Religious Language AO2 and Essay Plans

Question 1

The verification principle offers no real challenge to religious belief
AGREE

Answer 1

• Swinburne- things that we cannot verify are not necessarily meaningless e.g. love Can’t prove that one person loves another but “I love you” is not a meaningless statement.
• Keith Ward- If i were God i could verify myself
• Hicks Celestial City- something may be verifiable in the afterlife (Counter- that’s presupposing there is an afterlife)
• Strong/weak verification - AJ Ayer’s strong verification rules historical facts as meaningless- makes allowances for some things but not religion. ( raises and issue of bias - setting out to disprove religion.)
• Highly subjective theory with a clear and specific goal to eradicate religious language. Support’s Flew’s attack of religious believers- “death of a thousand qualifications” (same criticism Flew makes of religious believers with falsification could be made here)

Question 2

The verification principle offers no real challenge to religious belief
DISAGREE

Answer 2

• Verification tries to provide a clear criteria for determining what is and what is not to count as a meaningful use of religious language.
• It allows us to say what use of religious language points to objective truths and what use of language gives merely subjective opinion.
• Revised- Ayer adapted it so that a statement can carry meaning it’s claim can be verified in principle. (counter with Flew and a death of a thousand qualifications.)

Question 3

The falsification principle offers no real challenge to religious belief
AGREE

Answer 3

-RM Hare ‘Bliks’
-Mitchell’s parable of the partisan soldier- Flew has not correctly understood how religious belief operates.
-Wittgenstein’s language games theory.
-Wisdom - God is outside of our human understanding
-Flew’s conversion to theism in final years of life.
-Ahluwalia suggests that Flew’s ‘confidence in empirical evidence as the final rest of meaning in itself, unfalsifiable’
-What can be falsified? Swinburne argues that factual statements can be falsified. However, some existential statements cannot be falsified but thus does not stop these statements meaningful. Swinburne uses the statement of the toys in the cupboard to attack the theory. He says that if toys came alive in your bedroom , you wouldn’t know so it cannot be falsified.
Perhaps we can’t falsify God because we don’t know enough about him.
-RB Braithwaite criticises the principle, arguing that religious language is meaningful because it is prescriptive- it recommends a course of action. So, for example, the phrase ‘God loves me’ has meaning because it advises you to live your life in a living life.

Question 4

The falsification principle offers no real challenge to religious belief
DISAGREE

Answer 4

• Falsification tries to provide a clear criteria for determining what is and what is not to count as a meaningful use of religious language.
• It offers an alternative to the failed principle of verification.
• It polices the boundaries between scientific and non- scientific use of language rather than the boundaries of linguistic meaning.
• It makes no sense by responding to criticism that we might qualify our beliefs so much that they no longer express the truths that we initially though they did.

Question 5

We can only talk about God meaning fully , If we say what he is not
(VIA NEGATIVA)
DISAGREE

Answer 5

• Brian Davies criticises this point, by saying that eliminating negatives we have no idea whether what remains is God or not.
• The via negativa is what Aquinas originally attacked with his use of analogy in religious language.
• The via negative may implicitly assume an idea of God.
• The via negative becomes a new way of speaking positively about God when, for example, we take the attributes of immutability, infinity, impassability etc. Literally.
• We would never be able to identify an object if we were only able to talk of it in negative terms.
• The via negative may lead some people to conclude that the reason why our language cannot describe God is because there is nothing to describe.
• Religious people wish to say something positive about God. e.e St. Thomas Aquinas suggest that our language about God should be analogical.

Question 6

We can only talk about God meaning fully , If we say what he is not
(VIA NEGATIVA)
AGREE

Answer 6

• Poetic or anthropomorphic language creates potential pitfalls in our understanding of God. Can cause confusion. Via Negative avoids these potential mistakes.
• Highlights the ineffable qualities of God. He is transcendent and there is an epistemic distance - The Via Negativa attempts to recognise this.
• Saying positive statements about God such as ‘God is good’ or ‘God is our father’ seems to raise questions about God’s nature and the problem of evil.
• Induvidually we may do good, but we are corrupted in a group.

Question 7

To what extent can Wittgenstein’s theory of language games help to resolve the issues raised by religious language?
YES

Answer 7

• Language games helps to a larger extent because it recognises that meaning does not happen in a vacuum bu that people in their contexts find words and concepts meaningful or meaningless.
• The analogy between language and games is useful because it highlights features such as understanding rules, practical applications and sharing goals.
• It highlights the non-cognitive nature of religious language.
• It provides boundaries for the use of religious language
• Statements are judged within their context- they are not inherently true or false

Question 8

To what extent can Wittgenstein’s theory of language games help to resolve the issues raised by religious language?
NO

Answer 8

• the theory is not successful because it does not take into account the important issues of the factual quality of religious truth claims, concentrating on meaning rather than truth.
• Wittgenstein ignores the importance of empirical evidence for supporting religious and other truth claims
• Wittgenstein overstates the problems of understanding the language games of belief systems that are different from one’s own,
• Believers claims cannot be empirically tested.
• It alienates people not initiated into the rules of the game

Question 9

Strengths of analogy

Answer 9

-Analogy is used in many contexts to aid explanation which suggests that it is found to be effective.
-It can help understanding by finding similar examples with which the listener is familiar with in order to support the understanding of the unfamiliar.
-Analogy can provide vivid examples of which aid memory and gives insights.
-The Bible uses analogy to communicate religious ideas, suggesting that it is appropriate for Christians to do the same.
-Aquinas argued that religious language is best understood through the use of analogy. Presented analogy as a ‘middle way’
ANALOGY OF ATTRIBUTION AND ANALOGY OF PROPORTION
-We understand plants as being alive in a sense, but that doesn’t compare to how we define ourselves as alive.Similarly, Gods’ life is greater than ours; all things must be understood as in proportion to one another.
-Ian Ramsey supports Aquinas’ idea of using analogies in religious language.

Question 10

Weaknesses of Analogy

Answer 10

• Swinburne questions what is wrong with univocal language for God. We can legitimately speak of God’s goodness and our own goodness univocally.
• We know too little about God for analogical language to have any meaning.
• Analogy operates in a context of what is completely known. Yet, in the case of God, we are dealing with the unknown.
• We have no idea what it might mean to attribute infinite wisdom to God. Human language must fall silent in the mystery of God. (the view of the via negativa)