TABLE
OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
LANGUAGE AND RELIGION
2. BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
2. BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
2.1 PLOTINUS MYSTICISM: GOD IS
INEXPRESSIBLE
2.2 MODERN EMPIRICISM: GOD TALK IS NOT NONSENSICAL
3. VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
2.2 MODERN EMPIRICISM: GOD TALK IS NOT NONSENSICAL
3. VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
3.1 VIA NEGATIVE
(MAIMONIDES)
3.2 SYMBOLISM (PAUL TILLICH)
3.3 MYTH (WILLIAM PADEN,
RUDOLF BULTMANN AND JOHN HICK)
3.4 MEANINGLESSNESS (A.J. AYER)
3.5 FALSIFIABILITY (ANTHONY FLEW)
3.6 LANGUAGE GAME (LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN)
3.7 UNIVOCAL, EQUIVOCAL AND ANALOGY (THOMAS AQUINAS)
4. RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE IS MEANINGLESS COGNITIVE AND NON- COGNITIVE
4. RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE IS MEANINGLESS COGNITIVE AND NON- COGNITIVE
5. PROPOSED SOLUTIONS TO
THE PREDICAMENT
5.1 VERIFICATIONALISM
5.2 FALSIFICATIONISM
5.2.1 Three key responses to Flew’s
paper
5.2.1.1. R M Hare’s Parable
5.2.1.2
Basil Mitchell’s Parable
6.2.1.3
John Hick’s Eschatological
verification
6.
SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
7. INTRINSIC ANALOGY AGAINST CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
CONCLUSION
7. INTRINSIC ANALOGY AGAINST CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
When
we speak about God, is it meaningful? This subject has been a dominant topic of
investigation in the philosophic world of the 20th and 21st
centuries. What determines the meaningfulness of language or beliefs? Can
religious language be empirically verified or falsified? Should we treat
religious language separately from other language-games?
The
basic question behind the religious language debate is ‘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 especially
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 factual or real? The problem of religious language also
provides a test for philosophers of religion. If there is no suitable solution
to the problem of religious language, huge discussions in the sphere of
philosophy of religion will also be rendered incoherent. For example,
philosophers of religion debate the nature of divine foreknowledge and human
freedom. These claims about God would be rendered incoherent if human speech
about God is incredible.
Thus,
the problem of religious language is a philosophical problem that must be
solved in order to provide a context for understanding claims about God in both
the church and the academy. Therefore, this paper will address the
qualifications of verifiability and falsification theories with an elucidated
critiques of the two theories, and propose a plausible solution.
1. RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND RELIGION
Some
rudiments of relationship exist between language and religion. Attaining a
religion includes to some degree learning a new terminology and syntax. It
would be impossible to attain a religion without the medium of language.
Because what is said may predominantly condition what can be thought, the use
of such speech design will have subtle psychological effects on the speakers,
tending to boundary what can be named and hence what can be thought. Therefore,
religion and language are closely associated to each other. The connection that
exists amid language and religion is such that empowers Language to be used for
intra-group communication within religious settings. In this context, language
functions to help sustain conventionality to religious values, beliefs and
ritual practices. “Religious jargons that are uncommon outside a religious
group may be expressed, syntax may become more formal or even archaic, and
style of speaking- such as a particular cadence, resonance and intonation
pattern that is characteristic of the group- may be adopted.
Religion
is apparently universal in all human societies. Although religions may differ significantly
from one society to another, they own certain feature in common as to warrant
their being labeled religions. In the same vein, every human society possesses
a language. Chomsky in Campbell has famously claimed that there are
similarities in the structures of all languages that point to the existence of
a “universal Grammar” or “deep structure.”
Language
and religion are related in the sense of uniting their users. People who speak
the same tongue are likely to be closer and friendlier than others who do not understand
the language of communication. This is seen clearly where people of diverse
dialects converge in a place. Religion has such a binding force among its
votaries that sometimes supersede that of siblings. In fact, some Christian
conservatives and Christian denominations address one another as ‘brother’,
‘sister’ or even ‘elder’.
