Eschatological verification- Hick

• hick claimed two things for religious language:

  • it claims are cognitive
  • they are therefore subject to verification
• his 'parable of the celestial city' follows a similar line of argument to flew's 'parable of the gardener' but comes to a different conclusion:

  • there is no evidence for whether or not the road leads to a celestial city
  • their views on this dictate the way they travel along it
  • at the end of the journey, all will be made clear: one will be right and the other wrong.
• hick's parable makes the point that there is a truth to know and that it will be revealed after death.
• what was hick's parable to support his point

  the parable of the celestial city.
• eschatological verification


  hick's view that the 'facts' of christianity will be verified (or falsified) at death. eschatology refers to beliefs about what will happen at the end of time.
• S: hick's claim that heaven is a real possibility

  W: this does not mean it is true or even a strong probability. atheists would dismiss the parable.

  CR: there is evidence for life after death: near-death experiences and memories of reincarnation.
• S: it gives good support to the view that religious claims are cognitive as if we do 'wake up' in a resurrected body, then we shall know that many other claims made by christianity are true.

  W: this doesn't work like standard falsification. this is a statement which will be verified if true but can ever be falsified because of its nature.

  CR: hick pointed to statements in mathematics that cannot be falsified. the atheist's claim relating to life after death is similar: it could be falsified but never verified.
• S: the previous point (wake up in resurrected body we know claims about christianity are true) is supposed by hicks claim that whenever we describe an experience, we are at the same time interpreting it.

  W: this might provide the basis for an argument that religious language is non-cognitive along the lines of hare and his bliks