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Flashcards in Religious Language Deck (37)
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1
Q

what are the inherent problems of religious language ?

A
  • all language is based on experience
  • for language to be meaningful it must relate to whats being told e.g to discuss what it mean for water to be wet its necessary for us to have experienced water and to understand what wet means
  • most of our language is about the physical world but metaphysical are harder to discuss as some reject this language as its not objective

Hume said statements about reality must be verified with evidence, since our language comes from the physical world it can seem limited when we talk about things beyond the physical world, the same applies to rligious langauge

2
Q

traditional conceptions of God?

A
  • timeless and infinite but these concepts are hard to verify as have no presence in the physical world
3
Q

what are challenges to sacred texts + pronouncements as unintelligible ?

A
  • we can describe places of worship and things a worshipper may do because this language deals with observable empirical words

when we suddenly talk of eschatological concepts language may not longer be understandable

therefor religious accounts and texts can be meaningless to outsiders

4
Q

challenge that rel language isnt a common hared base and experience ?

A
  • for language to be purposeful it must be something that can be agreed upon and if not empirically verifiable then its meaningless= some philosophers to believe religious language as inherently problematic e.g when talking about traditional conceptions of God there is no universal understanding like in the physical world so it cant be verified
5
Q

what is cognitive language ?

A
  • factual statements that can be prove true of false by empirical evidence
6
Q

non cognitive language ?

A
  • statements that cant be proven true or false, language not empirically verifiable, often includes feelings, this is often used in religious language as its language that makes claims about the believers attitude towards the world
7
Q

what is logical positivism ?

A
  • philosophical movement that cam out of the group of philosophers knows as the the Vienna circle including Witgenstein
  • main principle of logical positivism was that only those propositions that can be verified empirically have meaning and what remains are tortological statements (self eplanatory statemnets) that can be verified
8
Q

what is the verification principle ?

A
  • theory developed by logical positivists

- judgements lying outside empirical evidence and logical reasoning are meaningless

9
Q

what did Aj Ayer say ?

A
  • he spread logical positivism
  • said empirical methods have to be used to assess whether a proposition is verifiable
  • claimed metaphysics was essentially meaningless
  • religious statements are meaningless as they cant be empirically verified
  • lead to rejection of any statements of abstract thought
10
Q

What was Ayers later realisation ?

A

there are certain statements that cannot be immediately verified which we still consider to be meaningful
e.g no observation now could verify ‘Lord Nelson won the battle of Trafalgar’ but most poeple argue this is a meaningful statement
and ‘all water boils at 100DC’ but this isnt possible to boil water in all conditions

11
Q

After Ayers realisation what distinction did he make ?

A

verifiable in practise (statements that can be verified by some observation or experiment that can be carried out today)

verifiable in principle (we know what it would take to verify it e.g historical statements could only be verified if you had been present at the time)

12
Q

why does Ayers 2 distinctions not allow for religious statements to be meaningful ?

A

we don’t know what it would take to verify it ??????

bit confusing this one, i shagged Ruby again, soz man

13
Q

strong verification ?

A
  • occurs when there is no doubt a statements is true as we can verify it using sense experience e.g Mary has red chair
14
Q

weak verification ?

A
  • scientific claims about the future are accepted as meaningful such as claims about the future which can be later verified
15
Q

falsification ?

A

states for something to be meaningful there has to be evidence that could empirically refute it
, if this is possible then it means what is being spoken about has an empirical basis, propsed by karl Popper
- this means the statement ‘God exists’ is meaningless as there is no way to disprove it

16
Q

what is and who developed the falsification principle?

and talk of parable of the gardener

A

Anthony Flew
- non falsifiable statements are meaningless
- e.g John Wisdoms parable of the gardener
believer is convinced ‘‘someone must be tending to this garden’’
sceptic says there is no gardener

the believer remained certain that there was a gardener despite the evidence the sceptic offered for there not being one

Flew used this to describe how religious believers refuse to let any evidence to count against their belief

17
Q

criticism of verification ?

A
  • john hick said the christian god is verifiable in principle e.g parable of the celestial City where two men are travelling along a road, 1 believes it leads to celestial city and one says its just a walk leading nowhere = eschatological verification
  • the verification principle itself cant be verified
18
Q

criticism of verification ?

A

concept of meaningless comes from the belief of the individual

  • bliks have the power to radically effect behaviour
  • parable of the university dons- paranoid student who believes all dons want to hurt him, no matter how many of his friends tell him this isn’t true he still maintains the delusion
  • applied this to flew, as student wont accept any evidence against his view
  • therefore students blik is still meaningful because of the impact its had on his life
19
Q

what did Basil mitchell say ?

A
  • said flew misunderstood rel believers perspective when said they allow nothing to count against their beliefs
  • said believers do allow evidence to count against their beliefs and believers are frequently face with challenges but part of their belief is to have faith against all doubt e,g Partisan and the stranger
20
Q

what Did Richard Swinburne say about verification ?

