Religious Language Flashcards
application of cognitivism to religious language
P1: Sentences are meaningful if they are statements (expressions of belief about the world)
P2: Expressions of belief about the world are true or false (they can be verified or falsified)
P3: ‘God exists’ is the claim that there is a God who exists independently in the world, and this claim can be verified or falsified
C: Therefore, ‘God exists’ is meaningful
Explain the distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism about religious language
Cognitivism argues that statements are meaningful in that they are expressions of beliefs about the world. They have the quality of being ‘truth apt’ (able to be true or false). Non-cognitivism argues that statements are meaningful in that they express some other type of mental state, such as emotions or values. These statements are not making a claim about the world, and thus are not ‘truth apt’.
application of non-cognitivism in religious language
P1: Sentences are meaningful if they are expressions of a mental state, such as an emotion or value
P2: Expressions of these non-cognitive mental states are neither true or false
P3: ‘God exists’ or ‘God is supremely good’ are not claims about the world, but are an expression of non-cognitive mental states
C: Therefore, ‘God exists’ and ‘God is supremely good’ are meaningful
What is Ayer’s VP?
A statement is only meaningful if:
a) it is a tautology (true by definition)
b) it can be shown to be true or false through empirical evidence (verifiable)
Explain Ayer’s challenge to the status of religious language
P1: Claims are meaningful if they are true by definition (analytic) or empirically verifiable (factually significant)
P2: Religious language makes claims that are not analytic/true by definition
P3: Religious language makes claims about metaphysical entities (e.g. God and heaven)
P4: Metaphysical entities are beyond observation and experience and therefore cannot be verified
C1: Therefore religious claims are not factually significant because we do not know what conditions would need to be met for us to verify these claims as true/false
C2: Therefore, religious language makes claims like ‘God exists’ that are not meaningful, but are pseudo-statements
Explain the issues arising from Hick’s eschatological verification
Hick’s response to Ayer based on eschatological verification is flawed as the possibility of an afterlife depends on the metaphysical possibility of an individual person surviving their death (with their personal identity remaining the same). If somebody survives their death and is able to encounter God, they still may not be able to recognise the truth of statements such as ‘God exists’ (as it may be the case that only a theist will be capable of this recognition), so still may not be able to verify religious statements. Therefore, Hick’s response based on eschatological verification is flawed.
Explain Hick’s eschatological verification
P1: Verification means we can describe a situation (in principle) in which rational doubt is removed
P2: In principle, after somebody dies, they will encounter and recognise God
C1: Therefore, in principle, after somebody dies, the rational doubt that there is a God will be removed
C2: Therefore, the claim that God exists can, in principle, be eschatologically verified
Explain Flew’s argument about falsification
P1: A meaningful assertion is one that can be falsified; a meaningless assertion cannot be falsified
P2: To falsify an assertion means describing what the world would be like if that statement was false
P3: Atheists provide many examples of what the world would be like if the claims ‘God exists’ or ‘God loves us’ were false (e.g. pointless suffering in the world)
P4: Believers refuse to accept these examples as falsifying - instead they qualify or amend their claims to avoid them being falsified (what Flew calls ‘death by a thousand qualifications’)
P5: Moreover, believers cannot conceive of any examples of what the world would look like if the claims ‘God exists’ and ‘God loves us’ were false.
C: Therefore, believers’ claims that ‘God exists’ or ‘God loves us’ are unfalsifiable and meaningless.
Explain Basil Mitchell’s response to Flew
P1: A meaningful assertion is one that can be falsified
P2: To falsify an assertion means describing things that count against the assertion
P3: Believers who claim that ‘God loves us’ recognise that the problem of evil counts against their assertion
C1: Therefore, ‘God loves us’ is a genuine assertion
P4: However, believers will not discard their belief, even if evidence counts against it
P5: This is because of their faith in God, and they will always commit to finding an explanation for the counter-evidence
C2: Therefore, religious statements like ‘God loves us’ are genuine assertions but not conclusively falsifiable
Explain Hare’s response to Flew
P1: A blik is a foundational approach/attitude that we have to the world and our beliefs are based on those
P2: A blik cannot be falsified
P3: Religious claims like ‘God loves us’ are expressions of fundamental approaches/attitudes to the world
P4: Religious claims like ‘God loves us’ cannot be falsified
C: Therefore, religious claims like ‘God loves us’ are not assertions, they are expressions of a blik
