## 1. Preliminaries: The Face Value Theory



A useful starting point for thinking about religious language is a
*face value* theory that promises to give an interpretation of
religious sentences and utterances that adheres as closely as possible
to what they appear to say. Take, for instance, the affirmation of an
indicative religious sentence such as


* (1)God is
omnipotent



According to the face value theory, (1) has various apparent
characteristics: (a) It has the propositional--or
"linguistic" or "semantic"--content
*that God is omnipotent* and is true just in case God is
omnipotent; (b) it is an assertion that conventionally expresses the
speaker's belief that God is omnipotent; (c) it is a descriptive
utterance that represents (truly or falsely) the fact that God is
omnipotent, just as other descriptive utterances in other fields of
discourse (in science, history, etc.) represent facts. For proponents
of face value theory, generalisations of (a), (b) and (c) that extend
to indicative religious utterances such as (1)--(a\*), (b\*) and
(c\*) respectively--provide the starting point for the
interpretation of religious discourse. It should be treated in the
same way as the interpretation of other descriptive areas of
discourse: there's nothing special about religious discourse
other than its distinctive subject matter.



The face value theory will, of course, need more development if it is
to explain other areas of religious discourse. The approach taken to
(1) clearly does not apply to non-literal or non-assertoric religious
utterances, such as metaphors, questions, fictional stories,
expressions of hope, or devotion. However, these are all forms of
expression that occur outside religious discourse; they are not unique
to religion. For the face value theory, the treatment of religious
cases will fall in line with the treatment of non-literal and
non-assertoric communication more generally. So, other than the fact
that religious discourse is about God, the afterlife and so on, there
is nothing remarkable or distinctive in the interpretation of
religious utterances.



A large part of research on religious language has been concerned with
whether one or more of (a\*), (b\*) and (c\*) ought plausibly to be
rejected. Indeed, the attention that some theories of religious
language receive is in part due to their divergence from a face value
interpretation. Most of the theories that are discussed within the
field reject at least one of the components of face value theory.



The most radical rejection of face value theory is the denial of (a\*),
i.e., that religious utterances express religious
 propositions.[1]
 These theories will be explored in
 section 2.
 The most famous example of this position is Ayer's version
logical positivism
 (2.1).
 Non-cognitive accounts, from which we have selected Braithwaite
 (2.2.1)
 and Berkeley
 (2.2.2),
 are similarly radical but are differently motivated and offer a more
positive alternative account of the meaning of religious utterances.
The prospects for a more sophisticated non-cognitivism are considered
in
 2.2.3.
 A third class of theories
 (2.3),
 propose that religious utterances are paradoxical or fail to express
complete propositions. A fourth group, reductionist and subjectivist
theories
 (2.4),
 allow that religious utterances express propositions but not the ones
that they appear to. Instead, their truth conditions are given by
"reduced" (typically non-religious) sentences.



Section 3
 will look at theories that reject (b\*), i.e., that indicative
statements affirmed about God are not literal assertions.
 3.1
 will review metaphor theories, encompassing a discussion of analogy.
Interpretations of religious discourse as a form of praise or prayer,
suggested by Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida, will be considered
in
 3.2.
 These theories propose that despite appearing to literally assert
religious sentences, speakers are instead employing a different type
of speech act. An alternative approach is to argue that religious
utterances are avowed for practical reasons rather than their truth.
Ian Ramsey
 (3.3)
 takes this approach, as do hermeneutic fictionalists
 (3.4).



Minimalists
 (4.1)
 agree that indicative religious utterances are representational and
assertoric but deny that they represent religious facts in the way
that other areas of descriptive discourse represent facts. That is,
they agree with (a\*) and (b\*) but reject (c\*). This view is sometimes
associated with Wittgenstein, whose brief remarks and lectures on
religion have been highly influential. However, the interpretation of
his work is not widely agreed upon and some different possibilities
will be considered in
 4.2.




