Download Ethical and religious language

Ethical and religious language
Michael Lacewing
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Aquinas on analogy
We must extend our terms before
applying them to God. Talk of
God is by analogy.
Univocal language
Talk of God is univocal. A word
is univocal if it yields a
contradiction when affirmed and
denied of the same thing

Duns Scotus
Objection: this doesn’t
do justice to the
transcendence of God.
Aquinas on analogy
We must extend our terms before
applying them to God. Talk of
God is by analogy.
Analogy of attribution



Organisms are literally healthy (or not); food is healthy (or
not) by analogy. Food that is healthy causes organisms to
be healthy.
To say ‘God is love’ is to say God is the cause or ground of
all love.
Two problems:
– Is God literally the cause of love?
– Does ‘love’ apply literally to us and analogically to us?
Or does it apply literally and in the first instance to
God?
Analogy of proportion
A human father loves in the way
and sense appropriate to human
fathers and God loves in the way
and sense appropriate to God.

But if we don’t already
know what God is, how do
we know what it means to
say that God loves in a way
appropriate to God?
Tillich: Symbolic language
Our understanding of God
takes the form of symbols,
e.g. ‘the Way, the Truth,
the Life’, the Resurrection,
the Cross. Religious
language tries to express
this symbolic meaning.

Symbols ‘partake’ in
what they express.
Three implications of symbolic
language
Understanding symbols and finding the
words to express their meaning doesn’t
follow any obvious rules.
 It is not possible to give a literal statement
of the meaning of a symbol.
 We need to be sensitive to the fact that
symbols ‘point beyond’ themselves.

Difference and overlap
Many theories of religious language,
e.g. symbolic, analogical, have not
been applied to ethical language.
 But both religious and ethical language
face the question of whether, and in
what way, they are meaningful.
 A common debate began with the
verification principle.

The Verification Principle

Ayer: in order to be meaningful, a statement
must either be
– analytic (true or false in virtue of the definition
of the words); or
– empirically verifiable (shown be experience to be
true).


Because statements about God and
statements about values are neither analytic
nor empirically verifiable, they are not
meaningful.
The big objection: by its own standard, VP is
not meaningful.
The big question

Does religious and ethical language
state facts, describe the world?
– Do we experience morality or God? How
can we refer to God or values?
Expressivism



Both types of language express personal
commitments – to a way of life and a system
of values.
They motivate us to act in certain ways.
Language that motivates does not describe.
– Any fact, on its own, doesn’t motivate. I need to
care about the fact.
– Is this true? What does it show?
Wittgenstein




Language is always social, and expresses a
shared form of life.
‘God’ and ‘moral values’ are not ‘things’ in
the world; the language that uses these
terms is not like empirical language.
The nature of religious faith and moral views
supports this.
Yet many ‘users’ think that religious or
ethical language does state facts… Can’t it
be both an expression of attitude and a
description?
Realism
Virtues and the search for the good life
 Human situation and human nature
 Overlap

– Matters of life and death
– Psychic ‘wholeness’