Chapter 7 Flashcards
What are the three sections of Religious Language (Part One)
- The Inherent Problems of Religious Language
- Religious Language as Cognitive but Meaningless
- Religious Language as analogical
What are the four inherent problems with religious language?
- the limitations of language for traditional conceptions of God
- religious language is unintelligible
- religious language is not a common shared base
- difference between cognitive and non-cognitive language
What are the limitations of language about God?
God cannot be completely comprehended by the human mind - cannot imagine being infinite - believers cannot properly communicate faith
What did Aquinas say about his Summa Theologica?
“All i have written seems like straw” - Aquinas
Ecclesiastes 3:11
“He has made everything beautiful in its time . . . yet no one can fathom what God has done”
Isaiah 55:8-9
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”
In what ways is religious language unintelligible?
- metaphysical vocabulary - no empirical understanding
- who we are shapes our understanding - point of view
- special status of religious writings
- language of worship - symbolism hard to understand outside religion
- religious claims and literal truth - claims can appear inconsistent
What are the challenges that religious experience is not a common shared base?
- difficult to understanding meaning beyond senses
- Insider / Outsider problem - understanding may only be possible from within faith
What was Ninian Smart’s approach?
phenomenology: studying religious language from the perspective of the believer
What is cognitive language?
connected with thinking or mental processes related to knowledge - can be proved true or false
What is non-cognitive language?
a proposition that is not concerned with facts about the world - cannot be known as true or false
What is Logical Positivism?
philosophical position that says statements have to be analytic or capable of empirical testing if they are to be meaningful
Who are the key scholars for Religious Language as cognitive but meaningless?
For: A.J. Ayer, Vienna circle, Anthony Flew
Challenges: Richard Hare, Basil Mitchell, Richard Swinburne
What is the verification principle?
principle that says analytic statements are meaningful but some synthetic statements are meaningless if there is no possibility of supporting them with empirical evidence
List the criticisms of the verification principle
- VP cannot be verified
- some scientific claims cannot be verified
- only statements about the present can be verified
- ethical claims cannot be verified
- eschatological verification
what is verification in practice and in principle
in practice: practically possible to check truth or falsify a claim
in principle: we know how to test a claim but cannot practically do it
what is strong and weak verification?
strong: we can determine conclusively truth or false of claim
weak: empirical evidence suggests statement is true but cannot be conclusively proved
What is the falsification principle?
a statement is only meaningful if it is known what would sow it to be false - religious believers reject all arguments against God
What is Richard Hare’s challenge to falsification?
bliks - religious statements are expression of worldview or blik - bliks cannot be proved or falsified
What is Basil Mitchell’s challenge of falsification?
partisan and stranger - we have incomplete evidence which will not be verified or falsified until after death
What is Swinburne’s challenge to falsification
toys in the cupboard - they may move but only when we are not looking - cannot be observed - science gets more allowances than religion
Who are the key scholars for Religious Language as non-cognitive and analogical?
For: Aquinas, Ramsey
Against: Hume
What is univocal and equivocal language?
univocal: having only one possible meaning; unambiguous
equivocal: open to more than one interpretation; ambiguous
How does Aquinas understand religious language?
not equivocal or univocal - we have to use analogies because we cannot comprehend God - words used in similar but slightly different sense - ‘rough’ day is like ‘rough’ sandpaper but not the same
What is an analogy of attribution?
cause and effect relationship between things being described - God’s ‘wisdom’ causes all wisdom in the world - God is the source of all wisdom
What is an analogy of proportionality ?
words relate to object or qualities that are different in proportion - dog is clever for a dog - God’s love is greater than our own
What does Ramsey say about analogical language to describe God?
Religious Language is like a scientific model to help understanding of God by likening to human experience
What is a ‘qualifier’?
words like ‘everlasting’ to recognise that God’s attributes are beyond our own
What is ‘disclosure’?
the moment where a person understands what the model represents - understand what is meant
What are the challenges to religious language as analogical?
- scientific analogies taken too literally can be misleading
- if God is unknowable nothing human can be compared to him
- Hume: problem of analogies - no way to know what God is to compare to
- Ramsey adds little clarity to debate
