Religious Language - A Level Philosophy

Religious Language
Michael Lacewing
[email protected]
Univocal language
Talk of God is univocal. A word
is univocal if it yields a
contradiction when affirmed and
denied of the same thing

Duns Scotus
Objection: this doesn’t
do justice to the
transcendence of
God.
Aquinas on analogy
We must extend our terms before
applying them to God. Talk of
God is by analogy.
Analogy of attribution



Organisms are literally healthy (or not); food
is healthy (or not) by analogy. Food that is
healthy causes organisms to be healthy.
To say ‘God is love’ is to say God is the cause
or ground of all love.
Two problems:
 Is God literally the cause of love?
 Does ‘love’ apply literally to us and
analogically to us? Or does it apply literally
and in the first instance to God?
Analogy of proportion
A human father loves in the way
and sense appropriate to human
fathers and God loves in the way
and sense appropriate to God.

But if we don’t already
know what God is, how
do we know what it
means to say that God
loves in a way
appropriate to God?
Ayer’s verification principle


All meaningful statements
are either analytic (true or
false in virtue of the
meanings of the terms used)
or empirically verifiable (can
be shown by experience to
be true or false or to be
probably true or false)
‘God exists’ cannot be shown
true or false in either way, so
it is meaningless
Replies



The verification principle is neither analytic
nor empirically verifiable. Therefore, by its
own criterion, it is meaningless. Therefore,
this criterion is false.
Hick: religious language is empirical:
‘eschatological verification’
Wittgenstein: religious language is not
empirical, but is meaningful
Wittgenstein


Meaning is given by
use. ‘God exists’ is not
used to assert an
empirical claim. ‘God’ is
not a thing.
Religious language
expresses a
commitment to a way of
living or assessing life
Tillich: Symbolic language
Our understanding of God
takes the form of symbols,
e.g. ‘the Way, the Truth,
the Life’, the Resurrection,
the Cross. Religious
language tries to express
this symbolic meaning.

Symbols ‘partake’ in
what they express.
Three implications of symbolic
language
Understanding symbols and finding the
words to express their meaning doesn’t
follow any obvious rules.
 It is not possible to give a literal
statement of the meaning of a symbol.
 We need to be sensitive to the fact that
symbols ‘point beyond’ themselves.


Download Report