Besides
that language and religion relate positively, they also possess, by their
nature, the capacities to be exploited for negative purposes. Manipulators of
language and religion have used them in the past for the destruction of many
lives. Language and religion can successfully be used to hide the truth from
the people. They could be employed to cause confusion, disunity and war in the
society. At no time is this achieved better other than when religious emotions
or convictions are expressed through the language of the people by trusted
“experts”. This is the power of religion and language. Most of the religious
upheavals we have had in this country came to be through this way.
2. BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM OF
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
Most
contemporary religious language theory vacillates between equivocation and
analogy in a desperate struggle to provide a meaningful vehicle by which God
can be expressed. The background of the problem is twofold: Medieval Mysticism
and Modern Empiricism.
2.1 Plotinus Mysticism: God is Inexpressible[1]
Plotinus
is the fountainhead of negative theology. In him Greek rationalism culminated
in Neo-Plotinus Mysticism. And through his Neo-Plotonic followers, Proclus and
Dionysius the Middle Ages inherited a strong negative emphasis in language
about God. The entire Politian system is based on the notion of unity.[2] All multiplicity is made
up of unities, there must be a prior unity which is absolutely Simple (God).
Plotinus was not totally unaware of the implications of a purely negative
theology. Plotinus wrote:
It
is impossible to say, ‘No that’ if not is utterly without experience or
Conception of the ‘That’; there will generally have been, even, some inkling of
the good beyond Intellection”. How positive “inklings” of God are possible when
we know of Him is through extrinsic attribution known only negatively is not
clear. The implication is that there is a positive intuition of god which
enables us to from negative concepts of Him. One thing is clear, there is
nothing in realm of concepts or language which is positively description of God.
God is beyond all words.[3]
And
since all thought and language involves multiplicity; God is beyond all reason
words.[4] The only way God can be
known is via ascending from the multiplicity of the sensible and intellectual
worlds and becoming one with one in a mystical union.
2.2 Modern empiricism: God talk is not
nonsensical
Not
very many non- mystics are convinced that a purely negative language really
says anything about God. Every negation implies an affirmation. And a purely
unknowable God is unworshipable. As Ludwig Feuerbach remarked, “The truly
religious man can’t worship a purely negative being....Only when a man loses
his taste for religion does the existence of God becomes one without qualities,
unknowable God.”[5]
At any rate, there is in addition to Mysticism the problem of Empiricism for
many modern religious analysts. In Mysticism there is no way to speak positive
about God, and in semantically Atheism there is meaningful way to speak about
God whatsoever[6].
3. VARIOUS
PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
3.1 Via negative
(Maimonides)
Jewish
philosopher Maimonides believed that God can only be recognized in negative
attributes, an opinion grounded on two vital Jewish dogmas: that the existence
of God must be accepted, and that it is prohibited to define God. Maimonides
did not consider that God holds all of his attributes perfectly and without
impairment; rather, he proposed that God lies outside of any human measures. For
him, to say that God is powerful, for example, would mean that God's power is
beyond worldly power, and unparalleled to any other power. In doing so,
Maimonides tried to illustrate God's inexpressible nature and draw attention to
the linguistic boundaries of describing God.
