Attack On John H HickS View Of

Attack On John H. Hick?S View Of Verification Essay, Research Paper 11-22-99 Philosophy of Relgion The Problem with Verification In the following essay I will attempt to attack John H. Hick’s view of verification, and how it can be processed within steps. I will expand on how religion, and everything that is contained within it, can’t be verified at all. Although Hick discussed the problems of verification in Chapter 8 “The Problems of Verification” in Philosophy of Religion, he lacked discussion on crucial elements, discussing the problem of verifying religion as a whole. The problem of verification isn’t just one problem but many. The problems of verifying something are needed in order to give that something credibility. To verify, is to make true, and in order to

make true, you must question what is being verified and make sure it completely factual. Experiments, experiences, and interpretations are needed in the verifications process. Hick discusses the problem of verification, and applies a verifiable process in “The Idea of Eschatological Verification”. In order to focus my analysis, I shall center my essay upon a discussion of the following six-step argument, assumed here to be valid, but not necessarily sound, making the issue of soundness the key issue: (1) Hick demonstrates the problem of verification in which he explains the idea of life after death, by a step by step process of how it can be verified. Hick explains that because of certain underlying principles of verification, “life after death” may in fact be true

because it can’t be disproved. However, I do not agree with Hick in that “life after death” can’t be disproved, does not mean it’s true. This leads my essay in which nothing in religion can be verified. (2) The central core of verification is the removal of grounds for rational doubt. But I do not understand that. Does that mean: removing any grounds of rational doubt can instantly make something true? Rational doubt is rational thinking and doubting of a certain proposition. I can’t seem to remove my doubts that there is not “life after death”, but merely death, and when we die…we just die. Because of my continuous doubt of the subject, verification is not in fact taking place. But if someone were to think that in fact life did take place again after death, and

there was no doubt of that, but absolute faith in the concept of it, verification is taking place. But my doubt continues to linger, prolonging verification. Does this mean that verification is completely revolved around individualism in which it depends: on the person trying to verify, what he or she is verifying, and how much belief do they have in what they’re verifying? (3) Taking into consideration now that verification is completely up to the individual, “publicly verifiable” can’t be used to verify something and has no place it seeking answers. A factual assertion is something of fact and is completely true. Sometimes no matter how much that assertion is in fact true, it can’t be verified by all. Not everyone believes the same things. Suppose that there are only

3 groups of religions on earth and each religion has been verified as true. Some believe in proposition A. Some believe in proposition B. And a small amount believes in proposition C. Who is correct than? All propositions are supposedly true, than which one is the right one? If something is verified, does the verification make it absolutely true and right in which we should follow it? (4) Hick than explains that “it is possible for a proposition to be in principle verifiable if true but not in principle falsifiable if false.” He further explains that the proposition may one day be verified if it is true but can never be falsified if it is false. This doesn’t seem to be true. If a proposition is found to be true, than it is true, but if a proposition is found to be false,