Whether non-cognitive interpretations Are valid responses to the challenges to the meaning of religious language Flashcards
P1 - According to logical positivists such as Ayer, religious language is meaningless as the truth or false heard of any religious proposition.
Ex1- Ayer argued that all language should be verified by empirical means or it is useless. He developed the verification principle to act as a criterion of how language should be used to speak about the world stating “… No statement is literally meaningful unless it describes what could be experienced”.
R1 - In response to this however, non-cognitive interpretations are invalid according to John Hick, religious language is meaningful as he argued that the Christian concept of God was verifiable in principle, demonstrated to the parable of the celestial city when suggested although our knowledge of God is not immediately verifiable it could be in the future.
Ev1 - This is a strong point and this is known as eschatological verification and like the traveller he believed statements can be verified at the end of the journey and six states “if God exists where can we find adequate evidence for God’s existence?”.
L1 - He is persuasive in explaining that religious language is meaningless.
P2 - Furthermore Swinburne believes religious statements and non-cognitive language can’t be falsified but we can understand the meaning, they are therefore valid responses to challenges.
Ex2 - He uses the analogy of toys in a cupboard coming out at night, just as we haven’t seen God but we have the knowledge to believe exists as we know how to falsify. This is supported by Ayers Mountains on the farther side of the Moon example. Ayer developed the principle of verification and later added practical verifiability. He said “no rocket has yet been invented which would enable me to look… I know what would decide it for me… Therefore I can say it’s verifiable in principle”, here he suggests how religious language can have meaning in its potential for verification, not necessarily immediate.
R2 - However Flew argues that religious language is meaningless as there is nothing to count against religious statements. Religious believers don’t accept any evidence against their belief. For example the Christian concept of “God is good“, Christians give reasons why God remains good but these constant qualifications cause statements to “die of death of a thousand qualifications“.
Ev2 - This is a strong point and can be supported by Wisdom’s parable of the gardener: two people find a garden, one believes it’s attended to by Gardner whilst one doesn’t , “there is a gardener invisible, intangible, insensible”. However the sceptic argues “how does this eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary one or not one at all?”, demonstrating how religious language, noncognitive language can be qualified to the point of being unfalsifiable and is therefore invalid as a response to challenges. Flew refutes Swinburne as he believes language is meaningless until it is empirically verified.
L2 -Thus religious language is therefore meaningless.
P3 - Finally, Basil Mitchell believes non-cognitive statements, religious language is meaningful despite it not being straightforward to verify, he said Flew missed the point, that believers have a commitment to trust in God, their faith doesn’t allow them to allow evidence to undermine their belief in him.
Ex3 - Religious believers look for answers to prove their faith, for example the analogy of the partisan and stranger which suggests that religious language is meaningful but unfalsifiable. The partisan continues to claim that the stranger is loyal despite evidence against this. Religious believers have a commitment to their beliefs despite any challenges to it, language doesn’t ‘die to death of a thousand qualifications’ but instead reaffirms.
R3 - However in response to this critics argue there must be a comparative element to human language used to describe God therefore noncognitive statements are invalid responses to the challenges of the meaning of religious language.
Ev3 - Aquinas’ analogy of attribution helps critique non-cognitive interpretations of religious language by asserting that language about God is meaningful because it is analogous to how we describe human qualities, but with differences in degree. For example, when we say that God is “good,” it doesn’t mean the same thing as when we call a human “good”; instead, God’s goodness is of a higher, transcendent order. Aquinas states, “The name good is used in many ways, but not equivocally; and when applied to God it means something similar, but in a higher degree”
L3 - therefore meaningless.
