Religious Language

Question 1

What is cognitive language?

Answer 1

• Language is cognitive if it conveys factual information.
• E.g. the sky is blue.

Question 2

What is non-cognitive language?

Answer 2

• Emotions, orders and opinions.
• E.g. the weather is shit.

Question 3

What is Ayer’s Verification Principle?

Answer 3

• The meaning of a statement is its method of verification.
• E.g. the meaning of ‘my car is parked on the road outside the house’ is that, if you go outside the house and look at the road, you will see my car, since that is the way you can verify my statement as being true.’
• Verification is by sense experience.
• Strong - In practice, can currently test.
• Weak – In principle, with evidence can substantiate it to be possibly true.

Question 4

What are the strengths and weaknesses of VP?

Answer 4

• VP is straightforward in what it demands.
  o Because it only concentrates on facts.
  o Therefore, VP is strong as it is simple to follow.
  o However, Ayer dismisses all of history and morality as meaningless despite the meaning they give to human existence.
• VP is in line with science.
  o Because it demands that we observe the world through facts empirically.
  o Therefore, VP is strong as it is evidenced by years of scientific thinking.
  o However, science itself deals with unobservable entities so Ayer should also be dismissing science, but he does not.

Question 5

What is Karl Popper’s challenge of falsification?

Answer 5

• “in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.”
• Can’t prove God is false so can’t prove that he exists.
• Challenges from falsification are considered stronger than those from verification because in science, falsification is used to prove or disprove things.

Question 6

What is Flew’s challenge of falsification?

Answer 6

• Parable of the gardener
• Gardener represents God, first explorer represents theists, second explorer represents agnostics, and the garden represents the world.
• The overall meaning of the parable is that the theist will continue to create new reasons for why God is not there. If you do not admit there is some evidence to falsify your belief, then you may as well believe anything you want.
• In summary, something is fact if there is some evidence which could falsify it, “God dies the death of a thousand qualifications”

Question 7

What are the strengths of the falsification challenge?

Answer 7

• Believers don’t have any evidence to falsify their claim so cannot be true.

Question 8

What are the weaknesses of the falsification challenge?

Answer 8

• Cannot contain the whole world into empirical facts, also inductive parts, religion lies in this area, religion is not unrealistic.
• Hick, verified after death.
• Hick, religious statements are non-cognitive so not subject to attack.

Question 9

What does Hick say in response to the challenges of verification and falsification?

Answer 9

• States religious language is cognitive/factual.
• These claims are subject to eschatological verification.
• Uses the parable of the celestial city, two people walking down road with a supposed kngdom at end of road, one will be right and one will be wrong, to say there is no evidence rather people are making their decisions off of belief alone.
• At the end we will find out the truth of God. He will continue to offer us opportunities after death.

Question 10

What are the strengths of Hick’s argument?

Answer 10

• In real life, we verify things to know if it’s true.
• Hick’s argument shows that Christian claims are either true or false, e.g., if you wake up after death it’s truth.

Question 11

What are the weaknesses of Hick’s argument?

Answer 11

• Atheist perspective just as valid and for them no perspective of heaven worth considering.
• However, Hick says there is additional evidence to lean towards life after death.
• Can’t verify as if also you are dead so cannot prove.

Question 12

What does Hare say about religious language?

Answer 12

• Hare argued that religious language is essentially non-cognitive and non-falsifiable.
• Bliks are assumptions about the world.
• Hares’ parable of the lunatic, lunatic has different view than the real world.
• Religious statements are bliks, meaning, they are interpretations of the world.
• Therefore, they are non-cognitive.
• Flew rejects this as religious statements are not non-cognitive bliks, believers see their beliefs as cognitive.

Question 13

What did Wittgenstein say about religious language?

Answer 13

• The meaning of a statement is not defined by the steps you take to verify or falsify it, but by its use.
• To understand something, it is not enough to understand the meaning of the words but rather how these words should be used, example of a builder who calls out ‘bricks’.
• Language game, language has meaning within a particular social context, each context being governed by rules in the same way that different games are governed by different rules. The meaning of a statement is not defined by the steps you take to verify or falsify it, but by the context in which it occurs, so use and context govern meaning.
• Cannot criticize other people’s use of language without understanding the full intention, context and meaning of that use.

Question 14

What are the implications of Wittgenstein’s language game for religious language?

Answer 14

• Religious language is its own game, with its own set of rules.
• Religious language regulates the believer’s life, and as with games such as rugby or chess, you can use it, or if you have no use for it, you can ignore it.
• There is no I believe or don’t believe since these are just different perspectives.
• RL is not like SL, so verification and falsification debates are irrelevant.
• God is not a scientific hypothesis about a being, but a word within the religious community to denote the creative power within everything.

Question 15

What are the strengths of Wittgenstein’s LG theory?

Answer 15

• Avoids the verificationist and falsificationist confusion over what religious language is trying to do.
• Allows a variety of meaning e,g, arts and poetry without demanding that everything should conform to a scientific norm.
• Wittgenstein sees that religion is about the reality of God in the life of the believing community. As H.H. Price puts it, religion is about the passionate commitment of ‘belief in’ God, not the intellectual statement of ‘belief that’ there is a God.

Question 16

What are the weaknesses of Wittgenstein’s LG theory?

Answer 16

• No way to debate with atheists.
• LGs are supposedly self-contained, but many Christians debate with non-Christians regarding their faith.
• Most Christians want to make their beliefs factual.

Question 17

What are the strengths of understanding religious language as cognitive?

Answer 17

• Makes clear and factual claims that can be examined by anyone.
• Most believers are cognitivists.
• Believers are committed to religion because they see their beliefs as factual, and not as non-cognitive bliks.

Question 18

What are the strengths of understanding religious language as non-cognitive?

Answer 18

• It avoids the view that religion language can be scientific, so avoids the verificationist and falsificationist challenges.
• It reflects the distinctive views and commitments of religious people.
• It acknowledges that religious language is one of many different ways in which language can be meaningful.

Question 19

What is an alternative view to about religious language as cognitive and non-cognitive?

Answer 19

• Combine both, religious language can be cognitive with resurrection but non-cognitive with myth of Adam and Eve.

Question 20

What is univocal language?

Answer 20

• If it means exactly the same thing each time. For example, if I describe both a coat and a lump of coal as ‘black’ I am using that word univocally.

Question 21

What is equivocal language?

Answer 21

• If it means different things when used in the different situations. For example, we can use the word ‘bat’ to describe something used to hit a cricket ball, we also use ‘bat’ to describe a flying mammal.

Question 22

How should language be used to describe God according to Aquinas?

Answer 22

• Aquinas argues that language used to describe God’s nature should do so analogically. In other words, the meaning of a word when applied to earthly things could be extended to be used of God, once it was recognised that it was being used as an analogy and not in a literal or univocal way.

Question 23

What is the analogy of attribution?

Answer 23

• There is a causal relationship between the universe and God, since God is its creator, and this gives meaning to language about God.
• Aquinas’ explanation of analogy is the bull is healthy and the bull’s urine is healthy.
• The health of the bull is completely different, nevertheless the two are linked because the bull produces urine.
• We can also say, God is good, wise and loving, and Vanessa is good, wise and loving.
• God created Vanessa just as the bull created the urine so God is causally responsible for goodness, wisdom and love in Vanessa.
• This does not mean that God’s goodness are magnified versions of Vanessa’s goodness, rather, it means God has what it takes to produce these qualities in Vanessa.
• From the analogy of attribution, we can therefore conclude that, although we have no idea what it means for God to be good, the assertion that God is good is meaningful. Problem of using anthropomorphic language about God, Aquinas’ analogy of attribution seems to solve this problem. To say that God is Love, Judge or King, for example, means that God has what it takes to produce those attributes in a person.

Question 24

What is the analogy of proportionality?

Answer 24

• Both a human being and God may be described as ‘powerful’, but we assume that the meaning of ‘powerful’ in each case is proportional to their respective natures. Equally, an ant is remarkably powerful in being able to move a leaf, but its power does not match that of the human being who accidentally treads on it.
• Hick uses an example from the catholic theologian Hugel of the dog’s faithfulness in comparison to the human’s faithfulness.
• Can be a downwards analogy such as in the case of humans to dogs.
• Can be an upwards analogy such as in the case of humans to God.

