1. A guide for the perplexed (who think it is all meaningless)
Religious Language
A guide for the perplexed
(who think it is all meaningless)
And in a bizarre way might be right, even though they don’t know why

2. What’s the problem?
Wittgenstein once said that ‘philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.’
Many philosophers have shared his view that if we could just be clear on what language can and can’t do, we would not end up in philosophical knots
So two views emerge:
Cognitivists: they believe that religious statements are statements that are subject to being true or false (e.g. it is snowing outside).
Non-cognitivists: they believe that religious statements are statements that are not subject to being true or false. (‘Fetch my drink’ ‘ouch’ & ‘hurray!’ are non-cognitive statements.) Some non-cognitivists think religious language is meaningless.

3. Key issue 1: How do we decide what is meaningful?
Deep in Vienna there lived some logical positivists
They devised the verification principle which said...
A statement is meaningful if it can be absolutely verified by the positive sciences

4. Key issue 1 contd. Unfortunately there were problems:
What about history? I wasn’t there when William the Conqueror invaded. Is talk of the event meaningless?
What about universal statements, e.g. ‘all dogs can bark’?

5. Weak verification: Your flexible friend
Not to worry, A.J. Ayer softened this to include ‘verifiable in principle’
This would allow statements such ‘there are mountains on the far side of the moon’, historical and scientific statements
Crucially religion and ethics are still excluded as meaningless

6. Responses to the verification principle
John Hick thinks that the principle does not exclude religious statements, these statements can be verified eschatologically, when we die we can verify God’s existence! They can in theory be proved but crucially can never be disproved.
There is also a major flaw in the verification principle... It cannot itself be verified

7. Falsification
Antony Flew suggests that the problem with religious statements is not one of verification but that they can never be falsified. Religious believers just move the goalposts (nb. Wisdom’s story of the garden)
Hare suggested that religious belief is a ‘blik’. It is an unfalsifiable and unverifiable belief
Mitchell tells the story of the stranger. Religious belief can be falsified in theory but is held because of the context of the relationship between God and the believer
Swinburne’s Toys: statements are meaningful regardless of verification or falsification because we can understand their meaning

8. Key issue 2: What is the nature of religious language?
Three non-cognitive views:
Via negativa: no cognitive statements can be made – language is just inadequate to make literal statements. But we can gain some idea of God through making statements about what God is not
Randall: religious statements are symbolic
Braithwaite: religious statements are disguised ethical statements

9. Religious Language is not just about meaning
Meaning is not the key issue for Wittgenstein. He suggests that we don’t ask for the meaning but instead see how language is used. How a word is used becomes its meaning. (Think about what the word ‘cool’ means.)
We play language games. Statements are meaningful to us but not to those on the outside. Language does not describe God (or reality).
As Wittgenstein said in his early work: ‘Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain silent’

10. More cognitivism
Aquinas regards analogy as a way of making some statements about God
Analogy = partial resemblance between things
Words applied to God have a similar meaning to words when applied to humans
Symbol = something that represents another thing
Tillich thinks that language is symbolic and we do gain information through religious symbols

11. Myths… not female moths
Bultmann: myth is ‘The use of imagery to express the otherworldly in the terms of this world, and the divine in terms of human life, the other side in terms of this side.’
It is a religious story that conveys theological truth or argument without claiming to be literally or historically true. Because it conveys philosophical or theological truth, it cannot be called untrue
Genesis 1–2 is a classic example, various themes are presented: creation, place of man, stewardship, origin of evil and all within a seven day week with a Sabbath