 Ayer’s response seems to involve a sleight of hand. The verification principle is presented as a way of demarcating factually contentful from contentless statements. In arguing against the verifiability of religious statements, Ayer relies on the assumption that the verification principle provides the means for specifying what statements mean. In this case, that the content of “God exists” is exhausted by the observation statements that (in combination with other assumptions) can be deduced from it. However, this is in effect to concede that religious statements are verifiable according to the original (official) version of the verification principle. As to the meaning-specifying, unofficial version of the verification principle, this is not something that Ayer defends. However, it would place religious statements in good company with scientific statements that posit theoretical entities that are not directly observable and the meanings of which are similarly not exhausted by the observation statements that are derivable from them.