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Context and Variety in Religious Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Martin H. Prozesky
Martin H. Prozesky
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Philosophy, University of Rhodesia, Mount Pleasant, Salisbury, Rhodesia
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Extract

There has been much discussion of the logical propriety of religious language in recent years. The debate has been one in which lines of attack and defence have been fairly strongly drawn, often in an atmosphere of contention in which the humbler task of establishing the nature and context of religious utterance has been comparatively neglected. Without gain-saying the importance of exploring the logical implications of religious language it may yet be contended that those implications will be more clearly perceived when the facts about the subject are better known.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , June 1976 , pp. 201 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1976

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References

page 201 note 1 cf. Bell, R. H., ‘Wittgenstein and Descriptive Theology’ in Religious Studies (1969), p. 1ffGoogle Scholar; Macquarrie, John, ‘The Philosophical School of Logical Analysis’ in Expository Times, lxxv 1963), pp. 45ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Williams, Bernard, ‘Tertullian's Paradox’ in New Essays in Philosophical Theology (London, 1963), pp. 187ff.Google Scholar

page 202 note 1 cf. Ferré, F., Language, Logic and God (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Ramsey, I. T., Religious Language (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Phillips, D. Z., The Concept of Prayer (London, 1966)Google Scholar and Heimbeck, R. S., Theology and Meaning (London, 1969).Google Scholar

page 202 note 2 A step in the direction of greater precision appears to be under way in writings which favour the phrase ‘religious uses of language’ to unspecified use of ‘religious language’. See Laura, R. S., ‘Epistemic Considerations and the Religious Use of Language’ in Anglican Theological Review, lii, (1970)., pp. 142ff.Google Scholar

page 202 note 3 MacGregor, G., Introduction to Religious Philosophy (London, 1968), p. 317Google Scholar. A similar claim is made in Ferré, F., ‘Metaphors, Models, and Religion’, Soundings, li (1968), pp. 327ff.Google Scholar

page 203 note 1 Ayer, A. J., Language, Truth and Logic (London, 1964) (2nd Edition, 1946)Google Scholar, especially chapter vi.

page 203 note 2 Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations (Oxford, 1953), I, 43Google Scholar. It should be noted that Wittgenstein was not announcing a comprehensive theory of meaning with these words. Cf. Laura, R. S., ‘The Positivist Poltergeist and some Difficulties with Wittgensteinian Liberation’ in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, ii (1971), pp. 183ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 203 note 3 Reprinted in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, edited by Flew, Antony and MacIntyre, Alasdair (London, 1963), pp. 96ff.Google Scholar

page 203 note 4 Compare Bishop Ian T. Ramsey's very knowledgeable treatment of religious language. Flew does of course make it clear that he is concerned only with what he takes to be religious assertions. Op. cit. p. 106. None the less one notices a crucial vagueness in the description of the garden in his version of the Parable of the Gardener (p. 96).

page 203 note 5 Bishop Ramsey's work is again a notable exception, as is R. S. Heimbeck's, op. cit.

page 203 note 6 ‘An Analysis of Religious Language’ in Cross Currents, ix (1959), p. 389Google Scholar. Cf. also Sleeper, R. W.: ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Religious Belief’, in Cross Currents, xiv (1964), p. 335.Google Scholar

page 204 note 1 It should be noted that issue is not here taken with the conclusions reached in the various rejections of religious language as meaningless, but with their lack of evidence.

page 205 note 1 If, as if often held, Wittgenstein's Tractactus Logico-Philosophicus (London, posits a one-to-one correspondence between a term and that which it names, then it is worth noting that he was concerned, as Bertrand Russell puts it in his Introduction to that work, ‘with the conditions which would have to be fulfilled by a logically perfect language’. Op. cit. p. 7. (Italics mine).

page 205 note 2 cf. Alexander, P., ‘The Difficulties which the Scientist Experiences in Accepting Theological Statements’, in The Christian Scholar, xxxviii (1955), pp. 206ff.Google Scholar

page 206 note 1 This lay-out convention is modelled on that in Wittgenstein's Investigations, I, 23.

page 206 note 2 This is more important than may at first appear. It is possible to make secular and even anti-religious use of statements as seemingly religious as ‘God loves his creation’.

page 207 note 1 It will be noticed that religious language is here being classified in terms of reference to transcendent realities (i.e. God, the Trinity, Jesus Christ, Heaven, etc.) and this could not apply to a pantheistic or nontheistic religion.

page 208 note 1 John, 20.28.

page 208 note 2 Acts, 2.36.

page 208 note 3 Phil. 2.6, 7.

page 208 note 4 John 20.31.

page 208 note 5 Eph. 6.10.

page 209 note 1 This being the case it follows that putative assertions like ‘God loves us’ or ‘God created the universe’, whatever their logical difficulties, are the wrong (because secondary) place to begin a critique of religious language. Cf. Ayers, R. H., ‘Theological Discourse and the Problem of Meaning’, in Canadian Journal of Theology, xv (1969), pp. 112ff.Google Scholar

page 210 note 1 If religious utterances arise from participation in religion and are never final one may ask how far, if at all, they can be understood by non-participants. Is, for example, Comparative Religion possible on the basis of reports about the religions it seeks to examine? The ramifications of this question cannot be entered here, though its importance for the study of religions as well as for such matters as inter-religious dialogue is considerable.

page 210 note 2 Thus Gordon Kaufman writes that for belief in God (or Jesus Christ) to arise and find expression, a ‘cultural development will have to occur which will make it possible for this particular kind of metaphysical duality (i.e. of things human and divine) to become a virtually unquestioned presupposition of all experience’. God the Problem (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972), p. 233. See also his chapter on ‘God as Symbol’, pp. 82–115.

page 212 note 1 cf. R. W. Sleeper: ‘“religious” meanings are found in the uses of religious expressions—prayer, sacraments, symbols, creeds and above all, acts of faith.’. Op. cit. p. 348. Also MacGregor, G., ‘The Nature of Religious Utterance’ in The Christian Scholar, xxxviii (1955), p. 179.Google Scholar

page 212 note 2 Subsequent occasions of worship of course occur and are doubtless influenced by kerygmatic, doctrinal, ethical and other matters. However, such subsequent occasions reaffirm the original discernment/commitment, and so remain the essential condition of other departments of religious life and commitment. For this reason it is useful also to distinguish worshipful from liturgical language, with the latter arising in subsequent, derivative situations.

page 212 note 3 In other words a statement like ‘God rules his creation’ or ‘God is my ultimate concern’ is a clearer instance of the nature of religious language than ‘There is a God’ which expresses no relationship.

page 213 note 1 Michael Frayn. Original context unknown.