument starts from the assumption that the god being defended does not exist. No believer actually believes in such a god, almost by definition. Every actual theist believes in a God that has at least some assertable characteristics, reflected in some way in the universe as we experience it, such that one could create a description of an entity that could confidently NOT be equated with God as that believer envisions God. A Christian does not believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Space Teapot can be identified with God as understood by Christians. So it not the case that God is not falsifiable for the same reasons as the Space Teapot is non-falsifiable, from the viewpoint of a theist.

However, a theist might be comfortable with the notion that God is a necessary being, and unfalsifiable for that reason. One cannot prove logic with logic, or mathematics with mathematics. If God is the ground of all experience, then there can be no experiential way to falsify God.

Is this a problem for a theist? It's important to remember that the principle of falsification is foundational to the concept of scientifically established fact. It does not preclude the existence of truth or verification outside of science (such a statement would be non-falsifiable, and therefore self-defeating). Our intuitions about what lies beyond the boundaries of all experience cannot be empirically falsified. Someone who restricts themselves to scientific verifiability must forever suspend judgement on such questions, but a theist is under no such obligation. Another way of putting this is that the belief in God is the primary and foundational belief for (at least some) theists. Their answer to Flew's question is thus that is not even theoretically possible to disprove God for the reason that all other beliefs are less secure (including the belief in reality as we perceive it).

Chris Sunami
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    What good is a god that has no set attributes? (I know that's kinda the concept of I AM). Such a god could deliberately do evil and no one would recognize it as such, because "god works in mysterious ways!" – Jesse Cohoon Dec 12 '16 at 20:58
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    @JesseCohoon Exactly. My contention is that no believer actually believes in a god with no set attributes. – Chris Sunami Dec 12 '16 at 21:20
  • Actually to evade argument completely, a God only needs one fixed attributed -- ineffability, right? –  Dec 12 '16 at 22:19
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    @Jobermark - The first attribute of an ineffable God is that we don't speak about the ineffable God? – Chris Sunami Dec 12 '16 at 22:23
  • We could only wish... The Muslims, the Catholics, the Brahmans and the Sikhs haven't been read in on that proviso. Well over half of all monotheistic religions explicitly make God ineffable. The latter two go so far as to make him totally free of expressible attributes. But somehow, we all keep expressing them. –  Dec 12 '16 at 22:27
  • "forever agnostic"? No. You should look into ignosticism and theological non-cognitivism. – MmmHmm Dec 12 '16 at 23:06
  • @jobermark, part of the mystery is that one is capable of reporting that one can behold the transcendent. – nir Dec 13 '16 at 13:26
  • @nir, I was raise Catholic, I get the point. But it makes complaints like Flew's just ignorant. The criterion of falsifiability is all of 60 years old, the idea of divine mystery/ineffability has a history of thousands of years on three continents. This is just an annoying question. And part of an ongoing annoying conversation that has already been declared moot by one side. –  Dec 13 '16 at 16:00
  • @ChrisSunami "So it not the case that God is not falsifiable", i.e there as those that consider evidence of God falsifiable, in theory such people might exist, but in practice most people of faith seem to keep moving the goal posts, and arguing that none of the evidence is conclusive enough to dissuade them of their faith: so Flew's point holds - are there examples of believers who have clearly stated under what circumstances are they willing to give up their belief? – Alexander S King Dec 13 '16 at 20:35
  • @ChrisSunami It is however the second point which I am more interested in: For those believers who admit that evidence of God is not falsifiable, how can their belief be useful to anyone but themselves? How can such belief be communicated/taught to someone who isn't already favorably biased? And most of all, how to competing notions of God coexist without being completely relegated to the personal/private sphere? – Alexander S King Dec 13 '16 at 20:40
  • @AlexanderSKing The concept of addition is not falsifiable, if you ever add two numbers and get the wrong number, you did it wrong. Nor are the contents of Euclidean Geometry. They are useful. We pass them on. Falsifiability is not a standard for truth, only for science, and even then only recently. –  Dec 13 '16 at 21:54
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    @jobermark point taken. – Alexander S King Dec 13 '16 at 22:21
  • @ChrisSunami then perhaps you meant "ignorant" as "agnostic" means lacking knowledge of deity. – MmmHmm Dec 14 '16 at 08:17
  • @AlexanderSKing I converted your comments into a question here: http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/39709/what-is-the-utility-of-non-falsifiable-beliefs-about-god . Feel free to weigh in on if you think any of the proposed answers should be accepted. – Chris Sunami Dec 15 '16 at 21:58
  • Thanks Chris - I was working on a post and you beat me to it :-) – Alexander S King Dec 15 '16 at 22:19
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first, please define "theist". is that somebody who goes by reason rather than faith? does a "theist" accept "relevation" as a source of genuine knowledge?

