The Verification Principle, created by A J Ayer, is used to decide what language is meaningful or meaningless. Statements are first divided up into two groups’ analytical statements or synthetic statements. The first, analytical, states something is true by definition, it does not need to be proved every time as the statements will always be true through experience. For example. ‘All bachelors are unmarried men’. You do not need to test to see if every unmarried man is a bachelor, as it is already true by definition. The second, synthetic, states what is true or false and says something only has meaning if it can be verified. As long as something can be tested using your senses, your eyes, ears and touch to measure it, that statement is then meaningful. In relation to Religious Language Ayer said that statements making claims such as ‘God has a plan for each of us’ cannot be shown as being either true or false, there is no way that we can test if the statement is true in this world, thefore according to the Verification Principle that statement is meaningless.
There are many criticisms of the Verification Principle, mostly related to how the theory itself does not pass the test as being meaningful; it cannot be used to verify itself. The theory cannot be verified through our senses, so it is not a meaningful synthetic statement, and if it is analytical it then gives a new sense to the word meaningful, which we do not necessarily have to accept. Also, this theory is useful for equivocal language; people will interpret different words in different ways. This means using the Verification Principle may lead to contradictions, therefore not achieving the goal of declaring a statement meaningful or meaningless.
The Falsification Princle, produced by Antony Flew, is similar to the Verification Principle, however he states that statements are only meaningful if you can prove an alternative to them is false. Flew says for something to have meaning the opposite and all alternatives to the statement said must be wrong. E.g. ‘I am standing on a mountain’ means you are not sailing on a river, or riding a bike. If you test and find each alternative statement to be wrong, it means your initial statement of ‘I’m sating on a mountain’ is infact true, as a result, then making it meaningful.
Richards Swinburne criticised Flew’s theory however, arguing that we do not need to say everything that a statement is not to ensure it has meaning. E.g. we cannot specify and alternative to the beginning of the Universe because we do not know all other scientific theories, nonetheless, this does not make the beginning of the Universe meaningless, this opposes what Flew said. R. B. Brainwaite is another opposition of Flews theory, he argued that religious language can have truth and meaning without always making propositions. Brainwaite stated that symbols for example can still be meaningful to religious language however these do not apply to Flew’s Verification Principle, the same rules do not apply.
Finally, ‘Language Games’ was created by Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century, who saw sentences as pictures of the world. He came up with the view that language is a series of games that are played out, each with its own rules. Ludwig said that worlds only had meaning in context, and if you did not understand the context the words are used in, the words had no meaning to you. For example in a rugby match to make sense you need to understand the rules and description of the game e.g., two teams trying to get the ball across the line and kick it through the posts. According to Ludwig if you did not understand this context of the words being used it, what has been said would be meaningless and very random. However once the overall context is understood statements then have meaning and are worthwhile, you understand what it means. What Ludwig was saying is language only has meaning in specific context, taken out of one context and put into a different one, may make the meaning change. So in relation to Religion, statements can only be meaningful if in context of that particular religion. According to Ludwig if the same language is used in many religions, it would not always mean the same thing, therefore making it untrue and meaningless.
The philosopher D. Z. Phillips argued against Ludwig’s approach, saying that religious language was just a way of defining the rules of a game. For example in a religious experience, it has to be seen within the context of religion before it is judged. In most cases everyone understands what language is being used as it is the same in all contexts, in any religion. This then eliminated Ludwig’s theory as he stated that people will not understand religious language as the contexts are always changing.
To conclude, there have been a variety of theories produced to try and decide fairly what language in religion is meaningful or meaningless. Each of the theories attempts to fairly show what is meaningful however they all have criticisms and faults making them uncertain to use in some cases to understand what is meaningful in religious language.
