Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
20T he c hallenge, it will be remembe red, ran like t his. Some t heologic al
utterances seem to, and are intended to, provide explanations or express
assertions. Now an assertion, to be an assertion at all, must c laim that things stand
thus and thus; and not otherwise. Similarly an explanat ion, to be an explanation at
all, must explain why t his part ic ular t hing oc c urs; and not something else. Those
last c lauses are c ruc ial. And yet sophist ic at ed religious people – or so it seemed to
me – are apt to overlook this, and tend to refuse to allow, not merely that anything
ac tually does oc c ur, but that anything c onc eivably c ould oc c ur, whic h would c ount
against their theologic al assertions and explanations. But in so far as they do this,
their supposed explanations are ac tually bogus, and their seeming assertions are
really vac uous.
Mit c hell's response t o t his c hallenge is admirably direc t , st raight forward, and
understanding. He agrees 'that theologic al utteranc es must be assertions'. He
agrees that if they are to be assertions, there must be something that would c ount
against their truth. He agrees, too, that believers are in c onstant danger of
transforming their would-be assertions into 'vac uous formulae'. But he takes me to
task for an oddity in my 'c onduc t of the theologian's c ase. The theologian surely
would not deny that the fac t of pain c ounts against the assertion that God loves
men. T his very inc ompat ibilit y generat es t he most int rac t able of t heologic al
problems, t he problem of evil.' I t hink he is right. I should have made a dist inc t ion
between t wo very different ways of dealing wit h what looks like evidenc e against
the love of God: the way I stressed was the expedient of qualifying the original
assertion; the way the theologian usually takes, at first, is to admit that it looks
bad but to insist that there is – there must be – some explanat ion whic h will show
t hat , in spit e of appearanc es, t here really is a God who loves us. His diffic ult y, it
seems t o me, is t hat he has given God at t ribut es whic h rule out all possible saving
explanations. In Mit c hell's parable of t he St ranger it is easy for t he believer t o find
plausible exc uses for ambiguous behaviour: for the Stranger is a man. But suppose
the Stranger is God. We c annot say that he would like to help but c annot: God is
omnipotent. We c annot say that he would help if he only knew: God is omnisc ient.
We cannot say that he 'is not responsible for the wickedness of others: God creates
those others. Indeed an omnipotent, omnisc ient God must be an ac c essory before
(and during) the fac t to every human misdeed! as well as being responsible for
every non-moral defec t in the universe. So, though I entirely c onc ede that Mitc hell
was absolut ely right t o insist against me t hat t he t heologian's first move is t o look
for an explanat ion, I st ill t hink t hat in the end, if relentlessly pursued, he will have
to resort to the avoiding action of qualific at ion. And there lies the danger of that
death by a thousand qualific ations, whic h would, I agree, c onstitute 'a failure in
fait h as well as in logic '.
Hare's approac h is fresh and bold. He c onfesses that 'on the ground marked
out by Flew, he seems to me to be completely victorious'. He therefore introduces
the c onc ept of blik. But while I think that there is room for some suc h c onc ept in
philosophy, and that philosophers should be grateful to Hare for his invention, I
nevertheless want to insist that any attempt to analyse Christian religious
utterances as expressions or affirmations of a blik rather than as (at least would-
be) assertions about the cosmos is fundament ally misguided. First, bec ause thus
int erpret ed, t hey would be ent irely unort hodox. If Hare's religion really is a blik,
involving no c osmologic al assert ions about t he nat ure and ac t ivit ies of a supposed
personal c reator, then surely he is not a Christian at all? Sec ond, bec ause thus
interpreted, they could scarcely do the job they do. If they were not even intended