"What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of God?’"

Well that's pretty easy, and you have already answered it, indirectly: the undeniable presence of Evil in the world. Aleppo, for example

what that question is really about is the problem of theodicy. see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy

but you asked two questions. the other is "How can theists respond to the argument that God is 'unfalsifiable'?"

since only propositions are falsifiable, you'd have to change that to sth like "'God exists' is falsifiable" or similar. and that's a very different question. "God exists", "God is just", "God loves us" etc. are very different proposals.

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    I note for the record that you have so far declined to say what you mean by "theist", which makes it impossible to offer a good answer to your question. –  Dec 17 '16 at 21:33
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The challenge:

‘What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of God?’ How can a theist respond to this argument and challenge?

Definition of key terms:

theism [thee-iz-uh m] noun 1. the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (distinguished from deism ). 2. belief in the existence of a god or gods (opposed to atheism ).

Vs.

deism [dee-iz-uh m] noun 1. belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation (distinguished from theism ). 2. belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it.

See:

rev·e·la·tion ˌrevəˈlāSH(ə)n/ noun 1. a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way. "revelations about his personal life" synonyms: disclosure, surprising fact, announcement, report; More 2. the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world.

The problem:

Theists allow for the import of premises that are not grounded by the same criteria as facts founded on scientific inquiry (e.g. revelation vs. a theory that predicts an exact amount of energy produced by a reaction of fixed quantities in kilojoules after some given period of time). I would argue that "theists", insofar as they allow for "divine or supernatural disclosure" by what William James would call 'mystical experience' in his The Varieties of Religious Experience, have a different epistemic criterion for what counts as falsifiable. How can I discount the subjective experience of another person, if the alleged source of that experience is possibly not the type of thing that can be confirmed by merit of its very type? If I have no direct access to another's experience, how can I verify it (verifiability being a key criterion for something to be scientifically verifiable)?

The Impossibility of a coherent response from a theist based on the incongruency of essential premises:

If the position of theism and all other positions are mutually exclusive based on the presupposition of the validity of certain key premises (the source of creation being in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God & the soundness of divine revelation as an epistemically sound means of knowledge), I do not see how a satisfactory answer could be given to the question.

Mystical experience, or divine revelation, which the theist purports to exist, is unfalsifiable to them. It is not propositional in structure, like an atomic expression of sentential logic. It is not the type of sensory datum that can be considered to be false without the theist accepting the possibility of instrumentation error (e.g. delusions of reference caused by psychotic delusions, themselves grounded in structural and functional abnormalities of the brain). I'm certain we all know at least one (and most of us, many) theists who are not psychotic or developmentally impaired. As to whether or not all delusions need to originate from biological abnormalities or some are psychogenic and memetic in nature is another question altogether...

cafeTechne
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I consider myself an "theist." Therefore, as a theist, my response would be, "there is no argument, I agree with you, God is unfalsifiable."
With regards to the skeptic, my answer would be, "allowing a human being to live or die sooner or latter, suffer or not suffer, etc., has nothing to do with God's love for them".
God's love for His creation, is independent from what His creation does or does not do!

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The question as written must be rejected because accepting it requires agreeing that there is some contingency in the existence and eternal attributes of God. Of course, that is contrary to all sound theology. In fact, the Bible teaches the eternal self-existence and independence of God from all of creation. Rather than being contingent on anything, all things are contingent upon Him. One of the best passages concerning this is in the Gospel of John, in which the apostle speaks of the eternal Logos:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." (John 1:1-5)

Jesus was the eternal Logos who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). He was not a statement (as someone suggested) that could be falsified, but rather the eternal Truth, the Truth prior to all other truth making possible all knowledge:

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'" (John 14:6)

It simply doesn't make sense to assert that the truth, whose essential nature precludes the possibility of being false, could be falsifiable.

