8. Religious language Flashcards
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Logical positivists - vienna circle, 2 forms of verifiable language
- analytic - true by defintition
- Synthetic - statement can be proven true or false through sense experience or experiements
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Verification principle
- Non-cognitive statemets = meaningless
- only meaningful = cognitive
- Talk of god cant be verified through senses or scientific evidence so can’t prove religious language to be T or F - RE = meaningless
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Verification principle - quote
“we know the meaning of a statement if we know the conditions under which the statement is true of false”
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Verification principle - criticisms
- most general claims = meaningless by this process. e.g. scientist - all water boils 100 degrees, not all water can be tested = too extreme
- VP itself can’t be verified by own conditions = self-defeating.
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
VP critisicm - Eschatological verification
John hick
* to verify some statments, certian situations must occour, that may only occour later
* To verify life after death = must experience it but can’t now.
* RE may not be meaningless then bc cant be verified in afterlife
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
A.J. Ayer development of VP
creates 2 versions of verification to determine meaningfulness.
1. strong verification = can be veified thru obersavtion and established at TorF
2. weak V = some obervations and reasoning suggest a statements probably T or F, could be verified in future e.g. 2024 world will end.
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
A.J. Ayer’s development - critisicm
- still allows weakness - could allow some religious language to be meaningful
- e.g. God is creater - evidence of complex design.
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Falsification principle
Like VP, agrees that meaningful langiage must relate to the world in some way.
* if you can’t falisfy a statement - shows world has no bearing to truth of statement + is immune to all factual knowledge + thus has no relationship to world.
* Unfalsified statements are therefor meaningless
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Anthony Flew dates
1923-2010
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Anthony Flew - parable of the gardener
- Original belief in garderner - after no evidence or sight, believer makes excuses like him being invisible + intangible to overcome doubt.
- argues this illustrates how believers on’t allows anything to contradict their belief in God + His qualities + constantly adapt their claims to avoid being prove wrong
- to point that original claims = lost
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Anthony flew - quote
“Religious language makes God die a death of a thousand qualifications”
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Anthony Flew - example in context
e.g. ‘God is all loving’ = but when faced w/ problem of evil + suffering, believers argue its part of God’s greater plan to test or teach us.
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Falsification principle - Swinburne criticism
- some statements not falisfiable, yet still understand meaning behind them.
- Toy cupboard analogy - can never prove toys don’t come out to play or move when we aren’t looking.
- yet although can’t falsify this statement, still understand it’s meaning + herefore still meaningful.
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
falsification principle - Basil Mitchell
- believers do allow things to count against their beliefs.
- Flew missed the point that believers have a prior commitment to God based on faith, + though faced w/ doubt + challenged, don’t let them undermine their faithfullness to God.
Religious language - MEANINGLESS
Falsification principle - R.M. Hare criticism
- Religious language may not hold factual claims, but still holds meaning.
- Not bc it gives knowledge, but bc it influences the way people look at the world in their own ‘blik’ + so is meaningful to the individual.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
R.M. Hare - ‘bliks’
- a rame of reference in interpreting the world.
- not based on evidence, so cannot be contradicted by evidence.
- Religious beliefs are ‘bliks’ bc of impact they have of religious believers + how they live their life + look at the world, whilst not letting anything go against their beliefs.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
R.M. Hare - analogy of uni student
- uni student convinced professors plotting to kill him, and would deny any attempts to falisfy his claim.
- although not true, his belief is still meaningful to him as it effected his way he percieved university.
= way at looking at world is called a BLIK.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
R.M. Hare - crticisms
- doesn’t gove a way of ranking ‘bliks’
- shuts out other ppl as its only meaningful to believers
- e.g. religion, science + pranoia are all bliks
- but surely paranoia is not nearly as legitimate in comparision to science, so bliks sould be able to be ranked in order of validity.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Basil Mitchell - parable of Freedom Fighter/ Stranger
- during WW2, soilder meets stranger who says he is on his side + to trust him even though the soilder sees him act on the side of his enemies.
- soldiers faith constantly tested but no matter what remains faithful + gives him benefit of doubt.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Basil Mitchell - parable of soldier/stranger - meaning
- Mitchell suggests beleievrs are like soldier in parable + once a prior commitment to God has been made, then believers will face any strugled in their belief but give GOD BENEFIT OF DOUBT even when faced w/ challenges against their beliefs.
