Theology and Falsification

Anthony Flew begins his book, Theology and Falsification, with a parable of two explorers who germ across a current clearing in the woods. In the clearing lies a closely-mannered garden to which the two explorers venture about. The Believer supposes that a nurseryman tends to the plot while the doubter thinks not. After supervision and thoughtful investigation of the garden, one of the explorers, the Believer, states that an intangible, invisible, and insensible(p)  gardener tends to his beloved garden. The other, the Skeptic, supposes that if an intangible entity as described by the believer tends to the garden, then the gardener might as well not exist (Theology and Falsification, 96).\nThe qualifications make by the Believer could cuckold in the thousands and Flew attributes his death by a thousand qualifications tactile sensation to this flaw, rendering an over-qualified pleadion to be meaningless. The supposition the Skeptic makes is how Flew manifests and exposit h is argument; that without rational and utilize scrutiny, program lines argon meaningless. To be meaningful, Flew states, to assert that such(prenominal)(prenominal) and such is the matter is necessarily equivalent to denying that such and such is not the lawsuit  (98). The religious hold utterances such as divinity fudge has a plan or God exists as undeniable avowals. Flew draws upon negation to consult that assertions atomic number 18 not assertions if they are not falsified and their assumed truths negated. Therefore, Flew states that religious, cosmogonic utterances held by the religious are anything but assertions. Rather, theological utterances are so eroded by qualifications that they are no time-consuming assertions. Flews formulation of his argument is as follows:\n1. For an assertion to be meaningful, the assertion must deny the dissimulation of the assertion.\n2. The denial of the falsehood of an assertion requires the assertion to be falsifiable.\n3. By definition the falsifi cleverness of an assertion requires the ability to state th...