The god hypothesis cannot be verified, falsified, or contradicted.
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (I Corinthians 1:23-25)The hypothesis cannot be verified by any empirical method of which I am aware.
Depending on how the proposition is bounded, the hypothesis can be falsified or contradicted.
Empiricism requires some form of direct observation of the object or the object's influence.
Galileo saw Neptune, but treated it as a star. Most early astronomers altogether missed the planet -- 17 times the size of earth.
Until 1821 Neptune was absent. The solar system was fixed. Any additional planets could be falsified with considerable confidence.
But then we observed an unexpected variation in the orbit of Uranus and deduced the presence of an unseen planet. Only a quarter-century later did we confirm the mathematical "ghost" by direct observation.
Cartesian doubt, empiricism, and error elimination are all helpful tools. They also produce perpetually tentative results.
Thomas Kuhn wrote, "No theory ever solves all the puzzles with which it is confronted at a given time; nor are the solutions already achieved often perfect. On the contrary, it is just the incompleteness and imperfection of the existing data-theory fit that, at any given time, define many of the puzzles that characterize normal science. If any and every failure to fit were ground for theory rejection, all theories ought to be rejected at all times."
I vaguely perceive surprising variations in my experience. There is some unseen, so far undefinable influence. I hypothesize regarding God. I find it an interesting hypothesis. I do not claim God as empirically demonstrable given current conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment