The Legitimacy of the Belief in God in Carnapian Philosophical Framework

Carnap, the most prominent logical positivist, has a famous sentence that metaphysics is nonsense. At the first glance, it seems that any religious belief, especially the belief in God, is illegitimate according to Carnap’s philosophical principles. Since Carnap holds the same view regarding the meaningfulness of ethical beliefs and at the same time regards ethical behaviour valuable, it looks in similar way that at its best, in Carnapian framework, it might be reasonable to value following religions and to reject religious belief simultaneously. However, contrary to such superficial judgment, though the belief in philosophers’ God has no place in Carnap’s philosophical framework, the belief in religions’ God is totally consistent with his philosophical principles. For Carnap, experience is the only source of knowledge and all empirical judgements are merely probable. However, it is reasonable to believe and be certain about the truth of empirical sentences. Here, we show that one can establish one’s belief in religious factual claims, including claims about God, in the same way that Carnap establishes his belief in the claims of natural sciences.