First, there is Univocal Language. This means that whenever we use a word, we mean the same thing by that that word, no matter what the context in which we use it. This would hard to find in normal life, but with philosophy and science, we can find plenty of examples. For instance, transubstantion and haemoglobin always refer respectively to the process of totally changing the substance of an object and the oxygen carrying protein in the blood of all animals. These words will never refer to anything else, no matter in what context they are used.
Then we come to Equivocal Language. With this kind of language, we can use the same words to mean different things. This happens in two different ways. Equivocation a casu is when words, or the sounds which we make to pass on ideas, have multiple meanings, which are not connected to each other by any logical process. In English, this happens with words like ‘bark, bank, date,’ as well as with pairs which are written differently, like ‘reign, rain, whether, weather, pair, pear.’ The chart shows the meanings of the words in the first group. The meanings are taken from the Chambers Concise Dictionary 1999.
As far as Moses Maimonides is concerned, words used to refer to both God and everyday events and objects are all equivocally a casu.
However, Aquinas said that there is another form of language used, equivocation a consilio, when words have different, but similar and closely linked meanings. This is more commonly known as analogy. There are two kinds of analogy that Aquinas said affect the way we talk of God.
The Analogy of Attribution is when there is a casual connection between two different attributes which are given the same name. The example of ‘healthy’ can be used here. If we refer to a person as healthy, we mean that they are in good health. If, however, we refer to food as healthy, we do not mean that it is in good health, instead, we mean that it causes whoever eats it to become healthy, or at least, more healthy than they were before. There are again, two divisions of this analogy.
Extrinsic Attribution is an analogy based on factual casual relationship, which does not in itself imply any similarities between that which has the attribute literally and that to which it is attributed. To use the example of ‘healthy’, it is the fact that the food causes good health in those who eat it that allows us to apply the attribute of health to it. It is virtually healthy, that is to say that it has the virtus or power of causing health in others. This is extrinsic attribution.
Intrinsic Attribution is when there is a casual relationship in which the link is intrinsic, meaning it comes from within. This attribution can be compared to an artist painting a self-portrait. When looking at a picture, we may say, ‘that is the artist.’ However, it is clearly not literally the artist; it is an image of her. Being created by the artist, it has come from within her. It is therefore intrinsic attribution that has led us to say that the painting is her. Another example of intrinsic attribution is parents begetting children.
Another form of analogy is that of Proportionality. In this form, the analogy is that the word can be used to apply a similar meaning in two separate occasions, the difference being purely in the proportion of the adjective. If, in the example used to demonstrate how the Via Negativa arose, we used the adjective ‘intelligent’ instead of ‘good’, we can clearly see the difference in the proportion for each being. If we speak of an intelligent dog, few people would seriously contemplate a dog capable of sentience on a human level. If we call a man intelligent, we likely mean that he is more intelligent than most others. When we speak of God being intelligent, we mean that he is the ultimate intelligence in, or strictly speaking, out of, the universe. The analogy of proportionality also has two varieties.
The metaphorical analogy of proportionality is where metaphors are employed to display God’s qualities. If we say ‘God is the rock of my salvation’, we are not literally calling God a chunk of granite or limestone or any other kind of rock, and there is no way a literal rock can literally be composed of one’s salvation. Instead, we mean that God is the being to which one can turn in times of trouble, and from which salvation comes.
The real analogy of proportionality is when we literally apply an attribute to God, without the application of metaphors. When we say ‘God is intelligent’, we are referring, said Aquinas, not to God being intelligent in any human sense of the word, but to God being whatever God defines as intelligent, and that because we cannot comprehend God, we cannot know what it would mean for God to be intelligent.
For Aquinas, all speech about God is equivocal, not univocal, and furthermore it is analogical. However, some philosophers have taken language further, and say that in order for a statement to be meaningful, it must be verifiable. Verificationism arose from epistemology, the study of the nature of knowledge. In this, philosophers aim to find foundations for knowledge, because without them, we cannot know what is true and what is not. These foundations would have to be a set of values upon which all knowledge can be based. There are two different types of foundations which have been reached by philosophers.
René Descartes argued that this foundation could only be reached by finding out of which things we can be sure. He began as a sceptic, doubting everything and saying that we could be sure of nothing. From here, he realised that there is one thing that cannot be doubted: that the doubter is doubting, and is therefore thinking. This lead him to his famous saying, ‘Je pense donc je suis,’ rendered into Latin as ‘Cogito ergo sum,’ and in English as ‘I think therefore I am.’ He said that from here we can work out what is true and what is not, and that ideas therefore form the foundations of knowledge.
