The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe God, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories of religious language either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless, or attempt to show how religious language can still be meaningful.
Traditionally, religious language has been explained as
via negativa, analogy, symbolism, or myth, each of which describes a way of talking about God in human terms. The ''via negativa'' is a way of referring to God according to what God is not; analogy uses human qualities as standards against which to compare divine qualities; symbolism is used non-literally to describe otherwise
ineffable
Ineffability is the quality of something that surpasses the capacity of language to express it, often being in the form of a taboo or incomprehensible term. This property is commonly associated with philosophy, aspects of existence, and similar ...
experiences; and a mythological interpretation of religion attempts to reveal fundamental truths behind religious stories. Alternative explanations of religious language cast it as having political, performative, or imperative functions.
Empiricist
David Hume's requirement that claims about reality must be verified by evidence influenced the
logical positivist
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...
movement, particularly the philosopher
A. J. Ayer
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer (; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989), usually cited as A. J. Ayer, was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books '' Language, Truth, and Logic'' (1936) ...
. The movement proposed that, for a statement to hold meaning, it must be possible to verify its truthfulness empirically – with evidence from the senses. Consequently, the logical positivists argued that religious language must be meaningless because the propositions it makes are impossible to verify. Austrian philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
has been regarded as a logical positivist by some academics because he distinguished between things that can and cannot be spoken about; others have argued that he could not have been a logical positivist because he emphasised the importance of mysticism. British philosopher
Antony Flew
Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught a ...
proposed a similar challenge based on the principle that, in so far as assertions of religious belief cannot be empirically falsified, religious statements are rendered meaningless.
The analogy of
games – most commonly associated with
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
– has been proposed as a way of establishing meaning in religious language. The theory asserts that language must be understood in terms of a game: just as each game has its own rules determining what can and cannot be done, so each context of language has its own rules determining what is and is not meaningful. Religion is classified as a possible and legitimate language game which is meaningful within its own context. Various parables have also been proposed to solve the problem of meaning in religious language.
R. M. Hare used his parable of a lunatic to introduce the concept of "bliks" – unfalsifiable
belief
A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...
s according to which a worldview is established – which are not necessarily meaningless.
Basil Mitchell used a parable to show that faith can be logical, even if it seems unverifiable.
John Hick
John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the area ...
used his parable of the Celestial City to propose his theory of
eschatological verification, the view that if there is an afterlife, then religious statements will be verifiable after death.
Problem of religious language
Religious language is a philosophical problem arising from the difficulties in accurately describing God. Because God is generally conceived as incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, ordinary language cannot always apply to that entity. This makes speaking about or attributing properties to God difficult: a religious believer might simultaneously wish to describe God as good, yet also hold that God's goodness is unique and cannot be articulated by human language of goodness. This raises the problem of how (and whether) God can be meaningfully spoken about at all, which causes problems for religious belief since the ability to describe and talk about God is important in religious life. The French philosopher
Simone Weil
Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995.
...
expressed this problem in her work ''Waiting for God'', in which she outlined her dilemma: she was simultaneously certain of God's love and conscious that she could not adequately describe him.
The medieval doctrine of
divine simplicity
In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is simple (without parts). The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, trut ...
also poses problems for religious language. This suggests that God has no
accidental properties – these are properties that a being can have which do not contribute to its essence. If God has no accidental properties, he cannot be as he is traditionally conceived, because properties such as goodness are accidental. If divine simplicity is accepted, then to describe God as good would entail that goodness and God have the same definition. Such limits can also be problematic to religious believers; for example, the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
regularly ascribes different emotions to God, ascriptions which would be implausible according to the doctrine of divine simplicity.
The theologian
Sallie McFague
Sallie McFague (May 25, 1933 – November 15, 2019) was an American feminist Christian theologian, best known for her analysis of how metaphor lies at the heart of how Christians may speak about God. She applied this approach, in particular, to ...
believes that the more recent problem of religious language is based on individual experience, owing to the increased
secularisation
In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...
of society. She notes that human experience is of this world rather than regular encounters with the divine, which makes the experience of God uncommon and potentially unnecessary. Because of this, she argues, religious language is both
idolatrous
Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the A ...
because it fails to express sufficient awe of God, and irrelevant because without adequate words it becomes meaningless.
