Rick Reilly, Tim Tebow, & the Law of Falsifiability

“All these believers who were sure God was rewarding Tebow’s faith with NFL wins. Will they now say God has forsaken him?”  –Rick Reilly, tweet (@ReillyRick)

Reilly’s rhetorical question brings applies a rule of logic called The Law of Falsifiability.   This concept essentially states that if an idea is true, then there must be a set of circumstances that would make it false. C.S. Lewis applies it in Mere Christiniaty when he argues that if you say that God doesn’t exist b/c there’s so much suffering, then how much (or little) suffering must there be for you to believe God does exist.

In this instance, Reilly and Lewis think along the same logical lines. If you say that a player ‘s victory is evidence of God’s favor, then what must the evidence say when he loses? Or more to the point, what are the set of circumstances that would show you that God is not w/ the player? Presumably, it’d be the absence of winning. If not that, then what? If no circumstances exist for you, if nothing can happen on the football field that will convince you that God is not w/ Tebow, then pointing to things on the field that show that God is with him is a fallacious (i.e. logically flawed) argument.

The problem w/ fallacies is that we often don’t notice when we’re making them. Our words can convince us (and people who agree w/ us), but if our audience catches them, then our credibility is damaged. I can tell you from experience that pointing out a fallacy in someone else’s argument does little to change their ideas or even the nature of their argument. Reilly’s tweet is probably the best you can do: ask an obvious rhetorical question that forces the speaker to confront their own flawed thinking.