Question 25

What are the strengths of using an analogy to talk about God?

Answer 25

• Literal, univocal language is inadequate to describe God as it limits him, Analogy avoids this.
• Analogy avoids anthropomorphising God.
• Analogy uses ordinary human experiences to explain God and because it is based on human experiences it is cognitive.

Question 26

What are the weaknesses of using an analogy to talk about God?

Answer 26

• In order for both the analogy of attribution and the analogy of proportionality to work, you have to have prior knowledge of God. One cannot argue that God love is analogous to humans if one does not know who God is.

Question 27

What is Apathetic theology?

Answer 27

• Greek to deny
• The denial of a positive description of God, hence via negativa, the negative way.

Question 28

What is Kataphatic theology?

Answer 28

• Kataphatic is Greek for affirmation, so kataphatic theology uses positive terms about God.

Question 29

What is religious language as via negativa?

Answer 29

• Where kataphatic theology says positive things about God, apophatic theology emphasises the belief that God is beyond all description.
• Wittgenstein said, ‘Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.’
• The via negativa can be seen in the approach of Otto and Stace to religious experiences of the transcendent and ineffable God.
• Literal language cannot describe such a being, so all positive terms about God must be denied.
• The VN was developed in the sixth century by Pseudo-Dionysius to emphasise God’s transcendence and mystical otherness.
• In the twelfth century, Maimonides insisted that language about God can only say what God is not. Using positive aspects such as power, restricts and limits God. Therefore, accumulated negatives that could be used instead, e.g., described nature of a ship using only negative statements.

Question 30

What are the strengths of VN?

Answer 30

• As with analogy, the VN avoids seeing God as a ‘thing’ among other things.
• Its focus on God’s transcendence also avoids anthropomorphism when talking about God.
• The focus of the VN is supported by the mystical tradition of the numinous and ‘wholly other’.

Question 31

What are the weaknesses of VN?

Answer 31

• As Brian Davies says, listening to someone saying what a ship is not just as likely to lead you to think of a wardrobe as a ship.
• In Flews’ Parable of the gardener, the theist explorer explains God’s absence from the garden world by saying that God is invisible, inaudible, intangible and incorporeal, which takes the same approach as the VN. All that does, according to Flew, is to kill the idea of the Gardener/God by 1000 qualifications.
• Mystical experiences might support the VN, but how do we know that such experiences are of God as opposed to being produced by the brain.

Question 32

What is religious language as symbolic?

Answer 32

• Tillich
• Symbols point to a reality beyond themselves
• They participate in the power to which they point
• They open up levels of reality which would otherwise be closed to us
• At the same time, they open up levels of the soul which correspond to those realities.
• Symbols cannot be produced intentionally; they grow out of the human unconscious.
• Symbols are produced and die within a cultural context.
• To explain the third of these six features of Tillich’s account, Tillich draws an analogy with the far-reaching effects of the arts upon our thoughts.
• The only literal statement in religious language is that God is ‘Being itself’.
• Symbols are self-transcending, meaning that they point to a higher reality.
• Religious symbolism does not give us factual information about another world or a supernatural realm, it shows the profound religious significance of features in this world.

Question 33

What are the strengths of symbolic language?

Answer 33

• It can relate religious language to ordinary everyday experience, such as experience of love.
• It allows us to make one cognitive claim, that God is ‘Being itself’.
• It reflects what is known through religious experiences and tells us the meaning of our lives.

Question 34

What are the weaknesses of symbolic language?

Answer 34

• Hick questions whether Tillich’s view that a symbol ‘participates’ in the reality to which it points really means anything at all.
• Hick also rejects Tillich’s idea that complex theological claims such as, ‘God does not depend for his existence upon any reality other than himself’, come from the unconscious mind. They surely come from conscious theological reasoning.
• Many Christians do not share Tillich’s view that God is ‘Being itself’, preferring to see God as a transcendent being who is the ground of our existence.