Religious Language

Answer : The term “religious language” refers to statements or claims made about God or gods. Here is a typical philosophical problem of religious language. If God is infinite, then words used to describe finite creatures might not adequately describe God. This difficulty challenges us to articulate the degree that attributes used for finite beings can be used for God and what these attributes mean when they describe God. The ambiguity in meaning with respect to the terms predicated of God is the “problem of religious language” or the “problem of naming God.” Paul Tillich believed that religious language was symbolic rather than literal (and therefore it could not be subjected to verification principles).Therefore religious language taps into the poetic, the mythical, and the imaginative side of human nature to convey fundamental truths. In Tillich’s view, there is no other way to get to this truth. On the other hand, according to Tillich, language used in a literal way conveys a false impression of God. For example, God is not a being (whose existence would then be open to question) as much as the ground of Being. In Tillich’s view, the only literal, non-symbolic way of referring to God is to say that God is ‘Being itself’. Analogy is the religious language constructed by Thomas Aquinas, a major philosopher when regarding analogy. It is both the cognitive process of transferring information and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. In a more simple term analogy is an argument from one particular to another where at least one premise or the conclusion is general. Analogy can also refer to the relationship between the source and the target themselves, which is a similarity in the biological notion of analogy. Thus in one way or the other both symbolic and analogy theory of religious language use natural language that we use in our day to day life to satiate our religious feelings. But if we use religious language as telegraphic language, it will not serve the purpose of religious men who are completely involved in the faith of God and act accordingly. There are three aspects of religion called cognitive, emotive and ritual. All these aspects can be manifested only if we use natural language that we use in our day to day lives. But if we start using telegraphic language it would not be possible to write or converse about religion in telegraphic language. Moreover use of religious language telegraphic language cannot be used meaningfully in the prose and verse that we use to express our love and devotion to god. Moreover religious language used as telegraphic language would be of no use when we take in to account the emotive aspect of religion for religious persons.

Answer : The subject of religious language is derived from the question “Can we speak meaningfully about God?” This question has great significance. God is, by nature, an ineffable being outside spacio-temporal confines which limit us human beings. God’s ineffability and transcendent nature means it is difficult to construct a meaningful statement about God without impinging on His definition. If it is not possible to make a meaningful statement about God then there is a danger that the God we think we know is a misrepresentation to the point where we no longer worship God Himself.

There are some who believe that we cannot make meaningful statements about God at all. Followers of the Verification Principle such as A. J. Ayer, for example, would hold that whatever statement we make choose to make about God cannot be verified (meaning it cannot be objectively ascertained or checked) and is therefore meaningless. There are however several strong arguments against the verification principle including the criticism that the Verification Principe is, itself, unverifiable as there is nothing which it can be tested against. For the purpose of this essay and in the interests of avoiding unnecessary tedium I will assume that it is meaningful to make statements about God.

There are four main ways in which it is claimed one can speak meaningfully about God: Via Negativa, The way of Analogy, The way of Symbolism and The way of Metaphor. A way to speak about God is the way of symbolism. This was developed by Paul Tillich who saidthat religious language must begin with the most abstract and completely unsymbolic statement as possible, namely, that God is being-itself or The Absolute. Tillich defines God as transcendent and completely beyond our ordinary experience with his one literal claim about God. After his one literal statement about God, however, Tillich holds that all further statements regarding God must be symbolic as nothing more can be literally said about Him without misrepresenting Him. The literal statement is necessary for symbolic language as there must be something for symbolic language to be symbolic about. However, the way of symbolism’s main weakness lies in this literal statement, namely, whether it can be literal. What does “the Absolute” or “being-itself” literally mean? It is not clear, so then is the foundation of symbolic language and, therefore, all subsequent symbolic statements that are derived from it making the way of symbolism extremely unstable.

Answer : Paul Tillich describes faith as an act of personality, and examines how faith participates in the dynamics of the personality. Tillich defines and explores faith as ultimate concern. Faith is a centered act of being ultimately concerned. This definition is ambiguous, and needs further explanation. If faith is ultimate concern, with what is it ultimately concerned? To be concerned, we must be concerned with something. Tillich says that the content of faith does not matter for the definition of faith. But, to resolve this ambiguity, Tillich’s definition of faith may be interpreted to mean that faith is a concern with ultimate reality. According to Tillich, faith is an act of the total personality. Thus, the dynamics of faith must account for the dynamics of personality. Faith is the freedom to choose to believe in something. Faith is ‘ecstatic’ in that it is a centered act of the total personality. Faith is not simply the will to believe, says Tillich. It is a cognitive affirmation of the transcendent nature of ultimate reality. This is achieved, not simply by a process of intellectual inquiry, but by an act of acceptance and surrender. Religious faith brings an awareness of the sacred. Tillich says that faith is certain, insofar as it is an experience of the sacred, but that it is uncertain, insofar as it brings finite beings into relation with an infinite reality. The element of uncertainty in faith cannot be avoided, and must be accepted. Ultimate reality transcends any attempt to describe it adequately, and can only be described by the use of symbols. The language of faith, says Tillich, is a symbolic language used to describe ultimate reality. For example, the word “God” is a symbol for ultimate reality. Therefore, to argue about whether God exists or does not exist is futile and meaningless. The question is not whether God exists, but whether we are concerned with, or indifferent to, the nature of ultimate reality. Tillich argues that myths are symbols of faith, which tell stories to portray situations of ultimate concern. Myths may be ‘broken’ or ‘unbroken.’ Unbroken myths are myths which are accepted as literal statements of reality. Broken myths are myths which are interpreted as myths, as symbolic statements of reality. According to Tillich, the primitive mythological consciousness is convinced of the literal truth of myth, and resists any attempt to demythologize the mythological world, because it believes that the broken myth is deprived of its truth and power. But this insistence upon the literal truth of myth actually attempts to restrict ultimate reality to the level of the finite and conditional.

