The issues¹

Does religious language have meaning?

The logical positivists say that religious language has no meaning, becuase of the Verification Principle.

This was put forward by the Vienna Circle, which included philosophers like Wittgenstein, Whitehead and Russell. The Verificaton Principle says that a statement has meaning "if, and only if, it can be conclusively verified by sense data."

This was later modified by A. J. Ayer, as it was realised that the strong verification principle ruled out the whole of science-you cannot conclusively verify that potassium will always react the same way when dropped into water. Ayer said that a statement has meaning if there is some sense data to verify it, or if there is some sense data in principle to verify it.

This means that science has meaning, as we have some sense data, and also that statements like "the dark side of the moon is the same as the light side" have meaning, because we can say in principle how to verify them.

The verification principle was further modified by Popper, who said that a statement has meaning if it can be shown how the statement can be falsified. Popper said that science is about falsification, not verification; If you have a theory, you don't keep trying it to see if it still works, you try and make it not work.

Falsification works better than verification in some circumstances. For example, take the statement "all dogs have tails". It is impossible to verify this statement, as you would have to examine the tails of all the dogs from the past, present and future. However, you can say how the statement would be falsified-if a dog was born without a tail. So using the verification principle the statement would have to be meaningless, but by using the falsification principle, it has meaning.
Flew applied the falsification principle to religion.

The problem for religious language

Religious statements such as 'God exists' cannot be verified or falsified, because there is no dispute about the empirical evidence, only the conclusions that arise from the evidence. Therefore, but the verification and falsification principles, religious language is meaningless.

Responses

1. Religious statements are empirical statements and can be verified

David Cox claims that verification includes all of human experience, not just sense data. Therefore, we can talk about God to the extent that we have experienced Him. But is the translation of theological language into empirical language possible?

John Wilson thought that religious beliefs are verified by religious experience. But without interpretation, the experiences aren't religious, so the sense data doesn't make them religious. Also, is it really sense data you are collecting during a religious experience?

2. Religious statements are open to falsification, but not conclusively

Basil Mitchell uses the example of a German in the second Wourld War, who says he is not a Nazi, but a leader for the resistance. Mitchell says there are some things that would count against this statement, but it cannot conclusively be falsified. Hick responds to this by saying surely there would be some evidence that would completely falsify his statement?

3. Religious statements are verifiable in principle, but not in practice.

Hick talks about eschatological verification; we do not know whether suffering has been pointless until after death. He likens this to the statement "there are three successive sevens in the decimalisation of pi." This statement cannot be proved yet, but may be able to be proved in the future. However, proof in the future is real verification, but proof in another world is not. How could we recognise evidence in another world that would prove claims in this one? Hick says that specific claims would be able to be verified.

4. Religious statements are not assertions.

John Wisdom uses the Parable of the Gardener. This talks about two brothers looking at a plot of land. One thinks a gardener is tending it, the other disagrees. They both examine all the sense data available, but still disagree. Wisdom says that Religious Statements are feelings in response to sense data, and therefore don't need to be verified or falsified.

Braithwaite says that Religious statements are recommendations for a way of life. Statements express moral intentions.

5. The Empiricist's attack is wrong

We have to understand a sentence in order to verify it. Therefore meaning comes before use.

Swimburne gives the example of toys that come out and play when no-one is watching. This statement cannot be verified or falsified, but we wouldn't want to say it has no meaning, rather that it is false.

The verification principle cannot be verified using sense data, in principle or otherwise, and so is meaningless by its own logic.

how does religious language have meaning?

Do the verification and falsification arguments render religious language meaningless? I don't think they do. But if religious language does have meaning, how does it? It is fairly clear that when people say 'God is my shepherd' or 'God loves us', they are not using the language in the way we normally would, but how are they using it?
Different people have tried to answer this question in different ways.

Via Negativa²

Plotinus

Plotinus suggested the way to God must be mystical, and without images. He thought that through meditation you get rid of all images, thoughts and words, in order to encounter God. The experience is real, but undescribable.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite³

He said that we cannot speak of God, we can only deny Him. For example, we can say 'God is not truth', because God is beyond truth.

