Religious Language Flashcards
why is religious language difficult?
because our words are not adequate to speak about a transcendent God
what is cognitive language?
it deals with factual statements that can be proved true or false
what is non cognitive language?
it deals with statements not to be taken factually but to be understood in other ways - symbols, metaphors, myths and moral commands.
the truth or falsity of a statement depends on its context
Where did the verification principle come from?
a group of logical positivists called the vienna circle
explain the verification principle
like knowledge, language had to be based on experience and for statements to be considered meaningful they must be either true by definition or can be verified/falsified by empirical testing
What does Ayer say?
the existence of God cannot be rationally demonstrated since the term God is metaphysical referring to a transcendent being who cannot have any literal significance. Any statement that includes the term God is meaningless, talk of religious experience cannot be validated so is meaningless
‘the fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from a psychological point of view but it does not in any way imply that there is such thing as religious knowledge’
Explain Ayers strong and weak forms of the verification principle.
a strong verification occurs when there is no doubt that a statement is true.
a weak verification occurs when there is not absolute certainty but a strong likelihood of truth
religious language remains unverifiable because they refer to a transcendent being who is not even verifiable in principle
Who observed that God’s existence could be verifiable in principle since ‘if i were God i would be able to check the truth of my own existence.’
ward
Explain Hick’s argument that religious statements can be verifiable in principle
many religious language statments are historical and since other historical statements are allowed, historical religious statements should be to
what is eschatological verification?
where it is impossible to verify the destination while on the road but the journey and beliefs to where it is heading is still meaningful to travelers
Who says ‘in order to say something which may possibly be true, we must say something which may possibly be false’
Hick
explain why Flew says religious statements are meaningless
because there is nothing that can count against them, religious believers are so convinced of the truth of their religious statements that they often refuse to consider counter evidence.
if nothing can count against a claim it is meaningless
he believed to claim god exists they must be open to evidence that he doesn’t, he felt believers were reluctant to do so and there claims were meaningless because they weren’t falsifiable
Flew used who’s parable of the gardener and explain this
Wisdom’s parable highlights how believers continue to accept anything and make excuses for God to be able to exist, the gardener ends up being intangible and invisible by the end of it, religious believers similarly avoid the evidence.
Who says religious language ‘dies the death of a thousand qualifications’ and what does he mean?
hick
believers say God is all loving and all powerful and continue to believe this despite the evidence of great suffering in the world which they chose to ignore
Explain Hare’s notion of a blik
‘an unverifiable and unfalsifiable way of seeing the world’ believers use religious language to express concepts that are important to them. they make a significant difference to their lives which can be empirically observed so are therefore meaningful.’
who argues many believers accept their beliefs can be questioned but continue to believe them, their beliefs are significant articles of faith which are rooted in relationship rather than simply accepting facts about God.
Mitchell
who came up with the via negativa, what is it and why?
Dionysius
the way to find out what God is like is to find out what he is not like - avoids the pitfalls of inadequate human language to describe the qualities of God
How can it be argued the via negativa makes speaking of God more problematic?
Instead of saying God is love we’d have to say God is not-love because he is so much more than the term can convey - this term is not rational
what is univocal language?
is about using words in their everyday sense
God’s love and Jane’s love are the same thing this makes it possible to understand God’s love as we can understand human love
What is the problem of univocal language? and how does aquinas put it?
anthropomorphism - if we refer to God and humans in the same way, then we are unable to differentiate between them
‘no name belongs to God in the same sense that it belongs to creatures.’
how does Hume defend univocal language?
‘Wisdom, thought, design, knowledge - these we justly ascribe to God because those words are honorable among men and we have no other language in which we can express our adoration of him.’
What is equivocal language?
same word used but a different meaning because the nature of God is different from the nature of humanity. God’s love in not the same nature or quality as Jane’s love
what is the problem with equivocal language? and how does aquina’s comment on this?
it makes God so different that it becomes difficult to understand him
‘neither are names applied to God and creatures in a purely equivocal sense, if that were so it follows that from creatures nothing could be known or demonstrated about God at all.’
what is analogical language?
it is a compromise offering ways of resolving problems caused by univocal and equivocal language
What does aquinas say about analogical language?
it means we can compare God in order to describe his nature, applying human terms to God in a similar but not identical way. he called this the gradation in all things where all goodness in humanity first came from God so God and humanity are analogously related - all the positive qualities of humanity belong to God in greater and more perfect ways
explain Hick’s upwards and downwards analogy
upwards analogy for example speaking about the faithfulness of a dog and going up to human faith in God
downwards analogy uses attributes of God and reflects them downwards onto humans
What is symbolic language?
communicates about things that are beyond factual and objective, non-cognitive and go beyond our normal understanding
what is the problem with symbolic language? and how does Tillich deal with it?
open to different interpretations so meaning can become trivialized or lost or become outdated for example in modern age referring to God as father can be too patriarchal
‘it is necessary to rediscover the questions to which the christian symbols are the answers, in a way which is understandable to our time.’
What is a myth? and what is the purpose of myth?
A story that expresses a truth when it is not known for certain what actually happened
to convey concepts that go beyond idea of true and false and try to express concepts that are other wordly
How does Strauss argue we deal with myths being outdated concepts?
to shift the focus of them to a religious truth being conveyed in a story form which is not necessarily true
What does Bultmann argue is the way to find the truth about God?
religious language should be demythologised with the mythological language stripped away since it impossible for humanity in modern times to believe such outdated stories
there is truth to be extracted
who says ‘much of the bible is.. just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents.’
Dawkins
who says that religious language is anti-realist, it is not concerned with making true/false statements about objective reality
rogerson
explain Wittgenstein’s language game theory
language statements are not intended to be true/false for everyone only for those within a form of life. all forms of life have their own language. it is non-cognitive not about making universally true statements but about communicating meaning to other players in the same game. the player or one language game cannot criticise a player of another without first learning the rules. language is meaningful when understood within the context of its own language game. those who don’t play the game will make a category mistake and misunderstand the religious language
what does vardy say?
‘in finding the value of religious language, the individual finds God. Believers do not discover religious truths they make them.’