3.2 Symbolism (Paul Tillich)
Paul
Tillich insisted on the symbolic nature of God-talk, since nothing from our
Empirical experience is literally true of the “Ground of Being” (God). Symbolic
Language, that is, metaphors and the like, play a very vital function in
religious language. Tillich himself recognized this, and forced to recognize
that there must be at least one non-symbolic truth about God (namely He is
“Being” or “Ground of Being”). For unless one knew that something was literally
true, how could one know that everything else was not literally true (that is,
symbolic)?[7]
When the John the Baptist said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the
sin of the World’ he was employing symbolism. Tillich insists that Jesus
himself is such a symbol, of Himself he is nothing.[8]
Tillich
reformed his claim to say that the only non-symbolic statement about God is
“the statement that everything speaks about God is symbolic.” But this asserted
appears to be about statement rather than about God. Tillich resolution was to
say that “God is being itself” is both symbolic and non-symbolic, i.e., a
“boundary line” kind of assertion. By his use of the “boundary-line” concept,
Tillich tries to say both that religious language “points beyond itself,” i.e.,
has an objective reference, and that it also symbolizes what it itself does as
a religious symbol for the one who uses it.[9]
Therefore,
no finite reality can express it directly and properly. Religiously speaking,
God transcends his own name. [10]
Whatever statements say about that which concern ultimately, whether or not
call it God, has a symbolic meaning. Tillich the language of faith is the
language of symbols. The fundamental symbol of our ultimate concern is God.
That means that in the notion of God must distinguish two elements: the element
of ultimacy, which is a matter of immediate experience and not symbolic in
itself, and the element of concreteness, which is taken from our ordinary
experience and symbolically applied to God.[11]
According
to Tillich examination of the symbolic character religious language, like
scientific language, has its own principle of validation and these are relative
to the context in which such language appropriately may be used.[12] But it still remains to
show more clearly how religious symbols can be tied in with this language of
being and existence; and above all, how talk about particular beings or their
properties can even indirectly refer to Being an illuminated for it.
3.3 Myth (William Paden,
Rudolf Bultmann and John Hick)
William
Paden maintained that religious language uses myth to present truths through parables.
He argued that to those who practice a religion, myths are not mere fiction,
but provide religious truths. Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann suggested
that the Bible holds existential truths which is expressed through mythology.
Bultmann sought to find the existential truths behind the veil of mythology, a
task known as 'demythologising'. He supposed that God interacts with humans as
the divine Word, perceiving a linguistic character inherent in God, which seeks
to provide humans with self-understanding.[13] 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.[14]
As follower of Bultmann, Christian philosopher John Hick held that the language
of the Bible should be demythologised to be compatible with naturalism. He
offered a demythologised Christology, 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.
3.4 Meaninglessness (A.J. Ayer)
For
A. J. Ayer religious language is as meaningless as it is considered not to be
open to falsification and allows nothing in experience to count against belief
in God. And any statement that is neither a tautology nor a statement of fact
is meaningless and nonsensical. They are nonsensical in the senses that their
senses or meaning is not obtainable by reference to sense – experience.[15]
Ayer
agreed that since all statements about God cannot be verified, they are
meaningless, but the notion of a person whose essential attributes are
non-empirical is not intelligible notion at all. A word which is used as if it
names this ‘person,’ (God) but, unless the sentences in which are empirically
verifiable, it cannot be said to symbolize anything. Ayer identified and
defended a “weak principle of verification,” in “The principle of
verifiability.” He insisted that empirical propositions are not conclusively
verifiable, but in order for a claim to be factual, and thus to have its truth
value determined, it must be verifiable by some possible observations. While
Ayer didn’t specify exactly what those possible observations must be, he argued
that they need to be the kinds of observations that could verify an assertion.[16] Ayer says like this: A
proposition is said to be verifiable, in the strong sense of the term, if and
only if, its truth could be conclusively established in experience. But it is
verifiable, in the weak sense, if it is possible for experience to render it
probable. Ayer was the first logical positivist to focus provocatively the
verificationist criterion of the meaning of factual statements upon theological
affirmations. [17]
Ayer argued that all religious language is non-sensical since none of it is empirically
understandable .The criterion of logical positivism, in turn, has been proven
to be non-sensical since it is itself empirically unproven .The best position
