The following essay was handwritten in 45 minutes. 

It is difficult to take Ayer’s claim seriously, since his verification principle fails its own test (we can neither analytically nor synthetically verify the proposition that only statements which can be analytically or synthetically verified have literal sense.)  Yet so as we cannot be accused of doing what Ayer does and refuse to participate in the game (he suggests the atheist, the agnostic and the  theist are erroneous in supposing the proposition,  “God exists” to convey literal sense and therefore refuses to talk about it – pretending he is something other than an atheist or agnostic) we shall demonstrate how, even if we accept Ayer’s ludicrous axiom, we do not have to reach his conclusion.

In the first chapter of Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer announces (by its title, the “Elimination of Metaphysics”) his intention to disregard all metaphysical statements.  Of course he will later put aesthetic and moral judgements in the same category.

According to Ayer, only statements that can be analytically or synthetically verified convey literal sense – yet, importantly, he rejects the strong verification principle of some of his other Vienna Circle chums as he recognises that, were it to be adopted, we would be able to say nothing – since we cannot verify the past conclusively.  Rather, Ayer says, we adopt a weak verification stance and ask, “what observations might we undertake in order to verify a statement?”  This need only be done in principle.  His example (remembering he is writing 34 years before the lunar landing of 1969) of the proposition, “there are mountains of the far side of of the moon” shows that, although it is practically impossible to do so, we know how we would verify the statement – so it stands as a “significant proposition.”   However, the statement, “God exists” cannot be verified in principle and is, according his criterion, rendered literally senseless.

Ayer’s problem is that he lacks imagination.  Just because we do not know how we would verify something now does not preclude our knowing how to in the future – such as what any other person is currently thinking or how to predict what disease you will die of at your moment of birth.

So we might verify the existence of God eschatologically.  Of course, if there is no God, it is likely we shall not find out (cf Paschal’s Wager) but if the God of the Abrahamic faiths exists, then this will be revealed at the Day of Judgement – or after we die.  Thus, if true, the statement is, in principle, verifiable.

However, Anselm might be deployed to show that there is another way in which Ayer is in error:  Ayer’s whole project is to turn the philosopher into an analyst (of words).  He would have us translate propositions into other propositions so we can see what they are ‘really’ saying.  According to Anselm, the statement, “God exists” really becomes, “that than which nothing greater than can be conceived, which cannot not exists, exists.”  This is clearly tautological and, according to Ayer’s own thesis, tautologies are the only statements that can be certain.

Naturally, Ayer would reject the ontological argument – and does so when he reiterates Kant’s convention that “existence is not a predicate” but only does so on the false use of “existence” in this context – for to dedicate existence of God is to predicate necessary existence, which is either tautological or epexegetical.

Even if this analytic (or ontological) translation of the statement, “God exists” were dismissed, we could not agree with Ayer that the statement, “God exists” would be “an empirical hypothesis.”  An empirical hypothesis is a putative thesis held about objects belonging to the material (empirical world).  Hence the two statements “This is a Jammie Dodger” and “I have a unicorn in my garage” are both genuinely empirical statements.

That the unicorn refers to a mythological creature is incidental.  It is claimed that I have an empirical, magical creature in my garage.  That is, if the unicorn were to exist in the world of sense and not merely in intellectu, I would be thinking of a sensible creature – i.e. one empirically verifiable.  This is precisely Descartes’ point when he explains that the intentional reality of the idea of a thing is equivalent to the formal reality it would have if it existed.  To think of a unicorn is to think of a finite substance.  However, to think of God is to think of an infinite substance who is not part of the sensible world.  Although God may make Himself manifest in the material world, He is not an object location in it, and therefore is not subjects to empirical verification.

Even when as Barth writes, God “goes into the car country” and take on the forma servi in the person of Jesus, “He does not cease to be God.”  In this respect we simply cannot verify whether Jesus is the God-Man  (and seem to be in agreement with Ayer.)  Yet this does not render Christological statements senseless – for they do convey sense, albeit the sense of a paradox, or oxymoron.

Ayer has dealt the metaphysician the honour (or the blow) of being retaliated to the role of poet (although, Ayer concedes, the poet often does make literal sense) but when the Poet write, “oh loving hate!” we understand, perfectly well, his sense.

Ayer’s mistake is to assume that metaphysical statements are “unintelligable.”  Yet if that were the case, we could not talk about “God” at all.  And although Anselm reminds us of the need to believe in oder to understand, and Descartes, that “it is n the nature of the infinite not to be comprehended by me, who am finite,” we must see the distinction between apprehension and cognition.  For, as Leibniz has it, “it is enough to know the excellence without understanding it.”

Yet Ayer fails to acquiesce – all language is merely a description of reality pro me – filling in the gaps of what we know which what is unknown.  Consider a dictionary lying on a table – we cannot see al its six sides yet, from our knowledge, (experience of other books we give it its missing sides.  We perceive with our mind (as Descartes says) through our imaginal faculty.  We do not know all the word the dictionary contains but we know it is likely to contain definitions – we all perceive the same – and yet a different – dictionary.

Likewise, the word “God” signifies something different for each of us but we are able to make certain sense of the word and thus the phrases, “I do not believe in God” – as well as its inverse – are sensical.

Finally, we should remember not all religious propositions are metaphysical.  Many are historical.  “Jesus came back to life three days after His crucifixion.” for example – leads to metaphysical beliefs in the Resurrection, soul etc., but is, in itself, an historical proposition and, as such, empirically verifiable.  Thus, even according to Ayer’s criterion, not all religious language is literally senseless.

Of course, Ayer might want to uphold Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” but since we cannot know anything for certain (except tautologies) we would never speak at all – for as St. Paul reminds us, “we know in part.”

As for tautologies, Ayer is correct in contenting that they do not give us new knowledge but understanding of what we did not know we knew.  This is most apparent in mathematical calculations (which he calls a mere process of “tautological transformation”).  Thus, suggests Ayer, an omniscient being would have no interest in mathematics.

Surely for Ayer to even write this (admittedly he attributes no supernatural ontology to such a being) means he is able to posture beings outside of the scope of his verification principle.  For surely the statement, “this being is omniscient” could never be verified by a being which is not.  It is like a student who asks her teacher to tell her something she doesn’t know.  The teacher will probably know more than the student and may know enough to know that student doesn’t know but the wise student, aware of her own ignorance can never know if the teacher knows.  It must be taken on trust and corroborated when practical.

And this Platonic (or Socratic) knowledge of our ignorance leads us back to the contribution of tautologies and religious language.  For it may well be that we cannot say anything certain of the empirical world or of the divine, but we know what we cannot know and that is a good start.  For, as Barth says, “many blind alleys had to be pursued to expose them as such.”  Ayer’s logical positivism is such a blind alley and, now exposed, we can return to the more interesting work of metaphysics and eat the Jammie Dodger.

Tristan Stone