Religious Language Flashcards
When Ludwig Wittgenstein is talking about religious language what is his infamous 2 quotes regarding language games?
” Language is a public tool for the understanding of private life”
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”
What is the difference between the verification principle and the falsification principle?
V.P.= A statement is only meaningful if it is either analytically true or the statement can be empirically verifiable. (Ayer)
F.P. = A statement is only meaningful if the person accepts that there could be something that could possibly falsify it. (Popper, Flew)
Paul Tillich has a symbolic view of religious language what are the 4 main features of symbols according to Tillich?
- Symbols point to a reality beyond themselves
- They ‘participate’ in the power to which they point
- They open up levels of reality that would have otherwise be closed to us.
- At the same time they open up levels of the soul which correspond to those realities.
What are the strengths of symbolic language put forward by tillich?
Strengths
- Symbolic language can relate religious ideas to ordinary/everyday experiences such as love
- It allows to explain what we mean when we speak of god. God is a being-itself. God does not exist within the universe or some transcendent realm so we do not have to say something meaningful about this being
What are the weaknesses of symbolic language put forward by Tillich?
Weaknesses
- Hick questions whether symbols arise from the unconscious mind as many important things we want to say about god (cosmological, design argument) arise from the conscious minds of theologians and philosophers
- Many Christians do not hold the same belief about god being a being-itself. Some Christians hold that god is separate and transcendent being also on the grounds of our existence.
Who are the philosophers associated with V.P. and F.P.?
V.P. = Ayer F.P. = Karl Popper, Antony Flew
When talking about Hare’s, Wittgenstein, and Hick’s theories which of them are cognitive and which are non-cognitive?
Hick - Cognitive - It is verified eschatologically
Hare - Non-cognitive - they are non-falsifiable bliks
Wittgenstein - Non-cognitive
When talking about via negativa who were the two philosophers associated?
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagaite
- Maimonides
What does Tillich mean when he says Being-Itself?
Being-Itself = he does not exist as a being among others but instead a being-itself
What is Hume’s fork?
States that only two ideas we can have knowledge about are 1) matters of fact and 2) relations between ideas
When talking about weaknesses of Via Negativa what is a key quote flew says in his criticisms ?
Flew’s complaint is that defining God in this way amounts to a definition of nothing, The concept of God ;
“dies a death of a thousand qualifications”
When talking about Aquinas theory what did Ramsey state?
- He uses the terms ‘model’ and ‘qualifier’
- A ‘model’ is a word that has a straightforward meaning when applied to ordinary things we experience, but may also be used to describe God; we know what it means to be a ‘creator’ so by analogy we can use the word ‘creator’ as a model for describing God
- It is important to remember that the model should not be misunderstood and used univocally of God
- Therefore we need a ‘qualifier’ which is a word to show how the model is to be applied to God; such as we might speak of a ‘infinite’ or ‘perfect’ creator where the model is creator and the qualifier is ‘perfect’ or ‘infinite’
When talking about Wittgenstein what account of meaning does he hold?
- An ‘Internalist’ account of meaning
This just means that meaning resides in use not with reference to some external existing deity
What is a nice way to tie in ramseys analogical language with via negativa, also how can we show breadth of knowledge in relation to religious experience?
- To use Ramsey’s language, the ‘qualifiers’ we need in speaking about God totally swamp out the context of the ‘models’
Via negativa states god is so ineffable and transcendent similar to what Otto and Stace state.
What are two key point for both Maimonides and PseudoDionysius the Areopagite when talking about their interpretation of via negativa?
Maimonides
- to say for example that God is the most powerful being means that we can compare him to human power which reduces him to something that can be compared to everything else
Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite
- in order to emphasisedthe transcendenceof God and therefore to separarte him with any literal description which could limit him or identify him with any changeable things in the world.
- States that God is nameless yet ‘has the names of evrrything there is’
- Language that commonly uses words to descirbe the bits and pieces of our world cannot hope to embrace this sense of an indwelling and omnipresent God