Classical understanding of religious language
Via negativa
Jewish philosopher Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...
believed that God can only be ascribed negative attributes, a view based on two fundamental Jewish beliefs: that the existence of God must be accepted, and that it is forbidden to describe God. Maimonides believed that God is
simple
Simple or SIMPLE may refer to:
*Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple
Arts and entertainment
* ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track
* "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018
* "Simple", a song by Johnn ...
and so cannot be ascribed any essential attributes. He therefore argued that statements about God must be taken negatively, for example, "God lives" should be taken as "God does not lack vitality". Maimonides did not believe that God holds all of his attributes perfectly and without impairment; rather, he proposed that God lies outside of any human measures. To say that God is powerful, for example, would mean that God's power is beyond worldly power, and incomparable to any other power. In doing so, Maimonides attempted to illustrate God's indescribable nature and draw attention to the linguistic limits of describing God.
Critics maintain that such kind of solution severely limits the degree to which what can be spoken about God.
Analogy and metaphor
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
argued that statements about God are analogous to human experience because of the causal relationship between God and creatures. An analogous term is partly
univocal (has only one meaning) and partly
equivocal
Equivocal is the grammatical quality of ambiguity due to a term's having multiple meanings. It is the latin translation of the greek adjective "homonym
In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling ...
(has more than one potential meaning) because an analogy is in some ways the same and in some ways different from the subject. He proposed that those godly qualities which resemble human qualities are described analogously, with reference to human terms; for example, when God is described as good, it does not mean that God is good in human terms, but that human goodness is used as a reference to describe God's goodness.
Philosopher
Taede Smedes argued that religious language is symbolic. Denying any conflict between science and religion, he proposes that 'to believe' means to accept a conviction (that God exists, in the context of Christianity), which is different from 'knowing', which only occurs once something is proven. Thus, according to Smedes, we believe things that we do not know for sure. Smedes argues that, rather than being part of the world, God is so far beyond the world that there can be no common standard to which both God and the world can be compared. He argues that people can still believe in God, even though he cannot be compared to anything in the world, because belief in God is just an alternative way of viewing that world (he likens this to two people viewing a painting differently). Smedes claims that there should be no reason to look for a meaning behind our metaphors and symbols of God because the metaphors are all we have of God. He suggests that we can only talk of God ''pro nobis'' (for us) and not ''in se'' (as such) or ''sine nobis'' (without us). The point, he argues, is not that our concept of God should correspond with reality, but that we can only conceive of God through metaphors.
In the twentieth century,
Ian Ramsey
Ian Thomas Ramsey (31 January 1915 – 6 October 1972) was a British Anglican bishop and academic. He was Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Oxford, and Bishop of Durham from 1966 until his death in 1972. He wrote e ...
developed the theory of analogy, a development later cited in numerous works by
Alister McGrath
Alister Edgar McGrath (; born 1953) is a Northern Irish theologian, Anglican priest, intellectual historian, scientist, Christian apologist, and public intellectual. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion i ...
. He argued that various models of God are provided in religious writings that interact with each other: a range of analogies for salvation and the nature of God. Ramsey proposed that the models used modify and qualify each other, defining the limits of other analogies. As a result, no one analogy on its own is sufficient, but the combination of every analogy presented in Scripture gives a full and consistent depiction of God. The use of other analogies may then be used to determine if any one model of God is abused or improperly applied.
It is proposed that analogy is also present in everyday discourses. For example, when a speaker uses the word ''square'', the speakers may well use it to refer to an object that is ''approximately'' square rather than a genuine square.
Critics contend that metaphor theories are unsatisfactory because metaphors are always in principle susceptible to literal paraphrase.
Symbolism
![Sri Guru Granth Sahib Nishan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Sri_Guru_Granth_Sahib_Nishan.jpg)
Philosopher
Paul Tillich argued that religious faith is best expressed through symbolism because a symbol points to a meaning beyond itself and best expresses transcendent religious beliefs. He believed that any statement about God is symbolic and participates in the meaning of a concept. Tillich used the example of a national flag to illustrate his point: a flag points to something beyond itself, the country it represents, but also participates in the meaning of the country. He believed that symbols could unite a religious believer with a deeper dimension of himself as well as with a greater reality. Tillich believed that symbols must emerge from an individual collective unconsciousness, and can only function when they are accepted by the unconscious. He believed that symbols cannot be invented, but live and die at the appropriate times.