regarding religious language seems to be the view of ‘forms of life’ according
to which religious language is only understandable that those who share in the
particular form of religious life.[18]
Furthermore,
he does not demand that in order for a statement to be considered as having
factual content it be conclusively verifiable or conclusively falsifiable. Nor
will he accept the phenomena lists dictum that a physical- object statement is
actually a statement about sense impressions. Ayer described that religious
language according to the falsifications, does not belong to the domain of
“genuine science.” The religious talk of
believers is ultimately meaningless. This is a necessary condition for a truly
scientific approach to what rational men will believe.[19]
3.5 Falsifiability (Anthony Flew)
Flew argues that “God” is too vague
a concept to be meaningful. For if God’s greatness entails being invisible,
intangible and inscrutable, then he can’t be disproved — but nor can he be
proved. Such powerful but simply stated arguments made by Flew.[20]
While Ayer had attacked the
meaningfulness of any claim to religious knowledge, Flew give a parable of a
gardener:
Once upon a time two explorers came
upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and
many weeds. One explorer says, ‘some gardener must tend this plot.’ The other
disagrees, there is no gardener, so they pitch their tents and set a watch, but
nothing happens. The believing explorer still affirms his belief in a gardener,
but suggests that the gardener is invisible. The two explorers set up an
electrified barbed- wire fence and patrol it with bloodhounds. Still nothing
happens. The wires never sway, and the bloodhounds never back. The gardener, so
he argues, is invisible, intangible, and insensitive to electric shocks. He has
no scent and makes no sound, but he loves and tends the garden. Finally,
skeptic despairs and asks the believer how his gardener differs from no
gardener at all.[21]
Flew
argues that, in the same way, if a believer’s statement about God can be made
to fit into any circumstance, it is not meaningful and has no empirical
implications.[22]
Because Flew presumes to establish meaningfulness on the basis of
falsifiability, he can readily reduce three distinct statements of this parable
to equivalent claims.[23]
Since he attaches the same empirical expectations throughout, and no gardener
is observable by various empirical tests (observation, electrified fencing and
bloodhound patrol), Flew considers the sentences equally meaningless. Yet many
critics have pointed out an underlying ambiguity in Flew’s three statements and
that they actually convey distinguishable meanings. The first, “an invisible,
intangible, eternally elusive gardener,” implies a non-empirical gardener,
while the reference of the second to “no empirical gardener” may be taken to
indicate “no gardener empirical or non-empirical.” Flew notes that the
sentences to God for whom the invisible gardener stands in, but not in
imaginary gardener. Flew declares that any belief that is compatible with all
states of affairs is meaningless, that is, any belief is which is not
falsifiable is nonsense. Flew’s insistence is that God-talk is in principle
unfalsifiable.[24]
3.6 Language Game (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
For
Ludwig Wittgenstein, language was thought to possess an underlying logical
positive to say that statements like ‘God is good’ are meaningless since they
cannot be verified in reality, i.e., they don’t convey any meaningful
information about reality when broken down to their simplest terms. However,
later, Wittgenstein himself questioned this method and goal because of the
paradox involved in trying to represent in language how language represented
the world. In his philosophical investigation (1953) Wittgenstein established
the many functions of language and of meaning as dependent on language game,
use and forms of life.[25] The meaning of words may
differ from context to context depending on the way they are used in each
context, which Wittgenstein terms the ‘language game’ of the word. Similarly,
the meaning of an understood by participation in the form of life pertaining to
the world or language game in which a word finds its use and meaning. For
instance or ‘honest’ and ‘lying’ have no role or function or use in the kind of
life a dog leads and so the question it is incorrect to say that dogs do not
since they are honest. Likewise, there are forms of life among humans that need
to be understood in order to understand the words used therein.[26]
According
to Wittgenstein language consists in part, then, of words, which in their
simplest form refer to a particular thing and its predicate.[27] As Wittgenstein discussed
just above how language links itself to the world, and his discussion of how
language represents the world was itself expressed in language. This placed
Wittgenstein in the paradoxical situation of having used language to represent
how language represents the world. And this, he concluded could not be done, it
Language, may be used to represent the world. “What expresses itself in
language, it cannot express by means of language.” Language games exist within all
forms of human activities and lives. He said people who are not in the game
will not understand the use of the language and will find it meaningless to
them. Religious belief has its own language and non-believers will find
