However, God is entirely different from any other human concept - how can there possibly be a comparison? We can say ‘God is good’ but we can also say ‘a dog is good’. In order for the model of ‘good’ to be applied to God, the qualifier of ‘infinitely’ must also be applied.
Wittengenstein compared language to a game that we play. There are many different games, each of which has a different set of rules. It does not make sense to take the rules of one game and apply them to each other – trying to play netball using the rules of chess would not work, so why would it make sense to talk about God using the same set of rules as use during everyday life? The meaning of a word in any game is determined by the way the word is used in that game, and this meaning is in use rather than in any shared image. The only way any religious language game could be understood is by playing it: the question “Was Jesus God?” can’t be given a yes or no answer as it depends on which ‘game’ you are in when you ask the question.
Some weaknesses of this were proposed by D.Z. Phillips, who argued that because each game contains its own rules of truth and meaning, they can’t be criticised by people playing different games, and therefore people within different religions, with different concepts of God, could not discuss religious concepts such as “Does God exist?”. The answer could not be given in terms or ‘true’ or ‘false’ as the word God can only be used either correctly or incorrectly in the context of the game.
Ramsay developed Aquinas’s idea that it was possible to talk about God through analogy. Central to their idea is that something can represent something else – it is possible to say something meaningful about God, even though what is being said may not be literal. This works in five ways:
1. Simile – a statement in which something a described as being something else; an analogy that uses symbolic language, i.e. “the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed”
2. Metaphor – metaphors have traditionally been seen as another way of saying what could be said literally. Some question this view and see metaphors as a way of expressing that which could not be expressed literally, i.e. “the Lord is my shepherd”.
3. Signs – these use meanings that already and obviously understood, such as white meaning purity in the West.
4. Symbols – whereas signs can be arbitrary and bear no obvious relationship to what they represent, a symbol has been derived from experience. Symbols are often used to speak of the transcendent and to direct our way of thinking. There are many different symbols – light, darkness, water – which are common to many religions.
5. Myths – an attempt to state a truth in terms of an earthly picture, usually via a story. They are seen as, not historical records, but as stories that provide insights into our own existence.
However, can a symbol ever adequately represent something beyond our conception? God is a concept so vast that there is nothing earthly that can be used to represent it. Symbols and signs can also be easily misunderstood, and there is the possibility that they can be misunderstood – to the western world, white represents purity, and red exactly the opposite, while to the east, white represents death and red purity.
Two principle that both say religious language is meaningless are the verification and falsification principles.
The verification prcinciple, proposed by the Logical Positivists (the Vienna Circle, including Ayer, Flew and McIntyre) states that language can be divided into two types – analytic and synthetic. Analytic statements only need analysis to verify them, i.e. “bears are animals” – they are a priori statements.
Synthetic statements need investigation to prove them, i.e. “it is raining” – they are a posteriori.
Some things don’t fall into either category: opinion, emotion etc. Theses statements are therefore meaningless. An example of this would be “abortion is wrong”