Philosophic View of Religious Language
is the chief tool for effective communication. Be it science,
politics or religion, it is language that plays the crucial
role in the propagation of axioms and ideas. There are different
kinds of languages that are peculiar to the physical, natural,
and social sciences. But whether there is any specific language
in the discourse of religion is a question that needs to be
discussed and analysed. If we undertake a comparative study
of different religions the world over, it becomes quite clear
that there is no specific or universal language of religion.
This is because unlike other sciences, which are purely empirical
in their nature, religion is fundamentally an experience or
awareness involving transempirical elements within its ambit.
as a system of lived experiences includes the first-order
language through which we communicate our feelings, thoughts
and actions in relation to an object of devotion. Galloway
defines religion as ‘man’s faith in a power beyond himself
whereby he seeks to satisfy emotional needs and gains stability
of life’. (1) Here, faith in a power beyond man is regarded
as the essential feature of religion. This power has the ability
to satisfy the emotional nature of man; that is, it responds
to man and his prayers seeking help in troubled moments or
expressing gratitude in the hours of victory. This means that
religion is a matter of commitment to an object of devotion
or an attitude to life. But since neither commitment nor attitude
can be deemed cognitive, religious statements or utterances
too cannot be counted as cognitive; they cannot be regarded
as either true or false like scientific ones. But though empirically
unverifiable, religious statements are not meaningless. The
significance of religious language in human life cannot be
simply brushed aside. Religion as a distinct kind of commitment
has its own field and its own distinctive language.
analysis is one of the fundamental tasks of a philosopher.
Though we can find sophisticated elements of linguistic analysis
in the Vyakarana, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Jaina and Buddhist schools
of Indian thought, linguistic analysis as a school of philosophy
is mainly a western thought movement. A good number of western
theologians have dealt with religious assertions as if they
were empirical. However, Ludwig Wittgenstein in his philosophical
investigations came up with the view that religious language
is used not to convey any information about a fact but to
tell people to live with a picture, though not a picture which
can be sensed. One very old view is that theistic statements
are quasi-cognitive; they are said to be analogical in nature.
Besides these, there are a number of other theories holding
the view that theistic assertions are non-cognitive.
recent development in the philosophy of religion is much occupied
with the problems concerning the religious uses of language.
One such is that concerning the descriptive terms applied
to God and another is that dealing with the basic function
of religious language.
Hick has pointed out that many of the terms that are applied
to God are used in a special sense and differ from the way
they are used in ordinary mundane contexts. When it is said
that God is great, God is love, or God is good, it does not
mean that God occupies a large volume of space or that God
has a physical body which expresses itself in a range of actions.
In cases where a word occurs both in secular as well as theological
contexts, its secular meaning is primary in the sense that
it has developed first and has acquired an established meaning
of its own. The meaning that such a term bears when it is
applied to God is an adaptation of its secular use. Consequently,
terms like ‘great’, ‘love’, or ’good’, when applied to God
in religious discourses, raise a number of questions. There
are different opinions among philosophers regarding the status
and meaning of such terms and the function of religious language.
the Christian tradition, the philosophers of the scholastic
period like St Thomas Aquinas developed the doctrine of analogy
to explain the nature of religious language. Aquinas says
that when a word such as ‘good’ is applied to God, it is in
a different sense from that used in relation to human beings.
According to him ‘good’ is applied to God and man neither
univocally nor equivocally but analogically. Qualities like
goodness, love and wisdom are the perfect qualities of the
Godhead that are known to us only by analogy.
we say that God is good, we are saying that there is a quality
of the infinitely perfect Being that corresponds to what at
our own human level we call goodness. … It is the divine goodness
that is the true, normative and unbroken reality, whereas
human life shows at best a faint, fragmentary and distorted
reflection of this quality. Only in God can the perfections
of being occur in their true and unfractured nature: only
God knows, loves, and is righteous and wise in the full and
proper sense. (2)
is sure that we do not know what perfect wisdom or perfect
goodness is like. The doctrine of analogy intends to indicate
the relation between the different meanings of a term when
it is applied both to humanity and to God. He further states
that we know that God is but we have to take the help of analogy
when we want to know what He is like.
doctrine of analogy derives its force from the assumption
that cause and effect are similar in nature. Men and other
finite things have been created by God. So finite creatures
reflect the nature of their creator, God. ‘Terms signify God
to the extent that our intellect knows Him. And since our
intellect knows God from creatures, it knows him to the extent
that creatures represent Him.’ (3)
Tillich has discussed the symbolic nature of religious language
in his works like Systematic Theology and Dynamics
of Faith. In this view, all theological statements concerning
God - that he is the creator, a good and personal being, and
so on - are symbolic. To Tillich ‘religious faith, which is
the state of being “ultimately concerned” about the ultimate,
can express itself only in symbolic language.’ (4) He says
that a symbol participates in the reality to which it points.
A symbol opens up our vision to dimensions of reality (as
also our own being) that otherwise remain uncognized. A symbol
deals with the ultimate and the fundamental symbol of our
ultimate concern is God.
to Tillich, in the notion of God two elements can be distinguished
- the element of ultimacy or the Being of God, which is not
a symbol, and the element of concreteness, which is borrowed
from our experience and is symbolically applied. (5) A Christ
or a Krishna has both the elements: the ultimate concern and
a concrete image of what concerns a believer ultimately.
further expresses his view that a symbol has truth: it is
adequate to the revelation it expresses. No symbol should
be treated as an existential thing. If a symbol is objectified
and secularized in the form of a thing, then it is no more
a religious symbol. Every symbol points to the infinite, which
it symbolizes, and the finite, through which it symbolizes.
