RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE

WHAT IS RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE?

debate is about whether such religious language is meaningful or whether it is meaningless.

At first glance, it might seem obvious what “God exists” means. But there are philosophical definitions of meaningful which are used to argue religious language is meaningless:

WHAT ARE THE TWO ARGUMMENTS USED TO PROVE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AS MEANLESS?

• Verificationism

• Falsificationism

COGNITIVIST STATEMENT

A statement which aims to describe the world as it is.

• They are either true or false.

• When a cognitivist says ‘God exists’, they are making a statement that is intended to be taken literally as true or false

NON COGNITIVIST STATEMENT

A statement which doesn’t aim to describe the world as it is.

• They aren’t either true or false. They are more like expressions - ‘hooray’

• A non cognitivist would say that religious statements express someone’s attitude to the world

OUTLINE AJ AYER’S VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

It states that a statement only has meaning if it either is an analytic truth, or is empirically verifiable.

EXPLAIN VERIFICATON PRINCIPLE

Any statement that does not fit these descriptions is meaningless.

Applying the verification principle to religious language, Ayer argues that statements like “God exists” are not analytic truths. Further, they are not empirically verifiable or falsifiable.

Therefore, according to Ayer’s verificationism, religious language is meaningless.

PROBLEM WITH VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE

Self-defeating: In response to Ayer’s argument you can argue that Ayer’s verification principle fails its own test.

Ayer’s claim that “a statement is only meaningful if it is analytic or empirically verifiable” is itself neither an analytic truth nor empirically verifiable! Therefore, according to its own criteria, the verification principle is meaningless, and makes Ayer’s argument weak and unreliable.

FALSIFIABLE STATEMENTS VS UNFALSIFIABLE STATEMENTS

• Falsifiable statements are meaningful and capable of being true or false

• Unfalsifiable statements are meaningless, and not capable of being true or false.

WHAT MAKES A STATEMENT FALSIFIABLE?

A statement is falsifiable if it is inconsistent with some possible observation. In other words, there has to be some possible evidence that could count against that statement – otherwise the statement is meaningless.

EXAMPLE OF A FALSIFIABLE STATEMENT

All swans are white."

• How it is falsifiable: To prove this wrong, you simply need to observe a single swan that is not white (such as a black swan). The observation of one counter-example completely disproves the statement.

‘GOD EXISTS’ AS A UNFALSIFIABLE STATEMENT- INVISIBLE GARDENER

• Two explorers find a clearing in a jungle. Both weeds and flowers grow here.

• Explorer A says the clearing is the work of a gardener. Explorer B disagrees.

• To settle the argument, they keep watch for the gardener.

• After a few days, they haven’t seen him, but Explorer A says it’s because the gardener is invisible

• So, they set up an electric fence and guard dogs to catch the gardener instead

• But, after a few more days, they still haven’t detected him

• Explorer A then says that not only is the gardener invisible, he’s also intangible, makes no sound, has no smell, etc.

• Explorer B: What is the difference between this claim and the claim that the gardener doesn’t even exist?

• In other words, Explorer A’s theory is unfalsifiable – nothing could possibly prove this theory wrong, but nothing could prove it correct either.

• Because it is unfalsifiable, Explorer A’s theory is meaningless.

EXPLAIN INVISIBLE GARDENER

• Jungle clearing = the world

• Invisible gardener = God

• Flowers = Good

• Weeds = Evil

Flew is arguing that “God exists” is meaningless because it is unfalsifiable in the same way the existence of the invisible gardener is unfalsifiable.

We can’t even use the problem of evil as evidence against God’s existence because the religious believer just creates reasons (e.g. free will, soul-making) why an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God would allow evil.

Flew argues that because the religious believer accepts no observations count as evidence against belief in God, the religious believer’s hypothesis is unfalsifiable and meaningless.

ESCHATOLOGICAL VERIFICATION

A statement that can be verified after death, or at the end of time.

HICK’S OBJECTION TO AYER

John Hick agrees with Ayer that “God exists” is not empirically verifiable in this life. However, Hick argues that many religious claims are about things beyond the limits of human life. And, he argues, such religious claims are meaningful because it is possible to verify them after we die. For example, many theists believe in a life after death during which they will meet or otherwise experience God (which would be unambiguous verification that “God exists” is true).

