The Verification Principle To know what logical positivism is To understand what logical positivism suggests about religious language To evaluate what logical positivism means for religious language

How might you test to see if a statement is true? Starter How might you test to see if a statement is true?

Task: Take a look at the following statements: “I am the true vine” “I am the bread of life” “I am the way, the truth and the life” “I am the resurrection and the life” “I am the good shepherd” “I am the gateway” “I am the light of the world” These are all statements recorded in the Gospel of John that Jesus made about himself. What Islamic statements can you think of that help you understand the Prophet Muhammad and Allah better? Q. Are any of these useful in picturing the person and work of Christ? Are any of these helpful to our understanding of Christian theology? Are any of them meaningful?

All powerful The illuminating lamp Most high The Messenger The Seal of the Prophets

The key role of ‘Religious Language’ is God-talk, that is, being able to talk about God in a meaningful and coherent manner. The problem arises when we consider ‘what can be said about God?’ The religious language debate is not concerned with whether or not God exists, or what God is like or why there is evil in the world. It is solely concerned with working out whether or not religious language means anything. On the one side of the debate, you have the centuries old tradition of religious believers who believe that you can speak and write about God, because God is a reality. On the other side, are the Logical Positivists and those that they influenced who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. Some philosophers have argued that religious statements, such as ‘God exists’, ‘God is love’ and so on are neither true nor false, but meaningless. There is no point, according to some thinkers, of even raising these questions, because there is nothing to talk about. Philosophical discussion about meaning often identifies two different ways in which a word or phrase might mean something.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), one of the most remarkable philosophers of the twentieth century, raised the whole question of the meaning of language, and inspired debates across the world: people were asking what the necessary conditions for something to have any meaning at all might be, and how it is conveyed from one person to another in short they were discussing ‘the meaning of meaning’ Wittgenstein was a strong influence on the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers led by the writer Moritz Schlick who met throughout the 1920’s & 30’s. They followed the thinking of August Comte (1798-1857) and held the belief that theological interpretations of events and experiences belonged in the past, to an unenlightened age when ‘God’ was used as an explanation for anything that science had not yet completely mastered. Leaving God as ‘the god of the gaps’. They believed that any discussion about anything that could not logically (by use of the senses) be proven (verified)to be true (positive) was meaningless. Thus, Logical Positivism.

Discuss the following statements: Mr Whitlock’s car is black. There is a small hobbit sat under my desk that becomes invisible when anyone looks at it, can move quicker than any human who tries to touch it and never makes a sound. All humans are mortal. There is life on other planets. it is currently snowing at the South Pole. What do these statements suggest about how a statement can be verified? Cognitive (Realist) Language: Factual statements Proved true or false via empirical evidence Non-Cognitive (Anti-Realist) Language: Cannot be verified but nor can they be falsified Context dependant and can include symbols, myths, metaphors etc.

Analytic Statements True by definition (tautology) and cannot be false a priori statements which are true because the wording of the statement verifies its truth e.g. ‘The widow was once married’, ‘the circle is round’. Mathematical Statements 5 + 5 does add up to 10, if it adds up to 9 then a simple recalculation would solve the issue. AJ Ayer suggested such incorrect statements were the product of human error and not an error of the facts. Synthetic Statements a posteriori statements which can be verifiable or falsified through empirical evidence e.g. ‘It is currently snowing at the South Pole’. These statements are considered meaningful as they can, in theory, hold verifiable or falsifiable truths. Which of these statements would be meaningful: Dogs bark Swans are green There is life on other planets Ice cream is cold I love my wife

The verification principle: if a statement is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, it says nothing about reality and is therefore meaningless. The Vienna Circle concluded that religious statements were meaningless, on the basis that they do not satisfy any of these criteria, because religious language claims are subjective and cannot therefore be empirically tested and verified In Language, Truth and Logic (Penguin, 1936), A J Ayer observed that, since the existence of God cannot be rationally demonstrated, it is not even probable, since the term ‘god’ is a metaphysical term referring to a transcendent being which cannot therefore have any literal significance. Question: What is meant by ‘probable’? As such, Ayer observed that the same had therefore to be the case for atheistic and agnostic statements, since any statement which includes the term ‘god’ is meaningless. Ayer argued that, since claims about God’s existence cannot be contradicted, they are not ‘significant propositions’ – they are neither true nor false, but cannot be valid. ‘The notion of a being whose essential attributes are non-empirical is not an intelligible notion at all’.