AO2 - Persuasiveness Of Arguments Asserting The Meaningfulness/meaninglessness Of RL Flashcards
(P1) The meaninglessness of religious language is persuasive as A J Ayer believed the only two forms of knowledge considered valid and meaningful, were logical reasoning and empirical evidence: tautological or mathematical statements, developing the ‘Verification Principle’. He rendered all abstract forms of thought meaningless and nothing more than a misunderstanding of how reality should be described, regarding metaphysicians as being “devoted to the production of nonsense”
(Ex1) Huxley said a man of “science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.”
(R1) In response to this however, John Hick’s ‘Parable of the Celestial City’ points to the possibility of eschatological verification, whereby the truth becomes clear after death, in the next life religious language can be verified, going against the ‘Verification Principle’. The parable states “Two men are travelling together along a road. One of them believes that it leads to the Celestial City, the other that it leads nowhere.” Therefore, the meaningfulness of religious language is persuasive.
(Ev1) This is a strong point because the verification principle means historical events cannot be verified: the principle does not take into account statements accepted as meaningful, even though they are not considered to be immediately verifiable in practice. For example, there is no way to verify the battle of Hastings in 1066, by observation. Therefore, it is meaningless according to verificationism. Ayer recognised this limitation, proposing that “there remain a number of significant propositions […] which we could not verify even if we chose; simply because we lack the practical means of placing ourselves in the situation where relevant observations could be made.”
(L1) Therefore, arguments asserting the meaningfulness of religious language are more persuasive than those expressing the meaninglessness of such language.
(P2) Anthony Flew’s ‘Principle of Falsification’ stated that for something to be meaningful, there had to be some evidence which could empirically refute the statement.
(Ex2) Popper maintained that “there can be no statements in science which cannot be tested, and therefore none which cannot in principle be refuted, by falsifying some of the conclusions which can be deduced from them.” Therefore, in terms of religious language, statement’s such as ‘God exists’ are not falsifiable as there is no empirical evidence to disprove His existence: Hyman identified, “God is precisely that which is non-empirical.”
(R2) In response to this however, Swinburne noted there were plenty of instances where human language was accepted as meaningful by people, even without empirical supporting evidence. He gives the example of the toys in the cupboard’ coming to life when unsupervised. He claimed that “there are plenty of examples of statements which some people judge to be factual which are not apparently confirmable or disconfirmable through observation”, therefore asserting the meaningfulness of religious language.
(Ev2) This is a strong point as Michell’s parable of ‘The Partisan and the Stranger’ deals with trust over evidence: unfalsifiable statements can be meaningful. (E) Religious claims do not have to be intellectually convincing: the power of faith is stronger than the evidence against God, thus religious language is meaningful. Believers have a commitment to trust God based on faith, proposing belief in God is “a significant article of faith.”
(L2) Therefore, arguments asserting the meaningfulness of religious language are persuasive.
(P3) Logical Positivists understand religious language as cognitive: containing information that is objectively knowable about the external, empirically experienced world. Religious philosophers such as R. B. Braithwaite consider this to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and function of religious language, suggesting they have ‘missed the point’, undermining the persuasiveness of their view.
(Ex3) Religious language as non-cognitive does not express ‘facts’ about the world in a scientific sense, but affects the way a person chooses to live, thus is meaningful.
(R3) In response to this however, arguments such as Aquinas’ and Ramsey’s assume God’s existence: without the existence of God, there is no point of comparison. This means analogy fails, rendering analogical religious language meaningless. Dawkins maintained “There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point.” If one doesn’t accept Aquinas’ assumptions, one doesn’t have to accept the idea that we understand God by examining a creation that may be his.
(Ev3) This is a weak point as Hare’s idea of ‘bliks’ demonstrated religious language as meaningful: he argued statements about experiences are ‘bliks; ‘modes of cognition’ which have significant importance and there are “ways of regarding the world which are in principle neither verifiable nor falsifiable.” He suggested a blik (such as religious belief) was meaningful, with the power to radically affect our behaviour and relationship with others.
(L3) Therefore, the meaningfulness of religious language is persuasive.
(P4) In conclusion, the persuasiveness of arguments asserting the meaningfulness of religious language could be supported by the evaluation of analogies: Aquinas proposed analogical language as an effective solution to the inherent problems of religious language as it provides a point of agreed reference to establish a criterion of meaning.
(Ex4) For Aquinas, God’s transcendent and omniscient nature could never be fully understood as humans were too limited. He therefore believed that religious language about God could be meaningful when thought of analogically as “It seems that no word can be used literally of God.” Aquinas’ uses the analogy of attribution: the word ‘healthy’ could be attributed to an animal because of the knowledge that its diet and exercise regime is healthy: however, none of these are healthy in themselves/intrinsically healthy: they are simply reflections of the qualities gained from God. Thus, the problems of religious language are solved by the attribution of characteristics.
(R4) In response to this however, Lem maintains that God’s incomprehensible and inexplicable nature suggests he is totally beyond any human understanding, thus religious language is meaningless: he states “Transposed into any human language, the values and meanings involved lose all substance; they cannot be brought intact through the barrier.”
(Ev4) This is a strong point because St Paul suggests we may have to wait until the eschatological gap is bridged in the afterlife before we describe God and make sense and meaningfulness of religious language. In Corinthians 13:12 he states “For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part.”
(L4) Therefore, arguments asserting the meaninglessness of religious language are persuasive.
