Rationality of Religious Belief

Introduction to PhilosophyJason M. Chang

Lecture Outline

1. Background

2. Antony Flew’s position

3. R.M. Hare’s position

4. Basil Mitchell’s position

BackgroundThe issue

• Two ways of thinking about issue

o Religious beliefso Religious persons

• Definition of rational belief

Background

Why the issue is important

• Importance of being rational

o Public importance

o Private importance

Are religious persons rational?

Background

The debate (1948)

Participants

o Antony Flew

o R.M. Hare

o Basil Mitchell

Antony Flew’s position

The position

• Religious beliefs are irrational

Antony Flew (1923-2010)

Antony Flew’s position

Invisible gardener story

• Features of the Believer Explorer

o Maker of qualifications

Antony Flew’s position

Idea of a qualification

• Definition

• Too many qualifications

“Some gardener tends the plot, but _____________ .”• He is invisible• He is scentless• He is invulnerable to

electric shock• He is eternally elusive

Qualifications of the original

claim

Antony Flew’s position

Flew on the religious believer

• Guilty of too many qualifications

“God loves us as His children”• People of dying from

cancer• Holocaust• Famine, plague,

earthquakes

• “God’s love is not human love”

• “God works in mysterious ways”

• “We are in no position to judge”

“but _____________ .”

Antony Flew’s position

Flew on the religious believer

• Religious beliefs are unfalsifiable

o Definition

o About unfalsifiable beliefs

“God loves us as His children”

Counterevidence to the belief

Abandon belief

Make a qualificat

ion

Antony Flew’s position

“What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you [the Believer] a disproof of the love of, or the existence of, God?”

Religious beliefs are irrational because they are unfalsifiable

R.M. Hare’s position

The position

• Religious beliefs are examples of “bliks”

• All people (religious or nonreligious) have “bliks”

R.M. Hare (1919-2002)

R.M. Hare’s position

What is a “blik”?

o Fundamental belief

o Unquestioned belief (most of the time)

o Existentially significant

o Not easily abandoned

o Not empirically falsifiable

CATEGORIES BELIEF “God has a plan for me”

Fundamental belief

Unquestioned

Existentially significant

Not easily abandoned

Not empirically falsifiable

Yes – fundamental to who I am and how I understand events in the

worldMost of the time (occasionally I may question)

Yes – it gives me confidence, helps me act, gives my life meaning

Yes – I cannot imagine abandoning this belief

Yes – even if bad things happen to me, they do not falsify my belief

R.M. Hare’s position

R.M. Hare’s position

Does an atheist scientist like Richard Dawkins have “bliks”?

Richard Dawkins (1941 - )

R.M. Hare’s position

“Bliks” held by scientists (including Dawkins?)

o “Everything (at least all events on earth) can be explained in terms of natural, scientific laws”

o “Our senses are reliable sources of knowledge”

R.M. Hare’s position

“Bliks” held by most parents

• “My child is a good person”

R.M. Hare’s position

Hare’s point

• Flew’s mistake

• Hare’s claim against Flew

R.M. Hare’s position

“Having abandoned some of the more picturesque fringes of religion, they think [nonbelievers] they have abandoned the whole thing – whereas in fact they still have got, and could not live without, a religion of a comfortably substantial, albeit highly sophisticated kind, which differs from that of many ‘religious people’ in a little more than this, that “religious people” like to sing Psalms about theirs.”

Basil Mitchell’s position

The position

• Compromise between Flew and Hare

Basil Mitchell (1917-2011)

Basil Mitchell’s Position

The stranger story

• The Believer Resister

• Maintains belief against counterevidence

Is the Mitchell’s Resister irrational like Flew’s Explorer?

Basil Mitchell’s Position

Much depends on how the Resister responds to counterevidence to his beliefs.

Basil Mitchell’s position

Counterevidence – sometimes sees the

Stranger aiding the enemy

(1) Abandons original belief

(3) Maintain original belief – while dismissing

the counterevidence

as having no consequence

(2) Maintain the original belief –

while experiencing the force of the counterevidenceTestable

hypothesis Genuine faith Empty, blind, irrational belief

Basil Mitchell’s position

(1) Abandons original belief Testable

hypothesis

(2) Maintain the original belief – while

experiencing the force of the

counterevidence

Article of significant faith

(3) Maintain original belief – while dismissing the

counterevidence as having no

consequence

Meaningless, blind, irrational

belief

Basil Mitchell’s position

Mitchell’s conclusions

• Definition of irrational person

• The religious believer