EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Antony Flew applied Karl Popper’s Falsifiability Criterion to theological claims (e.g. God exists, God loves me, God created the Universe, et. al.) and asked: “What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?” My critique of this question was that it misconstrues how religious beliefs are formed in the first place in at least three meaningful ways:

(1) If theological claims can be proven through rational argument, then they can be disproven as well.

(2) If theological claims are being staked for existential, ethical, pragmatic, or doxastic reasons, then to discuss their empirical falsifiability is making a category error.

(3) If theological claims are not proven by single occurrences, then they cannot be disproven by single occurrences. Theological claims might simply be notional, or are accepted as part of a worldview.