HICK’S CELESTIAL CITY

• Two men are travelling on a road – it is the only road there is, so they both must travel it

• Traveller A believes the road leads to a celestial city, whereas Traveller B believes the road leads nowhere and that the journey is meaningless

• As they travel along the road, they experience both “refreshment and delight” and “hardship and danger”

• When they turn the last corner of the road, one of them will be proved right: If traveller A is correct and there is a celestial city, his belief will be verified.

WHAT DOES THE CELESTIAL CITY PARABLE MEAN?

Traveller A is the theist and Traveller B is the atheist. If the theist is correct, his belief will be verified in the afterlife when he meets God – this is the equivalent of reaching the celestial city.

So, in response to Ayer’s verification principle, Hick says “God exists” is verifiable (and therefore meaningful). It may not be empirically verifiable, but it is eschatologically verifiable: If “God exists” is true, then it can be verified after we die.

MITCHELL’S OBJECTION TO FLEW

Mitchell agrees with Flew that in order for a statement or belief to be meaningful it must be possible for some observation to count against it (i.e. it must be falsifiable in order to be meaningful).

But, Mitchell argues, just because there are some observations that count against a certain belief, that doesn’t automatically mean we have to reject that belief.

MITCHELL’S RESISTANCE FIGHTER EXAMPLE

• You are in a war, your country has been occupied by an enemy

• You meet a stranger who claims to be leader of the resistance

• You trust this man

• But the stranger acts ambiguously, sometimes doing things that appear to support the enemy rather than your own side

• Yet you continue to believe the stranger is on your side despite this and trust that he has good reasons for these ambiguous actions

WHAT DOES THIS EXAMPLE MEAN?

In this analogy, the stranger represents God and his ambiguous actions represent the problem of evil. Mitchell is arguing that we can accept that the existence of evil counts as evidence against the statement “God exists” (and so it is falsifiable) without having to withdraw from belief in this statement.

WHAT ELSE DOES MITCHELL ARGUE?

Mitchell argues that religious beliefs are not ‘provisional hypotheses’ like scientific statements. But nor are religious beliefs ‘vacuous formulae’ that the believer holds regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

Instead, reasonable religious beliefs are a kind of middle ground: They are ‘significant articles of faith’. The religious believer is invested in these beliefs and so doesn’t withdraw from them as soon as the slightest evidence to the contrary turns up. However, this is not to say that the religious believer would believe “God exists” in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary – that would be irrational/ ‘vacuous formulae’.

IN THE END WHAT DOES MITCHELL CONCLUDE?

Mitchell is arguing that we can accept that the existence of evil counts as evidence against God’s existence (and so “God exists” is falsifiable and meaningful) without withdrawing belief in God.

PROVISIONAL HYPOTHESIS

Belief that is abandoned as soon as the balance of evidence counts against it (e.g. a scientific hypothesis once it is disproved by evidence)

SIGNIFICANT ARTICLE OF FAITH

Accepts some conflicting evidence against the belief but seeks an explanation of this conflicting evidence (this is what religious belief is).

VACUOUS FORMULAE

Irrationally maintained in the face of any and all conflicting evidence. No amount of evidence is enough to disprove it (so completely unfalsifiable)

WHAT DOES R.M HARE ARGUE ABOUT RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE?

According to Hare, religious statements are not things that can just be shown to be true or false. Instead, they are basic fundamental beliefs that are not empirically testable – Hare calls these attitudes ‘bliks’.

EXAMPLE OF BLIKS- PARANOID STUDENT

Hare uses the example of a paranoid student who thinks university lecturers are trying to kill him.

You assure this student that university lecturers are not trying to kill him and provide tons of evidence, yet the student still believes it anyway. Imagine, for example, that you decide to go with him to speak to a university lecturer and the lecturer acts totally normal:

You: See, he’s fine – the university lecturer isn’t trying to kill you!

Paranoid student: But he was just pretending to be normal so as not to reveal his true plan to kill me!

So, no amount of evidence/reassurance will convince the student that his blik is false. In other words, their blik is unfalsifiable.

WHAT DOES HARE ARGUE FROM THE PARRANOID STUDENT?

despite being unfalsifiable, Hare argues that bliks are still meaningful to the person who holds them. For example, the blik clearly means something to the paranoid person because it has an effect on his behaviour: He won’t go to lectures, and will look over his shoulder to check university lecturers aren’t following him.

Hare argues that religious language is the same: “God exists” may be unfalsifiable to people who have this blik, but it clearly means something to them. For example, people who believe “God exists” might pray or go to Church – it means enough to them that it affects their behaviour.

In other words, a blik is unfalsifiable but still meaningful to the person who holds it.