Many philosophers challenged the verification principle and rejected it. A main critic was John Hick. He said the principle itself is not meaningful because it cannot be verified using the verification principle. Hick argued when we die the truth of God’s existence will be verified either true or false. This is known as the eschatological verification. It can only be verified the day we die. This would be accepted by the weak form of the verification principle as in theory we know how to verify the statement (when we die). This therefore shows that religious language can be accepted as meaningful, even through the verification principle’s very own criteria and so rejects the statement.
Also,it doesn’t take into account factors which may prevent an individual from being able to verify a statement. For example, asking a blind man to verify that the sky is blue and therefore, the statement would be meaningless to him. The statement is however verifiable for someone who can see. Therefore, in correspondence to religious language, the statements can be verified by a religious believer but not by a non-believer.
Some people may say that logical positivists are failing to understand the meaning behind religious language. It is meant as non-cognitive and is meaningful on a personal level for believers. The logical positivists have taken the assertions as cognitive which aims to portray facts about God/universal truth claims whilst many religious believers hold the view that it’s meant for a personal understanding of God which has meaning to the individual. This is a very strong argument, which disagrees with the statement that religious language is meaningless, as it is subjective to individuals.
Flew argued that any statement has meaning if the person making the claim accepts that there may be evidence to count against it. The statement is factual if it cannot be falsified using sense experience. The statement is meaningless if we refuse to allow it to be falsified. Statements only have meaning if there is nothing which can count against the assertions made. For example, the statement “red is a colour” is true as it is an analytic, a priori statement which is inductive,as it is true by definition. Flew argued that religious language is meaningless as religious statements do not allow for any evidence to count against them. Also, religious statements cannot be prove verified because religious believers do not allow for any evidence to count falsify their beliefs. For flew there is no difference between non-falsifiability & meaningfulness.
Flew argued that Christians hold the belief that “God is good” regardless of the evidence given against it. Flew would label the religious statements meaningless as they “die a death by a thousand qualifications” flew uses wisdoms parable of a Gardner. wo explorers come across a clearing in a jungle. It contains a mixture of weeds and flowers. One claims that there must be a gardener who comes to tend the clearing. The other denies it. They sit and wait, but no gardener appears, however they try to detect him.” One gardener continues to claim that there is a gardener; one who is invisible, inaudible, intangible and undetectable. Flew argues that, in the same way, if a believer’s statement about God can be made to fit into any circumstance, it is not meaningful and has no empirical implications. Therefore this supports the statement.
An criticism of this is that 'The parable of the gardener' is used to claim that a religious believer doesn’t let any evidence count against their beliefs. However, within this parable empirical measures have been used in order to seek the gardener whereas religious believer would argue that God is found through faith.
R. M. Hare stated falsification can be used for cognitive statements but it cannot be used for non cognitive statements because religious language cannot be falsified but it doesn’t mean it has no meaning. He used the example of the student. The student was convinced dons were going to kill him and he wouldn’t accept any evidence against them not wanting to kill him. Even though he wouldn’t accept any evidence against his belief, it is meaningful to him because of what he thought. Hare also went on to say that looking at the world in this way is seen as a “blik.” Religious beliefs are bliks because of the impact they have on every individual’s life and the way believers look at their lives that is different to somebody else’s.
Wittgenstein begins by establishing that religious language is not meaningless but rather non-sensical by this he means that because it is difficult to define or picture it, it does not make sense to discuss it - remember 'Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain silent'. He then observes that actually metaphysical claims use the same ordinary language but in a 'odd way'.
He said confusion on the meaningful/less- ness of religious language only arises because of a confusing when 'language goes on holiday'. To understand this he formulates this theory of Language Games which asks us to have another closer look at how the language is used. We can use language meaningfully without adhering to any empirical criteria (verification principle) because the true meaning of language is in how we use it. To use this he introduces us to the concept of forms of life. He said just like we have different sports and each sport has its own rules and language uses so does each form of life. We cannot apply the rules of rugby to basketball, that would be absurd. The same way we cannot apply rules and the beliefs of scientific language to religious language. They are two different things, it is like comparing apples with pears. For believes miracles, the Bible etc are all sufficient evidence for the claims they are making so trying to apply a scientific criteria does not make sense. This is a strong augment against the statement the religious language is meaningless
Wittgenstein has a some critics to his theory. The first is that different faiths have a different language game and it is extremely difficult to share those differences between the religions. Secondly, all religious believers are involved in different language games in one way or another. Religious language has not become totally isolated so there must be a common ground between religious language and other language games. If there is a common ground, non believers are able to understand religious language and decide whether or not it has a meaning for them. Thirdly, non believers might be able to understand the language better than a religious believer as they have an objective view on the use of the religious language. Believers take the language for what it is and cannot be subject to anything else.
In conclusion, believers would agree it is difficult to talk about God. The meaning of the word God applies to a being beyond human understanding. Believers recognise that any discussion of God is limited, but they would argue religious language does have meaning and purpose.
