Religious Language

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Religious Language

Verification:

Verification, developed by Ayer and the logical positivists , is a set of criteria that determined whether a proposition was meaningful or not. The criteria states that if a proposition isn't synthetic, analytic or mathematical it isn't meaningful. Using this, Ayer can form the following argument:

For a proposition to be meaningful it must be synthetic, analytic or mathematical (empirically verifiable of analytic).

Religious language, such as 'God exists' or 'God does't exist' are not synthetic, analytic or mathematical.

Therefore 'God exists' and 'God doesn't exist' are not meaningful propositions.

To Ayer, all 'God talk' is meaningless. Facts are the content of a statement that makes it intelligent. Without empirical evidence within talk of God, it is literally unintelligible. He also comments on religious experiences, declaring that they show nothing beyond the mind of the individual.

Objections to the Verification Principle:

One blatant objection is that the Verification principle, itself, is not able to be verified. If the Verification principle is true then it proves itself false. If it is false then it is simple false.

We can also object that empirical arguments for or against God, the design argument and problem of evil, mean not all religious language is meaningless. However, one can object, in the same vein as Ayer, that the design argument is not empirical.

John Hick agreed that the verification principle does work to remove doubt, ignorance or uncertainty about the truth and believes, in our current existence, we cannot empirically prove God's existence. However, his development of eschatological verification demonstrates that 'God talk' isn't meaningless:

In believing in God, you believe that death brings about and unambiguous vision of God.

Therefore, in death, there will be empirical evidence of God's existence or non-existence.

Therefore, 'God exists' is verifiable in principle so it is meaningful.

Therefore, religious language is meaningful.

It doesn't take Ayer long to understand the flaws in his argument. He claims that the verification principle is there to verify our understanding of meaningful words.

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Falsification :

A response developed by A. Flew, it claims that a claim/ proposition is falsifiable only if it is incompatible with another set of empirical observations. So, a claim is meaningful only if it rules out some other possible experience

An advantage this has over verification is the idea that it deals with generalising claims such as 'all swans are white'. It is near impossible to verify this, for there may always be a swan that isn't white, yet you can falsify this by observing one back swan.

However, you cannot falsify existence claims, claims about the future or probability claims, yet we don't consider them meaningless.

So, flasification, can be considered an improvement on verification, however the eschatological verification still applies, allowing religious language to remain meaningful.

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Cognitivist and non-cognitivist:

Cognitivist- Religious claims aim to describe tow it is and so can be true or false.- So, language is only meaningful if it is cognitive.

Non- cognitivist- Religious claims do not describe the world be true or false. They express an attitude towards the world, a way of understanding or relating to the world, rather then it being true or false.- These are statements that can't be proven true or false.

Flew's challenge (The university debate):

He believed that religious language is meaningless, for meaningful statements are ones that can be proven otherwise. So, if a believer is not willing to accept that something can disprove God's existence, then 'God exists' means absolutely nothing.

He believes that 'God exists' isn't meaningful, for a believer will continue to qualify god's existence in the face of any argument. Therefore, they refuse to accept any argument against God's existence so 'God exists' means nothing.- This is a cognitivist view of God.

Hare's response (Blik)

Hare rejects Flew's cognitivist view of religion, he refutes the idea that religious beliefs are assertions that can be proven true or false. Hare believes religious beliefs are non-cognitivist. To explain his point of view, he coins the phrase 'Blik'

A Blik is 'something part of an attitude that someone has towards the world'. For example, vegetarianism is a Blik, for it effects the individuals eating habits and may encourage them to strike against butchers or McDonalds. While Vegetarianism is something that can be proven true or false, it is still meaningful, for it effects the life on the individual.

While some Bliks could be considered cognitivist, such as the belief a school teacher is trying to kill you, they cannot be falsefied, for they are more of an attitude or commitment. So, are non-cognitivist.

Surrounded by people holding cognitivist beliefs, which can be supported by empirical evidence,a 'Blik' holder may seem irrational. While Hare does not discuss whether, to him, religion is irrational, it is meaningful regardless.

Flew did object, claiming that believers may not accepts this. We see that many believers assert religious claims, declaring that ' you must do this, for it is God's will'. Despite this, the very fact that religion impacts the lives of believers, encouraging their actions and daily lives make religious language meaningful.

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Mitchell's response to Flew:

Mithell accepts Flew's cognitivism, believing that something is only meaningful if we allow something to count against it. However, he rejects Flew's claim that an assertion is only meaningful if we are willing to withdraw it as false in light of certain experiences.

He gives the example of a partisan. Someone who joins the resistance of a war meets someone who claims to be the leader of the resistance. The partisan is incredibly impressed and deeply trusts the man. However, despite the mans work for the resistance, he seems to help the enemy in certain cases. Despite this evidence, the Partisan still trusts the man and believe he is on the resistances side.

Now, if the man refused to acknowledge the ambiguous behaviour of the man as evidence against the support of the resistance, then he would be irrational. However, if he accepts the evidence against, he is not obliged to drop his belief. His trust sustains his belief in the man, for we cannot say how much evidence is required for the man to drop his belief.

The same goes for a believer, religious assertions are not ones to be dropped in the face of contrary experience. They involve a commitment, with religious assertions remaining meaningful despite not being able to qualify how much evidence is needed forth to be relinquished, as long as we recognise that evidence can count against them.

Flew, however, responds by using the problem of evil, something, to him, that is insoluble. The only way out, for religious believers, is to qualify what is meant by god.

However, we can objects that thus has become an argument of God's coherency,a s opposed to whether religious claims are meaningful or not.

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Ludwig Wittensein's langarge games:

Wittgenstien noted that both language and games have rules. Much like games, the rules in language dictates it's meaning or form. So, to understand the meaning of language you must understand the rules. He believed that language games are simply the speaking element of a form of life.

There are many forms of life, religious and atheist lives being an example, so religious language can be understood as a part of a religious life. Because religious belief is the commitment to a system. both believer and non-believers are correct on the topic of meaningfulness or whether 'God exists'. This is because, within both society's, the different language games dictate what is meaning full and what is not, what is true and what is false.