The face value theory is a widely assumed--if not the
default--approach taken to religious discourse in contemporary
analytic philosophy of religion. Resistance to it is sometimes
presented a brief aberration confined to the middle decades of the
twentieth century (Mackie 1982: 2; Swinburne 1993: 88) with
questionable if not anti-religious motivations (van Inwagen 2006: 156;
Plantinga 2000: ch. 2, particularly in reference to Gordon Kaufman).
However, as will become clear in the following sections, the
opposition to face value theory is not of recent vintage and although
some who disagree with face value theory may be atheists, the position
is not tied to atheism.


## 2. The Content of Religious Utterances



Although Ayer's version of verificationism is one of the most
well-known rejections of (a\*), his approach is unusual in two
respects. First, he offers no positive alternative account of the
meaning of religious utterances. Ayer saw little value in religious
discourse and preferred its elimination. In contrast, the other
theories considered in this section propose that religious language
may be meaningful even if it does not express religious propositions.
Various options have been proposed: it may express non-cognitive
states, have a practical value in modifying the thought and action of
speakers, or represent non-religious facts. Second, Ayer's
account is ostensibly comprehensive for religious language whereas
most other theories are more piecemeal, that is, they reject (a\*) for
some significant subclass of religious utterances but for other
religious utterances accept face value theory.


### 2.1 Ayer and Verificationism



The verificationist theory of meaning was popularised by A.J. Ayer in
his 1936 *Language, Truth and Logic*. Ayer argues that
religious *statements*--his term for indicative
sentences--are "literally meaningless". According to
Ayer, a statement is factually contentful if and only if it is
empirically verifiable. A statement is empirically verifiable if what
it says can in principle be shown to be true or false by observation.
Although logically necessary statements are not verifiable, according
to Ayer they are analytic or true by virtue of the meaning of their
constituent terms. As such, "none of them provide any
information about any matter of fact" (1936: 79). Ayer
encapsulated the verificationist theory of meaning with the infamous
*empirical verification principle*: to have literal meaning a
statement must be either analytically true (and thereby factually
uninformative) or empirically verifiable.



Ayer's chief target is metaphysics and he rather ambitiously
titled the first chapter of his book "The Elimination of
Metaphysics". Metaphysics is taken to be made up of statements
that concern the nature of reality that falls beyond the scope of
scientific inquiry. Examples include the existence of the external
world, the number of substances that there are in the world, whether
the world is made up of ideas and the reality of propositions or
universals. Because theories on these issues are not empirically
verifiable, Ayer takes them to lack "factual meaning":
they should be eliminated as a topic of debate. Other conspicuous
victims of the application of the verification principle were ethical,
aesthetic and religious statements all of which, so Ayer argues, are
not susceptible to verification and are thereby similarly factually
meaningless.


 Notably, however, Ayer has a positive "emotivist"
story to tell about ethical statements. Although he takes ethical
statements to be unverifiable descriptions of normative facts, from
which he concludes that an ethical predicate "adds nothing to
the literal meaning of the sentence", he argues that ethical
language has a non-descriptive function of expressing approval or
disapproval as well as encouraging attitudes of approval or
disapproval in others. For example, in saying "Stealing money is
wrong", the speaker does not say something that is true or false
but expresses disapproval towards stealing (1936: 107). Ayer extends
his emotivism to aesthetic language: it is used "simply to
express certain feelings and evoke a certain response" (1936:
113). What of religious language? Ayer is silent on this issue,
implying that religious language should be dispensed with in the same
way as other areas of metaphysics.



Logical positivism was briefly in vogue in the 1930s but quickly ran
into intractable difficulties. That something is seriously awry can be
seen by subjecting the verification principle to its own standards: it
is *itself* neither empirically verifiable nor analytically
true, so literally meaningless according to its own criterion. Ayer
exacerbated this problem by exaggerating the predicament of statements
that failed to satisfy this principle, sometimes characterising them
as "nonsense". However, the central reason for the
theory's collapse was the failure to come up with a workable
version of the verification principle (see MacDonald 2010 for a
review). Ayer was unable to find a happy medium between a strict
formulation that renders statements of scientific theory unverifiable
and a lax formulation that allows *any* statement to be
verifiable.