However, he failed to keep this up, and has been quoted as saying "It is the perfect and unique cause of all things" and "It is free from every limitation and beyond them all".

Conclusion

If the Via Negativa is consistent, it says nothing at all, which doesn't really solve the problem.

Analogy

Aquinas said that language could be used univocally (where words have only one meaning) or equivocally (where words have several meanings, eg; pitch).

He thought that religious language came into neither category, but was more like univocal language than equvocal. He said that religious language was analogical.

Analogy can be upwards or downwards. An example of analogy downwards if calling a dog faithful; the word faithful means less than it normally would. Religion is analogy upwards; the words we use take on more meaning than they normally would. Human characteristics are applied to God, but they are a very poor reflection of God's nature.

But how much does analogical language reveal about God? Aquinas thought that religious language doesn't describe God properly, but analogy explains how the language is being used.

E. L. Mascall extended Aquinas' view of analogy. He said that analogy was needed because if we are contingent ⁴ and God is necessary⁵, we cannot apply words to both univocally.

Analogy is when the meaning of the word used is neither sompletely the same or completely different. For example, Mr Jones is healthy, and Brighton is healthy. The word 'healthy' is being used analogically.

Analogy can be in two forms; Analogy of Attribution, and Analogy of Proportion.
Analogy of Attribution

In this, one of two things is the prime analogate⁶, but both have the property. The non-prime analogate has the property formally, but only by a relationship with the prime analogate.

So qualities that exist in us do so becuase they exist in God, at least in the sense that He can produce them in his creatures. For example, we are good. This doesn't imply that God is good, only that He can produce goodness.
Analogy of Proportion

Two things can possess the same property formally, but how they possess it will differ. For example, we possess life in a finite mode, and God possesses it in a necessary mode.

The trouble with this is that it doesn't tell us anything about God. All we can say is that if it is valid to talk about God being good (because of analogy) then it is valid to talk about God existing.

Models and Qualifiers

Ian Ramsey says in life you can have a moment of discernment, where something you haven't been able to understand suddenly becomes clear. He says that if this happens, you usually become committed to what you have just understood.

Ramsey said this is what happens with religious language; you suddenly understand it, and then become committed. He thought that the way you reached a moment of discernment was by using models and qualifiers.

You think of a model, eg powerful, and then think of the qualifier that applies the word to God. In this case, the qualifier is 'all'. You then push the model in the direction of the qualifier, and it will suddenly become clear.

Metaphor

Aristotle thought that metaphors were fancy ornaments, as he knew them as single-word substitutions-a deviation from normal speech. Aquinas ignored metaphor to concentrate on analogy, and Hobbes and Locke thought that metaphors disguised the truth. Logical positivists rejected metaphors as meaningless.

Metaphor as cognitive

Richards and Black suggested that metaphor could be used to say things that couldn't be said in another way. Metaphor creates reality as well as describing it, and can be a whole sentence, not just a word.
Implications

Creating and understanding metaphor isn't just a set of rules, it is a creative action.

A metaphor can never be explained using plain language. It cannot be reduced to a univocal statement.
Other coments

Philosophers tend not to like metaphor-it is imprecise, but claims to be cognitive.

Davidson sees metaphor as completely free of rules, but Janet Soskice says it is influenced but not controlled by rules.

Science uses metaphor, for example, light is said to be a wave and a particle, but is in fact neither.

Most ordinary language also relies on metaphor, eg; saying a job in 'running smoothly'.

Symbol and Myth

Symbol-cognitive*

Tillich says religious language is symbolic. He says symbols are not the same as signs, becuase signs are arbitrary, and could be different. Tillich says symbols are not arbitrary, eg; flags. They develop out of experience, and participate in the reality to which they point (Tillich's words). Eg; people burn a country's flag to instuly that country; the flag stands for something.

Tillich says religious language has to be symbolic because it is about concern for the ultimate-God. God is 'being-itself', and all statements beyond this are symbolic because they use finite experience to talk about the infinite.