Louis Dupré differentiates between signs and symbols, proposing that a sign points to something while a symbol represents it. A symbol holds its own meaning: rather than merely pointing someone towards another object, it takes the place of and represents that object. He believes that a symbol has some ambiguity which does not exist with a sign. Dupré believes that a symbol may deserve respect because it contains what is signified within itself. A symbol reveals a reality beyond what is already perceived and transforms the ways the current reality is perceived. Dupré differentiates between religious and
aesthetic symbols, suggesting that a religious symbol points towards something which "remains forever beyond our reach". He proposed that a religious symbol does not reveal the nature of what it signifies, but conceals it.
Langdon Brown Gilkey
Langdon Brown Gilkey (February 9, 1919 – November 19, 2004) was an American Protestant ecumenical theologian.
Early life and education
A grandson of Clarence Talmadge Brown, the first Protestant minister to gather a congregation in Salt ...
explained religious language and experience in terms of symbolism, identifying three characteristic features of religious symbolism which distinguish it from other language use. Firstly, religious symbolism has a double focus, referring both to something empirical and to something transcendent; Gilkey argued that the empirical manifestation points towards the transcendent being. Secondly, he believed that religious symbolism concerns fundamental questions of life, involving issues important to an individual or community. Finally, he argued that religious symbols provide standards by which life should be lived.
In the
Sikh religious text the
Guru Granth Sahib
The Guru Granth Sahib ( pa, ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ, ) is the central holy religious scripture of Sikhism, regarded by Sikhs as the final, sovereign and Guru Maneyo Granth, eternal Guru following the lineage of the Sikh gur ...
, religious language is used symbolically and metaphorically. In the text, Sikh Gurus repeat that the
experiences
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...
they have while
meditating
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm ...
are
ineffable
Ineffability is the quality of something that surpasses the capacity of language to express it, often being in the form of a taboo or incomprehensible term. This property is commonly associated with philosophy, aspects of existence, and similar ...
, incognizable, incomprehensible, and transensuous – this means that there is no object of their experience that can be conceptualised. To overcome this, the Sikh Gurus used symbolic and metaphorical language, assuming that there is a resemblance between the mystical experience of the divine (the sabad) and those experiencing it. For example, light is used to refer to the spiritual reality.
Myth
William Paden argued that religious language uses myth to present truths through stories. He argued that to those who practice a religion, myths are not mere fiction, but provide religious truths. Paden believed that a myth must explain something in the world with reference to a sacred being or force, and dismissed any myths which did not as "
folktale
A folktale or folk tale is a folklore genre that typically consists of a story passed down from generation to generation orally.
Folktale may also refer to:
Categories of stories
* Folkloric tale from oral tradition
* Fable (written form of the a ...
s". Using the example of
creation myths, he differentiated myths from scientific hypotheses, the latter of which can be scientifically verified and do not reveal a greater truth; a myth cannot be analysed in the same way as a scientific theory.
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
theologian
Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (; 20 August 1884 – 30 July 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent criti ...
proposed that the Bible contains
existential
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
content which is expressed through mythology; Bultmann sought to find the existential truths behind the veil of mythology, a task known as 'demythologising'. Bultmann distinguished between informative language and language with personal import, the latter of which commands obedience. He believed that God interacts with humans as the divine Word, perceiving a linguistic character inherent in God, which seeks to provide humans with self-understanding. Bultmann believed that the cultural embeddedness of the Bible could be overcome by demythologising the Bible, a process which he believed would allow readers to better encounter the word of God.
Christian philosopher John Hick believed that the language of the Bible should be demythologised to be compatible with
naturalism. He offered a demythologised
Christology
In Christianity, Christology (from the Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, -λογία, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Christ", is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Differ ...
, arguing that Jesus was not God incarnate, but a man with incredible experience of divine reality. To Hick, calling Jesus the
Son of God was a metaphor used by Jesus' followers to describe their commitment to what Jesus represented. Hick believed that demythologising the
incarnation
Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...
would make sense of the variety of world religions and give them equal validity as ways to encounter God.
Alternative explanations of religious language
Political
Islamic philosopher
Carl Ernst has argued that religious language is often political, especially in the public sphere, and that its purpose is to persuade people and establish authority, as well as convey information. He explains that the modern criticisms of the West made by some sections of Islam are an ideological reaction to colonialism, which intentionally uses the same language as colonialists. Ernst argues that when it is used rhetorically, religious language cannot be taken at face value because of its political implications.
