Religious Language Flashcards
(45 cards)
1
Q
Describe non-cognitive language
A
- NC makes claims/observations that are to be interpreted as symbols/ethical commands/metaphors
- It is language that serves a function other than expressing factually true claims, as NC cannot be verified/falsified, and it is not intended to be treated as if it can be
2
Q
Describe cognitive language
A
language which makes factual assertions that can be proven true or are true by definition
3
Q
Describe what the Vienna Circle thought about language
A
-Empirical evidence was the key to understanding what is/isn’t meaningful
- Only mathematic, scientific/analytical language is meaningful
4
Q
State the verification principle
A
- AJ Ayer argued that if a statement is neither analytical nor empirically verifiable, then it is meaningless and non-sensical
5
Q
Describe how the verification principle argues that God’s existence cannot be demonstrated to be probable
A
- The teleological argument cannot be accepted as proof because even though it relies on empirical data, otherwise God exists would be synonymous with ‘there is a certain regularity and order in nature’ and religious people have more than this in mind when they assert the existence of od
6
Q
Describe how the verification principle challenges the meaningfulness of religious language
A
- The mystic may claim his mystical experiences come to him via intuition, which despite being a cognitive function in itself, still mean that none of his propositions are empirically verifiable and therefore they are unintelligible. All he is actually doing is expressing a subjective description of his state of mind , which tells us nothing about the existence of a transcendent deity
- Ayer believed that if the VP is indeed the only way to be sure of the things we claim to know, then no metaphysical or ethical proposition has any meaning - ethical propositions are therefore merely only expressions of emotion and have no deeper significance
- Questions like ‘does god exist’ have no inherent meaning therefore are beyond the scope of philosophical enquiry since they aren’t based on analytic propositions
- ## ‘God talk is evidently nonsense’
7
Q
What are the strengths of the verification principle
A
- Straightforward: meaningful statements are either true by definition or else verifiable in principle by sense experience, bracketing out all other questions of emotion
- It is in line with science, demanding that we view the world empirically
- It demands a sense of reality in how we view the world therefore it points out a major issue with religious language in that it often makes religious statements without justifying them
8
Q
What are the weaknesses of the verification principle
A
- the demands are too narrow: it might be straightforward, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is right. it excludes lots of language as meaningless, including ethical/moral/aesthetic statements . Human engagement with the world is as least as important as matters of verifiable fact
- Much of science deals with entities that are not empirically verifiable - eg quarks
- The teleological argument attempts to infer God’s existence from experience of the world. That seems similar to weak verification. We can weakly verify complexity and purpose in the world and use that to verify God’s existence. So, Ayer seems to fail in his attempt to show that religious language is unverifiable and meaningless
9
Q
State the falsification principle
A
Something is factually significant only if there is evidence to falsify it
10
Q
What did Popper say about the falsification principle
A
Scientists make bold hypotheses and then try to find evidence to disprove their claims. Falsification is therefore a constructive approach
- ‘Insofar as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable’
11
Q
Describe what Flew said about the falsification principle
A
- Religious statements are meaningless because there is nothing that can count against them. Believers are so convinced of their faith that they often refuse to accept evidence that god doesn’t exist
- Showed this through the parable of the gardener - one man in an overgrown garden continues to insist there must be a gardener, despite all the evidence suggesting that there isn’t
- Flew argued that religious believers avoid the evidence by saying that ‘god works in mysterious ways’. For believers to claim the god exists, they must be open to evidence that he doesn’t. Flew felt believers weren’t open to this, and consequently religious language is meaningless as it isn’t falsifiable
‘What would have to occur to constitute for you a disproof of the love or existence of god’ - IF nothing is allowed to count against a claim, it means nothing, as anything is consistent with it
- Flew sees religious language as failed attempt to cognitively express meaning
12
Q
Describe the strengths of the falsification principle
A
- Where religion makes important factual claims, Flew seems to show that they are empty, as all evidence against such claims is ignored by believers - it is therefore a good test of rationality
- empirically backed
- If the main criteria of a meaningful assertion is just to know what falsifies it, then believers dont know
13
Q
Weaknesses of the falsification principle
A
- Arguably, religious belief is falsifiable: St Paul claimed that if Jesus did not raise from the dead, your faith is ‘futile’ - this therefore suggests that if there is no evidence to prove Jesus didn’t rise from the dead then christianity could be proven false - Paul’s religious language passes Flew’s test of falsification and therefore could be considered meaningful
- In response to the parable of the gardener: John Frame turns this on its head, imagining a scenario where the gardener is visible and claims to be a royal gardener - but the sceptic refuses to believe this regardless of the evidence - Flew’s approach therefore fails as atheism is also unfalsifiable - atheists believe that there isn’t sufficient evidence to justify belief in god, but they also cannot say what would prove it wrong - eg if Jesus rose from the dead they would call it a hallucination
14
Q
Describe Hick’s responses to the falsification/verification principle
A
- Argues that the concept of god is ‘in principle verifiable’ because it can be eschatologically verified, and therefore all religious statements are cognitive
- Flew = all religious statements are cognitive and vacant
- Ayer = they are subject to eschatological verification
- theists will be right/wrong and we will only know at the end of time
15
Q
Describe Hick’s eschatological verification
A
- Hick agrees with Ayer that ‘god exists’ isn’t verifiable…. in this lifetime.
