Religious Language Flashcards

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What is Religious Language?
Religious Language is the unique way people talk, read and listen about God.
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What is Cognitive Language?
Cognitive language is factual statements that can be proved to be true or false.
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What is Non-Cognitive Language?
Non-Cognitive Language is statements that can't be taken literally but only symbolically.
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What is meant by Verification?
A statement you can prove to be true.
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What is meant by falsification?
A statement you can prove to be false.
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What is The Verification Principle?
The idea that language must be based on experience because for a statement to be considered meaningful it must be verifiable by our sense experiences.
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How is a statement deemed meaningful using The Verification Principle?
Through empirical testing and following the criteria to deem a statement meaningful: analytic and synthetic statements.
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What is an analytic statement?
A statement true by definition. These are a priori statements that are true because they contain their own verification.
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What is a synthetic statement?
a statement that can be verified or falsified by subjecting them to empirical testing. They are a posteriori statements which cover claims that can be verified or falsified through observation and are therefore contingently true or false.
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Name 1 criticisms of The Verification Principle
Statements that express unverifiable opinion or emotions are deemed as meaningless which is flawed because although we cannot always define preciseley a statement we make that does not mean it is not meaningful to us or others.
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Name another criticism of The Verification Principle
It deems historical statements as meaningless because they cannot be verified by sense experience as there is no one alive to claim they experienced them.
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Who created the Falsification Principle and what is it concerned with?
Anthony Flew created the falsification principle, it is concerned with what would make something false.
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What did Anthony Flew claim in The Falsification Principle?
That religious statements are meaningless because there is nothing that can count against them. (Notable quote: "In order to say something which may possibly be true we must say something which may possibly be false".
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What parable was used by Flew in The Falsification Principle?
John Wisdom's Parable of the Gardener
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Name an alternative to The Falsification Principle.
Blik by R.M Hare - Claimed that when believers use religious language they are using it in a unique way.
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Who advocated the theory of language games?
Ludwig Wittgenstein
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What is the theory of language games?
Language statements are not intended to be true or false for everyone, but only for those who are within that form of life. Therefore all language is game as all forms of life have their own language and have their own rules concerning meaningful.
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What is the difference between a symbol and a sign?
A symbol reflects meaning whereas a sign simply provides information.
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True or False: Symbolic Language is always non-cognitive language.
True: symbolic language should not be interpreted literally because it is subtle modes of communication beyond the factual and objective. They go beyond our normal understanding.
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Which philospher put forward the idea of symbolic language?
Paul Tillich: he claimed that symbolic language is a positive way of expressing the nature of God in terms that ultimately concern us.
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Give three examples of symbolic language.
Dove, Cross, Angel
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Give one criticism of symbolism
Symbols are open to different interpretations. Because of this they can become trivialised, losing the original meaning od a symbol.
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What is Univocal Language?
Univocal language is the use of words in everyday sense. Example: God's love and a person's love are the same because that language is all we can understand.
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What is Equivocal Language?
Words that are used in a completely different meaning, using everyday words but differently. Example: God's love is not the same nature and quality as a human's love because God's qualities are distinctive.
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What did Aquinas say about Univocal and Equivocal language?
He said that relgious language is neither univocal or equivocal , we use human terms and apply them to God but not in an identical way because God's characteristics are infinitely superior.
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What is the Analogy of Proportionality?
The view that all good qualities belong infinitely to God in proportion to humans.
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What is the Analogy of Attribution?
The view that God is the cause of all good things in humans; therefore God's attributes are a higher level than our own.
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What is the Via Negativa?
A theory that suggest the truth about God can be discovered by speaking about him in a negative way. By ruling out all the things God is not we can disocver what he is.
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Name one criticism of the Via Negativa.
Believers in God always want to speak positively about God and insist that speaking of him in terms of negation fails to say anything meaningful about him at all.
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What is 'blik'?
How an event is interpreted in a religious or non religious way.
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What does religious language encompass?
Worship, practice, morality and doctrine.
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What is the parable of the gardener about?
It is about an argument between two men of whether God is the cause of something or if it just happens anyway.
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Name 3 weaknesses of the language game theory.
Language games do not allow for believers claims to be empirically tested. Relgious language alienates those outside the game. The rules of the game cannot be changed to allow outsiders in.
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Name 2 advantages of the language game theory
It highlights the non-cognitive nature of religious language. Language games provide boundaries for the correct use of language.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is Cognitive Language?

Back

Cognitive language is factual statements that can be proved to be true or false.

Card 3

Front

What is Non-Cognitive Language?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is meant by Verification?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What is meant by falsification?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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