John Hick is here responding to logical positivists like A.J. Ayer, who argue that religious claims are empty and meaningless because no set of experiences could show them to be true. Hick argues, on the contrary, that some set of experiences COULD show religious claims to be true.Consider the dispute between one who affirms and one who denies the existence of God. Hick admits that our experiences in this present life can't decide the issue. But he contends that afterlife experiences could decide it. So the existence of God is in principle verifiable by experience -- and so the dispute between the believer and the non-believer is a factual one.
This exercise deals with pages 100-102 of Chapter 7 of Hick's Philosophy of Religion, third edition (Prentice Hall: 1983). These computerized exercise materials are copyrighted (c) 2002 by Harry J. Gensler; but they may be distributed freely.