Religious Language (God) Flashcards
cognitivism vs non cognitivism about religious language
Cognitivism: Statements like ‘God exist’ are meaningful as they are truth apt (can be true or false) and aim to describe the world.
Non-cognitivism: Statements like ‘God exist’ are still meaningful but they are not truth apt nor attempt to describe the world. Instead, they are assertions of different mental states such as ‘faith’ (Mitchell) or ‘bliks’.
The Verification Principle (Ayers) + response
aka logical positivism
Language is meaningful iff
a) empirical = via experience
b) tautology = analytic def (true by def)
b1) strong verification = can demonstrate its experiences
b2) weak verification = can describe the conditions required to demonstrate it using experience
= THEREFORE, only that which can be demonstrated through experience or logic is meaningful.
Applied to religious language..
NOT a tautology as‘God exists’ is not an analytic truth
NOT empirical as it is not known via evidence as we never have an experience of God.
= Therefore, RL is meaningless a neither of the criteria are reached.
R->
strong verification = can demonstrate its experiences
weak verification = can describe the conditions required to demonstrate it using experience
= if we accept religious language as being weakly verifiable, we can provide an
inductive argument for why religious language is PROBABLY meaningful.
issue of verification principle posed by Ayers
self refuting
- the terms themselves are not logically or empirically verifiable
- it fails to pass its own criteria and is therefore a meaningless test!
So religious language is still meaningful
Eschatological Verification (Hick)
-> parable
-> definition
-> how does this make RL meaningful?
The parable of the Celestial City
- 2 ppl travelling along a road .
- one believes they’re heading towards the city , other does not.
- they encounter various trials and challenges
- believer interprets trials as preparation for entry
- non-believer does not.
- while on the road it is impossible to say who is right until they reach the destination
= It is possible, in principle, to establish some religious language as meaningful by a confirmatory experience at the end of time/death
-> eschatology: the study of the end/death.
Use as a response to Ayers VP:
= Hick agrees with Ayers that it involves the removal of doubt
-> HOWEVER, disagrees that RL is impossible to verify : we will know when we die
-> Therefore, we can articulate the conditions require to verify the statement ‘God exists’ (so RL is meaningful).
Objection to Hick : it does not make sense to verify something that happens after death + Hicks response
Relies on the possibility of an after life
1j Logical contradiction ->death involves the end of experience so there can be no experience after it and if our experience ends we cannot verify the statement
2) our body gets destroyed so we couldn’t say we were the same person in the afterlife than in real life.
R-> Behavioural continuity
-> our body changes every 7years as cells renew, but we wouldn’t say we change as a person
-> our identity is determined by behavioural continuity ; our personal identity consists in having psychological connections (eg memories + personality) over time> physical continuity of the body
-> Therefore, as long as our behaviour remains constant, we can be said to be the same person, even if our body is different
Hick’s response to the objection that : it does not make sense to verify something that happens after death
Behavioural continuity
-> our body changes every 7years as cells renew, but we wouldn’t say we change as a person
-> our identity is determined by behavioural continuity ; our personal identity consists in having psychological connections (eg memories + personality) over time> physical continuity of the body
-> Therefore, as long as our behaviour remains constant, we can be said to be the same person, even if our body is different
The Falsification Principle (Karl Popper)
/how flews gardener supports this
-> + issue
Falsification= A theory is scientific/meaningful iff:
- we can articulate the conditions that would be required to demonstrate that it is false.
- if we cannot/will not-> pseudoscientific/meaningless
Flews’ Gardener
- 2 explores discover a garden in a jungle
- one claims there must be a gardener due to the apparent order of the garden, the other disagrees
- set up tents to observe
- gardener never shows so the believer claims the gardener must be invisible
- set our traps and bloodhounds, gardener still isn’t caught
- believer claims gardener must be intangible and incorporeal
- non believer despairs; how does this imaginary gardener differ to no gardener at all?
= Every time the believer has a chance to admit they are wrong, they modify their claims unwilling to admit there’s no gardener - therefore, there claim is unfalsifiable
Therefore, RL is meaningless as its unfalsifiable as the believer modifies their claims about God so is always right.
ISSUE:
Popper himself claimed this may only be relevant for scientific theories; it isn’t necessarily applicable to religious claims.
The university debate : Flew’s Garden (outline formal argument)
P1: A meaningful assertion is one that can be falsified : a meaningless assertion cannot be falsified.
P2: An assertion that can be falsified is one that rules out some possible state of affairs -> ‘God exists’ might rule out unnecessary suffering.
C1: Therefore, to meaningfully assert a claim, someone must be willing to withdraw it if the state of affairs it rules out was to occur.