- Hick argues many religious claims are beyond the limits of human life
- Claims are meaningful because it is possible to verify them when we die
- Parable of the celestial city: - two men are travelling on one road, one believes it leads to a celestial city eventually, the other disagrees and believes it leads nowhere and the journey is meaningless - when they turn the last corner of the road, the first traveller’s claim will either be right/wrong
16
Q
Describe the strengths of Hick’s argument (eschatological verification)
A
- Hick’s claim that the celestial city is a real possibility seems undeniable
‘There is life after death’ must be true/false - His argument seems to show that taken as a whole, christian claims are cognitive/factual because if we do wake up resurrected we’ll know the answer to them
- Hick supports this conclusion further with his argument about ‘experiencing as’ in which he tries to show that interpretation is an essential element of all factual experience.
‘We experience things as something ‘ and by talking about things we are interpreting them
17
Q
Describe the weaknesses of Hick’s argument for eschatological verification
A
- He writes from the perspective of the believer for whom the celestial city will be reached
- From the perspective of the atheist, the possibility of it being verified is so remote as to not be worth considering - if the believer and the non-believer are interpreting the evidence in completely different ways, Hick’s argument is no longer stronger than that of the atheist
- Hick’s argument that religious claims are verifiable eschatologically is not a normal factual claim
18
Q
Describe Hare’s argument that religious language is a blik
A
- A blik is a framework of interpretation - a view of the world that is not an assertion, but rather is non-cognitive and non-falsifiable
- In response to Flew’s challenge , Hare defends religion by arguing that it actually consists of a set of assumptions about the world ( a blik) everyone has a blik and these bliss dominate their world view
- The blik is non-negotiable in a rational debate about evidence because it is beyond it. It is non-cognitive, and a framework for seeing the world
19
Q
Describe how Hare used his parable of the lunatic to explain his theory
A
- Hick’s parable of the lunatic describes a deluded lunatic who thinks all Oxford lecturers are trying to kill him. even when faced with evidence suggesting otherwise, he refuses to accept it
- You can produce all the reason/rational evidence to someone with a blik and they still won’t change their opinionn
20
Q
Describe Flew’s response to Hare
A
- Flew rejected Hare’s view that statements are non-cognitive because believers do not see their statements about God as non-cognitive
- Why would a christian say ‘god cares for his creation’ if he didn’t believe that it was true.