religious language meaningless as they are not in the religious
"game." Problems develop when the language "goes on
holiday." This is when words are used outside of their context and use
ordinary language to describe God. The meaning of the word God applies to a
being beyond human understanding.[28]
3.7 Univocal, Equivocal and Analogy (Thomas Aquinas)
Thomas Aquinas thought that it was certainly possible to talk about God in a meaningful way. He isolated three forms of language. Univocal, equivocal and analogy. Aquinas posed concerning the use of finite concepts about an infinite God. Without initial meaning religious expectations could never be verified, for the identity of the predicated event or situation would remain unknown. And without a means of verification, the interpretation of one’s experience now as mediating God’s presence an interpretation which verification supposedly validates becomes pointless.[29] He said that religious language is the language of analogy is not enough. It has be shown that there is a genuine correspondence between language and its object. The problem is apparently made more acute by the fact that cannot step outside language and thought forms and see God directly, as he is in Himself, so that could test them. Even though, in the nature of the case, divine truth has to be refracted and expressed in terms of human words and finite images, nevertheless it can be expressed in meaningful terms.[30]
Thomas Aquinas thought that it was certainly possible to talk about God in a meaningful way. He isolated three forms of language. Univocal, equivocal and analogy. Aquinas posed concerning the use of finite concepts about an infinite God. Without initial meaning religious expectations could never be verified, for the identity of the predicated event or situation would remain unknown. And without a means of verification, the interpretation of one’s experience now as mediating God’s presence an interpretation which verification supposedly validates becomes pointless.[29] He said that religious language is the language of analogy is not enough. It has be shown that there is a genuine correspondence between language and its object. The problem is apparently made more acute by the fact that cannot step outside language and thought forms and see God directly, as he is in Himself, so that could test them. Even though, in the nature of the case, divine truth has to be refracted and expressed in terms of human words and finite images, nevertheless it can be expressed in meaningful terms.[30]
For Aquinas our language is properly
applicable to worldly things, since our intellect abstracts concepts from
material substances as they appear to sensory perception, and words stand for
those concepts. God cannot be an object of sense, so how can our words apply to
God? Aquinas points out that creatures are in a dependent relation to God as
the cause of their existence, and that effects resemble their causes. God, as
the source of the perfections found in creatures, can be spoken of through them
as his effects. While causation is what enables to speak truly of God, is not
limiting ourselves to referring to God's actions as distinct from His essence.
Aquinas points out that religious people mean what they say in praising God for
His goodness. Thanksgiving is not directed to an anonymous benefactor for the
excellence of the creaturely goodness he supplies. God is the paradigm of the
goodness, etc. that is held derivatively by creatures.[31]
Aquinas religious language often
attempts to describe the attributes or qualities of God. This is hard
because God is generally not something direct experience of, whereas most of
the things that language refers to are things that can be experience e.g. love,
walking, etc,. So when we describe ’God
is good’, its need to know that is using ’good’ in that sentence. In
univocal terms, this would be claiming that God is good in some way that humans
are, Aquinas rejected this as he believed God to be perfect. Because of
this, imperfect humans can’t be good in the same way that God is. In
equivocal terms, this would mean that God is good in a totally different way to
humans, Aquinas rejected that too.[32]
4. RELIGIOUS
LANGUAGE IS MEANINGLESS; COGNITIVE AND NON-COGNITIVE
In
the debate about religious language, it is important that broadly speaking,
there are two types of language, cognitive and non-cognitive. Cognitive
language conveys facts i.e. things that we can know or be cognizant (The
skyscraper is falling down, ‘Badgers have black and white fur). Non-cognitive language,
predictably, conveys information that is not factual; emotions, feelings and
metaphysical claims (The Lord upholds all who are falling, He fulfils the
desire of all who fear him, and He also hears their cry and saves them). [33] Christian claims are not
a special kind of religious fact. Though it is received by mystic it is still
cognitive. They are the cognitive informational facts upon which all historical
legal, and ordinary decisions are based.[34] Above you have examples
of two very different types of language. On the left hand side is an excerpt
from the Psalms, which talks about God and what he is supposed to be like. On
the right hand side are statements of fact about things in the world. These two
types of language are important for understanding the problems raised by the
religious language debate.
5. PROPOSED
SOLUTIONS TO THE PREDICAMENT
Influenced by Karl Popper, Antony Flew applied the Falsification
Principle to religious language and concluded that religious statements are
nothing more than non-sensical utterances of little significance. As
indicated above, the meaningfulness of religious language has come under attack
in philosophical circles in two ways during this century. We need to look at
each one of them. The first can be designated the "verificationist"
challenge to religious discourse, and the second designated the
"falsificationist" challenge. Neither has proven successful.
5.1
Verificationalism
In
the earlier part of this century a school of thought known as logical positivism
zealously promoted empirical science and disparaged any kind of metaphysics.
According to the positivists, any proposition could be tested for
meaningfulness by applying to it the "verification principle." [35]
Logical
positivism acknowledged two different kinds of meaningful sentences. Certain
sentences in a language will be known to be true simply by means of analyzing
them logically and linguistically (for instance: "all bachelors are
unmarried" can be verified by reference to laws of logic and semantic
definitions). However, such truths (called "analytical") are devoid
of significant information about the world of experience or observation, and
thus are trivial. The effect of applying the verification principle, the
positivists concluded, would be the dismissal of all metaphysical claims
(including theology) and all ethical claims as non-sense from a scientific
standpoint.[36]
Since the religious language of Christians is filled with terms which are not
taken from observation (e.g., God, omnipotence, sin, atonement) and claims for
which there is no empirical means of confirmation (e.g., God is triune, Jesus
intercedes for the saints), logical positivism's verification principle seemed
to rule out the meaningfulness of what Christians said.
A.
J. Ayer was perhaps the best known logical positivist in the English world. In
the first edition of his famous book, Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer
maintained that a sentence is meaningful when, in conjunction with other
premises, an observation statement can be deduced which could not have been
derived from the other premises alone. This was entirely unhelpful. With a
little imagination, a logician could use this criterion and show that any
statement whatsoever can pass the test- in which case Ayer's criterion of
verifiability allows all statements to count as meaningful! One way of
establishing whether or not a statement is meaningful was proposed by A J Ayer.[37] This criterion for
meaning was called the Verification Principle and insisted that for a statement
to be meaningful, it must be verifiable by sense experiences – or, in the
weaker form of the principle, it should be possible to know what sense
experience could make the statement probable. But the principle was quickly
discredited as an adequate criterion of meaning, and much recent philosophy has
examined less narrow ways in which language is used. But it is difficult to
abandon completely the notion that for a statement to be meaningful, it must in
some sense be shown to correspond to reality.[38] However, later Ayer formulated his
own, more liberal verifiability criterion. Known as ‘weak verifiability’, it
asserts that a sentence has empirical import if ‘some experimental propositions
(he later changed this phrase to ‘observation statements’) can be deduced from
it in conjunction with other premises without being deducible from those other
premises alone’. Both the verification and falsification principles were
rejected as criteria of cognitive significance because they were too strict.
Weak verifiability must also be rejected, but because it is too lax.[39]
5.2
Falsificationism
The
falsificationists were dedicated to the authority of natural science, just like
the logical positivists. However, the falsificationists were painfully aware of
the failure of the logical positivists to formulate cogently, or save
themselves from the fatal application of, the verification principle of
meaning.[40]
Various
implications of this notion were put to the test in a famous exchange that
played out in the philosophical Journal University in the 1950s. The debate
opened with a paper by Antony Flew which centred on an old parable of an
invisible gardener. Flew’s point is a subtle one. The believer’s initial claim
that a gardener must exist is tested in several ways, and each piece of
evidence is dismissed by a qualification – the gardener is invisible, then
intangible, then free of scent, and so on. By the end, there seems no way of
testing the existence of the gardener at all. The claim seems empty of content
and therefore meaningless. Taking his cue from Karl Popper, Flew argues that
for a statement to be meaningful it must at least be open to falsification–
there must be some way of showing it to be false.
