Religious commitment and the logical status of doctrines

Religious Studies

Volumn 9, Issue 1, 1973, Pages 39-48

  Austin, William H ^a  

^a RICE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0042215720     PISSN: 00344125     EISSN: 1469901X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0034412500006284     Document Type: Article

References (7)

1. For a crisp statement of this view see Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 156-68.
2. See Alasdair MacIntyre, ‘The Logical Status of Religious Belief’ in Metaphysical Beliefs (London: SCM Press, 1967).
3. See Fred Berthold, Jr., ‘Empirical Propositions and Explanations in Theology’ in Bernard E. Meland (ed.): The Future of Empirical Theology (University of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. 115 if.
4. William W. Bartley III, The Retreat to Commitment (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962). Bartley appeals primarily to writings of Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, though he mentions others. I think Bartley’s reading of these men is in some important respects disputable, but that is not a point I wish to pursue here.
5. ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’ in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (ed.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1970), pp. 91-195. My version of Lakatos’ suggestion is a crude and simplified one. Moreover, I very much doubt that he would like the use to which I am putting it. I mention him to acknowledge my debt, not to claim his support. However, I do not think I have materially misrepresented him.
6. See Berthold, op. cit., pp. 120 ff.
7. Actually, Lakatos appears to hold (op. cit., p. 155) that a degenerating problemshift cannot by itself be an adequate reason for rejecting a research programme; for that an alternative programme is required. However, he does not explicitly consider cases in which there is a very prolonged degeneration and no alternative in sight. For purposes of this paper I shall adopt a version of sophisticated falsificationism which calls for the abandonment of a programme which has stalled unduly long.