- Unless these are cognitive/factual assertions, they have no cash value therefore are worthless. Most christians really do believe that their assertions are meaningful
21
Q
Describe the strengths of Hare’s argument
A
- It seems simpler to accept Hare’s view that however sincerely a believer makes his assertions about God and the world, all such assertions are expressions of non-cognitive bliks, deeply meaningful to those that have them, but their value is in personal meaning and not in any factual content they might be supposed to have
- Hare’s position explains why people are not convinced by evidence that contradicts their faith
- Hare’s argument that religious people see the world in a particular way seems to be true - this is evident in how religious people see God at work in a variety of ways, such as in nature
22
Q
Describe the weaknesses of Hare
A
- Flew: most believers don’t see their statements as non-cognitive, but rather as cognitive, expressing factual truths about the cosmos. Believers would claim that the statement ‘there is a god’ is not a way of seeing the world, but rather a factual truth
- Hare seems to make an odd claim that Christian beliefs are expressions of non-cognitive bliks whether Christians know it or not
- IF there are no factual truths about christianity, its value is reduced to its phsychological and sociological benefits
23
Q
Describe Wittgenstein’s early picture theory
A
- Language corresponds to a state of affairs in the world
- Language can only be spoken about meaningfully if it used in relation to what we see in the world
- Language is a way of representing facts
24
Q
Describe wittgenstein’s later language games theory
A
- He criticised the Vienna circle, arguing that our language is far richer and more diverse than logical positivism allows . If we want to know the meaning of language, then we need to know how it is being used - the words only make sense when you understand the nature and purpose of the activity
- He saw language as a game, where you knew how to play it once you understood the rules of the game. Language has a different meaning within a particular context, each context being governed by rules in the same way that different games are governed by different rules - the meaning of the statement is therefore not defined by the steps taken to verify it
25
Describe Wittgenstein on religious language
- Religious language is non-cognitive but meaningful
- It is innappropriate to treat religious claims as claims about the world because their meaning is not defined by steps you have to take to verify/falsify it
- The meaningfulness of RL is determined by context therefore to a believer the statement 'god exists' means more than just 'there is a god' - it is a positive affirmation that they are entering a life of faith , confirming their belief in God as a reality in their life
- What is meaningful is what is true for the believer - whether god does/doesnt have external reality doesn't mater . Religious faith is an affirmative decision to 'enter the game' and therefore find meaning in the language that is used accordingly
26
Describe the strengths of Wittgenstein's language games theory
- Avoids the confusion that comes from mistaking what language is trying to do, particularly the mistakes of the VP/FP
- It allows a variety of meaning - artistic, poetic, musical - rather than just expecting all language to conform to an empirical norm
- Wittgenstein recognises the meaning behind a statement of faith to a christian - to a believer, that statement affirms as they are, as HH Price put it, believing 'in' rather than believing 'that' , confirming god as a reality in their lives
27
Describe the weaknesses of Wittgenstein's language games theory
- Wittgenstein's approach discourages debate with secular thinkers
- If We cannot understand RL unless we engage with it and use it according to the rules of the game, this isolates it from external criticism - particularly important when many christians are committed to dialogue with those who do not share their language game
- It assumes that there can be no evidence for metaphysical beliefs - there is a god is the main metaphysical belief of Christian theism and a cognitive factual claim insofar as a creative mind is likely to hypothesise to explain the existence of the universe
28
what did Tillich say about god
- god is 'being itself' rather than a being, it is an experience of life itself, and it is an experience which gives meaning to everything else
- god is our 'ultimate concern' - for the religious believers god demands total commitment and attention, covering all other aspects of life
29
give the four main features of symbols according to tillich
- symbols point to a reality beyond themselves
- they participate in the power to which they point
- they open up levels of reality which otherwise would be closed to us
- at the same time, they open up levels of the soul which correspond to those realities
- a symbol is 'self-transcending' it means something in itself but it also points to a higher/greater reality
30
how do Tillich's ideas about symbols relate to religious language?
- he argued that the only literal statement is that god is 'being-itself'
- god does not exist as a separate being, god is not 'a being' amongst others
- god is the name for what a religious person encounters in a way that is personal and demanding not in anyway detached
- we cannot use literal language to describe 'being-itself' because asking the question 'what is being itself' is not a question about a particular being - rather, it is to examine the question of what it means to exist
- TILLICH was able to take conventional religious language and show the way that it addresses the personal needs/questions of religious people.
