Can statements about God be meaningful, or is all talk of the transcendent literally nonsense?
The problem of religious language, including the verification and falsification challenges, the via negativa, analogy (Aquinas), symbol (Tillich) and language games (Wittgenstein).
An AQA A-Level Religious Studies answer to the problem of religious language, covering logical positivism and verification, Flew's falsification challenge, the via negativa, Aquinas on analogy, Tillich on symbol and Wittgenstein's language games.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
Have a quick question? Jump to the Q&A page
Jump to a section
What this dot point is asking
AQA wants you to explain why language about God is philosophically problematic and to assess the main cognitive challenges (verification and falsification) and the main non-cognitive or qualified responses (the via negativa, analogy, symbol and language games).
The verification and falsification challenges
Antony Flew, drawing on John Wisdom's parable of the gardener, presses the falsification challenge from a different angle: a genuine factual assertion must rule something out, so the speaker must be able to say what would count against it. Believers, Flew claims, allow nothing to count against "God loves us" (not even a child dying of cancer), endlessly qualifying the claim ("God's love is mysterious") until it "dies the death of a thousand qualifications" and asserts nothing at all. R. M. Hare replies that religious convictions are bliks, unfalsifiable but meaningful ways of seeing the world that shape how the believer lives (his example is the student who is convinced all dons want to kill him); a blik is not a failed assertion but a different kind of meaningful attitude. Basil Mitchell replies with the parable of the partisan: the resistance fighter who trusts the mysterious Stranger keeps faith despite ambiguous evidence, so religious claims are commitments held against difficulty, not vacuous claims immune to all evidence, since believers do feel the force of the problem of evil even if it does not defeat their faith.
The via negativa and analogy
Aquinas rejects both pure equivocation (where "good" said of God and of food share no meaning, leaving us unable to say anything about God) and pure univocity (where the words mean exactly the same, which would reduce God to the human scale). He defends analogy as the middle way: words apply to God and creatures by the analogy of attribution (God is the source and cause of the goodness found in creatures, as health in a person is the cause of "healthy" food) and the analogy of proportion (each thing has goodness proportionate to its nature, so God's goodness is infinite while ours is limited). This makes God-talk meaningful and truth-bearing without claiming it is literal.
Symbol and language games
Tillich argues religious language is symbolic rather than literal: a symbol, unlike a mere sign, "participates" in the reality to which it points and opens up levels of being and of the soul that ordinary language cannot reach. "God" is the supreme symbol for the "ground of being", being-itself, which is why for Tillich it is a half-truth to say "God exists" as if God were one being among others. Wittgenstein's later philosophy treats meaning as use: words have meaning within a language game embedded in a form of life, so religious language is meaningful by its own rules and is not answerable to the rules of science. Critics object that this risks fideism, sealing religion off in its own bubble and conceding that its claims make no factual contact with reality, which is more than most believers want to grant.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of AQA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AQA 20195 marksExplain the verification principle and its implications for religious language.Show worked answer →
A 5-mark Paper 1 AO1 question. Markers want an accurate statement of the principle and a clear consequence for God-talk.
State the principle (associated with the Vienna Circle and A. J. Ayer in "Language, Truth and Logic"): a statement is factually meaningful only if it is analytic (true by definition) or empirically verifiable through sense experience. Apply it: "God exists" is neither analytic nor capable of empirical verification, so on this test it is dismissed as factually meaningless (not false, but cognitively empty). Strong answers note Ayer's distinction between strong verification (conclusive proof) and weak verification (some observations would count in favour), and that he adopted the weak form because the strong form was too restrictive.
AQA 202320 marks'Religious language is meaningless.' Assess this view.Show worked answer →
A 20-mark Paper 1 essay, mainly AO2. Reward a balanced argument that weighs cognitive challenges against qualified and non-cognitive defences.
Set out the case that religious language is meaningless: the verification principle (Ayer) and Flew's falsification challenge ("death by a thousand qualifications"). Then give the defences: Hare's bliks and Mitchell's partisan answer falsification; Aquinas's analogy and the via negativa keep God-talk cognitively meaningful; Tillich's symbols and Wittgenstein's language games make it meaningful within a form of life. Evaluate: the verification principle is self-refuting (it is itself neither analytic nor verifiable) and would rule out science's universal laws and history, which is a strong reply; but language games risk fideism, cutting religion off from factual claims. Judge, for example, that religious language is meaningful but its cognitive status is contested. Top-band work turns the verificationist's tools against the theory itself.
Related dot points
- The ontological, cosmological and teleological (design) arguments for the existence of God, including the forms given by Anselm, Aquinas and Paley, and the main criticisms of each.
An AQA A-Level Religious Studies answer to the arguments for God's existence, covering Anselm's ontological argument, Aquinas's cosmological Ways, Paley's design argument, and the criticisms from Gaunilo, Hume, Kant and Dawkins.
- The nature and types of religious experience, including mystical and conversion experience, James's characteristics, Otto's numinous, Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony, and naturalistic challenges.
An AQA A-Level Religious Studies answer to religious experience, covering mystical and conversion experiences, William James's four marks of mysticism, Otto's numinous, Swinburne's principles of credulity and testimony, and naturalistic challenges.
- The concept of miracle, including Hume's definition and critique, Aquinas's account, the contributions of Swinburne and Wiles, and the implications of miracles for the nature of God.
An AQA A-Level Religious Studies answer to miracles, covering Hume's definition and critique, Aquinas's account, Swinburne's defence, Maurice Wiles on divine action and what miracles imply about the nature of God.
- The logical and evidential problems of evil, the distinction between moral and natural evil, and theodicies including the Augustinian (free will and the Fall) and Irenaean (soul-making) responses.
An AQA A-Level Religious Studies answer to the problem of evil, covering the logical and evidential problems, moral and natural evil, and the Augustinian and Irenaean (Hick's soul-making) theodicies with their criticisms.
- The body and soul distinction, dualism (Plato and Descartes) and materialism (Dawkins), and the possibility of disembodied existence, reincarnation, rebirth and resurrection.
An AQA A-Level Religious Studies answer to the self, death and the afterlife, covering Plato's and Descartes's dualism, Dawkins's materialism, and the coherence of disembodied existence, reincarnation, rebirth and resurrection.
Sources & how we know this
- AQA A-level Religious Studies (7062) specification — AQA (2016)