However, Tillich didn't clarify a number of points. For example, in the statement 'God is love', is the entire statement the symbol, or just the idea of God's love?

How does a symbol participate in the reality to which it points?

Have symbols arisen from the collective unconscious? If so, God could only exist because we have developed Him and believe in Him *. Also, how does a statement like 'God has necessary existence' open up new levels of reality?

Symbol-non cognitive

This view is known as naturalism, and was put forward by Randall. He said that symbols arouse emotions and stir people to action, bind people together, convey a quality of experience that cannot be conveyed by literal use of language, and clarify a sense of the divine in the world.

Randall does not believe in a God that exists outside our minds. He says God is our ideals and values, and is not really important, but the key words are 'religion' and 'faith'. Religion is important because it preserves our aspirations.

However, J.S. Mill says religion is useful if it is true, but if it isn't, you need convincing as to how useful it is. Russell said "I can respect the man who argues that religion is true and therefore ought to be believed, but I can feel only profound reprobation for those who say that religion ought to be believed because it is useful and that to ask whether it is true is a waste of time." Randall is saying that religion is important and useful, but not true.

Myth-non cognitive*

Braithwaite accepts the verification principle, and says the key question is not whether religious language is true or false, but whether it has meaning.

Religious language appears to be unverifiable, along with moral statements. However, logical positivists do not write off all moral statements, and Wittgenstein changed the verification principle to meaning being given by use.

Braithwaite says that religious language is an intention to act in a particular way. Eg, when you say 'Gos is loving', you are saying 'I intend to act in a loving way'.

However, this is not how people have understood religious language; they think there is actually meaning behind it. Also, if religious statements are intentions to act, and you act in a different way, you are saying the religious statement is false. eg; if you act in a non-loving way, you are saying that 'God isn't loving at the moment', or 'I intend to live in a loving way, but i intend not to'. It doesn't make sense.

Myth-cognitive

Bultmann said that the entire Bible was a myth, to hide the real meaning. He said that to get at this meaning we had to 'de-mythologise' the stories.
However, although much of the Bible is stories, some of it isn't, for example, the Psalms. Also, if we want to pass on the message, do we need to re-mythologise the story? Bultmann didn't say.

Language Games

Wittgenstein changed his mind about the logical positivists-he thought they were wrong to say that unverifiable statements had no meaning. He thought that the meaning of a word was defined by its use.

Wittgenstein thought that we play many different language games. Eg, we may hae one at school with our friends, one with our teachers, one at home, one when we play football etc. He thought the rules of language were learnt by playing the game, but there were other aspects of the game, such as tactics, team spirit, etc. He said that some words only have meaning withing the game, eg; offside, and that you cannot criticise the language from outside the game.

Wittgenstien applied this to worship. He said that you learn what words of worship mean when you start to worship; you cannot understand what 'Jesus, we love you, we worship and adore you' means to a worshipper unless you join them. He said there is more to worship than understanding the words, and that some of the concepts only have meaning within religion. He said that worship cannot be criticised by someone who hasn't tried it, and that religion was a form of life with its own language game.

D.Z. Phillips applied language games to prayer and immortality. He thought that resurrection was nothing to do with life and death, or it would be a selfish desire to live longer. He thought that immortality meant that your memory lived on forever. Also, he belived that prayer wasn't asking for things to be changed, but was orientating ourselves to the virtues of Christ.

Phillips said that if philosophers give an account of religion they must study the religious form of life. He said that for religious concepts, the criteria of intelligibility, truth, falsity etc are to be found within the form of life, and not by using ordinary language, and he said the meaning of prayer is to be found in the activity of prayer.

There are problems with the language games theory. People have asked why a game cannot be criticised from the outside, especially if the person criticising used to play the game. Also, Wittgenstein didnt' say if there was any common language, either between games, or seperate from games. When a child first learns to speak, is it already learning a language game?

Phillips doesn't make it clear how big the religious language game is. It may include ethics, and other religions, we just don't know. And if religion is a language game, is it any more important that any other language game, like football?

Conclusion