John Locke rejected Descartes’ claim that ideas are the foundation of truth. He argued that we must use our knowledge and experience of the world decide what is and is not fact. This approach is known as empiricism; the gathering of empirical data to show what is true. From here it was a small step to say that empirical evidence for any statement must exist for it to be meaningful. Such is the view of Logical Positivists, like A.J.Ayer, who came up with the Verification Principle. He said that there are two kinds of meaningful statements. The first sort of statement is what Ayer called an Analytical Statement, statements in which are contained their own verification. For example, if we say, “all bachelors are unmarried men,” we are obviously speaking the truth, because in order to be a bachelor one must be an unmarried man. If we reverse the order of the words, so we instead say, “all unmarried men are bachelors,” the exact meaning is retained. The second kind of statement is a Synthetic Statement, one based on our senses and experience. If we say, “James is a bachelor,” we must use our senses to find out if this is true. According to Ayer, “since it would appear that religious language is not analytical or synthetic, it would appear to be meaningless.”
Anthony Flew, influenced by Sir Karl Popper, said statements can be not only verified but also falsified, and that it is the falsification that makes a statement meaningful. To illustrate, he used John Wisdom’s parable of the gardener. In this, two men walking through a jungle find a clearing that appears to be cultivated. One of the pair believes that there must be a gardener responsible for it, while the other does not. They searched for evidence that there is a gardener, but found none. The believer adjusted his hypothesis so that it could still be believed. Each time a piece of evidence was not found, a new qualification was added to the theory. Flew called this death of a thousand qualifications, and said that it rendered the idea meaningless. Only, he said, by providing a means by which a theory or statement can be falsified, does it have any meaning at all. As a result, Flew agreed with Ayer that religious language is meaningless.
In the book, “The Thinker’s Guide to God”, Peter Vardy and Julie Arliss say, “[Anti-realism] is, arguably, the greatest challenge to the existence of God that has ever been produced…” Anti-realism, first expounded by Ludwig Wittgenstein, is the opposite of realism. Realism argues that a statement is true, if, and only if, it is true. So, to say, “There is a cat on the mat,” would be true, if, and only if, there is a cat on the mat. This is verification transcendent, meaning that the truth or falsity of the claim is not dependant on whether or not it has been verified, but it has an intrinsic value. Anti-realism rejects this. To claim that a statement is true, according to anti-realists, one must be able to verify it. This is verification dependent. The main difference between realists and anti-realists, however, is in the principle of bivalence. Realists maintain that statements are either true or false, while anti-realists say they can be true in one form of life but not in another. By form of life, Wittgenstein was referring to ways of living, meaning a culture, a lifestyle. According to anti-realists, what makes a statement true in a form of life is that it corresponds to other statements made in that form of life. So, in an Islamic form of life, if it is said that the Holy Qu’ran was dictated to the Prophet Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel who was sent by Allah, this statement would be true because it corresponds to other statements made in this form of life. Realists respond to this by saying that it is nonsense and that something is either true or it is not. Either the Holy Qu’ran was dictated by the archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, or it was not. However, replies the anti-realist, because there is no way to verify whether or not these things are actually true, there is no evidence for or against such claims, it is down to their correspondence with other claims to decide whether or not they are true.
Another area of language that is often forgotten is that of signs and symbols. They represent a part of language that be recorded. In a basic sense, what I write now is written in symbols, and it is only the fact that the reader comprehends these symbols that they are able to know the language that the symbols represent. However some philosophers have gone further, and place a great importance on symbols when it comes to religious language. Paul Tillich said that there is a distinction between signs and symbols; signs are external and arbitrary, while symbols participate in that to which they point. That is to say while a sign can represent an idea without being a part of the idea, a symbol is both representing and represented by the idea. An example of a symbol is a nation’s flag, as it is a symbol of the nation, and can also be represented by the nation. For Tillich, it is through symbols that we are able to reach deeper levels of our souls. This can be seen in the symbolic importance of the Crucifix in Christianity. Tillich argues that it is only trough symbolic language that we can truly express our faith. Like Aquinas, Tillich argued that human language derived from human experience cannot be used to literally talk about God. While Aquinas relied on analogies, Tillich turned instead to symbols.
To conclude, it seems that although many people may consider religious language to be literally true, this is not seriously considered by many people who have contemplated the issue sincerely. Indeed all of the theories contained in this essay are those which attempt to explain the nature of God or other religious ‘truths’, but to an atheist, these statements are simply not true, and so to say that religious is about facts is utterly ridiculous. Religious language deals by necessity with the clandestine, the intangible, the ethereal, the abstract and the spiritual. As such, it is a matter of belief rather than a matter of fact. A historian is perfectly likely to believe that a man by the name of Jesus Christ lived two thousand years ago in the Middle East. However, for a devout Christian, the words in the Old Testament are totally true, and Jesus lived in the way described there, performed all the miracles described there, and above all, was actually the son of God, as well as God himself incarnate as a human. The content of religious language is considered fact by those who believe it, and by those who do not, it is not factual. The question is about faith.
Bibliography
Books:
Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion – Brian Davis
The Puzzle of God – Peter Vardy
The Thinker’s Guide to God – Peter Vardy and Julie Arliss
Oxford Revision Guides: AS and A-Level Religious Studies: Philosophy and Ethics
Websites:
