'The solutions to the problems of religious language are entirely effective' Evaluate this v

Philosophers have often discussed the meaningfulness of religious language. This has led to a variety of different arguments.

The principle of verification sprung up from the work of the Logical Positivists in Vienna. They state that the only statements that could be considered meaningful were those that were logically and empirically verifiable. These included tautological, mathematical, analytic and synthetic statements. At first glance, this appears to be a solid nail in the coffin hurtled towards religious language. However, the verification principle ('the meaning of a statement is its method of verification') itself cannot be verified. This immediately falls flat on its face and is probably the most effective solution to undermine the problem put forward by the Logical Positivists.

However, Ayer recognised that there was another problem-verification only took into account statements in the present and not the past. He then redefined the verification principle by introducing strong and weak verification, as well as verification in principle and practice. This is also an effective solution against the challenge of logical positivism but only if the religious language can historically either logically or empirically backed up. If this is not the case, then religious language would be considered unverifiable and therefore meaningless.

Falsification was proposed by Karl Popper and said that if you know how to disprove, or falsify somehing, then that is meaningful.

Anthony Flew backed this up using 'Wisdom's Parable of the Gardener' to demonstrate that believers do not allow anything to count against their beliefs and so religious lanauge is meaningless.

RM Hare however, opposed this with his use of bliks. These were things that impacted on how a person thought and acted. Hare said that the very fact that believer did not allow for anything to count against their belief showed that their belief had impacted their life This impact and its effect on a person demonstrated that religious language could not possibly be falsifiable due to the considerable effect it had on people, therefore must be meaningful.

Swinburne also said that there are somethings that are just accepted to be true regardless of it they can be falsified. He used the analogy of the toys in the cupboard to show that just because there is no evidence for something, does not mean that it is not true.

Hare and Swinburne present logical ad effective solution to the problems falsification pose at religious language.

Rather than literally, religious language is thought to be interpreted as mythological. This is a good solution because it provides a safer option for the interpretation of religious than interpreting it as literal would be. However, the main curveball thrown at myth is that if things are not literal, then why would Christianity believe in the resurrection? There is no hidden meaning but myth posits that it cannot be literal. The believer may then say that interpretation as myth is not applicable to everything but then we have the question of who decides what is interpretated as myth.Therefore, myth proves to be an ineffective solution to defend religious language.

Lastly, Wittgenstein attempted to compare language with games. The said that just as no two games are the same, so ways of using language are different. You cannot criticise the language of a theist from the approach of an atheist because then you are playing a different language game. You cannot criticise another language games if you do not know its rules.

This appears to be a logical, effective solution. However, Wittgenstein does not recognise that scientists also believe in God. This view of no two language games being the same fall apart if they are to overlap.

In addition to this, if the definition of God, is different in each language game, how do the theist and the atheist know that they are both talking about the same God when debating? This also applies to interfaith situation. How can different faith groups co-exist if they speak different language games?

In conclusion, the so called solution to religious language are not entirely effective. However, I think that the most effective solution would be Wittgenstein's because it is logical and does not change our understanding of religious language.

It is not rooted in Biblical beliefs and so cannot be disproved by further evidence.

Furthermore, it effectively answers the problem science poses to religious language.

In answer to the question of a theistic scientist, I think that Wittgenstein would ague that that would be a whole new language game.

27/30

Essay plan

The first thing that I did when I answered this, was to find out exactly what the question was asking, given that it sounded quite strange and hard.

The key words in the questions are 'solutions', 'problems of religious language' and 'effective'.

I thought about what the problems to religious language meant. These were the theories like verification, falsification.

But they also say solutions. This could mean things used to debunk verification and falsification or even new theories like Wittgenstein or myth. These solutions or things used to debunk other things were to then also be evaluated. Basically, evaluating a solution that is in turn, used to evaluation a problem, which is used to critically analyse religious language.

Complicated I know.

But here's the plan.

PROBLEMS:

Logical Positivism: Verification, falsification, science and can be take it literally?

SOLUTIONS: (these relating ones are above each other)

meaning of statement, ayer RM Hare, Swin, Wittgenstein, myth.

Finally, I had to evaluate how these solutions successfully prove the problems wrong.

This can be picked out in the essay.

Hopefully it was clear!