For
the falsificationist, what makes genuine science "scientific" is that
the theories which it will affirm are in principle falsifiable by means of
empirical methods. This is a necessary condition for a truly scientific
approach to what rational men will believe. Accordingly, if some theory or
claim is not empirically falsifiable, this defect alone is sufficient to
dismiss it as being cognitively meaningless. A meaningful claim in science must
be, according to the falsificationist, subject to refutation (in theory). This
does not mean that scientific claims must be refuted in order to be
"scientific" (which would make all scientific claims false by
definition!) but that they must be empirically refutable in some conceivable
circumstance.[41]
The
great advantage of taking this approach, if you advocate the supremacy of
natural science and its procedures, is that the generalizations after which the
scientist aspires (e.g., "all planets rotate around an axis") are not
ruled out as meaningless by virtue of their not being fully verifiable. The
generalizations of natural science, even those which are true, will always be
open to refutation or falsification (e.g., just in case we ever find a planet
that does not rotate around an axis).[42] No longer is the
incompleteness of induction a strike against the meaningfulness or scientific
character of an empirical generalization concerning the natural world.
5.2.1
Three key responses to Flew’s paper
5.2.1.1.
R M Hare’s Parable
At
first sight Hare’s paranoid lunatic seems to confirm Flew’s argument, and Hare
agreed that religious statements are meaningless by Flew’s standards of
evidence. But what counts as evidence? For the lunatic, there is plenty of
evidence to confirm his paranoia: from his perspective, every ‘diabolical’
don’s mild manner is just a pretense. It is this notion of perspective that is
key: Hare calls this a ‘blik’, a frame of reference that determines what counts
as evidence. A ‘blik’ is a way of seeing the world, a filter that affects our
standards of evidence. The paranoid man’s blik leads him to see evidence of
hostility in everything; the religious blik similarly allows the believer to
see evidence where a sceptic may not.
Hare’s
point is that religious statements are not assertions at all, and therefore are
immune to verification and falsification. Instead they are expressions of a
particular blik with particular standards of explanation and conduct.[43] Religious people see the
world a certain way, and from within that perspective all sorts of things count
as evidence for God: a beautiful sunset, a flock of geese, the ‘miracle’ of
birth, and so on.
5.2.1.2
Basil Mitchell’s Parable
Mitchell’s
partisan is certainly more flattering to believers than a paranoid lunatic, and
the parable illustrates that belief in the absence of conclusive evidence is
not unreasonable. While Flew insists upon empirical tests to render a statement
meaningful, Mitchell shows that belief is as much a matter of trust and
commitment. Religious claims do not have to be intellectually convincing: a
believer can trust in their relationship with God, as the partisan comes to
trust the stranger. Moreover the partisan’s trust is falsifiable in principle
(and thus meets Flew’s challenge) but the question remains: what would it take
to change the partisan’s mind? How much evidence is required to show that the
stranger has betrayed him?[44] Mitchell admits that
there is no simple answer to this question – but at least it is not
unreasonable to give the stranger the benefit of the doubt.
5.2.1.3 John Hick’s Eschatological Verification
Responding
to the verification principle, John Hick used his parable of the Celestial City
to describe his theory of eschatological verificationism. His parable is of two
travelers, 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.[45]
In
other words, religious claims may, in the end, be verifiable if true (although
not falsifiable if false). Hick’s point is that the two men experience the
journey differently: the believer accepts the good and the bad calmly and
pursues the path in hope of salvation. Belief makes a difference. It is
important to note that Hick is not claiming that religious statements are true
(or false), only that they are meaningful and that belief in those statements
is reasonable. This approach has become known as eschatological verification.
6. SOLUTION
TO THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
Multiple
solutions have been suggested and defended over time. Three of these will be
briefly mentioned.
