Introduction to Religious Language
Created | Updated May 14, 2003
Tom Reynolds
Religious Language
The very nature of Religion worship and pursuit of knowledge about a profound being means that, justly it comes under close scrutiny. One such challenge to theism (simply believe in a God) is the one posed by Religious Language.
What, I hear you say separates Religious Language from any other utterance. It is, simply the use of the language that makes it different, instead of talking about the normal physical world we are talking about something Metaphysical, GOD. For Example saying that Tony Blair is a powerful person is one thing, saying Yahweh or Allah is omnipotent is something completely different although we describing in both cases the power of a being.
The Medieval understanding of Language
It is the worldly context in which we learn words that we use to describe God that concerned medieval theologians. Jewish philosopher Maimonides had a response to this problem when he maintained that, as we cannot know truely what God is (as we only no worldly atributes), we can make sense of God by saying what he is'nt. This known as 'negative predication'. We eventually arrive at a reasonable understanding of God 'via negativa'.
Thomas Aquinas asked that if we we apply human predicates (such as kindness and wisdom' do we do it in an 'univocal' or 'equivocal' way? A brief summary of each:
• Univocal language: Same word in the same context about God (God loves me/Jane loves me)
• Equivocal language: Same word in a different context about God (Cricket Bat and a Fruit Bat)
For talk of God to have any meaning it cannot be equivocal because it would have no sensible meaning. We could be using a world that may have a totally unsuitable context when applied to God.
However the medieval scholars did not dissmiss language completely, that came later with the logical positivists.
The Positivist Challenge to Theism
The claim that statements about God have no meaning stems back, not only from the writings of David Hume, but also the early work of Wittgenstein. He argued that language functions by creating pictures of events in this world. The meaning of a piece of language (ie Jane had sex on the bed) is the fact that it describes (ie Jane had sex on the bed). So, all true propositions are pictures from the world of science. However religious statements like 'God is Good' cannot be pictorially respresented so the propositions have no meaning (unlike Jane having sex which is, incidently, a picture I cannot now shake).
This view of language was deeply appealling to the Vienna Circle (Carnap and Schlick amoung others) who, with Wittgenstein developed the 'Verification Principle'. It came in two forms; Wittgenstein favouring the Strong version of the principle:
The weak form of the principle's main advocate was A.J. Ayer. He pointed out that the strong version disallowed to much as there are meaningful statements that cannot be verified conclusively (i.e. Jane is the worlds best lover, certainly she is a good lover, but to compare her performance with that of every other woman on the planet would kill a man). Ajer calls for only the sentence to be verified:
This seems more sensible as it allows us to test and make observation (To judge Jane as a lover I only need to sleep with, say fifteen women instead of 3 billion).
Both forms of the Verification Principle are damning to theism.
However falsificationists, deriving from the work of Karl Popper, say that it is not enough to dismiss God on the grounds that he cannot be verified but also on the grounds that he cannot be falsified. For a statement to be meaninful surely as well as being open to verification they must also be open to falsifation? However with believers, Antony Flew argues, statements will never be falsefied because every time God's existance comes across a stumbling block, a qualification is thought up by the theist. "We cannot see God- God is Invisible" "God leaves no trails in the sand- God is not physical". God dies the 'the death of a thousand qualifications'.
Responses to the challenge
The first response to these seemingly invinsible arguments came from Hare. He conceeded that Flew's argument seemed victorius. However it was still held that religion was not worthless. He argues that nothing can pentrate belief (unlike with Jane [sorry to be crude!]). Religious belief is a 'blik', an unfalsifable interpretation of ones experience. Another example of a 'blik' is for example the existance of fate (if it exists).
Another response, and in my opinion a stronger one comes from John Hick, 'eschatological verification'. He explains in in a parable. There are two men walking down a road. One beliefs it leads to a celestial city, the other beliefs it leads nowhere. They encounter beautiful and happy moments on the way, the believer suggesting these being encouragment to carry on the road. They also encounter obstacles on the way, this time the believer suggests these are trials. The non-believer sees both as demonstrations of how pointless the journey is. The only point of verification is on arrival to the destination of the celestial city, or the lack of a destination. The point is that it does not matter how we interpret life, the only way that we can verify our beliefs is on death.
In Conclusion
As a theist (although not of any particular denomination- I just believe) I'm always going to have sympathy with theists like Hare and Hick, and I suppose that my own believes are 'bliks'. But I also like the logical aspect of the verification and falsification challenges, and the philosophy of the likes of Ayer really stimulate the niggling doubt at the back of my mind. However my theology is best summed up by Hick. Were all on a journey, and it's only when we reach the end of the road we'll no if thats it or we've got to that celestial city!