Answer : The meaning of religious language has always been in debate. The main philosophical interest in religious language is in the understanding of what exactly it conveys. Can they really be what they claim about the divine reality? There are several reasons for denying this. The most preeminent of these stems form the theory of verifiability of meaning. According to this theory an utterance can be statement that is objectively true or false only if it is possible to verify or falsify it empirically. However, the verifiability criterion itself has been severely criticized. Moreover, many religious beliefs do have implications that are in principle, empirically testable, though not conclusively. If one believes them to be genuinely true or false statements about God, there are still problems as to how to understand them. We can focus on the constraints of the predicates of such statements for example, 'God made the heavens and the earth' and 'God commissioned Mosses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt'. There is a serious problem in these sentences because of two basic features of the situation. First, the terms we apply to God got their meaning from their application to creatures, particularly human being. Secondly, God is so radically different from us that it seems that these terms cannot have the same meaning in the two uses. One possibility here is that all these terms are used metamorphic ally when applied o God which obviously often happens. But are there some terms that can be literally true of God? This may be the case if some abstract aspect of the creaturely meaning of a term is literally applied to God. For example, if one aspect of the meaning of makes when applied to one of us brings about some state of affairs by an act of will', the term makes with that particular meaning might be truly applied to God.

Moreover, the term religious language is a misnomer. There is no language particular to religion. No religion is restricted to any particular type of language. So it would be more appropriate to say religious uses of language. Here we find enormous diversity. Worshipers engage in praise, thanks giving, petition confession, instruction and exhortation. It also makes some basis of denying that mere are genuine statements about God. There are three headings under which the reasons for denying the propriety of the religious language. They are metaphysical if treated as statements that are true or false they are false; epistemological we have no effective way of determine their truth value; and semantic-because of the previous epistemological criticism. Sentences predicting properties of God do not satisfy necessary conditions for having the kind of meaning (factual meaning) that would fit them for being used to make statements that are true or false. The metaphysical claim's based on a naturalistic metaphysics that takes reality to be confined to the natural order that is to the physical universe in space and time. Since that leaves no room for God as usually conceived in religion all statements that purport to refer to such a being are false. To be sure, this is quiet compatible with making that appears to be religious statements to have that status: they just all happen to be false. But if while embracing naturalism, one is still motivated to hang on to something like traditional religion the only option is to give religions utterances source non standard interpretation. This line of thinking can not be better than the naturalistic metaphysics on which it is based. Though materials can claim some support from the developments of modern science for the thesis that everything in the temporary universe is purely physical in nature. It is not clear that they have purely physical is nature. It is also not clear that they have any significant reason for denying that these are realities of a different order altogether, such as God is typically taken as being.

The epistemological reason is that we lack sufficient grounds for supposing that religious statements are true. Whether this is so is an extremely complicated issue. But even it is so that only implies that they must be accepted on faith. If one feels uncomfortable with that, it would be another motive for holding that apparent religious statements are not what they seem. The semantic approach draws a stronger conclusion from an epistemological claim. The principle on which this reasoning is based is the verifiability criterion of meaningfulness. According to this principle a sentence has factual meaning only if it in principle possible to verify it or falsify it empirically on the basis of observations. The argument is that alleged statements about God fail this test and hence are not genuine statements of fact. In a famous passage he flew passed the rhetorical question, what would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you to disprove of the love of or of the existence of God? The implied answer is that nothing would fit this bill and by the same taken, nothing would amount to a proof either. Alleged statements about are only pretend statements because they are not empirically testable.

It is this argument against the propriety of statement about God that has received the most pressure. Again, it can be no stronger than the principle on which it is based and the verifiability criterion has repeatedly been severely criticized. But in any case do statements about God really fall foul of the requirement. That depends on a number of things.

• First, it depends on what counts as an observation or empirical daum. It makes a big difference whether mystical experience is allowed to count as observation.
• Second, it depends on the viability of arguments for the existence of God, such as the teleological argument that are based on observable features of the universe. And on the other side many thinkers take it that universe. And on the other side many thinkers take it that massive and apparently underserved suffering constitute empirical evidence against the existence of God.
• Third, it depends on details of the particular religious belief system in question. Many such systems involve fairly straightforward predictions as to what the God will do under certain conditions.

Where these divine actions manifest themselves in sensorial observable change? In many primitive religions it has been believed that the God will bring rain or military victory if they are approached through certain rites. In the Christian tradition it is believed that God will see to it that the church or the chosen people will be finally victorious on earth and that prayers made in the right spirit and in the right conditions come with severe qualifications.

We cannot say when the church will be victorious or when the second coming of church will inoculate a new era. And it is impossible to be sure that one has prayed in the right spirit. In any event the issue of whether belief about god is empirically testable to some extent is by no means easily answered.