The logical positivists (like A.J. Ayer in his book Language, Truth and Logic) saw religious language as defective. They argued that "There is a God" is an empty claim (neither true nor false) -- since there's no conceivable way to verify its truth by sense experience.Logical PositivismThese questions are based on a short handout on "Logical Positivism"; this handout is adapted from Chapter 5 of Harry Gensler's Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (London and New York, Routledge: 1998).
These computerized exercise materials are copyrighted (c) 2002 by Harry J. Gensler; but they may be distributed freely.
The logical positivists thought that philosophers often debated nonsensical issues. They proposed this principle to test if a statement makes a genuine true claim:"A statement makes a genuine truth claim (is true or false) if and only if it's either EMPIRICAL (testable by sense experience) or ANALYTIC (true by definition)."
The positivists thought that "God exists" fails the test, since it's neither empirical (testable by sense experience) nor analytic (true by definition). They concluded that "God exists" isn't true or false; it lacks cognitive meaning and only expresses vague feelings. So it's senseless to ask whether there is a God.