Performative
Peter Donovan argues that most religious language is not about making truth-claims; instead, it is used to achieve certain goals. He notes that language can be used in alternative ways beyond making statements of fact, such as expressing feelings or asking questions. Donovan calls many of these uses ''performative'', as they serve to perform a certain function within religious life. For example, the words "I promise" perform the action of promising themselves – Donovan argues that most religious language fulfils this function. Ludwig Wittgenstein also proposed that language could be performative and presented a list of the different uses of language. Wittgenstein argued that "the meaning of the language is in the use", taking the use of language to be performative. The philosopher
J. L. Austin
John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
Austin pointed out that we u ...
argued that religious language is not just cognitive but can perform social acts, including vows, blessings, and the naming of children. He distinguished performative statements as those that do not simply describe a state of affairs, but bring them about. Historian of religion Benjamin Ray uses the performance of rituals within religions as evidence for a performative interpretation of language. He argues that the language of rituals can perform social tasks: when a priest announces that a spiritual event has occurred, those present believe it because of the spiritual authority of the priest. He believed that the meaning of a ritual is defined by the language used by the speaker, who is defined culturally as a superhuman agent.
Imperative
British philosopher
R. B. Braithwaite attempted to approach religious language
empirically
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
and adopted Wittgenstein's idea of "meaning as use". He likened religious statements to moral statements because they are both non-descriptive yet still have a use and a meaning; they do not describe the world, but the believer's attitudes towards it. Braithwaite believed that the main difference between a religious and a moral statement was that religious statements are part of a linguistic system of stories, metaphors, and
parables.
Professor
Nathan Katz writes of the analogy of a burning building, used by the
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
in the
Lotus Sutra
The ''Lotus Sūtra'' ( zh, 妙法蓮華經; sa, सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्रम्, translit=Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram, lit=Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma, italic=) is one of the most influ ...
, which casts religious language as imperative. In the analogy, a father sees his children at the top of a burning building. He persuades them to leave, but only by promising them toys if they leave. Katz argues that the message of the parable is not that the Buddha has been telling lies; rather, he believes that the Buddha was illustrating the imperative use of language. Katz believes that religious language is an imperative and an invitation, rather than a truth-claim.
Challenges to religious language
David Hume
In the conclusion of his ''
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'', Scottish philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
argued that statements that make claims about reality must be verified by experience, and dismissed those that cannot be verified as meaningless. Hume regarded most religious language as unverifiable by experiment and so dismissed it.
Hume criticised the view that we cannot speak about God, and proposed that this view is no different from the skeptical view that God cannot be spoken about. He was unconvinced by Aquinas' theory of analogy and argued that God's attributes must be completely different from human attributes, making comparisons between the two impossible. Hume's scepticism influenced the logical positivist movement of the twentieth century.
Logical positivism
The
logical positivism movement originated in the
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...
and was continued by British philosopher
A. J. Ayer
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer (; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989), usually cited as A. J. Ayer, was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books '' Language, Truth, and Logic'' (1936) ...
. The Vienna Circle adopted the
distinction between analytic and synthetic statements: analytic statements are those whose meaning is contained within the words themselves, such as definitions, tautologies or mathematical statements, while synthetic statements make claims about reality. To determine whether a synthetic statement is meaningful, the Vienna Circle developed a
verifiability theory of meaning
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cogniti ...
, which proposed that for a synthetic statement to have cognitive meaning, its truthfulness must be empirically verifiable. Because claims about God cannot be empirically verified, the logical positivists argued that religious propositions are meaningless.
In 1936, Ayer wrote ''
Language, Truth and Logic
''Language, Truth and Logic'' is a 1936 book about meaning by the philosopher Alfred Jules Ayer, in which the author defines, explains, and argues for the verification principle of logical positivism, sometimes referred to as the ''criterion of ...
'', in which he claimed that religious language is meaningless. He put forward a strong empirical position, arguing that all knowledge must either come from observations of the world or be
necessarily true, like mathematical statements. In doing so, he rejected
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, which considers the reality of a world beyond the natural world and science. Because it is based on metaphysics and is therefore unverifiable, Ayer denounced religious language, as well as statements about ethics or aesthetics, as meaningless. Ayer challenged the meaningfulness of all statements about God – theistic, atheistic and agnostic – arguing that they are all equally meaningless because they all discuss the existence of a metaphysical, unverifiable being.
Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein finished his ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...
