- Wittgenstein propounded the ‘language game theory’ – this was the idea that different aspects of life have their own language and their own rules and unless you were familiar with them you could not play them properly.
- For example you cannot hope to examine religious claims by using scientific method any more than you could referee a football match using netball rules.
- Concept of life after death is a part of the religious language game
- And some would argue that it can only be fully understood by those who play that game i.e. believers
- Yet it is a subject of concern to most people.
- In a debate between a non-religious person and a believer the latter will often retreat because his claims are based on non-empirical evidence and apparently illogical arguments.
- Logical Positivists wondered whether the language of life after death was meaningful at all?
- Since life after death is a subject without empirical proof and beyond experience it cannot
be verified and it cannot be falsified. - Believers can be charged with not allowing anything to count against their belief and therefore this makes analysis of their claims pointless.
- Believers would counter this claim as John Hick did by claiming that verification is
indeed possible – eschatologically – i.e. at the end, at death! - Non-believers should not be demanding only proof in the here and now – doing so will only ensure that the concept of life after death will forever remain incomprehensible.
A2 Religious Language – part one
Topics comprise
Analogy
Language games
Myth and symbol
Verification and falsification
Introduction
Religious language has some substantial problems regarding its use and comprehension:
- Difficulties of extending language from one context to an entirely different use
- Some people claim it is meaningless
- The difficulty of objectivity
The language of proof and evidence tends not to be much use when talking about God.
Poetry or myth or symbol might be better.
“The only thing we can understand about God is that he can’t be understood. If you can grasp it, it is not God.” ST John of Damascus
“He is always totally beyond what we can know” St Gregory of Nyssa
God does not name himself when asked by Moses – he replies, “I am who I am” i.e. I’m not telling, I can’t be named.
Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274
Maintained that it is possible to speak about God in a meaningful way by analogy.
He understood language as having 3 different uses:
- Univocal – where a word has only one meaning e.g. zinc, nutmeg
- Equivoval – where a word has more than one meaning e.g. set, table, well…
- Analogical – here e.g. approximations about God, like but not the same: Judge, shepherd, light of the world.
Ian Ramsey 1915-1972
Suggests that we use many models about God and each is modified by a qualifier:
God is not just a judge he is the supreme judge; the true vine; the good shepherd; the wise ruler….
Hence he is like but not!
“We speak about God not because we know anything about him but because the alternative is to say nothing.” St Augustine
Some groups have taken this to its logical conclusion and worship God in silence: e.g. some monastic orders and the Quakers.
A Zen story tells how a teacher specified two things for the search for God:
- To realise that all efforts to find God are useless
- To act as if you didn’t know that!
Apophatic Theology
Suggests that God is not any of the things he is called therefore even traditional theology tends to negative descriptions:
|
In visible |
in comprehensible |
in expressible |
|
Im mutable |
im mortal |
etc |
|
In effable |
in finite |
This is known as the Via Negativa.