However one thing that I find remarkable about this question is that it also suggest that there is some evident reason to doubt God's existence and his eternal attributes. That strikes me as odd because history has always confirmed the Word of God and continues to do so. Everything that we see today is as the Bible said that it would be:

"Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.' For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:3-7)

Man in his rebellion against God has mounted up reason after reason to incur His wrath, and the Bible affirms that wrath is exactly what we should expect to find in the world:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." (Romans 1:18-23)

However, in spite of the fact that the depravity of man leaves no reason to expect God's mercy and love, He demonstrated his love by making the greatest sacrifice of all, i.e. the crucifixion of his only begotten Son:

"But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand." (Isaiah 53:10)

"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)

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    I would like to ask you a few questions that are appropriate for a chat room: http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/50022/concerning-godliness – nir Dec 13 '16 at 13:07
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    I interpret this answer as indicating that the category of falsifiability simply does not apply God since His features not contingent; i.e. that the original question makes a type of category error. – Dave Dec 13 '16 at 14:50
  • The agreement you declare false is the **definition** of falisifiability, whatever the reason it does not apply, this is not an error in the question, but agreement with Flew. If you cannot answer this question, you just agree God is unfalisifiable in the Popperian sense. There is not necessarily anything wrong with that. As Luther points out, scientific proof of God's existence would contravene salvation through faith (given the Lutheran definition of salvation through faith...). –  Dec 13 '16 at 15:48
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    I understand the difference between necessary and contingent truth - thanks for pointing that out. However, can you clarify to me how the Biblical passages you quoted correspond to empirically falsifiable predictions? – Alexander S King Dec 13 '16 at 20:43
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    this is the philosophy se, not the Christianity se. please stop with the biblical stuff. –  Dec 13 '16 at 21:58
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    @mobileink. I you don't want to hear biblical stuff don't read questions about theology. If people want to talk about God, I'm going to quote the Bible. –  Dec 13 '16 at 23:29
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    excuse me, since when did "god" mean your Christian god? i didnt notice any reference to the bible in the question. i'm not anti-christian, I just think you should keep your religious beliefs to yourself. –  Dec 13 '16 at 23:35
  • @mobileink. Don't you think you're being rather intolerant, trying to tell people what not to quote just because you don't agree with it? –  Dec 14 '16 at 01:10
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    @AlexanderSKing. Besides the Bible, all empirical evidence can be considered part of God's revelation. Such evidence is important but not sufficient without faith, because only with faith are we able to grasp more fully the divine authority of the revelation. –  Dec 14 '16 at 02:28
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    @mobileink: It seems you want believers to answer only if they are willing to pretend they don't believe it. – WGroleau Dec 14 '16 at 03:25
  • Funny that like Socrates and Epictetus before him, Jesus wrote nothing and by valid and sound accounting of biblical narratives, [Jesus never even existed](https://youtu.be/WUYRoYl7i6U). There is a vast epistemic difference between what is "true to you" and what is true and empirically verifiable. Deity is simply imponderable and unfalsifiable and this is self evident no matter how "coherent" a particular deity may seem "to you" – MmmHmm Dec 14 '16 at 07:54
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    "If people want to talk about God, I'm going to quote the Bible." -- please don't, it really isn't appropriate here. Some ideas from systematic theology could be helpful, but Bible quotes don't really add to the philosophical discussion. –  Dec 15 '16 at 23:05
  • @Keelan. But there's no writings more philosophical than the Bible. Are you saying that the theology of Augustine is more philosophical than the theology of Paul? How could that be? Why would you be so intolerant of Christian writings? –  Dec 16 '16 at 00:37
  • I am not intolerant about Christian writings specifically, I have also been challenging answers that propose Hindu writings as the only truth. The issue with most sacred writings is that using them in an argument is inherently exegetical/hermeneutical, and that is not what this site is for (we have [hermeneutics.se] for that). Also, you are presenting scripture as the only truth - we would prefer a more objective perspective. –  Dec 16 '16 at 07:46
  • @Keelan. Are you saying that the PSE policy is to not to believe too much in what you're quoting? Exegesis is just interpretation, so is there some PSE policy against too much interpretation of sources cited? Are you just making this stuff up? I've never heard of any policies against being too confident in one's interpretation of cited sources. –  Dec 16 '16 at 08:46
  • Perhaps I'm not the best person to specify *exactly* what is against this. Fact is that we have received several flags on your answers. You may get more help on [meta]. –  Dec 16 '16 at 08:48
  • @Keelan. Did it occur to you that those flags reflect nothing more than anti-religious bigotry as opposed to the merits of my answer. I think you're exactly the person who should respond. I voted for you as moderator because I thought you had more integrity, but now it seem you are participating in the same sort of intolerance that I felt it was my duty to stand against. I expected better of you. –  Dec 16 '16 at 08:53
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/50182/discussion-between-keelan-and-pe-de-leao). –  Dec 16 '16 at 08:59
  • [This post is being discussed on meta.](http://meta.philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/3306/2953) –  Dec 16 '16 at 09:32