Religious Language

Religious Language

1. The problem = if God = infinite, description of finite creatures = inadequate (man=good) = (God = good) ?

2. Solution 1 - Rel. Lang = meaningless

   • Ayer - V.P - statements must be analytically true, sensory data
     • Rel. lang = unverifiable = meaningless
       • Strong - statement has meaning if it can be verified
       • weak = state needed evidence (Hitler invaded poland - eye witness accounts)
     • fails own test - Humour Principle
   • Flew - F.V - Wisdom's Parable of gardener
     • Death of a thousand qualifications
   • Most lang already dealing with abstract concepts - cannot pass V/FP
     • as meaningful as any other lang
   • Lang is not this narrow
   • BLIKS
     • Hare - lunatic + dons - view just IS, no explanation
     • Mitchell - resistance leader - faith IS based on fact, more complex than V/FP

3. 2 - Via negativa/apophatic way

   • Equivocal lang - infinite =/= finite
     • human lang = unsuitable
     • reality of God beyond comprehension "God is not light nor darkness"
       • can never know anything about God

4. 3 - Via Positiva/cataphatic way

   • univocal lang - infinite = finite
     • God has revealed himself through scripture + human concepts
   • Prob of rel lang

5. 4 - Analogy - Aquinas

   • Allows for similarity + diff. - general meaning 'middle way'
     • Tell us nothing new
   • attribution - look at His creation - bull's urine
   • Proper proportion - Hick - Goc>man>dog less proportions of qual
     • world has evil - God has evil ?
   • Improper - rock, specific qual, not most
   • Assumes God = real - 'in his image'
   • useful for believers already in lang game

6. 5 - Symbol - tillich, symbolic + t/f profound

   • sign - no participation in symbolisation, unlike symbol
     • Need to know what a sign means to understand
   • allow flexibility - meaning changes, words, metaphors, capture feeling (cross)
     • should have real + existential signif.
   • 1 - point to something beyond themselves
   • 2 - participate in this (flag)
   • 3 - open levels of reality closed to us
   • 4 - open levels of soul corresponding to these realiteis
   • alston - removes from substantive context
   • no context for heaven + hell

7. 6 - Myth - braithwaite

   • Hick expains - religious statements express and recommend a commitment to a certain general policy of way of life
   • rel lang. has ethical function - express adherence + recommendation
     • Agape = intention to follow agapeistic way of life
       • religions recommend same things but with diff. myths - diff. ways
         • only small portion of lang is stories
         • Rel believers would disagree - resurrection
     • Refers to conversion of CS Lewis
     • deities = fictitious ? believers would disagree

8. 7 lang. games - Wittgenstein

   • Meaning = use
     • Without context no meaning
       • Multiple uses for words - pig
     • "look for the use, not the meaning"
   • DZ Phillips - "God cannot be assessed by a common measure which also applies to things other than God"
     • Can only truly understand rel lang in the rel context - playing that game