Religious Language (RL): Revision Notes
The key issue = if God is transcendent (i.e. above and beyond) and hard to understand, how can
we talk of God in meaningful ways? This topic examined ways in how religious people use language
to talk about God. It also looked at the challenges to religious believers and their ways of using
language.
The uses and purposes of RL:
Language = our way to explain concepts and to communicate.
In philosophy of religion people try to explain concepts that can’t be seen or heard i.e.
God. So problem arises = if we can’t see or hear him how can we talk about him?
Also, if God is such a being then how do we apply the words we use to God, do they
have the same meaning or another??
Same Meaning: (i.e. Univocal) = the words we use mean exactly the same to God as when
we use them for humans. Creates a problem = e.g. God = Faithful, but a dog can be called
faithful too! So if words are Univocal then it has problem of bringing God down to a
human level.
Different Meaning: (i.e. Equivocal) = do words mean different things when applied to
God? Problem is that when we use words like ‘God is holy’ it means something different
from when I apply it to humans. So one can never know what a word means when applied
to God. Another e.g. of Equivocal = ‘a bat’ could be 1) cricket bat or 2) flying rodent.
If language is equivocal, it becomes ‘evocative and functional, rather than cognitive and
descriptive’. (i.e. it becomes meaningless! Or hard to get!)
So RL about God is split into two parts 1) theists talking about God in a meaningful way
despite him being transcendent and ineffable (indescribable), 2) others who think that
if talking about God is equivocal then it’s probably meaningless.
The points above say that we speak about God cognitively (i.e. that our statement is
either true or false and that it properly describes God). But others say that statements
on God are non-cognitive (i.e. statements not based on true or false, this would include
ethical, moral or emotive language – probably religious stuff too). Logical Positivists
would therefore argue that there would be no point in studying non-cognitive statements
because they are meaningless.
Statements subject to true/false = ‘the cat is sleeping on the chair’ because you’d need
to verify that. Statements NOT subject to true/false = ’ouch’ or ‘hurray’ as it would be
weird to ask why is someone saying ‘ouch’ when you’ve just seen them hurt themselves.
So some say that religious talk is meaningless and non-cognitive and not to be discussed
in philosophy, because it’s not a matter of truth or falsehood (Wittgenstein).
The verification principles as developed by the Vienna Circle and A. J. Ayer:
The strong Verification principle (SVP) and the Vienna Circle:
Verificationism = a philosophical movement which says that language is only meaningful if
it can be verified by sense-observation or a tautology. Statements which cant be
assessed = meaningless!
, Tautology = something which is true by definition.
Sense-observation = gaining knowledge through your senses.
Anything that is a Tautology doesn’t need to be proved because it makes sense by
definition, hence the verification principle wouldn’t find tautologies a problem.
This movement grew out of science and says you have to prove something through
scientific experiment. They apply this way to language as well when someone makes a
statement of fact.
SVP: Moritz, Schlick and others said that if you cannot show with sense-observation
how a statement is true, then the statement becomes meaningless. The aim of
verificationists was to weed out those areas of science that are meaningless so they can
avoid studying them.
Another name for these verificationists = Logical Positivists and they originate from a
group called Vienna Circle. To distinguish between meaningful and meaningless questions
they created this verification principle.
The verificationist idea were based on David Hume: said that unless a statement is
Analytical (i.e. its internal logical provides it with meaning) or Synthetic (i.e. empirical
evidence counts to show its truth), it is meaningless.
According to logical positivists/verificationists saying ‘my car is red’ = meaningful
because anyone could check it using senses. Whereas saying that the ‘statue is beautiful’
isn’t confirmable in exactly the same way.
So for a logical positivist language that talks about God is meaningless because one cant
show him to be a truth or falsity through observation or experiments.
Important point to note! Agnostics and Atheists are also being criticised for their use
of language. They make claims just like the religious believers do, a positivist would just
argue its better not to discuss religion at all.
Summary of the views of the Vienna Circle/Logical Positivists =
Emerged in 1920’s, influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea (i.e. statements are
meaningful if it can be defined or pictured in the real world). Also followed
Hume.
They derived a radical theory of language = the verification principle.
They said; only statements that were verifiable by observation could convey
factual information.
Statements that one couldn’t verify could only be 1) tautologies or 2)
meaningless.
Problems with Strong Verification:
Too rigid, suggests cant make statements about history e.g. there are no
verifiable facts about Julius Caesar.
Scientific laws = meaningless – e.g. gravity must be meaningless because I’m not
in all places at once to ‘see’ it at work!