- So religious language is still meaningful to individual.
- agrees w ‘blik’ idea but believes believers allow evidence to challenge + overturn their ‘blik’
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Basil Mitchell - criticism
- flew = argues in parable, stranger was ordinary man - doesn’t work same way for God.
- when faced w/ proble of evil - can’t say God wants to help but cant = he’s meant to be OmniP, can’t say he can’t see the problems, meant to be OmniS.
- no reason to give God benefit of doubt + remain faithful.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Via Negativia - meaning
“way of negation”
or
“the Negative Way”
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Via Negativia
- God isn’t limited within our universe so he is beyond our understanding and language to speak of.
- if we did use words to descibe God we would limit or anthropomorphise Him.
- therefore better to descibe God through saying what he is Not.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Via Negativia - Basil the Great quote
“our intellect is weak, but our tounge is even weaker”
e.g. god is not lacking in power.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Via Negativia - criticism
fails bc negative statements are just disguised as positive ones.
e.g. God is not lacking in power = God is powerful.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Analogical - Aquinas
- thoughts we could only talk of God analogically to try + understand him
- developed 2 types of analogy = attribution + proportion
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
aquinas - Analogy of attribution
- term concerning one, original hing, also concerns the seconf because it was caused by the first.
- therefore humans posses simular qualities to God (e.g. wisdom, kindness) bc we were created in his IMAGE but in lesser proportions
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
aquinas - analogy of proportion
words employed to refer to the quality that the thing posseses in proportion to the kind of reality it posses - so gods power is proportionally greater than humans’ power
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
aquinas - univocal use
(same defintion in multiple contexts)
cant talk about god like ourselves because he is different and beyond us
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
aquinas - equivocal use
(different defintions in different contexts)
can’t talk equivocally about God either, bc we aren’t completely different from Him (he did create us)
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
aquinas - analogical use
our slight differences to him allow us to talk about him analogically
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
aquinas analogical - criticisms
- VP = ayer argue God is beyond our experience so there is no foundation for analogical language.
- Via Negativia = would argue that God is beyound our limited understandind and so should be spoke about EQUIVICALLY.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Symbolic - Paul Tillich
- religious language should be interpreted symbollically and metaphorically
- believes symbols ‘unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul”
- cant be taken literally, religious language = non-cognitive
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
symbolic - symbols
- transcends facts, elicits responses (“participates in that to which they point”),
- point to something beyond themselves
- subtle modes of communication, can be interpreted differently.
- desribe god as ‘being’ is to deny him, bind him up to physical, limited world - anthropomorphises him.
- cannot describe INFINITE god using FINiTE
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
symbolic - criticism
VP = ayer could argue that symbols can’t be verified and emotional responses to them aren’t open to being checked by evidence
RESPONSE = meaning is personal + cmes from emotiona responses so evidene isn’t important.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Wittgenstein
- rejects VP after originally agreeing with logical positivists
- pointed out some statements can’t be verified as T or F, yet we still undertsand eachother e.g. talk of art, poetry, religion.
- thought of language as using words in a range of contexts
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Wittgenstein - original picture theory
- believed language was a way of depicting facts and mist relate bacl to the world or we stray away in to the realm of nonsense
- plus language was supposed to allow us to use picture images and stimulations
- later rejected it - failed to capture the complexity of language
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Wittgenstein - language games
- used within ‘form of life’ (context) + only meaningful to community of people within the “game” (the players) but seem meaningless to thers.
- outsiders cannot claim langauge used by one community is meaningless bc it doesn’t make sense to them.
- religious language = one language game - meaningful to believer.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Language games - Braithwaite
- developed Wittgenstiens idea but further saying how religious langauge is a moral discourse.
- Meaning = use
- e.g. ‘killing animals = wrong’ may suggest they would never kill an aminal themselves as a way of living.
- religious calims ‘god is love’ means followers may act selflessly + lovingly in his example.
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Braithwaite - criticism
- some believers believe their religious teachings are to be taken more literally thatn he suggests
- some argue he belittles religious language to reduce it to the ‘intention to carry out a certain behaviour policy’
Religious language - MEANINGFUL
Language games - criticism
- aquinas - used analogically and meaningful for everyone
- VP = language games are meaningless if they don’t relate to the world factually, s religious language = meaningless.
- RESPONSE = assuming one language game (science) applies to another langauge game (religion) - it doesn’t