Hence it is finite-infinite. ‘It forces the infinite down
to finite things and elevates and opens up the finite things
for the divine.’ (6)
symbol is a statement which a believer makes with all his
heart, soul and strength. The true awareness of the transcendental
or ultimate reality, which the symbol represents, is an existential
grasping of it. Hence no symbolic statement can be impersonally,
literally or factually true; that is to say, they cannot be
classified as true or false like cognitive judgements. They
are authentic or inauthentic - authentic when they evoke an
ultimate concern for man’s destiny or when they represent
the transcendent with an immediate awareness. But symbols
are not merely expressions; they have their root in reality:
‘They are not merely different subjective ways of looking
at the same thing. They have a foundation in reality, however
much the subjective side of man’s experience may contribute.’
(7) Tillich, however, says that the sole literal and non-symbolic
statement that can be made about the ultimate reality called
God is that God is Being-itself. All other theological statements
about God are symbolic.
Language as Non-Cognitive
a matter of historical fact, many religious people have taken
such statements as ‘God is love’ to be not only cognitive
but also true. However, recently there have been a number
of theories that treat religious language as non-cognitive.
Three of such theories are discussed below.
his book The Role of Knowledge in Western Religion,
J. H. Randall holds that religion works with a body of symbols
and myths which are both non-representative and non-cognitive.
According to him they have a fourfold function:
they arouse the emotions and stir people to actions; they
may thereby strengthen people’s practical commitment to
what they believe to be right. Second, they stimulate cooperative
action and thus bind a community together through a common
response to its symbols. Third, they are able to communicate
qualities of experience that cannot be expressed by the
literal use of language. Fourth, they both evoke and serve
to foster and clarify our human experience of an aspect
of the world that can be called the “order of splendour”
or the Divine. (8)
fourth statement of Randall’s is rhetorical. To him the
Divine is a mental construct, a product of the human imagination
and not the creator or ultimate ruler of the universe. As
John Hick rightly points out, this way of thinking has led
to the replacement of the word ‘God’ by ‘religion’, a use
that is becoming widespread today. In contexts pertaining
to God and His nature or purpose, the corresponding notion,
which is of concern today, is religion, its nature and function.
attitude has resulted in a shift in focus in the type of issues
that presently interest both the student of religion as well
as the common man. One is less interested in questions about
the existence of God and the validity of religions than about
the utility of religions. God’s existence may be doubted,
but not that of religions. It may not be very discreet to
question the truth of religions; opinions about utility, however,
appear more consonant with the spirit of scientism.
profound view about the non-cognitive nature of religious
statements is offered by R B Braithwaite. He holds that religious
statements, especially ethical ones, express or dictate a
general policy or a way of life. For example, a Christian’s
assertion that God is love (agape) is an indication of his
intention to follow an agapeistic way of life. Though not
empirical, in his view, religious statements have meaning:
‘A theistic statement may be empirically vacuous but then
it has meaning, for theists do talk and understand one another.’
(9) Braithwaite holds that a theistic statement is primarily
a moral statement backed by stories. According to him, it
is not necessary that these stories be true, but they act
as psychological aids for people to resolve upon and carry
through a course of action. A great many times the moral policy
of action goes against one’s psychological temperament; but
when it is associated with a parable, the resolution to carry
it out comes spontaneously. However, the fundamental characteristic
of a religious statement is the resolution to follow a way
of life and not the story with which it is invariably associated.
The story has no truth claim. Braithwaite holds that religious
statements are a matter of existential decision making and
commitment to a certain way of life and action.
view of religious language as non-cognitive comes from R.
M. Hare. He, like the later Wittgenstein, conceived language
as a kind of game with many possible rules of play. Scientific
or factual use is not the only context for the use of language.
Hare holds that religious statements are both prescriptive
and descriptive. According to him, religious statements do
not describe facts but express our attitude to facts. A statement
expressive of an attitude to facts may be called a ‘blik’
statement. (10) Blik is the mode or manner in which things
appear to a perceiver in the light of his deep-seated disposition.
Bliks, according to Hare, are neither true nor false: they
determine whether something is perceived as fact or illusion.
Hare says that religious statements are blik statements. In
his view, just as Kant regarded causal necessity to be an
a priori or non-empirical blik of the scientists of his day,
God as the source and cause of beings is a blik.
blik theory of Hare seeks to emphasize two things: First,
belief or disbelief in God may not have any predictive value
concerning facts; yet it makes a great difference to the world
of theists. Second, he holds that religious statements are
not factual assertions; yet a religious belief is never bereft
of factual reference. Bliks, according to Hare, may include
faith and commitment. A religious blik is right or wrong in
relation to a certain religious community accepting a certain
prescriptive religious value. He does not hold that religious
bliks are indispensable but says that they are ultimately
matters of personal decision and commitment which help to
choose a kind of life we want to live.
language, whether we describe it as analogical, symbolic or
non-cognitive, is unique, and its uniqueness is something
which springs from the uniqueness of what that language is
about. The language of religions is one that tries to comprehend
the incomprehensible. As Sri Ramakrishna says, ‘No one can
say with finality that God is only “this” and nothing else.’
(11) Though not definitive, religious statements can act as
ladders for people groping in worldly darkness to reach transempirical
G. Galloway, The Philosophy of Religion, 184.
John H. Hick, Philosophy of Religion (New Delhi: Prentice
Hall, 1993), 84.
Y. Masih, Introduction to Religious Philosophy (New
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971), 99.
John H. Hick, op. cit., 86.
Y. Masih, op. cit., 134.
Religious Experience and Truth, ed. Sidney Hook (New
York: New York University Press, 1961), 306.
John H. Hick, op. cit., 90.
Y. Masih, op. cit., 116.
M, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami Nikhilananda
(Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2002), 148.