When taken cognitively, religious language can be odd because some of it’s ‘ factual’ claims seem to have no empirical evidence to support them. Such claims as “Jesus was crucified o forgive my sins” or “God is omnipotent” do not seem to support themselves by any empirical evidence. We would expect statements about reality, particularly those that claim to be speaking of events of great significance, to be making factual assertions.
The fact that they lack in factual proof led the Logical Positivists to suggest that many religious statements were in fact meaningless. Ayer (a Logical Positivist) claimed that the only two types of statements that are meaningful are the analytical ones, where the predicate is included in the subject (such as ‘a triangle has three angles’), and the empirical ones, where the statements can be verified through sense data. Consequently “God-talk… no matter how emotively meaningful, is without significance and makes no genuine truth –claim,” (Kai Niebren). According to Logical Positivism it therefore seems right to view many religious claims as meaningless.
Further more, as Anthony Flew has pointed out, it seems that whenever religionists are given evidence to falsify a religious statement, it will always be rejected. To explain this, Flew gives us an example of a child dying of cancer. As a result of this, his earthly father seems to do everything to try and help, however child’s heavenly father shows no sign of concern. How therefore a statement “God loves us as a father” can still hold it’s grounds, and what difference would it make if God didn’t love us as a father? Nevertheless, religionists will comment that God’s love is “not a merely human love.” Flew therefore argues that religionists will always find a way of re-interpreting the evidence, which in result kills their own statement “inch by inch” which Flew called “death by thousand qualifications.”
More over, religious language is odd in that at times it seems to be internally contradictory. “The Trinity is tree distinct and separate persons and indivisible,” is this any more coherent than saying “this circle is round and also square?” Claims as “The incarnation means that Jesus is fully man and fully God” do not seem to man anything. However theists would often use the excuse of such religious statements being ‘mysteries.’ Nevertheless this is an intellectually weak response, just as the “God is not bound by human logic” is, because the problem is that religious language is trying to communicate to other humans so it must be bound by normal rules of logic if it is to escape the charge of meaninglessness.
Religious language at times uses a word or phrase and then claims that in its religious context it means something totally different from it’s normal/day to day usage. For example, ‘In the after-life we will have a body, but it wont be a body like anything we have now,’ however can this mean anything to us?. Danto gives an example of someone saying that the Hindu God Brahman is discovered to wear an ‘infinite hat’. However it is then pointed out that Brahman doesn’t have a hat? Therefore does it mean anything that He wears a hat? Hence, it seems reasonable for a philosopher to claim some religious language to be meaningless.
However, despite the accusations of religious language being meaningless, theists seem to find it the opposite, which in result may suggest that non of these arguments matter as long as the believer knows what he is talking about.
To what extent can these problems be resolved by seeing religious language as either analogous or as a language game (10)
Many critics of religious language, base their arguments on the claim that it is ‘univocal,’ meaning that a word has the same meaning in two given statements. To discredit this argument, others would suggest that religious language should be seen as ‘equivocal,’ meaning that a word has two different meanings in two given statements making a statement unclear and ambiguous, eg: “There is a bat at home in my attic.”
Being aware of this problem with the religious language, st.Tomas Aquinas’ solution was to find “the mean between pure equivocation and simple invocation,” as it is clear that one doesn’t mean exactly the same thing when talking about the ‘earthly father’ and the ‘heavenly father,” and that when using religious language equivocally nothing positive can be said about God which can be definite of it’s meaning. Aquinas’ solution was therefore to claim that religious language was analogical.
Although it is possible to apply words that describe human qualities and characteristics to help the understanding of God, however there is a difference between the way in which a word is used to describe human characteristics and the way in which the same word is applied to God because when applied to God the same word has a different meaning from it’s everyday use since God is perfect. We therefore need to use analogies.
Aquinas saw to parts to the analogy. ‘Analogy of attribution’ applies when a term, originally used with reference to one thing, is applied to a second thing because the one causes the other. As Davies explained it, “We can say that God is good and that some human being is good because goodness in human beings can be said to… derive from God as the first cause of all things.” Therefore words like ‘just,’ ‘loving” and ‘good’ which are normally applied to man can be attributed to God because of the casual relationship between God and man.
However, God can be attributed with ‘love’ as it exists in the universe and he is thus it’s cause is, why can’t we also say “God is evil” or “sour-tasting”? Aquinas’ response to this would be that God cannot be called evil because he does not cause I, because it is only the absence of good, the lack of total being which clearly God doesn’t possess. In addition to that, since God is infinite, only those terms which are capable of infinite expansion can be applied to him.
Never the less, Aquinas’ foundation of the argument is weak, since the basis of Aquinas’ approach is causation, but what if the statement on which it is all built “God is the First Cause” is used analogically? The whole basis of the argument from First Cause is that “all things are caused except this uncaused causer”- therefore the analogy breaks down. If it is not analogical, on what basis does he make it?
Aquinas though has a second type of analogy that of proportion. Analogy of proportion occurs when a word is employed to refer to a quality that a thing possesses in proportion to the kind of reality it possesses. When saying “my wife is faithful” and “my dog is faithful” the meaning of the word ‘faithful’ in the two examples is not identical but there is sufficient similarity to allow us to use the same term. As Hick points out “There is a recognisable likeness in structure of attitudes or patterns of behaviour that causes us to use the same word for both animals and people. Nevertheless human faithfulness differs from canine to all the wide extent that a person differs from a dog.”
However, although there is a clear gap between humans and animals, the gap between man and God is infinite. Therefore how can one attempt to make that jump on a proportionate basis. Whereas for my dog I have knowledge of my dog, I have empirical data to substantiate may claim of it’s fidelity, with God I have no such data nor am I sure of what data I could possibly have that would substantiate such a claim.
Nonetheless seeing religious language as analogical helps to defend it from some of the charges of meaninglessness, as it attempts to answer the criticism that because words used about God do not mean exactly the same as when used in ‘normal’ language that they are meaningless. Analogy helps to clarify the relationship between words when they are used both for God and man, it is not “an instrument for exploring and mapping the divine nature; it is an account of the way terms are used of the Deity whose existence is, at this point, being presupposed.”
