Truth-Value Gaps and the Prosperity Gospel: A Kripkean Possible-Worlds Semantics

Abstract

This study investigates the intersection of truth-value gaps, modal logic, and the Nigerian Prosperity Gospel, focusing on how semantically indeterminate propositions emerge within faith-based discourse. Truth-value gaps, arising where bivalence fails, are traced from Aristotle’s future contingents to Frege’s sense-reference distinction and Strawson’s presuppositional analysis, demonstrating that propositions may lack truth-values without being meaningless. Kripke’s possible-worlds semantics further illuminates how necessity, possibility, and reference operate across accessible worlds, providing a formal framework to analyze religious assertions insulated from empirical falsification. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative approach rooted in analytic philosophy and formal propositional logic, exemplified through the SEMANTIC model, which formalizes seed-faith claims as a fixed conditional, , exposing auxiliary spiritual presuppositions and enabling classical truth-functional evaluation. The analysis reveals that Prosperity Gospel statements, such as “I am blessed” or “Your miracle is coming,” occupy truth-value gaps when empirical reality fails to instantiate promised outcomes. These gaps are maintained through counterfactual faith-states, deferred fulfillment, and semantic flexibility, demonstrating a modal displacement of actuality by the faith-world (). By constructing a complete truth table for , the SEMANTIC model shows that only one precise configuration renders the conditional false, thereby restoring logical clarity to rhetorically elastic claims. The study contributes to knowledge by demonstrating that philosophical semantics can critically assess religious language without undermining belief, revealing how linguistic structures sustain hope while obscuring accountability. This inquiry underscores the ethical and cognitive stakes of semantic transparency, offering a framework for understanding the interplay between faith, language, and socio-economic realities.