Religious language: twentieth-century perspectives and philosophical
comparisons
Logical positivism A movement that claimed assertions have to be capable of being tested
empirically if they are to be meaningful
Cognitive Having a factual quality that is available to knowledge, where words are labels
for things in the world
Non-cognitive Not having a factual quality that is available to knowledge; words are tools used
to achieve something rather than labels for things
Empirical Available to be experienced by the five senses
Verification Providing evidence to determine that something is true
Symposium A group of people who meet to discuss a particular question or theme
Falsification Providing evidence to determine that something is false
Demythologising Removing the mythical elements from a narrative to expose the central
message
Some philosophers have argued that religious truth claims such as ‘God exists’ are meaningless and are
therefore meaningless to discuss. The logical positivists of the twentieth century posed a challenge to
religious believers by suggesting that if language is meaningful, the its claims have to be tested using the
senses.
Philosophical discussion about meaning often identifies two different ways in which a word or phrase may
mean something:
1. Denotation: this is when a word stands for something, labelling something such the word ‘window’
which labels the part of the wall with glass. It has a literal meaning and can be taken at face
value.
2. Connotation: this is when a word carries other associations with it. So ‘window’ may mean finding
an opening in a busy period such as the ‘transfer window’. Connotation can carry meaning
beyond the literal sense and can sometimes mean completely different things depending on the
person or context.
When we make truth-claims, asserting that we are stating a fact, then we are speaking cognitively. We
are talking about something that we think can be known and that can be either true or false, such as ‘it is
foggy today’.
Non-cognitive statements cannot be determined to be true or false such as ‘what a pity’; they express
feelings rather than facts.
There is therefore a question whether religious statements are supposed to be understood as denotative,
cognitive statements, such as ‘God created the world’. Perhaps they mean the words cognitively and
symbolically, where ‘God’ is a word for something unimaginable, beyond the powers of human thought.
Perhaps they mean it in a connotative and non-cognitive way, in which case they might be trying to
encourage others towards showing great respect for the world or they might be trying to express their own
emotional feelings of awe as a response to the existence of the world.
The challenge to religious language from logical positivism
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was keen to establish the limits of human knowledge and imagination.
His writings greatly influenced the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers who met after WWI.
The Vienna Circle members generally believed that theological interpretations of events and experiences
belonged in the past, to an enlightened age when ‘God’ was used as an explanation for anything that
science had not yet mastered.
, The Vienna Circle took up Comte’s idea that a theological way of looking at the world was outdated and
unnecessary in a scientific age. It concluded that empirical evidence was the key to understanding what
was meaningful and what was not; a claim was only meaningful if it could be tested using the senses.
This position became known as logical positivism.
A.J. Ayer and the verification principle
A.J. Ayer became known for his support of logical positivism and when he was 26 in 1936, he wrote a
book called ‘Language, Truth and Knowledge’.
He claimed that statements were only meaningful if they fall into one of two categories, either analytic or
verifiable through the senses.
Analytic statements are claims that are true by definition. Synthetic statements are statements that give
us additional information, such as ‘Rebecca is allergic to nuts’. Logical positivists determined that, for
synthetic statements to be meaningful, they had to be verifiable using the senses. For example, we can
test if Rebecca is allergic to nuts.
Therefore, the verification principle suggests that if a statement is neither analytic or empirically verifiable,
it says nothing about reality and consequently is meaningless. We have to know under what conditions
we would call their claims ‘true’ or ‘false’.
Ayer however argues that we do not have to actually go out and test a synthetic statement, so we do not
have to go and give Rebecca nuts, but we do have to know what kind of test could be applied to find out
whether our statement is true or false – therefore, in principle, ‘Rebecca is allergic to nuts’ is verifiable.
Using the verification principle, religious statements are meaningless as statements such as ‘God created
the world’ as they cannot be verified using the senses and believers cannot state under what
circumstances they would call these claims true or false and they cannot suggest what kind of test would
settle the matter.
Does the verification principle successfully demonstrate that religious language is meaningless?
The most significant criticism of the verification principle was that the statement of the theory itself does
not pass the test and is not a meaningful statement. The verifiability theory cannot be verified by sense
experience (we cannot tell using the sense if these are the only types of statement to have any meaning)
and is a meaningless statement.
In addition, the idea that all meaningful synthetic statements have to be empirically verifiable rules out
more than originally intended. Advancements in science, such as the existence of black holes, cannot be
verified by the senses. Similarly, historical statements such as ‘Henry VIII died in 1547’ cannot be verified
as we cannot use our senses to check it. Ethical claims are also a problem as we cannot verify the
statement ‘torture is wrong’ as we can only see the outcomes, we cannot see if torture itself is right or
wrong.
Logical positivists saw these limitations so made concessions – weak verification, which many would
argue weakens the verification principle. Ayer also accepted that most of what he wrote in ‘Language,
Truth and Logic’ was wrong later in life.
Some philosophers, most notably John Hick, argued that even if we do accept that a claim must be
verifiable in order to be meaningful, religious truth-claims are verifiable as they can be proved after death
(eschatologically verifiable).
