Religious Language
The status of religious language or ‘God talk’ has been an issue since the
beginning of Christian theology.
The question of the status of religious language, or how we speak about
God, has, implicitly or explicitly, been at the centre of all Christian theology.
This is because religious language is the basic medium for formal theology.
The problem of religious language is raised in the first place by the texts
of Scripture: how do they speak about God? Origen, one of the first academic
theologians, argued that Scripture is essentially allegorical rather than literal,
speaking about God in figures and metaphors. He shared the Platonic view
that language is a poor substitute for pure thought, and saw allegory as a way
of moving beyond words into a hidden realm of pure spiritual meaning.
The Platonist view that language cannot express God or truth finds its
most powerful religious
form in the Christian mystics, particularly the
negative theologians, who believed that we have to let go of language in order
to contemplate God.
In the Middle Ages, the question of religious language was raised again
by Thomas Aquinas, who wanted to explain how language could talk
positively about God. Aquinas argued that we cannot speak in a precise
(univocal) way about God because our languages are imperfect. However, our
talk of God is not entirely false (equivocal) either. Religious language has the
status of analogy, so when we speak of God as Father, we do not think that he
is
literally our father, but we do accept that he is our father in an analogous
sense. This is true for all our religious language: our statements about divine
love, truth, justice and so on, are analogies of God’s real love, truth and
justice. In this way Aquinas established a powerful general theory of the way
in which religious language works.
In the twentieth century a number of conflicting
theories have been
advanced. Karl Barth argued strongly against the theory of analogy, saying
that words cannot speak about God except by grace, which operates
miraculously to make our theological languages meaningful.
Religious
language only works because God chooses to reveal himself in it.
The logical positivists, notably A. J. Ayer, argued that the word ‘God’ is
meaningless because statements about God can never be verified, or indeed
falsified. The phrase ‘God is good’ is an article of faith which cannot be
‘checked out’, therefore having as much real meaning as the phrase ‘X is
good’. Ian Ramsey (in Religious Language) responded to the positivists by
arguing that talk about God is in fact anchored in the ‘religious situation’ of
the speaker.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the so-called post-structuralist
theory of language opened up a new understanding of God-talk.
The post-
structuralists (and others like Ludwig Wittgenstein) argued that language is a
fluid system in which the meaning of words is never stable. We have no
choice but to understand our world, and God, within free-floating networks of
linguistic meaning. This controversial theory argues that God-talk takes its
meaning not from reference to God, but from the underlying system of human
language.
Although few theologians have adopted a full-blown post-structuralist
theory of language, the influence of post-structuralism has been immense and
most theologians now accept that languages operate flexibly within cultures.
THINKERS
Don Cupitt (1934– ) argues (in The Long Legged Fly) that religious
language says nothing about God, who doesn’t exist, but functions to provide
us with a sense of cosmic order, purpose and values.
Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) argued that
all languages are systems of
differential signs (or différance) in which there are no absolute meanings.
Derrida suggested (very tentatively) that God might be the reality of language
itself rather than just a concept within language.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) developed the theory of language
games (see below). He once said that the essence of religion does not lie in
the meaning of language, but in the act of using language: ‘Thus it does not
matter if the words used are true or false or nonsense.’
IDEAS
Allegory: a story in which the characters, events, objects and locations
refer to other realities. The
parable of the prodigal son, for example, is an
allegory of God’s forgiveness.
The doctrine of analogy: the theory (developed by Aquinas) that human
words operate as analogies to divine realities.
Glossolalia: the Christian practice of ‘speaking in tongues’ which was
common in the early Church and is now widespread among Charismatic and
Pentecostal churches.
Language games: the theory (invented by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the
early twentieth century) that particular instances of language can only be
understood within
the context of language games, and that these games
always have a cultural setting or ‘form of life’.
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which the meaning of a word is ‘carried
over’ and used in a different context. ‘God is a rock’ is a metaphor.
Pentecost: an event described in the book of Acts, when the apostles
spoke to a crowd of people from different countries,
but their speech was
understood by all.
Speech act theory: the idea (advanced in the 1960s by John Searle and
John Austin) that language communicates through the way it is ‘performed’.
Symbolism: a word or image that stands for some other thing. For
example, the sun is often used as a symbol of Christ.
The Tower of Babel: a mythical tower (described in the Old Testament)
which was built to give humans access to God. God demolished the tower and
punished humanity by making them speak different languages.
BOOKS
Ian Ramsey, Religious Language (SCM, 1957)
Dan Stiver, The Philosophy of Religious Language: Sign, Symbol and
Story (Blackwells, 1996)