'' with the proposition that "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Beverly and Brian Clack have suggested that because of this statement, Wittgenstein was taken for a positivist by many of his disciples because he made a distinction between what can and cannot be spoken about. They argue that this interpretation is inaccurate because Wittgenstein held the ''mystical'', which cannot be described, as important. Rather than dismissing the mystical as meaningless, as the logical positivists did, Wittgenstein believed that while the facts of the world remain the same, the perspective from which they are viewed will vary.
Falsification
The falsification principle has been developed as an alternative theory by which it may be possible to distinguish between those religious statements that may potentially have meaning, and those that are meaningless. It proposes that most religious language is
unfalsifiable
Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the Philosophy of science, philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as t ...
because there is no way that it could be empirically proven false. In a landmark paper published in 1945,
analytic philosopher
Antony Flew
Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught a ...
argued that a meaningful statement must simultaneously assert and deny a state of affairs; for example, the statement "God loves us" both asserts that God loves us and denies that God does not love us. Flew maintained that if a religious believer could not say what circumstances would have to exist for their statements about God to be false, then they are unfalsifiable and meaningless.
Using
John Wisdom
Arthur John Terence Dibben Wisdom (12 September 1904, in Leyton, Essex – 9 December 1993, in Cambridge), usually cited as John Wisdom, was a leading British philosopher considered to be an ordinary language philosopher, a philosopher of mind ...
's
parable of the invisible gardener
The Parable of the Invisible Gardener is a tale originally told by John Wisdom. It was later developed in the university debate by Antony Flew, who made several important alterations such as changing the gardeners to explorers and making the origin ...
, Flew attempted to demonstrate that religious language is unfalsifiable. The parable tells the story of two people who discover a garden on a deserted island; one believes it is tended to by a gardener, the other believes that it formed naturally, without the existence of a gardener. The two watch out for the gardener but never find him; the non-believer consequently maintains that there is no gardener, whereas the believer rationalises the non-appearance by suggesting that the gardener is invisible and cannot be detected. Flew contended that if the believer's interpretation is accepted, nothing is left of the original gardener. He argued that religious believers tend to adopt counterpart rationalisations in response to any apparent challenge to their beliefs from empirical evidence; and these beliefs consequently suffer a "death by a thousand qualifications" as they are qualified and modified so much that they end up asserting nothing meaningful. Flew applied his principles to religious claims such as God's love for humans, arguing that if they are meaningful assertions they would deny a certain state of affairs. He argued that when faced with evidence against the existence of a loving God, such as the terminal illness of a child, theists will qualify their claims to allow for such evidence; for example they may suggest that God's love is different from human love. Such qualifications, Flew argued, make the original proposition meaningless; he questioned what God's love actually promises and what it guarantees against, and proposed that God's qualified love promises nothing and becomes worthless.
Flew continued in many subsequent publications to maintain the falsifiability criterion for meaning; but in later life retracted the specific assertion in his 1945 paper that all religious language is unfalsifiable, and so meaningless. Drawing specifically on the emerging science of
molecular genetics
Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...
(which had not existed at the time of his original paper), Flew eventually became convinced that the complexity this revealed in the mechanisms of biological reproduction might not be consistent with the time known to have been available for evolution on Earth to have happened; and that this potentially suggested a valid empirical test by which the assertion "that there is no creator God" might be falsified; "the latest work I have seen shows that the present physical universe gives too little time for these theories of
abiogenesis
In biology, abiogenesis (from a- 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothes ...
to get the job done."
Analogies of games
The analogy of a game was first proposed by
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 ''magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics.
Life
Family ...
in an attempt to demonstrate the
epistemic unity of language. He suggested that language is like a game which everyone participates in and is played by a greater being. Gadamer believed that language makes up the fundamental structure of reality and that human language participates in a greater language;
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
teaches this to be the
divine word which created the world and was incarnate in Jesus Christ.
Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed a calculus theory of language, which maintained that all language should be analysable in a uniform way. Later in his life he rejected this theory, and instead proposed an alternative
language-game
A language-game (german: Sprachspiel) is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence h ...
analogy. He likened the differences in languages to the differences in games, arguing that just as there are many different games, each with different rules, so there are many different kinds of language. Wittgenstein argued that different forms of language have different rules which determine what makes a proposition meaningful; outside of its language-game, a proposition is meaningless. He believed that the meaning of a proposition depends on its context and the rules of that context. Wittgenstein presented a language game as a situation in which certain kinds of language are used. He provided some examples of language games: "Asking, thanking, greeting, cursing, praying".