 This brings us to the question of why religious statements should
be held by to fall foul of the verification principle. Why can't
religious statements legitimately be regarded as scientific hypotheses
(as Swinburne 1994, among others, argues)? Religious statements do in
many cases appear to have implications for what is or should be
observable. We can predict, for instance, that a world created by God
will exhibit various kinds of orderliness. It seems, therefore, that
some religious statements should be in a good a position to satisfy
the standards of literal content set up by the empirical verification
principle. Ayer's reply to this argument is surprisingly terse.
Suppose, he argues, that "God exists" entails that there
should be observable regularities in nature. If that exhausted the
observable results of "God exists" then "to assert
the existence of a god will be simply equivalent to asserting that
there is the requisite regularity in nature" (1936:
115). Clearly, Ayer contends, this is not all that religious believers
intend to assert in saying that God exists: they are committed to the
existence of an unverifiable supernatural agent.



Ayer's response seems to involve a sleight of hand. The
verification principle is presented as a way of demarcating factually
contentful from contentless statements. In arguing against the
verifiability of religious statements, Ayer relies on the assumption
that the verification principle provides the means for specifying what
statements mean. In this case, that the content of "God
exists" is exhausted by the observation statements that (in
combination with other assumptions) can be deduced from it. However,
this is in effect to concede that religious statements *are*
verifiable according to the original (official) version of the
verification principle. As to the meaning-specifying, unofficial
version of the verification principle, this is not something that Ayer
defends. However, it would place religious statements in good company
with scientific statements that posit theoretical entities that are
not directly observable and the meanings of which are similarly not
exhausted by the observation statements that are derivable from
them.


 Despite the availability of conclusive objections to Ayer, worries
about the verifiability (or falsifiability) of religious statements
continued to exert a remarkable influence on work in the philosophy of
religion, with papers and books being produced well into the second
half of the twentieth century. Particularly notable is John
Hick's argument that theism could be verified postmortem:
"the verifying situation lies in the final fulfilment of
God's purpose for us beyond this present life" (1977b:
190). Other examples include Flew and MacIntyre (1955), Ferre
(1962), Macquarrie (1967), Donovan (1976) and Tilley (1978); for a
discussion of this prolonged impact see Scott (2013: 45-48).


### 2.2 Varieties of Non-Cognitivism


#### 2.2.1 Religious Plans: R. B. Braithwaite



Ayer argues that although ethical statements are not descriptive they
have the important function of giving voice to our non-cognitive
attitudes of approval and disapproval. However, he offers no positive
non-cognitive theory of the meaning of religious statements.
Braithwaite addresses this asymmetry with a non-cognitivist account of
religious language. His theory is modelled on Ayer's ethical
emotivism but with
 modifications.[2]
 Braithwaite takes the same approach to religious statements. He
proposes that religious statements are "primarily declarations
of adherence to a policy of action, declarations of commitment to a
way of life" (1955: 15). For example, "God is love"
expresses the intention to follow an agapeistic way of life. Religious
discourse concerned with matters that are not directly concerned with
behavioural conduct, such as claims about important religious figures,
parables, accounts of the creation, and so on, Braithwaite calls
*stories*. These stories, according to Braithwaite, provide
models of exemplary behaviour (or behaviour to avoid) that serve as
psychological assistance for the believer to act on their intentions.
For this reason, their truth is not crucial to the action-guiding role
that they play: they are entertained rather than believed (1955: 24).
Braithwaite combines a non-cognitive theory of a range of core
religious judgements and doctrinal claims with a theory of religious
"stories" as useful fictions. 



> 
> 
> A religious belief is an intention to behave in a certain way (a moral
> belief) together with the entertainment of certain stories associated
> with the intention in the mind of the believer. (1955: 32)
> 
> 
> 



To the extent that the negative part of Braithwaite's
position--that religious utterances lack factual
significance--relies on Ayer's verificationism, his theory
encounters similar problems. However, the positive part of
Braithwaite's theory also runs into difficulties both for its
psychological implausability (Swinburne 1993: ch. 6) and as a theory
of religious language (Scott 2013: ch. 4). Here is one objection. What
are the intentions expressed by different religious statements?
Braithwaite is rather sketchy on the details but he proposes that
*Christian* statements express an intention to pursue an
agapeistic way of life (1955: 21-22). However, equipped with
only *one* plan, Braithwaite's theory will have
*all* Christian claims (or at least all doctrinal claims)
meaning the same. They will all express an intention to pursue the
same plan. Even if Braithwaite could identify some additional plans
there seems no prospect of finding plans to individuate the meanings
of all statements of Christian belief.


