One advantage of interpreting religious language as mythological is that biblical stories which seem to be strange and scientifically minded, become more pleasant. There is a further advantage of not taking a literal view of religious language, and if we interpret the bible in a mythological way then the stories of the old and New Testament can not be proved wrong by scientific or historical evidence. Taking a methodical view of religious language steps aside the criticisms from Flew and Ayer, and that religious language is not factually scientific and therefore meaningless. Although these attacks are irrelevant as if it is conceded that religious statements are myths, this is because we don’t expect myths to be factually scientific. Criticisms of myths contributing to religious language is that a fundamental ability difficultly of interpreting religious stories as myths as it undermines their status as true accounts of events. Plantinga argues that to claim that “god exists” is to make an existential assertion. It is not to talk symbolically of mythological of to agree to a certain attitude. Plantinga maintains that when a Christian speaks of the existence of god they are claiming first that a person does exists of a certain sort of being who acts, hold beliefs and has aims and purposes. This person secondly is immaterial, is perfect in goodness, knowledge and power, and is such that the world depends on him for existence. In other words, must be capable of treating other religious concepts, such as god.
Another contribution to religious language was analogy; analogy is a form of religious language put forward by the philosopher Aquinas. Analogy consists of three sections ‘univocally’, ‘analogy’ and ‘equivocation’. Aquinas founded the argument for analogy with his starting point being that we only have our day-to-day language to talk about God which is what we can only use to express our emotions and passions about god himself. He explains that a word, when applied to God has a different meaning from when we use it in everyday life. He explains that a word such as 'perfect' when applied to a created being has a different meaning to when it is applied to God; it is not being used univocally. This is because we understand God to be perfect which is what Aquinas explains to be analogy. This is contrasted to Tillich's starting point as he explains that it is through metaphors and symbols. Aquinas rejects the use of univocal and equivocal language to talk about God; instead he uses analogy which is basically a comparison between two things in which the first simpler thing is used to explain the second more complex thing which is in some way similar. This means analogy relies on the fact there is some point of comparison which links the two things. Analogy can be used to describe God because he is revealed through Creation meaning there is some point of comparison between God and the world, as most believe that god was the creator of the world.
There is then analogy of attribution which means words such as just and good may be applied to God as well as human beings. When we use these words we are saying that a person has the quality of being good/just. Because God created the world, He is revealed through it and this gives a point of comparison. We can know what it is for a person to be good or wise and from the way God is revealed in the world we can use these words to describe Him. What it means for God to be good is unclear but we deduce from the world that God is good. if we say, 'God is good'; 'The Pope is good', good is being used in similar senses. Because we can see goodness in human beings this means that God is the source of goodness as He is the Creator and Sustainers of all things. Although Aquinas is not talking about good in a human, moral sense as God is infallible. God has the quality of being good, whatever that means for Him.
There then comes analogy of proportion, if you say a car is good you are saying that the car measures up to the idea of what a good car should be like for example that you can drive it around. If you say someone is a good person, the word good means the person somehow matches certain ideals of what a good person is although this is not the same for everybody. In the statement, 'God is good', good is used to indicate that God measures up to what it is for God to be good. Aquinas describes God as being perfectly good as He is eternal and unchangeable. Aquinas was not talking about moral goodness. Rather he was saying that God is good as He lives up to what He should be or lives up to what other expected him to be. Aquinas' theory therefore argues that religious language cannot be proved or disproved; as they are metaphors of something we cannot describe fully using human language.
The strengths of Aquinas analogy is that it challenges the verification principle by explaining the complexity of religious language avoids anthropomorphising God because words are not meant to be taken literally and although we say something about god it isn’t always to be taken as a literally as it sounds. Avoids agnosticism because it conveys the knowledge of God, weakness to this contribution could be that Aquinas based his work upon a number of assumptions that came from religious belief. He makes assertions about God even though it recognises that words are limited. It is debatable whether it gets around the falsification and verification principle as it does not stand up to verification because the object one is trying to illustrate by use of analogy cannot be empirically verified.
- Discuss the view that religious language is devoid of meaning.
Some philosopher, mostly logical positivist argue that religious language is meaningless because it cannot be verified or falsified basically it cannot be shown whether it’s true or false. For a statement to be meaningful it had to be verified either by analysing the content of the statement on the basis of empirical knowledge or be assessing it against the factual data, the statement ‘all vixens are foxes’ is analytic whilst, ‘it was raining on Tuesday’ is synthetic. The truth of the former lies in the context of the statement while the latter is true only in so far as on r can verify that it did rain on Tuesday in questions. When logical positivists applied their verification to religious statements they concluded that these cannot be verified and are meaningless.
Emotivism is Ayer’s approach to meta-ethics. Ayer argued that moral language is not the object of cognition and is not factual. When we make an ethical statement we are merely expressing our emotions or preference, it has been described as the Boo-Hurrah theory. Ayer concluded that ethical discussion is not possible since it cannot progress in a worthwhile manner therefore making it meaningless. The problem with this approach is that it lacks substance. According to the theory of Emotivism, a statement such as ‘murder is wrong’ is no more important than children telling each other what colour sweets they prefer.
Another philosopher named Stevenson took the basis of Emotivism and developed it further. He argued that meaningful ethical discussion could take place since people’s subjective opinions are often based on objective facts. For Stevenson, ethical statements are based upon firm, justifiable beliefs about the world and the way in which it should work, and therefore are meaningful. We disapprove of the Holocaust murders not just because they are not to our taste but because we have firm, justifiable beliefs about human dignity and worth.
Although Flew provoked a debate by stating that religious language is only meaningful in so far as it can be falsified. What he meant by this is that often religious statements are qualified to the point that they lose their meaning. Another way of expressing this could be by saying that when people make religious assertions they add the rider ‘yes but... .’ this seemed unsatisfactory to Flew a d he concluded that ‘to assert something is to deny something else. An assertion which does not rules out anything, but rather is compatible with an conceivable state of affairs, does not disappear to assert anything either’
Although there are a lot of arguments towards the fact that religious language is meaningful and they also give relevant debates towards this which also seem to make sense towards religious language and talking about god and whether it is meaningful or not and it depends on which stance people take on this topic to which argument they may prefer.
