Logical Positivism

 

[Rubble, C/O Dan Seddon, open source]

In last week's "Whataboutery Wednesday" we discussed why science does not prove there is no God.

We left one challenge unexplored, however. What if all we can know is what is proved by science or true by definition? If all we can know is what is scientifically verifiable or true by definition, and God's existence is neither empirically verifiable or true by definition, then it would follow we could not know if God exists.

Now, we could respond to this several ways. We could say it is possible to prove God's existence is true by definition a la some version of the ontological argument. Or we could say, given that God is being itself, His existence is logically inescapable. 

But that answer would mire us in more philosophy than I have time to expound. 

What if there is a problem in the criteria itself? Do we really want to say ALL knowledge is either true by definition or scientifically verifiable? Well, that criteria itself is neither true by definition or empirically verifiable. That is, logical positivism is self-defeating, creating a standard it cannot itself meet. 

Further, logical positivism assumes epistemological methodism. That is, logical positivism asserts we must know how we know something prior to knowing what we know. The problem in this scenario is in order to know logical positivism as a method, we would need a method for knowing our method, and a method for knowing that method, and so on. As J. P. Moreland notes, this would land us in an infinite regress, having to justify each method of knowing with some more fundamental method of knowing. Eventually, we'd have to assert we simply know something, in which case we would have ceased being epistemic methodists at all. 

Logical positivism fails, setting up a standard it cannot meet, and relying on an assumption of epistemic methodism that falls into an infinite regress. And we have sufficiently disarmed the notion that science proves there is no God.