Swinburne: universal statements cant be verified e.g. ‘all humans are mortal’
seem meaningful but dismissed as nonsense by the verification principle
, The Weak Verification Principle (WVP) and A.J Ayer:
Ayer saw the above problems, so came up with a modified version of the VP.
Still believed in the rejection of metaphysics as the Vienna Circle people wanted.
He accepts the Analytic/A-priori and Synthetic/A-posteriori separation of Hume.
But he didn’t deny that people claim other statements like “God answers my prayers”, it
is just that such unverifiable statements do not have factual significance.
Ayer’s difference from the rest of Vienna Circle = we don’t have to prove
something via a direct observation. We just have to show how it could be verified
(hence its called weak verification principle).
E.g. ‘Eric is a bachelor’ is not conclusive at first, but Ayer says this doesn’t make it
meaningless, because if we went and found Eric we could check the truthfulness of this.
So remember verification is not about the truth or otherwise of a statement – it is
about its provability.
He is different from the Vienna Circle as they say that things we directly verify by
experience = true, but that’s limiting. Ayer says that there are some things that can
possibly be true, you just have to go out and look for its truth beyond doubt.
This now allows us to make statements about history and make predictions in science so
history and science = meaningful but religion and ethics = still meaningless.
Problems with WVP:
The VP itself is unverifiable. It is not a tautology and no evidence can show its
truth!
Some theologians and philosophers pointed out that sometimes statements
cannot be verified at the present time, but can be one day. E.g. Life After Death
can be verified after death in the future = Eschatological Verification (John
Hick).
The Falsification Principle (FP) of Anthony Flew:
Aims to overcome the problems of the verification principle.
Instead of demanding a statement to be verifiable the FP says that someone must be
able to say what would count, in principle, in its falsification.
Flew said – religious people tend to refuse the possibility that their statements can be
falsified. As they’d believe, e.g., that God is good despite all the evidence against it,
hence religious language would still be meaningless.
So in order to for some claim to be classed as a scientific statement one must consider
whether there is any evidence that may disprove their claim.
“In order to say something which may be true, we must say something which may
possibly be false” (John Hick 1966).
Flew influenced by Karl Popper. Popper argued that science was based on falsification
not verification. Scientists pose hypothesises which they test. If the scientists
know how to show that the hypothesis might be false (i.e. what evidence they would
need to count against it) then their statement is synthetic = meaningful.
This is how science works, they leave the gap to falsify their evidence. A result of this =
theories are superseded by better ones as more observations take place. E.g. Einstein
, seen as improvement to Newton. This is what makes science different from other
theories.
Any theory that can’t be disproved is not valid at all.
Popper’s views applied to R.L by Flew = R.L. can’t be falsified (as the religious believer is
staunch in his position) hence not genuine. Flew uses the scenario of a Gardener from
John Wisdom’s parable of the Gardener:
2 people exploring jungle. They find a clearing that appears to have been
cultivated. One believes that there is a gardener responsible for the clearing,
the other disagrees.
They test the believer’s hypothesis that there is an invisible, intangible
gardener.
Every test fails to turn up any evidence to support the believer’s claims.
Despite lacking evidence, the believer persists, adjusting his hypothesis to suit
the new lack of evidence.
Each modification adds a ‘qualification’ to the original hypothesis, and the
believer is able to persist in his claim.
But Flew’s analogy claims that religious believers shift the goalposts so much
that the claims they make are so watered down that they are barely statements
at all. Flew calls this the ‘death of a thousand qualifications’.
When confronted with something awkward regarding the existence of God, the
religious person replies that God is mysterious.
A statement can only be regarded as meaningful if something can be cited that
will falsify the statement should it actually occur.
This doesn’t mean that the statement is factually incorrect (as the logical
positivists would argue) – a statement is meaningful if the mechanism exists to
show that it is factually incorrect.
Flew argues that R.L. lacks this mechanism. It is not possible to falsify R.L. in
the same way as it is with other language.
E.g. of FP in action =
‘It is raining outside’. To deem this meaningful, we need to know what
observation to make to falsify it.
We simply need to look out of the window in order to see whether the
statement is factually correct.
Because this ‘falsifying mechanism’ exists, the statement is meaningful.
Problems with FP =
Richard Swinburne –
Religious statements are not cognitive, so shouldn’t be treated as being
falsifiable.
Statements can often be meaningful without there being the means to falsify
them. E.g. the statement that ‘a cupboard is full of toys that come to life when
everyone is asleep and no-one is looking’ is meaningful, because we understand
what it means to suggest that toys can move, even though we can never gather
the evidence required to falsify the statement.
