The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully. Traditionally, religious language has been explained as via negativa, analogy, symbolism, or myth. The medieval doctrine of divine simplicity also poses problems for religious language. Theories of religiouslanguage either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless, or attempt to show how religious language can still be meaningful.
About Problem of religious language in brief
The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully. Traditionally, religious language has been explained as via negativa, analogy, symbolism, or myth, each of which describes a way of talking about God in human terms. The medieval doctrine of divine simplicity also poses problems for religious language. Because God is generally conceived as incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, ordinary language cannot always apply to that entity. A religious believer might simultaneously wish to describe God as good, yet also hold that God’s goodness is unique and cannot be articulated by human language of goodness. This raises the problem of how God can be meaningfully spoken about at all, which causes problems forreligious belief since the ability to describe and talk aboutGod is important in religious life. The analogy of games has been proposed as a way to establish meaning in religious language, and religion is classified as a possible and legitimate language game which is meaningful within its own context. Various parables have also been proposed to solve theproblem of meaning inreligious language, such as R. R. Hare’s parable of a lunatic. Basil Mitchell used a parable to show that faith can be logical, even if it seems unverifiable. John Hick used his theory of eschatological verification, the view that if there is an afterlife, then religious statements will be verifiable after death. Because religious language is based on individual experience, owing to the increased secularisation of society, this makes the experience of God uncommon and potentially unnecessary. Because religion is both idolatrous and irrelevant without adequate words, it becomes meaningless because it fails to express awe of God, and irrelevant because it can only be ascribed to negative attributes.
Because this view of God only ascribes negative attributes to God, it is potentially unnecessary to ascribe to God as a negative being, and potentially meaningless to describe him at all. If God has no accidental properties, he cannot be as he is traditionally conceived, because properties such as goodness are accidental. If divine simplicity is also accepted, the limits of God can also be problematic to describe, for example, the Bible regularly ascribes emotions to God which would be implausible according to the doctrine ofdivine simplicity. Such limits can be problematic for religious believers; the Bible often ascribes ascriptions to God that would be unlikely to be accepted according to divine simplicity, which would also be different from the limits accepted by religious believers. The problem of God is a philosophical problem arising from the difficulties in accurately describing God, which makes religious language difficult to describe. Theories of religiouslanguage either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless, or attempt to show how religious language can still be meaningful. Theory asserts that language must be understood in terms of a game. Each context of language has its own rules determining what is and is not meaningful, so each context of religion can be classified as meaningful within the context of the religion it is part of. The theory asserts that religion is a possible language game.
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This page is based on the article Problem of religious language published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
