Edexcel A-level Religious Studies (9RS0) · Philosophy of Religion: Philosophical Language
Mini-Lesson
Religious Language
How can finite human words describe a transcendent God? This lesson covers ways of speaking about God — the via negativa, analogy and symbol — and the great 20th-century debates over whether religious language is meaningful.
A key distinction: cognitive language makes truth-claims that can be true or false; non-cognitive language expresses something else (attitudes, commitment). Answer the questions and collect ⭐.
Via negativa
The apophatic way (via negativa)
The via negativa speaks of God only by negation — saying what God is not (not finite, not mortal), because no positive human term can capture the divine.
Pseudo-Dionysius held God is beyond all affirmation and negation.
Critics object that pure negation leaves the concept of God empty and uninformative.
Check
Via negativa
1The via negativa describes God by:
Analogy & symbol
Analogy and symbol
Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal God-talk in favour of analogy: analogy of attribution (God is the source of goodness) and of proper proportionality (goodness belongs to God in a manner proportionate to God's nature).
Paul Tillich (Dynamics of Faith, 1957): religious language is symbolic. Unlike a mere sign, a symbol participates in the reality it points to and opens up levels of being we could not otherwise reach.
Check
Tillich on symbol
2For Tillich, a religious symbol differs from a sign because it:
Verification
The verification debate
The Vienna Circle and A. J. Ayer (Language, Truth and Logic, 1936) held the verification principle: a statement is meaningful only if it is analytic or empirically verifiable. On this view religious statements are factually meaningless.
John Hick replied with eschatological verification: religious claims are verifiable in principle — his "Celestial City" parable shows they could be confirmed after death.
Check
The verification principle
3Ayer's verification principle implies that the statement "God exists" is:
Falsification
The falsification debate
Antony Flew (adapting John Wisdom's parable of the gardener): believers let nothing count against their claims, so faith dies "the death of a thousand qualifications" and asserts nothing.
R. M. Hare: religious statements are bliks — unfalsifiable but meaningful ways of seeing the world that shape how we live.
Basil Mitchell (parable of the partisan/stranger): believers do count evidence against faith but trust despite it — statements are meaningful assertions held on trust.
Check
Flew's challenge
4Flew argues that religious statements suffer "death by a thousand qualifications" because believers:
Wittgenstein
Language games
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations, 1953): meaning is use. Different language games have their own rules and belong to forms of life. Religious language is a distinct game and should not be judged by the standards of science.
D. Z. Phillips developed this non-cognitive reading: religious statements express commitment within a form of life, not empirical claims.
Sort it
How is religious language treated?
Sort each position by how it treats religious language.
📖 Meaningful & descriptive
🎭 Non-cognitive/expressive
🚫 Says it is meaningless
Match
Thinker to idea
Match each thinker to the idea they are known for.
Statement
Answer
Recap
The big ideas to know
Ways of speaking: Via negativa (Pseudo-Dionysius, Maimonides), analogy (Aquinas), symbol (Tillich)
Verification: Ayer/Vienna Circle: religious claims meaningless; Hick: eschatological verification
Falsification: Flew (gardener); replies from Hare (bliks) and Mitchell (partisan)
Wittgenstein: Language games and forms of life; Phillips non-cognitivism
A strong answer decides whether religious language is cognitive or non-cognitive, and whether that rescues or reduces it. Press Finish.
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