Strengths and Weaknesses of Religious Language Theories

Overview

Recall questions on a strength and a weakness of each approach: verification and falsification, eschatological verification, Hare's bliks, language games, Tillich's symbols, Aquinas's analogy and the Via Negativa.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is a strength of the verification principle?

   Model answer

   It provides a clear criterion for distinguishing meaningful from meaningless statements.

2. 2

   Why is the verification principle considered self-refuting?

   Model answer

   The principle itself cannot be empirically verified, so by its own standard it would be meaningless.

3. 3

   State a weakness of the falsification principle.

   Model answer

   Some statements that cannot be falsified, such as Swinburne's example of the toys in the cupboard, are still clearly meaningful.

4. 4

   What is a strength of Hick's eschatological verification?

   Model answer

   It shows religious statements are in principle verifiable, thereby meeting the verification criterion for meaningfulness.

5. 5

   What is a weakness of eschatological verification?

   Model answer

   It only allows verification after death, which may be too late to be practically meaningful.

6. 6

   Why might believers object to Hare's blik response?

   Model answer

   It makes religious language non-cognitive, which seems to deny that religious claims are actually true.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.