The philosophical debate over religious language is about whether such religious language is
meaningful or whether it is meaningless.
When a theist says ‘God exists’, it looks as though they are expressing a cognitive belief, i.e. a
statement which aims to describe how the world is, and thus can be true or false, but some
philosophers argue that it is really more of a non-cognitive attitude, and therefore with no truth-value.
Throughout this essay, I will show how religious language seems to be meaningless if understood
cognitively, and thus we shall understand non-cognitively.
The first position I will analyse is verificationism, i.e. a non-cognitive movement.
The logical positivist A. J. Ayer believed that metaphysical claims including religious language are
meaningless.
He supported his idea by proposing the verification principle. He states that ‘a statement is only
meaningful iff it is either analytic or in principle empirically verifiable’.
That is to say, unless a statement is true or false in virtue of its own words, or can be verified through
empirical observation, it is meaningless.
Therefore, Ayer argued that religious language is meaningless, as statements such as ‘God exists’ are
neither analytic nor empirically verifiable.
However, we may argue that the verification principle is in itself self-defeating.
That is because, in order for the verification principle itself to be meaningful, it must be analytic or
empirically verifiable. However, that is clearly not the case, therefore according to its own criteria, the
verification principle fails.
Ayer could respond by admitting that the verification principle cannot be a factual statement about the
meaning of factual statements, and could claim that it is instead only a tool which the empiricist adopts
for methodological purposes.
Yet, this appears to reduce the verification principle into a tool only if you already agree with
empiricism. Ayer has only shown that metaphysical statements are meaningless from the perspective
of the tools of empiricism, which one doesn’t have to accept.
This therefore only shows that if we accept empiricism, we will find the results of a non-empirical
approach meaningless.
Therefore, it seems as though since verificationism fails because of its own criteria, and would only
work if we take an empirical approach, religious language should be understood as cognitive.
In support of Ayer’s non-cognitive position, we find Flew’s falsification principle.
He argued that falsifiable statements are meaningful, and capable of being true or false; unfalsifiable
statements are instead meaningless, as there is no possible evidence that could count against them.
He so claimed that religious statements are unfalsifiable, as believers do not accept any proof that
could go against their belief.
Flew illustrated his argument through the parable of the gardener:
Imagine two people finding a clearing in a jungle. Explorer A says the clearing is the work of a
gardener, explorer B disagrees, so they suggest waiting and seeing who was right.
After a while, they haven’t seen him, but Explorer A says it’s because the gardener is invisible. So,
they set up an electric fence and guard dogs to catch the gardener; but after a few more days, they
still haven’t detected him.
Explorer A then says that not only the gardener is invisible, but also intangible, makes no sound, no
smell, etc. Explorer B then argues that there is no difference between that claim and the claim that the
gardener doesn’t even exist.
In other words, Explorer A’s theory is unfalsifiable, as nothing could possibly prove his theory wrong,
but nothing could prove it correctly.
Analogously, a religious person does not accept any countering evidence which disproves their belief.
In other words, Flew argues that theists continually add qualifications to their belief, saying that God is
‘not this’, ‘not that’, causing the concept of God to ‘die a death of a thousand qualifications’.
