Religious Language and Reflection of Antony Flew’s Belief Change to Religious Language
Öz
Religious language defines the most general form as talking of God. That questioning whether talking about God is meaningful or not has been taken into consideration under the verifiability principle of Logical Positivists around the beginning of 20th century. The verifiability principle has been a criterion in determining that the statements not relying on experiment and observation would be meaningless and within this criterion, speaking about God has been deemed meaningless by the logical positivists.The meaning problem in religious language is been resurfaced with the adaptation of principle of falsifiability, which was suggested to be used as scientificness separatrix of Karl Popper by Antony Flew and is developed as opposing to the verifiability principle of Logical Positivist, to the religious language. Principle of falsifiability defends that a thesis, with testing under which conditions any thesis may be false as a principle, shall be valid as long as it can endure fallibilism. Flew has brought a unique perspective to the discussion of religious language with his adaptation of the principle of falsifiability.
Flew's change of faith in God influenced his philosophy and his views. Therefore, the views of the philosopher who had two different periods on the language of religion were different. In the first period he defended atheism and in the second and short term he defended the existence of God. In terms of duration, the first period lasted approximately sixty years and the second period lasted for six years. Flew was an atheist for over sixty years and has done many studies for this cause. In his first period as an atheist, Flew saw the language of religion as meaningless. The non-positive language of religion was questioned by Flew about the Wisdom's Garden parable and God's claims about believers in the relationship between love and evil. The garden parable describes a regular garden that two travelers discovered in the jungle. It asks whether this garden is organized by a gardener. Nobody has entered the garden, which the two travelers observed for a long time. But one of the travelers says there is a gardener who arranges the garden. He does not change his mind despite all the efforts of the other traveler.
Flew, argues that if there is nothing that a hypothetical claim denied, then there is nothing he claims. There is nothing defying the claim of the believer in the Garden Parable. Because in order to exclude every opposing statement put forward, another claim is put forward by the believer. When the parable of the garden is expressed in religious terms, it is defined as the theist who says there is a gardener, and the atheist who says there is no gardener.Garden is thought of as a universe and God is the one who ordered the universe. The dispute between the theist and the atheist is about whether there is an omnipotent, omniscient God.Theist tries to exclude every claim about God with another claim. Thus, for Flew, the language of religion is meaningless because there is no contradictory claim that makes the language of religion falsifiable. But after Flew’s belief change, the second period, the language of religion became meaningful.
Flew, in a May 2004 symposium at the University of New York, said that he believed in God and cited DNA research and other scientific developments as a reason for believing. According to Flew, science has shown that nature is pointing to God. In his researches on DNA, it was impossible for DNA to emerge by chance because of its complex nature and that DNA was made with a certain intelligence. This is proof of the existence of God. From the point of view of the falsification approach, Flew now questions whether the atheist assumption really claims anything. In Flew's critique of religious language before the change of belief, the language of religion was meaningless to Flew because the believer said that God was invisible or that his love was incomprehensible. But now the nature of God can be explained by scientific developments. Flew said that atheists' statements were not assertion because there was nothing scientific or philosophical to support the atheists' statements about the universe. Scientific developments have resulted in favor of the believer, and statements about the existence of God have begun to be a claim for Flew. With the scientific developments (ie, the developments that enabled Flew to reach the existence of God), the authenticity of each religious expression was accepted and an opposite statement was tried to be put forward. Evidence against God's existence has been reversed by scientific developments. The existence of God has reached the status of proposition or claim, as Flew says, for the complex nature of DNA and other reasons.
To sum of according to Flew, the religious language is meaningful when it makes a positive claim. Those scientific developments that prove the existence of God also suggest that the statements in religious language contain such a claim. In other words, both the meaningfulness of religious language that sometimes describes development in science and the reflection of this problem in the context of the principle of falsifiability have made religious language relevant to modern philosophical discourse. Flew's change of belief gave a new direction to the discussion of the religious language, this discussion still continues whether or not this religious language is factual and meaningful.
Din Dili ve Antony Flew’un İnanç Değişikliğinin Din Diline Yansıması
Öz
Din dili en genel şekliyle Tanrı hakkında konuşmak olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Tanrı hakkında konuşmanın anlamlı olup olmadığının soruşturulması yaklaşık olarak 20. yüzyılın başlarında Mantıkçı Pozitivistlerin doğrulanabilirlik ilkesi bağlamında ele alınmıştır. Doğrulanabilirlik ilkesi deneye ve gözleme dayanmayan ifadelerin anlamsız olacağının belirlenmesinde kriter olmuş ve bu kriter çerçevesinde Mantıkçı Pozitivistlerce Tanrı hakkında konuşmak anlamsız sayılmıştır. Din dilindeki anlam sorunu Antony Flew (1923-2010)’un Karl Popper (1902-1994)’in bilimsellik ayracı olarak kullanılmasını önerdiği, Mantıkçı Pozitivistlerin doğrulanabilirlik ilkesine karşı geliştirilen yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesini din diline uyarlamasıyla yeniden gündeme gelmiştir. Yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesi, herhangi bir önermenin hangi durumlarda yanlış olabileceğinin sınanmasını temel alarak, bir önermenin ancak yanlışlanabilirliğe karşı koyduğu müddetçe geçerli olacağını savunur.
Flew, yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesini din diline uyarlamasıyla din dili tartışmalarına özgün bir bakış açısı getirmiştir. Bu makalede din dili tartışmasında Flew’un yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesine dair farklı dönemlerindeki görüşleri karşılaştırılarak incelenecektir. Doğrulanabilirlik ve yanlışlanabilirlik ilkelerinin din diliyle olan ilişkisi ve Flew’un din dili hakkındaki görüşleri tartışılacaktır. Flew’un kendi eserlerinin referans alındığı açıklamalar; sentezleme, tanımlama ve nedensel yöntem kullanılarak yapılacaktır.
Bu araştırmada din diline dair tartışmalara yer verilerek Flew’un, deizmi benimsemesinin yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesi ve din diline nasıl olumlu yansıdığı gösterilmiştir. Flew’un görüşüne göre din dili yanlışlanabilir olduğunda anlamlı olmaktadır. Tanrı’nın varlığına delil olan bilimsel gelişmeler, din dilindeki ifadelerin bir iddia barındırdığı düşüncesini de desteklemiştir. Diğer bir deyişle, din dilinin anlamına dair tartışmalar hem bilimsel gelişmelerin belirlemeleriyle hem de yanlışlanabilirlik ilkesinin din diline uyarlanmasıyla modern felsefede yer edinmiştir. Flew’un, inanç değişikliği din dili tartışmalarına farklı bir boyut kazandırmış olsa da halen din dilinin olgusal bir içeriğinin ve anlamının olup olmadığı tartışılmaya devam etmektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri Koordinasyon Birimi
Bu çalışma, Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri Koordinasyon Birimi 4707 YL1-16 nolu proje tarafından desteklenmiş olup, Doç. Dr. Ayşe Sıdıka Oktay danışmanlığında Mehmet Burak Güneş tarafından hazırlanan “Yanlışlanabilirlik İlkesinin Din Diline Uyarlanması” adlı yüksek lisans tezinden türetilmiştir.