#### 2.2.2 Mixed Strategies: George Berkeley



George Berkeley offers the most detailed and important account of
religious language of any of the major early modern philosophers.
These are elaborated in his 1732 dialogue *Alciphron*. His
account has negative and positive elements. First, he rejects (a\*) for
a *limited* range of religious utterances. Specifically,
Christian doctrinal concerns about grace, original sin, the afterlife
and other Christian "mysteries". Regarding the rest of
religious discourse, Berkeley offers a thoroughly cognitive account:
religious terms--and in particular
"God"--correspond to ideas that refer to really
existing features of reality. Moreover, Berkeley believes many
Christian claims are not only cognitively contentful but also
rationally defensible. Second, he proposes that this limited group of
utterances should be interpreted non-cognitively: they do not
represent facts but evoke various attitudes and practical
dispositions.



In a part of the dialogue concerned with the Christian doctrine of
grace, Berkeley attributes two arguments to the sceptical interlocutor
Alciphron. First, when we consider the meaning of the word
"grace" we find a "perfect vacuity or privation of
ideas"; it is an "empty name" (*Alciphron*, 7.4).
Second, in saying that grace "acts" or
"causes" things to happen, we are employing words that are
clear and intelligible when used to describe the behaviour of physical
objects but have no similarly clear significations when applied to a
"spiritual" matters. In supposing that talk of the
causally efficacious properties of grace is contentful, speakers are
unjustifiably trading on the familiar meanings of these words when
talking about physical properties and causal relations between
physical objects; when used to elaborate on the nature of grace or
describe its nature, these words do not have a clear sense. We have,
concludes Alciphron, no clear idea corresponding to the word
"grace"; we "cannot assent to any proposition
concerning it" or have any faith about it. Berkeley, through the
interlocutor Euphranor, rejects Alciphron's conclusion but
*concedes* Alciphron's arguments that the word
"grace" does not suggest a clear idea. Nevertheless, a
discourse "that directs how to act or excites to the doing or
forbearance of an action may ... be useful and
significant"--and express faith--even if it is not
representational (*Alciphron*, 7.5).



Berkeley goes on to develop his non-representation account not just
for grace but a variety of Christian doctrines. Talking of grace has a
practical role in encouraging conduct in accordance with Christian
faith: 



> 
> 
> Grace may ... be an object of our faith, and influence our life
> and actions, as a principle destructive of evil habits and productive
> of good ones, although we cannot attain a distinct idea of
> it. (*Alciphron*, 7.7) 
> 
> 
> 



He takes a similar approach to the Trinity: we lack a clear idea of
what it is, but talk of it is significant because of its practical
role in modifying the attitudes and conduct of the faithful
(*Alciphron*, 7.8). Original sin receives a similar
treatment. In general, talk of the "religious mysteries",
according to Berkeley, serves a practical function of motivating and
guiding the faithful to think and act according to Christian
principles. They are "placed in the will and affections rather
than in the understanding, and producing holy lives rather than subtle
theories" (*Alciphron*, 7.10).



One of the distinctive characteristics of Berkeley's account is
his attempt to develop a non-cognitive theory for only a limited
region of religious language, while retaining a cognitivist account
for the rest. Let's call this a *mixed* theory. There are
two pressing problems for a mixed theory. First, how should we
differentiate areas of religious language which should be given a face
value interpretation from those that should be given a non-cognitive
interpretation? Second, how are the non-cognitive areas of religious
language meaningfully related to the cognitive areas of language?
Berkeley answers the first problem by an introspective experiment. We
reflect on what we are thinking when we talk about the Christian
mysteries and find that we lack clear ideas or beliefs. However, this
is unsatisfactory. There is no general agreement on which religious
expressions or sentences we are sufficiently clear about to make them
suitable vehicles for expressing religious beliefs. Nor does Berkeley
identify anything that specifically characterises the Christian
mysteries as matters on which speakers have much less clear ideas than
many of the other ideas that form part of religious judgements, not
least the ideas of God and divine properties. Berkeley does not,
therefore, have a successful method for discriminating religious ideas
and thoughts that are cognitively contentful from those that are
not.



