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Successful Theistic Explanations 117 alone any more worthy of our acceptance. To be worthy of our acceptance, a theory should have survived a process of testing. To the extent that a hypothesis has survived (independent) tests, I shall speak of it as having been corroborated. Nonetheless, a hypothesis cannot be corroborated unless it is testable, so the question of testability is still a critical one. A hypothesis is independently testable if we can use it to make predictions about facts other than those it purports to explain, that is to say, about different kinds of phenomena. (Here’s an example from J. J. Thomson’s work. “If [cathode rays] are [as posited] negatively charged particles, then when they enter an enclosure they ought to carry into it a charge of negative electricity.” 5 ) And if we are dealing with competing potential explanations, we should be able to make predictions that discriminate between them, that would turn out to be true given our favoured hypothesis, but not true given the alternative. The last point is an important one. If a hypothesis is to be testable, there needs to be some chance that the prediction it makes will turn out to be false. The hypothesis must, in other words, have some degree of empirical content (3.2.3): there needs to be at least one possible state of affairs that it excludes. 6 Ideally, there will be more than one. Indeed, the greater the degree of empirical content, the better. For it is the empirical content of a hypothesis that determines its degree of testability. 7.1.1 Are Proposed Theistic Explanations Testable? Are theistic hypotheses testable in this sense? Well, it depends on how they are formulated. I have argued that if a proposed theistic explanation is to have any signifi cant degree of empirical content, it is not suffi cient that it attribute some event or state of affairs to a divine agent (3.2.3). For if God exists, then any actual event or state of affairs is attributable to him. God is, in this respect, analogous to the poltergeist who is responsible for whatever occurs in the room. But I have also argued that a theistic hypothesis need not suffer from this defect. It can be given empirical content by being formulated as an intentional explanation, one that specifi es just why God is supposed to have willed the fact in question. We can then use the rationality principle that lies at the heart of all intentional explanations to make predictions about how such a being would act to achieve the posited goal. What, then, would a theist need to do in order to show that her proposed explanation has been corroborated? Let’s begin with what she should not do. She should not treat theism as a single hypothesis. For what we might call the theistic hypothesis—let’s say “there exists a God, who created the world”—is a most inadequate explanation. It has little empirical content, insofar as it fails to single out the particular facts to be explained. What the theist needs, and what she must seek to corroborate, is a hypothesis of the form “there is a God who wills G,” where G is a posited divine goal. So
118 Theism and Explanation if the theist wishes to show that her proposed explanation is testable, she must do more than show that explanations appealing to a divine agent can cover a wide range of events. She must show that this particular proposed explanation can cover a wide range of events. Let me illustrate this point with an example given earlier (4.1.2). At least one prominent theist has suggested that the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 occurred because God was angry about the neglect of his commandments, a neglect to which the widespread sexual immorality of our age bears witness. There are many things one might say about such a proposed explanation. But the question I wish to ask here is: Could this proposed explanation be corroborated? To answer this question in the affi rmative, it would not suffi ce to show that other events can be explained by reference to divine action. That might indicate the scope of what I shall call the theistic research tradition (7.3), but it says nothing about the corroboration of this particular proposed explanation. To corroborate this particular explanation, you would have to show that other events can be explained by positing a God who is angry about sexual immorality. For this is the specifi c explanatory claim that is being tested here. Could this be done? I have no idea, since I know of no theists who have sought to corroborate their proposed explanations in this way. And in my experience, it is rare for a proposed theistic explanation to be expressed in a form that is independently testable. I have suggested that Richard Swinburne’s account of theistic explanations is, perhaps, the best available. But even Swinburne’s proposed explanations lack empirical content, since they lack what I shall call intentional specifi city. They fail to spell out just why God would do what he is alleged to have done. Throughout his work, Swinburne argues that God is not only able to create a world such as ours, but he has “good reason to choose to do so.” 7 But he also admits that “God has reason to make many other things,” so that we cannot “be certain” that God would make this world. 8 So apparently there exist a range of possible divine intentions, only some of which would have led God to create the world we live in. But this is not particularly helpful. It is akin to answering the question “Why did Sally go to the doctor?” with “Being a human being, prone to illness, she would have had reason to go to the doctor, although she would have had reason not to go to the doctor as well.” Well, this may well be true, but it is not very informative. What the question is asking for is the particular reason she had. Let me make the point another way. As I have argued throughout this study, a proposed theistic explanation (H) will be potential explanation only if it satisfi es the second line of Peirce’s abductive schema (2.1.2). I shall argue later that an intentional explanation will demonstrate this by way of a practical syllogism (Appendix 2.1). When the agent in question is a divine agent—one who is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect— the syllogism will take the following form, where E represents the fact to be explained and G the posited divine purpose.
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Theism and Explanation
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Theism and Explanation Gregory W. D
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To Anna who never tires of asking
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Acknowledgements My thanks are due
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2 Theism and Explanation Could it m
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4 Theism and Explanation While I ho
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6 Theism and Explanation experiment
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8 Theism and Explanation Plantinga
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10 Theism and Explanation explanati
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12 Theism and Explanation by refere
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14 Theism and Explanation explanati
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16 Theism and Explanation God creat
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2 On Explanations in General “Exp
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On Explanations in General 21 of ou
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On Explanations in General 23 merel
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Figure 2.2 Swinburne’s conception
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On Explanations in General 27 simil
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On Explanations in General 29 condi
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On Explanations in General 31 could
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3 What are Theistic Explanations? I
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What are Theistic Explanations? 35
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3.2.2 Positing a Divine Agent What
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4 What Would They Explain? It’s a
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4.2 SINGULAR AND GENERAL EXPLANATIO
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What Would They Explain? 63 shelter
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What Would They Explain? 65 were we
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Page 112 and 113: 6 Inference to the Best Explanation
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Page 154 and 155: 8 Conclusion Miss Binney spoke as i
Page 156 and 157: Conclusion 145 explanation that met
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Page 160 and 161: Appendix 149 attend any discussion
Page 162 and 163: Appendix 151 explanation is a causa
Page 164 and 165: Appendix 153 we assume is a “myth
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Page 168 and 169: Appendix 157 reasoning, Schueler su
Page 170 and 171: Appendix 159 action, one that has a
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Page 174 and 175: Appendix 163 causal laws do exist.
Page 176 and 177: Appendix 165 this is the explanatio
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Notes NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1. Numbers
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Notes 169 James Maclaurin has remin
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Notes 171 19. Musgrave, “Scientif
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Notes 173 the most explicit in its
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Notes 175 any true proposition, the
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Notes 177 weaker but to their mind
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Notes 179 15. Hume, “Dialogues,
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Notes 181 19. Swinburne, Is There a
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Notes 183 it will also confi rm H 2
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Notes 185 91. I am grateful to Geor
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Notes 187 this be a fatal objection
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Notes 189 71. Lakatos, “Falsifi c
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192 Bibliography Behe, Michael J. D
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194 Bibliography Dembski, William A
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196 Bibliography . A Treatise of Hu
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198 Bibliography Melnyk, Andrew. A
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200 Bibliography Rundle, Bede. 2004
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Index A abduction: and induction, 1
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defences, and theodicies, 134-35 de
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intelligent design theory: argument
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preemption, causal. See causal pree
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tsunami, Boxing Day, 60, 61, 68, 14
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