P3: Religious believers cannot conceive of a state of affairs which would lead them to withdraw the claim that ‘God exists;. Instead they amend or qualify their claims.
C2: Therefore, when religious believers claim ‘God exists’ ; they do not rule out any state of affairs.
C3: Therefore, the claim ‘God exists’ is meaningless.
The university debate: Basil Mitchell’s Partisan
Non cog
The parable of the partisan
- war-torn country, a member of the resistance (P) meets a stranger (S) who claims they are on the same side
- P is convinced + trusts S
- P sees S helping the enemy but still believes S is on their side
- Sometimes S helps P, but other times P’s queries go unanswered
- P accepts the stranger knows best + refuses to believe they could be wrong about S
= P’s claim that the stranger is on their side is an assertion and there is some evidence for and against this. In theory, the assertion is falsifiable, but because of the trust (faith) in S by P, he will not let the evidence against him change his mind
-> analogous to believer’s faith inn God: evidence against God’s existence but faith requires the believer to maintain their commitment (so unfalsifiable).
-> He accepts that a meaningful claim must be falsifiable, but disagrees that a believer is willing to withdraw that claim if evidence emerged to counter it.
-> Faith means they are committed to maintain their belief (even when evidence is provided against it).
-> Religious claims are still meaningful assertions but cannot be conclusively falsified due to the believers attitude of faith.
Objections to Mitchell’s arg (3)
1) weak analogy
- The analogy involves a person.
- People are not like God.
- Ppl can have verifiable evidence of a stranger’s actions
- God has no evidence of God’s actions.
2) Difficult to justify disteleological or horrendous evils as God testing our faith
STRONGEST -> epistemic distance
3) This is a necessary condition for God but not us (if God was known a posteriori, we would not need to hold faith). Therefore, providing further evidence as to why the analogy between God and the human partisan breaks down.
Overall, these objections show how falsification as a criterion does not work, as well as faith, so religious language is still meaningful.
Hare’s Lunatic and Bliks
Non cog
Parable:
-a lunatic student is convinced the lecturers are going to kill him
- a friend arranges meetings with the nicest lecturers.
- the lunatic attends them but remains unconvinced
‘blik’ -> Beliefs that are not sensitive to empirical evidence (cannot be verified/falsified). However, still meaningful as they guide how we see and interact with the world.
= eg having faith/‘knowledge’ that the sun will rise tomorrow (Humes constant conjunction)
Meaning of parable:
- the lunatic’s belief is not falsifiable - no state of affairs that they would consider which would convince them to withdraw their belief. Still meaningful as their belief is a blik (guides how the interact with world).
Hare’s claim on the meaningfulness of RL
- Claims like ‘God exists’ are unfalsifiable and unverifiable.
- They are ‘bliks’, meaning they are expressions of the way a person sees the world, as such cannot be changed by empirical evidence.
- RL is meaningful to the person ho holds them as they affect how they act and think about the world.
Objection’s to Hare (3)
1) Not an accurate analogy (too simplistic)
-> Religious believers seem to be stating more about the world when the say ‘god exists’. They are making a genuine assertion about reality; more than a matter of perspective.
-> Bliks are cognitive
2) Cannot differentiate between a delusional blik (irrational/false) and a non-delusional blik (rational/true)
-> my assertion that my car will hold my weight is the same blik as a lunatic who believes all his lecturers want to kill him.
= bliks seem underdeveloped
Grid of the 3 university debates (compare)
a) statement
b) sensitive to empirical evidence?
c) falsifiable?
d) position of RL
Flew (gardener)
a) statement : there is a gardener
b) sensitive to empirical evidence? : NO; continue to make claim regardless of evidence
c) falsifiable? : NO; claim is meaningless
d) position of RL: not meaningful
Mitchell (Partisan)
a) statement : the stranger is on our side
b) sensitive to empirical evidence? : YES; evidence can be presented which calls claim into doubt
c) falsifiable? : YES; but not conclusively (faith means claim won’t be withdrawn)
d) position of RL: meaningful as expressions of FAITH
Hare (Lunatic)
a) statement : the lecturers want to murder me
b) sensitive to empirical evidence? : NO; the claim is a ‘blik’, it is the way they see the world (evidence won’t change that
c) falsifiable? : NO; that does not matter
d) position of RL: meaningful but as bliks
Strengths of religious language being cognitive
Face validity; it dictates how people live their lives.
‘God exists’ -> may cause people to act virtuously as they are motivated by the existence of God.
Therefore, it seems religious language is a cognitive as they direct behaviour and how we interpret the world around us.
