Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-13T22:07:55.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Flew–Nielsen Challenge: A Critical Exposition of its Methodology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Gary Colwell
Affiliation:
Waterloo, Ontario

Extract

Nearly three decades have passed since Antony Flew first issued his now famous falsification 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?’ The purpose of the question is to challenge the sophisticated believer to describe a state of affairs in which a basic putative theistic assertion like ‘God exists’ would be false. If the believer admits that he cannot provide such a description then, Flew would argue, he is admitting that at least his putative theistic assertion is compatible with every state of affairs; consequently it is factually meaningless. The reason for this is that every factually significant assertion must deny that some describable state of affairs obtains. To illustrate, just as when we draw a circle we simultaneously draw in and draw out two particular areas, so when we state a fact we simultaneously deny a fact(s). Here is the difficulty, Flew would say, in which the sophisticated believer puts himself when he uses putative theistic assertions: factually he denies nothing, hence factually he asserts nothing.

Information

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable