Religious Language

Question 1

Meaningless

Answer 1

• nonsensical statements/statements without value
• metaphysical language is meaningless because it cannot be verified by empirical evidence (Ayer)

Question 2

Meaningful

Answer 2

• Verificationism says only statements that can be verified are meaningful
• Falsificationism says only statements that can (in principle) be falsified are meaningful

Question 3

Cognitivism

Answer 3

• meaningful or significant language is truth-apt: capable of being true or false
• meaning is a matter of empirical fact or relation of ideas
• realist - language is something that refers to states of affairs ‘out there’ in the real world

Question 4

Non-cognitivism

Answer 4

• some meaningful or significant language is not truth-apt
• meaning is sometimes a matter of empirical fact or relation of ideas but may also be more connected to use
• anti-realist - at least some language does not refer to states of affairs ‘out there’ in the world

Question 5

Vienna Circle

Answer 5

• philosophers who met in Vienna in the early part of the 20th century
• their theory of Logical Positivism inspired Ayer’s Verification Principle

Question 6

Logical Positivism

Answer 6

• the claim that only statements of logic or those capable of proof by empirical evidence are meaningful
• there are two types of meaningful language: analytic and synthetic statements
• metaphysical and religious language are meaningless

Question 7

Analytic

Answer 7

statements that are true by definition

Question 8

Synthetic

Answer 8

statements that are empirically verifiable

Question 9

The Picture Theory of Meaning

Answer 9

• a meaningful sentence has a picturing relation with the world
• a sentence is meaningful if its structure could map onto a possible configuration of objects. If nothing in reality could ever have that structure, it’s meaningless

Question 10

Verification Principle

Answer 10

the meaning of a statement is its verification

Question 11

Verification in practice

Answer 11

possible only when statements can be conclusively established empirically

Question 12

Verification in principle

Answer 12

• possible when it can be stated what observations would make the statement verifiable in practice and doing so could be possible at some point in the future
• e.g. there are mountains on the far side of the moon - this could not be verified when Ayer was writing Language, Truth and Logic but it was possible to state what observations would make it probable

Question 13

Meaningless language - Ayer

Answer 13

• any statements unverifiable in practice or principle have no factual meaning
• applies to statements e.g. ‘God exists’ or ‘God is loving’

Question 14

Verificationism - strengths

Answer 14

• straightforward
• aligns itself with a scientific approach in its insistence on empirical support if any statements are to be meaningful

Question 15

Objections to verificationism

Answer 15

• some religious statements may be eschatologically verifiable e.g. there exists a heaven (Parable of the Celestial City)
• some religious statements are historical in nature and are therefore verifiable in principle (e.g. Jesus was born in Bethlehem)
• the verification principle cannot be stated accurately
• the verification principle rules out unverifiable sentences which are actually meaningful

Question 16

Evaluating verificationism - Parable of the Celestial City

Answer 16

• by John Hick
• depicts two travellers on a road - one believes it leads to a celestial city, while the other thinks it leads nowhere, but neither can confirm the truth until the journey ends
• it challenges the idea that religious statements are meaningless by suggesting their truth can be verified eschatologically (at the end of time)

Question 17

Criticism: the verification principle cannot be stated accurately

Answer 17

• it is either stated too strongly, with an overemphasis on direct verification, and thus rendering scientific laws, sentences about the past etc. meaningless e.g. F = ma everywhere, all water boils at 100˚C
• or it is stated too weakly, with an overemphasis on verification in principle, which raises issues about what ‘in principle’ means e.g. is testing the boiling point of all pure water in the world possible in principle?

Question 18

Criticism: the verification principle rules out unverifiable sentences which are actually meaningful

Answer 18

• Richard Swinburne’s example of toys
• toys that stay in the cupboard when people are watching get up to dance in the middle of the night when people are asleep and no one is watching

Question 19

Falsification Principle

Answer 19

a sentence is factually significant only if there is some form of evidence that could falsify it

Question 20

Falsification - Parable of the Gardener

Answer 20

• two people debate whether a gardener tends an unseen garden, with the believer making endless qualifications for it until it hardly resembles what he first said
• Flew uses this to argue that religious statements, like the believer’s claim, are unfalsifiable because no evidence is accepted as disproof, rendering such statements meaningless according to the falsification principle

Question 21

Falsification criticism - Parable of the Lunatic

Answer 21

• by R.M. Hare
• describes a man convinced that all university dons want to kill him, ignoring any evidence to the contrary
• used to argue that religious beliefs function as “bliks”—unfalsifiable but meaningful worldviews—challenging Flew’s claim that unfalsifiable statements are meaningless

Question 22

Blik

Answer 22

• an individual perspective/frame of reference
• a filter through which one interprets evidence

Question 23

Falsification criticism - Parable of the Stranger

Answer 23

• by Basil Mitchell
• tells of a partisan in wartime who meets a stranger claiming to be on his side, yet the stranger’s actions sometimes seem to oppose the partisan’s cause
• used to argue that religious beliefs are meaningful because, like the partisan’s trust in the stranger, they involve statements of faith/trust in God that are unfalsifiable but still meaningful

Question 24

Language game

Answer 24

• Wittgenstein’s name for the idea that language has a meaning within a particular social context
• each context is governed by rules in the same way that different games are governed by different rules
• the meaning of a statement has nothing to do with verification/falsification but with the context in which it occurs

Question 25

Wittgenstein's view of language

Answer 25

- language is like "tools in a tool-box", with functions of the words being as diverse as the functions of the tools - language is like "looking into the cabin of a locomotive" - every part has its individual function that works to drive a cohesive 'whole' - language is like an "ancient city" that is continuously built upon as humanity evolves

Question 26

Language games - religious language

Answer 26

- the word 'God''s meaning is in the context in which it is used - only those who belong to a religious tradition can fully understand and appreciate the emotion and aura surrounding statements like 'God loves me' - religious language cannot be claimed to be true or false - its meaning is defined by the user within their religious language game

Question 27

Strengths of language-games

Answer 27

- D.Z. Phillips - to understand God-talk, one needs to learn the language of religious communities. Religious people are not making straightforward claims about reality - religious language is a way of coping with the difficulties in life - it allows a range of meaning for language rather than trying to put it in one box

Question 28

Weaknesses of language-games

Answer 28

- language-games 'let in too much' - since any community of speakers can play a language-game, all sentences become meaningful; if the criterion is simply 'meaning is use', then almost anything is in principle meaningful - it is virtually impossible to enter into a debate with those coming from another language game

Question 29

Paul Tillich's view on religious language

Answer 29

- non-cognitive - it is best understood as symbolic

Question 30

Tillich - Symbol vs Sign

Answer 30

- a sign points to something by arbitrary convention - a symbol participates in that to which it points

Question 31

Tillich - features of symbols

Answer 31

- participate in the power of that to which they point - unlock hidden elements of our soul - open up levels of reality which otherwise are closed to us - cannot be produced or replaced intentionally; rather, they come from the 'individual or collective unconscious' - grow and die within a cultural context

Question 32

Use of symbolic language about God - strengths

Answer 32

- avoids anthropomorphism - symbols and symbolic language can effectively capture God's transcendence and mystery - because symbols participate in the reality they signify, they are able to hold religious and spiritual power - allows for pluralism and multiple interpretations as symbols are subjective

Question 33

Use of symbolic language about God - weaknesses

Answer 33

- Tillich does not fully define or clarify how a symbol participates in the reality to which it points e.g. 'God is good' - is the symbol the proposition 'God is good' or the concept 'the goodness of God'? (Hick) - it is not plausible to say that complex theological statements e.g. 'God is a necessary being' arose from unconscious - open up new levels of reality how? (vague/ambiguous) - interpretation of symbols is too subjective

Question 34

Univocal language

Answer 34

language that has the same meaning in different contexts or for different subjects e.g. 'red' meaning the same thing regardless of whether it's being applied to an apple, a car or a football shirt

Question 35

Aquinas's view on univocal language

Answer 35

- rejected univocal language as a way of talking about God (limiting) - it implies that God and creatures share some common essence or nature

Question 36

Equivocal language

Answer 36

language that has different and unrelated meanings in different contexts or for different subjects e.g. 'law' can mean societal rule or a statement of scientific fact depending on the context

Question 37

Aquinas's view on equivocal language

Answer 37

- rejected equivocal language as a way of talking about God (meaningless) - it would make religious language unintelligible, since we would not be able to understand what we are saying about God

Question 38

Analogical language

Answer 38

language that has a similar but not identical meaning in different contexts or for different subjects e.g. 'healthy' means something different when applied to a person or to a medicine, but there is still some resemblance between them

Question 39

Analogy of attribution

Answer 39

- some quality or attribute is predicated of several things but of one intrinsically and of the others extrinsically - by examining those things that exhibit the quality extrinsically, we gain an understanding of the thing that has the quality intrinsically e.g. we see good things in the world - beauty, kind people etc. so we have an idea of what God's goodness is like

Question 40

Analogy of proportion

Answer 40

- we can say something about a subject's quality in the degree relative to its being - this is not the same as univocal language as we deliberately increase/decrease the proportion of the quality in relation to the subject e.g. Einstein is very knowledgeable, but God is proportionally more knowledgeable

Question 41

Ramsey's view on analogy

Answer 41

proposes the use of **models** and **qualifiers**

Question 42

Ramsey - model

Answer 42

- a word that has a straightforward meaning when applied to ordinary things we experience, but may also be used to describe God - e.g. we know what it means to be a 'creator' so, by analogy, we can use the word 'creator' as a model for describing God

Question 43

Ramsey - qualifier

Answer 43

- it is important that the model should not be misunderstood and used univocally of God - hence the need for a qualifier - a word to show how the model is to be applied to God - e.g. an 'infinite' or 'perfect' creator

Question 44

Analogical language - strengths

Answer 44

- avoids issues caused by the use of univocal and equivocal language - avoids non-cognitivism - analogy uses ordinary human experience and qualities to express something transcendent, making language cognitive and meaningful

Question 45

Analogical language - weaknesses

Answer 45

- the analogy of attribution can be used to prove that God is evil, because if we say 'God can produce goodness in humans' we can also say that 'God can produce evil in humans' - what can be said of God is very limited, since God is unknowable

Question 46

*Via Negativa*

Answer 46

the approach to religious language that describes God in terms of what he is not

Question 47

Apophatic language

Answer 47

the negative language used by the *Via Negativa* approach God's total 'otherness' means God cannot be referred to in terms that would be used of anything in the universe

Question 48

Kataphatic Language

Answer 48

the use of positive terms about God (*Via Positiva*) - e.g. 'God is our heavenly Father' - the characteristics of a human father are not mirrored exactly in God but nevertheless can be meaningfully and usefully projected onto him

Question 49

Pseudo-Dionysius

Answer 49

- developed the *Via Negativa* to emphasise God as completely beyond human understanding and to ensure no limiting language was used - it cannot be said that God is good because humans do not know what this means - God is 'beyond assertion' and 'beyond denial'

Question 50

Maimonides

Answer 50

- a Jewish scholar who supported the *Via Negativa* - humans can know that God exists, but that is all - to use positive aspects e.g. power in reference to God was to limit and reduce him - accumulated all the negatives that could be used and described the nature of a ship using only negative statements

Question 51

*Via Negativa* - strengths

Answer 51

- avoids anthropomorphism and focuses on God's transcendence - true to the mystical experience of God as ineffable

Question 52

*Via Negativa* - weaknesses

Answer 52

- the end result of such language might not be the God of theism. Brian Davies showed that Maimonides's use of negatives to describe a ship might equally describe a wardrobe - the language might be helpful to mystics, but for most people it is too remote

Question 53

Cognitive theories

Answer 53

- the Picture Theory of Meaning - Logical Positivism - Verificationism - Falsificationism - Aquinas's analogical language

Question 54

Non-cognitive theories

Answer 54

- Language-games - symbol analogy - *Via Negativa*