religious language 

Religious language makes assertions about God’s nature and God is said to have numerous qualities e.g. infinite and timeless.
∘ Descriptions of God as infinite or timeless are outside of shared human experience so it is
impossible to support these claims with empirical evidence.
∘ Infinity or timelessness are abstract qualities, they are impossible for human beings to
conceive of reliably because humans are finite and within time.
• Sacred texts and religious doctrine and teaching requires the use of language that relates to
metaphysical ideas and concepts.
∘ Such claims are unintelligible because they are not based upon a shared experience of the
world and their meaning is unclear.
∘ Religious language often makes contradictory or paradoxical claims e.g. God
is described as omnipotent and omnibenevolent and yet allows evil to
exist.
∘ Other paradoxical claims include death being considered the end of
life, yet religious teachings and scriptures speak of life after death.
∘ If these claims are not literal, there is difficulty in understanding
what the intended meaning is. There are difficulties even amongst believers about how this language is to be understood.
• Everyone can experience the empirical world, so to talk of it is meaningful to everyone.
• Religious language attempts to communicate information about things that are not universally experienced by all people.
∘ This makes it difficult for religious people to communicate
meaningfully with those who do not share that experience.
∘ E.g. God’s grace is not a universal experience. Explaining it
to a non-religious person, requires more religious language (atonement, salvation, forgiveness, holiness) none of which can be known outside of a religious context.
∘ Religious language is often specific to the individual religion or faith perspective or is used differently between faiths.
• Cognitive language is language for which the meaning can be known with certainty.
• Cognitive language makes factual claims about the empirical world (what we can apprehend with our senses).
• It expresses propositions that can be known to be objectively true or false and can be tested with empirical evidence.
• E.g. clouds consist of water droplets; the cat is sitting on the mat.
• If religious language is cognitive then it should be possible to prove its truth or falsity, but it is
impossible to test assertions of religious language.
• Non-cognitive language is subjective language for which the meaning may be interpreted.
• Non-cognitive language expresses attitudes or interpretations.
• Non-cognitive language communicates information not restricted to empirical facts. This could
include ethical, emotional, and religious language.
• E.g. I feel happy, God loves me, murder is wrong.
• If religious language is non-cognitive, it is difficult to understand what is being expressed. It also
means that it cannot make cognitive claims. e.g. ‘God exists’ or ‘God is good’ is not a claim that can be described as true or false