Wittgenstein believed that religion is significant because it offers a particular way of life, rather than confirming the existence of God. He therefore believed that religious language is confessional – a confession of what someone feels and believes – rather than consisting of claims to truth. Wittgenstein believed that religious language is different from language used to describe physical objects because it occupies a different language game.
Dewi Zephaniah Phillips
Dewi Zephaniah Phillips (24 November 1934 – 25 July 2006), known as D. Z. Phillips or simply DZ, was a Welsh philosopher. He was a leading proponent of the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion. He had an academic career spanning five decad ...
defended Wittgenstein's theory by arguing that although religious language games are autonomous, they should not be treated as isolated because they make statements about secular events such as birth and death. Phillips argued that because of this connection, religions can still be criticised based on human experiences of these secular events. He maintained that religion cannot be denounced as wrong because it is not empirical.
Peter Donovan criticises the language-games approach for failing to recognise that religions operate in a world containing other ideas and that many religious people make claims to truth. He notes that many religious believers not only believe their religion to be meaningful and true in its own context, but claim that it is true against all other possible beliefs; if the language games analogy is accepted, such a comparison between beliefs is impossible. Donovan proposes that debates between different religions, and the
apologetics
Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics an ...
of some, demonstrates that they interact with each other and the wider world and so cannot be treated as isolated language games.
Parables
R. M. Hare
In response to Flew's falsification principle, British philosopher
R. M. Hare told a parable in an attempt to demonstrate that religious language is meaningful. Hare described a lunatic who believes that all university professors want to kill him; no amount of evidence of kindly professors will dissuade him from this view. Hare called this kind of unfalsifiable conviction a "blik", and argued that it formed an unfalsifiable, yet still meaningful, worldview. He proposed that all people – religious and non-religious – hold bliks, and that they cannot be unseated by
empirical evidence
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences ...
. Nevertheless, he maintained that a blik is meaningful because it forms the basis of a person's understanding of the world. Hare believed that some bliks are correct and others are not, though he did not propose a method of distinguishing between the two.
Basil Mitchell
Basil Mitchell responded to Flew's falsification principle with his own parable. He described an underground resistance soldier who meets a stranger who claims to be leading the resistance movement. The stranger tells the soldier to keep faith in him, even if he is seen to be fighting for the other side. The soldier's faith is regularly tested as he observes the stranger fighting for both sides, but his faith remains strong. Mitchell's parable teaches that although evidence can challenge a religious belief, a believer still has reason to hold their views. He argued that although a believer will not allow anything to count decisively against his beliefs, the theist still accepts the existence of evidence which could count against religious belief.
John Hick
Responding to the verification principle,
John Hick
John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the area ...
used his parable of the Celestial City to describe his theory of
eschatological verificationism. His parable is of two travellers, a theist and an atheist, together on a road. The theist believes that there is a Celestial City at the end of the road; the atheist believes that there is no such city. Hick's parable is an allegory of the Christian belief in an afterlife, which he argued can be verified upon death. Hick believed that eschatological verification is "unsymmetrical" because while it could be verified if it is true, it cannot be falsified if not. This is in contrast to ordinary "symmetrical" statements, which can be verified or falsified.
In his biography of Hick, David Cheetham notes a criticism of Hick's theory: waiting for eschatological verification could make religious belief provisional, preventing total commitment to faith. Cheetham argues that such criticism is misapplied because Hick's theory was not directed to religious believers but to philosophers, who argued that religion is unverifiable and therefore meaningless.
James Morris notes that Hick's eschatological verification theory has been criticised for being inconsistent with his belief in
religious pluralism
Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society. It can indicate one or more of the following:
* Recognizing and tolerating the religious diversity of a society or coun ...
. Morris argues that such criticism can be overcome by modifying Hick's parable to include multiple travellers, all with different beliefs, on the road. He argues that even if some beliefs about life after death are unverifiable, Hick's belief in
bodily resurrection can still be verified.
See also
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Theological noncognitivism
Theological noncognitivism is the non-theist position that religious language, particularly theological terminology such as "God", is not intelligible or meaningful, and thus sentences like "God exists" are cognitively meaningless. It may be c ...
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Divine simplicity
In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is simple (without parts). The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, trut ...
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Apophatic theology
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Ineffability
Ineffability is the quality of something that surpasses the capacity of language to express it, often being in the form of a taboo or incomprehensible term. This property is commonly associated with philosophy, aspects of existence, and similar ...
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{{Philosophy of religion
Language
Meaning in religious language
Philosophical problems
Philosophy of religion