Critics of Hick argue that eschatological verification is not a way out of the problem, as even if there is an
afterlife, we probably won’t have the same senses as we do now and it won’t count as ‘empirical’
evidence. And if there is not afterlife, there will be no one to do nay verifying.
comparisons
Logical positivism A movement that claimed assertions have to be capable of being tested
empirically if they are to be meaningful
Cognitive Having a factual quality that is available to knowledge, where words are labels
for things in the world
Non-cognitive Not having a factual quality that is available to knowledge; words are tools used
to achieve something rather than labels for things
Empirical Available to be experienced by the five senses
Verification Providing evidence to determine that something is true
Symposium A group of people who meet to discuss a particular question or theme
Falsification Providing evidence to determine that something is false
Demythologising Removing the mythical elements from a narrative to expose the central
message
Some philosophers have argued that religious truth claims such as ‘God exists’ are meaningless and are
therefore meaningless to discuss. The logical positivists of the twentieth century posed a challenge to
religious believers by suggesting that if language is meaningful, the its claims have to be tested using the
senses.
Philosophical discussion about meaning often identifies two different ways in which a word or phrase may
mean something:
1. Denotation: this is when a word stands for something, labelling something such the word ‘window’
which labels the part of the wall with glass. It has a literal meaning and can be taken at face
value.
2. Connotation: this is when a word carries other associations with it. So ‘window’ may mean finding
an opening in a busy period such as the ‘transfer window’. Connotation can carry meaning
beyond the literal sense and can sometimes mean completely different things depending on the
person or context.
When we make truth-claims, asserting that we are stating a fact, then we are speaking cognitively. We
are talking about something that we think can be known and that can be either true or false, such as ‘it is
foggy today’.
Non-cognitive statements cannot be determined to be true or false such as ‘what a pity’; they express
feelings rather than facts.
There is therefore a question whether religious statements are supposed to be understood as denotative,
cognitive statements, such as ‘God created the world’. Perhaps they mean the words cognitively and
symbolically, where ‘God’ is a word for something unimaginable, beyond the powers of human thought.
Perhaps they mean it in a connotative and non-cognitive way, in which case they might be trying to
encourage others towards showing great respect for the world or they might be trying to express their own
emotional feelings of awe as a response to the existence of the world.
The challenge to religious language from logical positivism
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was keen to establish the limits of human knowledge and imagination.
His writings greatly influenced the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers who met after WWI.
The Vienna Circle members generally believed that theological interpretations of events and experiences
belonged in the past, to an enlightened age when ‘God’ was used as an explanation for anything that
science had not yet mastered.
, The Vienna Circle took up Comte’s idea that a theological way of looking at the world was outdated and
unnecessary in a scientific age. It concluded that empirical evidence was the key to understanding what
was meaningful and what was not; a claim was only meaningful if it could be tested using the senses.
This position became known as logical positivism.
A.J. Ayer and the verification principle
A.J. Ayer became known for his support of logical positivism and when he was 26 in 1936, he wrote a
book called ‘Language, Truth and Knowledge’.
He claimed that statements were only meaningful if they fall into one of two categories, either analytic or
verifiable through the senses.
Analytic statements are claims that are true by definition. Synthetic statements are statements that give
us additional information, such as ‘Rebecca is allergic to nuts’. Logical positivists determined that, for
synthetic statements to be meaningful, they had to be verifiable using the senses. For example, we can
test if Rebecca is allergic to nuts.
Therefore, the verification principle suggests that if a statement is neither analytic or empirically verifiable,
it says nothing about reality and consequently is meaningless. We have to know under what conditions
we would call their claims ‘true’ or ‘false’.
Ayer however argues that we do not have to actually go out and test a synthetic statement, so we do not
have to go and give Rebecca nuts, but we do have to know what kind of test could be applied to find out
whether our statement is true or false – therefore, in principle, ‘Rebecca is allergic to nuts’ is verifiable.
Using the verification principle, religious statements are meaningless as statements such as ‘God created
the world’ as they cannot be verified using the senses and believers cannot state under what
circumstances they would call these claims true or false and they cannot suggest what kind of test would
settle the matter.
Does the verification principle successfully demonstrate that religious language is meaningless?
The most significant criticism of the verification principle was that the statement of the theory itself does
not pass the test and is not a meaningful statement. The verifiability theory cannot be verified by sense
experience (we cannot tell using the sense if these are the only types of statement to have any meaning)
and is a meaningless statement.
In addition, the idea that all meaningful synthetic statements have to be empirically verifiable rules out
more than originally intended. Advancements in science, such as the existence of black holes, cannot be
verified by the senses. Similarly, historical statements such as ‘Henry VIII died in 1547’ cannot be verified
as we cannot use our senses to check it. Ethical claims are also a problem as we cannot verify the
statement ‘torture is wrong’ as we can only see the outcomes, we cannot see if torture itself is right or
wrong.
Logical positivists saw these limitations so made concessions – weak verification, which many would
argue weakens the verification principle. Ayer also accepted that most of what he wrote in ‘Language,
Truth and Logic’ was wrong later in life.
Some philosophers, most notably John Hick, argued that even if we do accept that a claim must be
verifiable in order to be meaningful, religious truth-claims are verifiable as they can be proved after death
(eschatologically verifiable).
Critics of Hick argue that eschatological verification is not a way out of the problem, as even if there is an
afterlife, we probably won’t have the same senses as we do now and it won’t count as ‘empirical’
evidence. And if there is not afterlife, there will be no one to do nay verifying.