- it does not give factual information about the world, or a supernatural realm, but rather it shows the profound, religious significance of the features of this world
31
Give the strengths of Tillich's argument
- He was able to take conventional religious language and show the way that it addresses the personal needs and questions that people have about reality and meaning
- It doesn't give factual information about another realm/ world, but rather shows the profound religious significance of features of this world
- symbolic language relates everyday experiences to religious ideas
- It allows us to make only one literal statement when we speak of god - that god is being itself
- It reflects what is known through religious experience, through which we gain insights into experiences which are central to our lives such as salvation/guilt act
32
Give the weaknesses of Tillich's symbolic language
- Hick criticised Tillich's idea of participating, calling it unclear - he argued that there is little difference between a symbol and a sign, arguing that many things we want to say about god do arise from our conscious mind
- many christians don't view god as merely 'being itself' but rather a separate and transcendent entity who is also the origin of our existence
- Paul Edwards argued that symbols are meaningless because they can't be verified/falsified due to their subjective nature - 'it doesn't convey any facts'
33
What did Aquinas reject about religious language
- rejects univocal and equivocal language
- univocal = it means the same thing each time
equivocal = it means different things in different situations
34
Describe Aquinas' analogical language
- our positive talk is analogical
- we don't speak of god univocally, as words applied to him don't have the same meaning as when they are applied to a person
- we don't speak equivocally because there must be some connection between creature and creation
- God should be thought of analogically, making connections in order to understand his nature
- we cannot know/say what god is, but we can say what he is LIKE
- Analogy of attribution = god is the cause of all good things in humans
- analogy of proportion = all good qualities that belong to god are in proportion to humans
35
why does aquinas reject univocal and equivocal language>
- if we speak univocally we claim god is good in the same way humans are - he rejected this as god is perfect so humans can never be good in the same way god is
- if we speak equivocally, we are claiming god is good in a completely different way to humans - aquinas rejected this use as it would mean that we couldn't claim to know anything about him
36
Give the strengths of aquinas' analogical argument
- literal/univocal language doesn't take into account god's transcendence but tends to reduce him to one thing amongst many
- analogy avoids anthropomorphising god
- easy to understand as it uses human experience to express, and it is therefore cognitive
37
Give weaknesses of analogical argument
- for both analogies they only work ion you have prior knowledge of god - Reason is involved in Aquinas's theory of analogy in figuring out and understanding the analogies of attribution and proportion
38
Describe via negativa***
- Defenders of the apophatic approach to religious language argue that by speaking about god by way of negation is consistent with expressing the transcendent nature of god
- if god is defined by Anselm as something greater than which can be concieved, then it is logically. consistent to argue that god is beyond literal description therefor any descriptions of god must be given in a transcendent format which will help to signal the transcendent nature of god
39
what is the via negativa based on?
- the belief that god is beyond human understanding and description
- 'he' is completely ineffable, which means that we cannot put into words the nature of god
- therefore because we cannot understand god, the only meaningful way to talk about him is by saying what he is not
-
40
how did Pseudo-Dionyius think
- god is beyond our understanding so e cannot possibly talk about what god is
- instead, we can only really talk about what he is NOT
- god is 'beyond every assertion' and can only be described negatively
- if god is beyond all language, then he is beyond all distinctions we can make - god does not exist on any spectrum of meaning we could possibly understand
41
Via Negativa: what idd psuedo-dionysius say about trying to know god
- knowing god by knowing nothing
- trying to understand god is not just pointless, but actually counterproductive because it separates us from god
- accepting the via negativa view helps us break free from our grasping of knowledge for god, causing 'inactivity of all knowledge' which leads one to be 'supremely united to the unknown'
- giving up on trying to understand what god is like actually brings you closer to him
42
give the strengths of the via negativa
- it is true to god's transcendence and otherness, which almost all theologians agree on. this leads to a further strength in helping us understand the bible and its descriptions of god's immanence - we can therefore differentiate between god's transcendence (his actual but unknowable being which can only be described negatively) and his immanence (his actions in the physical world which can only be described positively)
43
give the weaknesses of the via negativa
- God is described positively in the bible: descriptions of god as having a 'face' or 'walking' in the garden of eden, but also passages like 'god is love' or 'god is spirit' therefore to some extent it could be seen to conflict with the positive language of the bible
- the bible therefore doesn't just describe god's actions, but also his nature and personality
44
strength of the via negativa: Maimonides ship argument
- gave the argument of a ship: imagine someone who knows that something called a ship exists but doesn't know what it refers to - with every negative description (eg it is not a sphere) the person is given, they gain knowledge
- 'you will come nearer to the knowledge and comprehension of god by the negative attributes'
45
give Brian Davies criticism of via negativa
- negative language only allows us to gain knowledge of something 'in special cases' where e know exactly what possibilities there are for a thing - eg if you know that someone is not left handed and they are not ambidextrous you can conclude they are right handed
- most cases are not like this
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