A
  • there are many instances where human languages were used in ways accepted as meaningful but not empirically verifiable e.g toy in the cupboard coming to life has maeaning to those who heard it
21
Q

St Thomas Aquinas on non- cognitive and analogical language ?

A

said is summa theologica, ‘we cannot know what God is but rather what God is not’

univocal language (a universal meaning regardless of context)
- e.g carpet means same thing in different contexts 

equivocal language
- when the same term has more than one meaning or different meaning all together e.g bat

Aquinas rejected both types of language
- said we don’t speak of God univocally as when words are applied to God they don’t have the same meaning as when applied to a person as God is different to all humans

also argued we don’t speak equivocal language as we cant have

22
Q

what does Aquinas say about analogy ?

A

analogy = a comparison in which the idea or thing is compared to another thing that is quite different do it so explains the idea by comparing it to something that is similar to it e.g Paleys watch analogy in teleological argument

  • analogies enable us to gain insight into what is being talked about
  • Aquinas believes using analogy to speak about Gpd is possible since there is a link between humans and God ‘let us make mankind in our image’
23
Q

what is analogy of proportion ?

A

Aquinas considered universe was inhabited by different order of things

  • these were hierarchical in the sense of status
  • e.g Gods above humans and humans are above animals
  • each order possesses particular characteristics which are appropriate to itself but the same adjective may be applied to another order
    e. g saying a human and a fox are intelligent, although they refer to ability, intuition and judgement we do not understand the word to mean the exact same thing, the words are used appropriately according to their status
  • for Aquinas its therefore possible to talk analogically about God by making reference to some human qualities, we can therefore understand what it is were talking about
24
Q

analogy of attribution ? check with ellen

A

attribute = characteristic of feature that something possesses

  • humans can be described through attributes ‘good’
25
Q

what did Ian Ramsey do ?

A
  • developed Aquinas’ theory through models + qualities

a model is an analogy to help express something about God e.g if we say ‘God is good’ the model is the word ‘good’, we have a human understanding of good and when applied to God it helps us understand him

when a believer uses a word such as father or shepeard we know what these models do and therefore can apply them to God.

Ramsey said these words can be used to describe God if we use qualifiers to make these words greater than their normal reality an example of such qualifiers may be ‘almighty’= almighty father

26
Q

religious language as symbolic ? what is a symbol and why is landy retarded, and give and example of a symbol

A

something that pints towards something beyond itself at a deeper reality e.g the cross pointing towards jesus’s death on the cross and swastika

27
Q

what did Paul Tillich do ?

A
  • expressed power of symbols in non-religious way by looking at national flags
  • flags convey feelings and nationalism and national identity
  • said signs deal with facts whereas symbols deal with deeper meaning
  • Tillich identifies 6 characteristics that make symbols the only way we can talk about God
  • said symbols are vitally important in many religions
28
Q

what did randell say bitch ?

A
  • like Tillich recognised the power of symbolism , both religiously and non-religiously
29
Q

what is a symbol?

A

something that provokes an emotional response to the people who use it or see it, Randell makes a distinction between symbols used in science and those used in religion

30
Q

scientific symbols ?

A

cognitive symbols, provide factual knowledge about the empirical world around us = v different to religious symbols

31
Q

religious/ artistic symbols

A

non-cognitive therefore their function is to produce an a emotional response beyond any empiracle knowledge they illustrate e.g Star of David is worn by landi because hes as stinky Jew, its a symbol of unity, they don’t posses any empirical truth, coherence theory of truth- it has truth for the people in the group e.g ontological argument, they provide a non- cognitve revelation of truth

32
Q

are religious symbols useful ?

A

Randell explained three uses of them

motivators-
communication- express the power of God
reveal- something about the world

33
Q

challenges to symbols ?

A

randell says they are inherently non-cognitive so doesnt provide info about empirically knowable

  • loigical positivists and vienna curcle therefore disagree
  • edwards criticised Tliichs work as philosophical confusion
  • Tillich says u cant express anything about God in literall terms
  • symbols change over time, chanign symbol changed the association e.g ichthus was originally used in pre christian times as a fertility symbol but later used by Christians as a safe place for meeting
34
Q

how can randell and Tillichs views be used to develop and understand religious teachings

A
  • useful in considering the mysteries of the soul
  • if understood properly they can provide deep insight
  • meaningless as non-cognitive
  • some find it offensive to say symbols can convey religious teachings as religious teachings depict reality as it really is
35
Q

what is mythical language ?

A
  • falsehood story with a fantastical element

- depicts meaning in religions through symbolism and picture, to analyse them emprically rejects their meaning

36
Q

what are the value of myths ?

A

exist in all human cultures and since they commonly occur they must have meaning

37
Q

understanding myths

A

mythical language is symbolic and metaphorical

  • many religions use myth to provide a means for expressing fundamental religious truths
  • cant find literal meaning in myths
  • they help make sense of reality