·
The first solution suggests that all
attributes predicated of God are to be interpreted equivocally, with respect to
what they mean in reference to creatures. Consequently, this solution would
argue that god is not good in the same sense Mother Theresa was; god’s goodness
is entirely different from the goodness of a creature. However, god can be
spoken of by human beings only through negations.
·
The second solution suggests that the
attributes predicated of god are to be interpreted univocally. A modern proponent
of this view is Alton. He argues that a human being can know something and god
can know that same fact. But how god knows something will be different from the
way that a human being knows in so far as god incorporeal omniscient etc.
·
The third solution suggests that the
attributes predicated of god are to be interpreted analogously. For instance,
when the predicate good is applied to God, good refers to the unity that is
god’s essence and not an individual feature of God. This approach provides a
middle position between an equivocal and a univocal solutions, since terms used
analogously are not entirely equivocal nor are they entirely univocal: terms
used analogously signify the same thing but in different modes (Aquinas). Even
Norman Geisler, a renowned Christian philosopher is a modern proponent of this
view.
7. INTRINSIC ANALOGY AGAINST
CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
An intrinsic analogy is one in which both things possess the
same characteristics, each in accordance with its own being. Intrinsic analogy is based on the
similarity of relations. Analogy is based on an
alleged ontological similarity between God and the world. Theism pleads guilty
of this charge and offers two lines of evidence.
First,
the Bible teaches that creation does reflect and reveal its Creator (Ps. 19:1;
Rom. 1:19-20; Acts 17:28, 29). Man was made in God’s “image and likeness” (Gen.
1:27).
Secondly,
an analogy of being is based in the causal connection between the Creator and
His creatures. God’s work, like that of other artists, resembles the Artist.
Being is defined the same way for God and creatures, “that which is or exist.”[46]
God
exists and creatures exist; herein is the similarity. But God exists infinitely
and independently, whereas creature exist finitely and dependently; herein is
the difference.[47]
Therefore,
the fact of existence is the same for both God and creatures but the mode of
existence is different.
That
is the concept of being is univocal but being itself is analogous. Therefore,
that whenever adding the qualifier “infinite “ totally negates the univocal
concept of perfection, then it tells us nothing about God’s essence but at best
something about His activity.
CONCLUSION
The
claim that language referring to God is meaningless has become virtually a dead
issue. This does not mean, however, that the use of language to speak about God
is unproblematic. Internally, within the religious language-game and form of
life, universal claims and pronouncements can still be made.[48]
In
contemporary times attention has shifted to how such statements could be
verified or falsified scientifically. Real life experiences show belief or
faith to be a reality. Therefore, its expression which essentially must contain
predicate about God and his nature, as a matter of fact, should have meaning at
least to the group of people who use such language.
The essence of using a
language is to communicate. Religious languages communicate and express ideas,
emotions and convictions to faith audience. It is the medium for the
transmission of religious ideas between faith members.
The end purpose of this
expression and communication of religious ideas and emotions is to elicit acts
that are similar to what is expressed and communicated in order to gain eternal
life. This is why the expression of religious language, together with its
meaning could be linguistically okay but religiously incomplete without the
accompanying religious-behavioral commitment. Analogy is not only important in
ordinary language and common sense, but also in science, philosophy and
humanities.
In the end, as Aquinas
inferred unless there is an analogy of being based in the created similarity of
God and the world, then we cannot avoid either Monism or equivocation in
talking about God’s essence. In summation, equivocal predication leads to
skepticism; univocal predication leads to Monism, but only analogical
predication leads to God. Ultimately, the analogy theory attempts to avoid this
dilemma about terms referring to both God and creation, by altering their
meaning in each case. So while there is something in the meaning of terms
common to God and man creature which is the same, there is also something very
different.
In this way both wholly
univocal and wholly equivocal meanings for these terms are avoided, and the
analogy is established. Thus the theory ends up claiming that what God really
possesses is the highest degree of (some of) the qualities which creatures
possess a degree not in creation at all.
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