Philosophy of Religion RevisionYear 13Religious Language

Important People to Know• The Vienna Circle (Empiricism & Logical Positivism)• A.J Ayer (Verification Principle)• Anthony Flew (Falsification)• Ludwig Wittgenstein (Verification Principle; picture-theory;

Language Games)• Paul Tillich (Symbolism)• Karl Popper (Falsification Principle)• Maimonides (via negativa)• John Hick* (Scripture as Myth, Eschatological Verification)• Rudolf Bultmann* (Scripture as Myth)• Thomas Aquinas* (Two types of Analogy)• Richard Swinburne (Falsification Principal – criticism)

* Extended/Wider Reading

Past Questions

1) Critically assess the views of Paul Tillich on religious language.2)Evaluate the claim that analogy can successfully be used to express the human understanding of God.3) Critically compare the use of myth with the use of analogy to express the human understanding of God4) Critically assess the claim that religious language is meaningless5) The falsification principle presents no real challenge to religious belief. Discuss6) Critically assess Wittgenstein’s belief that language games allow religious statements to have meaning.7) To what extent is the Via Negativa the only way to talk about God?

Critically assess the views of Paul Tillich on religious language. [35] • AO1 • Candidates may begin their responses by explaining what is generally understood by the nature and problems associated

with religious language. Some may take the opportunity to try writing their ‘religious language’ essay which could focus too much on verification or falsification or even analogy. However to gain more that a general topic grade the bulk of the essay must address the views of Paul Tillich.

• Candidates are likely to recognise that Tillich’s main contribution to the debates in this area was to develop our understanding of the use of symbols when trying to describe God.

• Their explanations are likely to explore his belief that it is religious symbols which communicate the most significant beliefs and values of humanity. He would argue that when trying to put difficult concepts into words we are most successful when we use symbols. However it is important to keep in mind that the meaning attached to symbols is culturally dependant.

• Tillich also recognised that the meaning of symbols can change over time and even be lost entirely. Candidates may explain that in searching for understanding different generations may interpret the same symbols in different way. The genesis myths for example may still be held by creationist to be literal in some sense while most would agree that the myths have symbolic content but no place in history.

• AO2 • In critically assessing these views candidates may argue that Tilloch was successful in using symbols to further the ability

of religious language to express religious beliefs meaningfully and point to the use of symbols in religions they know; water in Christian baptism or the Stupa in Buddhism.

• Alternatively they may use their knowledge of the scholars such as those in the Vienna Circle to assess Tillich’s work as pointless arguing that all attempts at religious discussion is by its nature meaningless.

• As with the AO1 though, whichever route they take, it is important that they address the central issue of the question and not just fit a general religious language response into a Tillich first and last paragraph.

Evaluate the claim that analogy can be used to express the human understanding of God.• AO1• Candidates may begin by exploring some kind of definition of analogy. They may, for example, talk about the

process of saying that things are like each other in such a way that a complex thing can be explained by comparing it with a simpler thing. If they are going to use the work of Thomas Aquinas they may go on to explain the difference between analogy of proportion and analogy of attribution.

• Some candidates may address the issue by explaining that Aquinas was reacting against the teaching of Pseudo-Dionysius and Maimonides. Aquinas was searching for a way of talking positively about God moving away from the idea that we can only describe God by saying what he is not.

• Candidates may also explore Aquinas’ discussion of the use of equivocal and univocal language in this context, and explain why he rejected them as incapable of allowing meaningful dialogue about God.

• Candidates may possibly spend much of their essays exploring the issues of proportion and attribution, explaining both their meaning and the reasons that Aquinas argued that they did allow a method of speaking about God with meaning.

• AO2• In their responses candidates should assess the extent to which philosophers such as Aquinas were successful

in producing a system which allowed a method of expressing the human understanding of God or whether they were susceptible to the kinds of critique of religious language that all other systems can suffer from.

• In the end if a believer says ‘God is good’, does this really say anything about God if human beings can only understand good within the limits of its use in everyday language?

• Some candidates may assess this view by comparing it with other kinds of religious language, this is acceptable as long as they use their other knowledge to address the specific question

Critically compare the use of myth with the use of analogy to express the human understanding of God. [35] • AO1 • Candidates are likely to begin by explaining what is meant by myth or analogy before assessing their various

strengths and weaknesses. It is important, however that they address attempts to express the human understanding of God and not just write all they know about myth and analogy.

