Is religious language meaningful, and if it cannot be verified or falsified, is it still saying something or only expressing an attitude or a way of life?
Component 01 Issues in religious language (twentieth-century perspectives): the verification principle (Ayer), the falsification debate (Flew, Hare and Mitchell) and Wittgenstein's language games.
An OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 01 guide to twentieth-century perspectives on religious language. Covers Ayer's verification principle, the falsification debate between Flew, Hare and Mitchell, and Wittgenstein's language games, weighing whether God-talk is meaningful, cognitive or non-cognitive, with the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
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What this dot point is asking
This is the twentieth-century strand of OCR's "issues in religious language". Where the classical strand asked how to describe a transcendent God, this strand asks a sharper question: is religious language even meaningful? You study Ayer's verification principle (which says it is not), the falsification debate between Flew, Hare and Mitchell, and Wittgenstein's language games. A key distinction runs through all of it: is God-talk cognitive (fact-stating, true or false) or non-cognitive (expressing an attitude, intention or way of life)? The exam rewards explaining each position and then evaluating whether religious language asserts anything.
The answer
Ayer and the verification principle
The falsification debate: Flew
The falsification debate: Hare and Mitchell
Wittgenstein and language games
Examples in context
Try this
Q1. "Religious language is meaningful only as a non-cognitive expression of a way of life." Discuss. [40 marks]
- What the marker wants. An AO2 essay weighing non-cognitive accounts (Hare's bliks, Wittgenstein's language games) against Mitchell's cognitive-but-faithful view and the believer's wish to make real truth claims, with a justified conclusion. AO1 out of 25, AO2 out of 15.
Q2. Assess whether the falsification principle succeeds where verification fails. [40 marks]
- Cue. Flew demands a possible falsifier; Hare and Mitchell answer with bliks and the partisan. Weigh whether falsification is a better test of meaning than verification, or shares its faults, and judge.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of OCR exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
OCR H573/01 2019 (style)20 marksAssess the view that religious language is meaningless. (The full OCR tariff for this essay is 40 marks; the worked answer below is scaled to a 20-mark exemplar.)Show worked answer →
A 40-mark Component 01 essay on the six-level scheme (AO1 out of 25, AO2 out of 15). Explaining the principles earns AO1; the higher levels reward judging whether they show God-talk is meaningless.
Explain (AO1). Ayer's verification principle holds a statement is meaningful only if analytic or empirically verifiable; religious statements are neither, so they are cognitively meaningless (not false, but saying nothing). Flew presses falsification: believers let nothing count against "God loves us", so the claim dies the death of a thousand qualifications.
Evaluate (AO2). The verification principle is self-refuting (it is neither analytic nor verifiable) and rules out history and ethics too. Hare's bliks and Mitchell's partisan show religious language can be meaningful and non-cognitive or cognitive-but-faithful. Wittgenstein relocates meaning to use within a form of life.
Judge. A top answer decides whether religious language is meaningless, cognitive, or meaningful-but-non-cognitive, and defends the verdict.
OCR H573/01 2022 (style)20 marksCritically assess Wittgenstein's view that religious language is a distinct language game. (The full OCR tariff for this essay is 40 marks; the worked answer below is scaled to a 20-mark exemplar.)Show worked answer →
A levels-of-response essay testing AO1 understanding of language games and AO2 evaluation of the approach.
Explain. Wittgenstein holds that meaning is use: words have sense within a particular language game and form of life. Religious language is its own game with its own rules, so it is a mistake to judge it by the standards of science. Believers and non-believers are simply playing different games.
Evaluate. Strengths: it explains why verification misfires and respects the integrity of religious discourse. Weaknesses: it seems to make religion immune from criticism and reduces truth claims to internal moves, so "God exists" may no longer assert a fact, which many believers reject.
Judge. A high-level answer weighs whether language games rescue meaning at the cost of truth, and reaches a justified conclusion.
Related dot points
- Component 01 Issues in religious language (negative, analogical and symbolic): the apophatic via negativa, Aquinas's analogy of attribution and proportion, and Tillich's account of religious language as symbol.
An OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 01 guide to negative, analogical and symbolic religious language. Covers the apophatic via negativa, Aquinas's analogy of attribution and analogy of proportion as a middle way between univocal and equivocal language, and Tillich's symbols that participate in what they point to, with the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
- Component 01 The nature of God: the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and eternity, the dilemma of foreknowledge and free will, and the contrast between God as timeless (Boethius, Aquinas) and everlasting (Swinburne).
An OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 01 guide to the nature of God. Covers omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and eternity, the coherence problems each raises, the dilemma of foreknowledge and free will, and the contrast between a timeless God (Boethius, Aquinas) and an everlasting God (Swinburne), with the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
- Component 01 Arguments from reason: the ontological argument of Anselm (Proslogion II and III), with Descartes's and Malcolm's developments, together with the criticisms of Gaunilo (the perfect island) and Kant (existence is not a predicate).
An OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 01 guide to the ontological argument. Covers Anselm's two forms (Proslogion II and III), Descartes's supremely perfect being, Malcolm's necessary existence, and the criticisms of Gaunilo (the perfect island) and Kant (existence is not a predicate), with the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
- Component 02 Meta-ethics: ethical naturalism, intuitionism (Moore and the naturalistic fallacy) and emotivism (Ayer and Stevenson), and the cognitive and non-cognitive divide.
An OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 02 guide to meta-ethics. Covers ethical naturalism, Moore's intuitionism and the naturalistic fallacy and open-question argument, and the emotivism of Ayer and Stevenson, with the cognitive and non-cognitive divide and the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
- Component 03 The challenge of secularism: secularism and secularisation, Dawkins's New Atheism, Freud's psychological critique of religion, the spiritual but not religious movement, and Christianity in public life.
An OCR A-Level Religious Studies Component 03 guide to the challenge of secularism. Covers secularism and secularisation, Dawkins's New Atheism, Freud's view of religion as illusion and wish-fulfilment, the spiritual but not religious movement, and debates about Christianity in public life, with the AO2 evaluation the exam rewards.
Sources & how we know this
- OCR A Level Religious Studies (H573) specification — OCR (2016)
- A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (chapter on the verification principle) — Victor Gollancz / Internet Archive (1936)