Religious Language
The very nature of Religion worship and pursuit of knowledge about a profound being means that, justly it comes under close scrutiny. One such challenge to theism (simply believe in a God) is the one posed by Religious Language.
What, I hear you say separates Religious Language from any other utterance. It is, simply the use of the language that makes it different, instead of talking about the normal physical world we are talking about something Metaphysical, GOD. For Example saying that Tony Blair is a powerful person is one thing, saying Yahweh or Allah is omnipotent is something completely different although we describing in both cases the power of a being.
The Medieval understanding of Language
It is the worldly context in which we learn words that we use to describe God that concerned medieval theologians. Jewish philosopher Maimonides had a response to this problem when he maintained that, as we cannot know truely what God is (as we only no worldly atributes), we can make sense of God by saying what he is'nt. This known as 'negative predication'. We eventually arrive at a reasonable understanding of God 'via negativa'.
Thomas Aquinas asked that if we we apply human predicates (such as kindness and wisdom' do we do it in an 'univocal' or 'equivocal' way? A brief summary of each:
• Univocal language: Same word in the same context about God (God loves me/Jane loves me)
• Equivocal language: Same word in a different context about God (Cricket Bat and a Fruit Bat)
For talk of God to have any meaning it cannot be equivocal because it would have no sensible meaning. We could be using a world that may have a totally unsuitable context when applied to God.
However the medieval scholars did not dissmiss language completely, that came later with the logical positivists.
The Positivist Challenge to Theism
The claim that statements about God have no meaning stems back, not only from the writings of David Hume, but also the early work of Wittgenstein. He argued that language functions by creating pictures of events in this world. The meaning of a piece of language (ie Jane had sex on the bed) is the fact that it describes (ie Jane had sex on the bed). So, all true propositions are pictures from the world of science. However religious statements like 'God is Good' cannot be pictorially respresented so the propositions have no meaning (unlike Jane having sex which is, incidently, a picture I cannot now shake).
This view of language was deeply appealling to the Vienna Circle (Carnap and Schlick amoung others) who, with Wittgenstein developed the 'Verification Principle'. It came in two forms; Wittgenstein favouring the Strong version of the principle:
"If I can never verify the sense of a proposition completely, then I cannot have meant anything by the proposition either. The the proposition signifies nothing whatsoever"
The weak form of the principle's main advocate was A.J. Ayer. He pointed out that the strong version disallowed to much as there are meaningful statements that cannot be verified conclusively (i.e. Jane is the worlds best lover, certainly she is a good lover, but to compare her performance with that of every other woman on the planet would kill a man). Ajer calls for only the sentence to be verified:
"if it is possible for experience to render it probable"
This seems more sensible as it allows us to test and make observation (To judge Jane as a lover I only need to sleep with, say fifteen women instead of 3 billion).
Both forms of the Verification Principle are damning to theism.
However falsificationists, deriving from the work of Karl Popper, say that it is not enough to dismiss God on the grounds that he cannot be verified but also on the grounds that he cannot be falsified. For a statement to be meaninful surely as well as being open to verification they must also be open to falsifation? However with believers, Antony Flew argues, statements will never be falsefied because every time God's existance comes across a stumbling block, a qualification is thought up by the theist. "We cannot see God- God is Invisible" "God leaves no trails in the sand- God is not physical". God dies the 'the death of a thousand qualifications'.
Responses to the challenge
The first response to these seemingly invinsible arguments came from Hare. He conceeded that Flew's argument seemed victorius. However it was still held that religion was not worthless. He argues that nothing can pentrate belief (unlike with Jane [sorry to be crude!]). Religious belief is a 'blik', an unfalsifable interpretation of ones experience. Another example of a 'blik' is for example the existance of fate (if it exists).
Another response, and in my opinion a stronger one comes from John Hick, 'eschatological verification'. He explains in in a parable. There are two men walking down a road. One beliefs it leads to a celestial city, the other beliefs it leads nowhere. They encounter beautiful and happy moments on the way, the believer suggesting these being encouragment to carry on the road. They also encounter obstacles on the way, this time the believer suggests these are trials. The non-believer sees both as demonstrations of how pointless the journey is. The only point of verification is on arrival to the destination of the celestial city, or the lack of a destination. The point is that it does not matter how we interpret life, the only way that we can verify our beliefs is on death.
In Conclusion
As a theist (although not of any particular denomination- I just believe) I'm always going to have sympathy with theists like Hare and Hick, and I suppose that my own believes are 'bliks'. But I also like the logical aspect of the verification and falsification challenges, and the philosophy of the likes of Ayer really stimulate the niggling doubt at the back of my mind. However my theology is best summed up by Hick. Were all on a journey, and it's only when we reach the end of the road we'll no if thats it or we've got to that celestial city!