• Some candidates may use this question to demonstrate that they know a great deal about religious language in general, however little or no credit can be given to responses which stray away from myth and analogy.

• Some candidates may address myth not as simply a fictitious story but as a route to a much deeper meaning or reality. They may explain that few Christians today would consider Genesis as a literal truth but they would equally say that it point to truths about creation and God’s part in it.

• Others may begin by an analysis of the way St Thomas Aquinas and others use analogy as an important way of expressing ideas about God. They are likely to give good account of analogy of attribution and proportion.

• AO2 • Clearly we are not looking for a specific answer in the candidate’s assessment of the issues involved in

addressing the question. They do not even have to address whether or not one method has more strengths in helping believers understand the nature of God; they should be aiming to simply compare them in a critical manner.

• Responses that concentrate solely on giving a generic account of verification and/or the meaning of religious language should not be credited at higher levels.

• Good answers are likely to assess the issues involved in any attempts by human beings to understand God and in the process explore the strengths and weaknesses inherent in both myth and analogy.

Critically assess the claim that religious language is meaningless• AO1• Candidates may begin with an account of the work of the Logical Positivists, possibly even giving an account of the forming of

the Vienna Circle and the writings which led these philosophers to come together. Some may mention Wittgenstein’s Tractatus but they should be aware that he was not himself a member of the Circle.

• This may lead to an exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of the Verification Principle, with some demonstration of the self-refuting nature of the principle itself. Some may use examples from religious language of the kinds of statements which the Vienna

• circle were accusing of meaninglessness such as; ‘God is all-loving, all powerful, your God is a jealous God.’• Some candidates may take their arguments towards an explanation of the later writings of Wittgenstein and introduce the

ideas of language games; and his claim that language gets its meaning from the context in which it is used or the rules of the game you are playing at any given time.

• Others may explore the approach taken by the Vienna Circle to analytic and synthetic statements, explaining the need for synthetic statements to be verifiable by empirical evidence if they were to be considered meaningful. In this context some may address the issue of strong and weak verification.

• AO2• In their evaluation candidates may assess the underlying assumption of Logical Positivism that it is only scientific propositions

which can accurately describe the reality of our world.• Arguably not religious language but also poetry and music contribute a great deal to our understanding of reality. Who would

say that a Shakespearean sonnet tells us nothing about the world?• Others may assess the extent to which Wittgenstein helped to make all kinds of language meaningful again by his introduction

of language games. They may discuss the extent to which he only allowed for communication within the game and the implications for attempts to communicate with people playing a game with different rules.

• Others may have read philosophers such as Vincent Brummer or D Z Phillips, using their work to assess the extent to which treating religious sentences as if they are failed scientific ones is to commit an error of understanding. [35]

The falsification principle presents no real challenge to religious belief. Discuss• AO1 • Candidates may begin by making the assertion that Falsifiability is not a criterion to determine whether

something is meaningful or not, only whether it has the status of a scientific assertion. They may make use of Flew’s view that unlike the Verification Principle of the Logical Positivists, this was put forward as a criterion not of meaning but of scientific status.

• They may then point to the fact that Flew, in the University Debate, begins by referring to John Wisdom’s parable of the gardener, from his article ‘Gods’. The story is simple. Two explorers come upon a clearing in the jungle. Some parts look tended, others do not. In Wisdom’s original parable, he is making the point that the world is rather like that. In the original, one man takes the view there is a gardener who comes to tend the ground, while the other thinks there is not. Neither can find the gardener, neither experience anything the other does not, yet their belief about the clearing is very different.

• They may then explain Flew’s challenge that religious people would seem to allow nothing to count against their beliefs.

• AO2 • In evaluating Flews argument and the extent to which he did or did not successfully challenge religious beliefs

candidates may evaluate the arguments put forward by Hare and Mitchell during the symposium. They may for example assess the validity of the idea of ‘Bliks’ and their use is allowing religious belief to make sense. Others may apply the story of the partisan using Mitchell’s original or possibly some may even use the character of Snape from the Harry Potter stories.

• Mitchell points out that a believer who does not accept the weight of evidence against his belief is guilty of failure of faith as well as logic. Candidates might also use arguments from Hick, including his additions to Mitchell.

Critically assess Wittgenstein’s belief that language games allow religious statements to have meaningAO1• Candidates may begin by placing this issue more generally in the religious language debate provided that

they do not just write their ‘everything I know about Verification and Falsification’ essay.• They may, for example, begin by exploring the issue that just because a statement has meaning does not

indicate that the statement refers to something in the real world. Candidates may unpack this by saying that it is important to notice that for Wittgenstein there are only the games. We cannot get ‘outside’ the games to ask the ‘real’ meaning of words. We can only play another game. To ask the real meaning – perhaps the dictionary meaning – of a word is not to step outside the world of games, but rather to play the lexicography game.

• Some may point out that this has several significant consequences. Most obviously we cannot get outside games – our linguistic life is a matter of our competence in playing different games: I may confidently play a greater or smaller number of games than you; they will almost certainly not be precisely the same sets of games. This means that we cannot say that one game is intrinsically better or truer than another. Its value and meaning are determined by its own rules.

• They may note that the language games do not reflect reality – they make it. Wittgenstein has moved away from any notion that language involves pictures of reality, or that there is any one master form of language. If this is so, we cannot ask what reality is like – we can merely play another form of language game – the ‘reality’ language game.

• Guidance: A general discussion of religious language which does not specifically focus on Wittgenstein should be considered a general topic answer.

• Guidance: It is important that candidates understand this point and do not think that there is some sort of ‘real language’ outside particular games.

AO2• As they explain these views and how Wittgenstein came to them, they are

likely to assess whether or not he made it possible to speak through a religious language game in a meaningful way.

• Some may conclude that he does not take the debate very far as the meaning is solely dependent on those playing the language game while others may explore the extent to which this ability to play the game itself takes the argument forward

• Guidance: Candidates might consider Geach’s argument that the theory of language games is circular as the meaning of the game is dependent on the meaning of the words and vice–versa.

• Guidance: They might argue, as Ayer does, that there would be no reason to prefer the language game of physics to that of witches and warlocks, or consider Patrick Sherry’s point that it is legitimate to ask ‘Why science?’ or ‘Why religion?’. A few might mention Kai Nielsen’s charge of Wittgensteinian Fideism, but there is no requirement to do so.

To what extent is the Via Negativa the only way to talk about God?• AO1 Candidates may begin by explaining that the Via Negativa is also known as the apophatic way, a term which suggests a

collapse of language in the face of the Infinite.

• A number are likely to describe the work of the early sixth century philosopher, Pseudo-Dionysius (Dionysius the Areopagite) who made a distinction between ‘cataphatic’ (via positiva) and ‘apophatic’ (via negativa) theology. They may explain that in the former, we contemplate God as he is in relation to the world, using the divine names like ‘The Good’, ‘Light of the World’, ‘Life’ and so on. These do give us real knowledge of God, but it is provisional knowledge, for God lies far beyond those names. If God is Light, he is far beyond that feeble attempt to capture him. The knowledge of God lies beyond the world – to move to the apophatic way, the via negativa is to move beyond – to ‘the divine darkness’ which lies beyond any concept. Some may explain that the via negativa was adopted by the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, and that St Thomas Aquinas had a profound knowledge of Maimonides’ work, but saw the via negativa as a prelude to understanding God.

• Some may explain that a key worry for many theologians is that to strip God of his descriptions, because our descriptions are based on finite experience, is to lose the essential link between God and the world. Christian orthodoxy insists on God’s involvement in the world, in a God who so loved the world that he gave his only son for its sake. The opposition to Gnostic heresies such as Manichaeanism rested precisely on the insistence that matter was of God and in no sense a denial of God.

• Others may explore more modern Christian thinkers, notably G.K. Chesterton and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who spoke of the ‘divinisation of matter’, insisting on finding God in and through the earth, through the material, which was all part of his divine plan of salvation. They feared that the via negativa placed God too far beyond human life and the human world.

• Those candidates who would argue that there are better ways of talking about God than the via negativa may make use of other attempts to speak about God that they have studied, provided they use them as a comparison to the via negativa and not just reject the via negativa in the first sentence before going on to explore the area of religious language on which they hoped there would be a question.

AO2 • In their evaluation candidates are free to compare the success or

otherwise of this approach to religious language as compared with symbol or analogy or myth or whichever method they feel may be more or less successful.

• Others may look to the Vienna Circle to assess whether the issue in the question has any more meaning than other attempts to talk about God, though they should avoid just making it a response solely about the verification principle.

• Some may take a more balanced approach and suggest that we may need both via negativa and via positive, the former standing as a constant reminder not to anthropomorphise God, the latter perhaps, that if we are to say something rather than nothing,that utterance needs some content, however tentative, to express anything at all.