On the second problem, suppose for example we follow Berkeley giving a
face value account of


* (4)God is
good



and a non-cognitive interpretation of


* (5)Salvation is given
by divine grace.



That is, (5) does not have a propositional content but is used to
encourage faith and virtue. How should (6), be interpreted?


* (6)If God is good then
salvation is given by divine grace.



The mixed theory has two problems. This sentence combines (4) and (5)
in a conditional sentence but since the consequent is taken to express
an attitude it is unclear how it should be understood. This is because
one can assert (6) without expressing the attitude in (5); one might,
for example, think that the antecedent and consequent are false but
nevertheless think that (6) is true because *if* the antecedent
were true then the consequent would be true. It seems, therefore, that
if the mixed theorist is right that (5) expresses a non-cognitive
attitude then it must have a different meaning in (6) where it is not
tied to the expression of any attitude. This brings us to a second
problem, which is that (4) and (6) together entail (5). Together these
sentences make an evidently valid modus ponens argument. However, if
(5) means something different when asserted and when embedded in the
conditional (6), then this argument is invalid. More generally, the
mixed theory looks in difficulty when trying to explain the meaning of
conditionals or valid arguments that contain expressive and cognitive
religious sentences.


#### 2.2.3 The Prospects for Religious Non-Cognitivism



Some of the problems with Berkeley's theory arise from its
limited application to only parts of religious language. This raises
the question of whether a more thoroughgoing non-cognitivist theory of
religious language could be developed, perhaps employing the methods
developed in the defence of current expressivist theories of ethics.
The prospects for such a theory remain relatively unexplored territory
but here are a couple of relevant consideration, one in favour and one
against.



An important part of religious discourse is the communication of
faithful attitudes. Moreover, faith is a state that appears to be
intrinsically connected to our motivations and feelings. This is
something that Berkeley makes great play of: 



> 
> 
> Faith, I say, is not an indolent perception, but an operative
> persuasion of mind, which ever worketh some suitable action,
> disposition, or emotion in those who have it; as it were easy to prove
> and illustrate by innumerable instances taken from human affairs.
> (*Alciphron*, 7.10) 
> 
> 
> 



The idea that faith must have a practical element commands
broad support. Faith is said to be intrinsically motivational (Bishop
2007: 105-106), to involve desires (MacDonald 1993: 44;
Howard-Snyder 2013: 363), plans and commitments (Swinburne 2005:
211-212; Kvanvig
2013: 111), stances (Callahan & O'Connor 2014: 13-14)
pro-attitudes (Audi 2011: 67; Alston 1996: 12-13; Schellenberg
2014: 83). Berkeley sees it as one of the main selling points of his
non-cognitivism that it explains why faith in religious mysteries
should have practical effects on the dispositions and behaviour of the
faithful and lead people to change their lives (*Alciphron*, 7.10).
More generally, it appears that there are at least the rudimentary
components for an argument akin to the argument from motivational
force used to support ethical non-cognitivism (see van Roojen 2016).
This offers one potentially promising line of argument for the
non-cognitivist to pursue. Note that religious utterances need not be
exclusively either cognitive or non-cognitive. It is possible to argue
that religious utterances conventionally express both non-cognitive
attitudes and beliefs (for a defence of this position see Scott 2013:
71-85).



There are general objections to ethical and other varieties of
non-cognitivism--most notably the Frege-Geach and the
"embedding" problems (see Schroeder 2010 for an
overview)--that will equally apply to a putative expressivist
account of religious language. However, a thoroughgoing religious
non-cognitivism will face the additional problem of identifying the
relevant attitudes and plans that are expressed in religious
utterances. While there are attitudes that might be considered
characteristic of religious language--for instance, awe, devotion
and obedience--it is difficult to see how such attitudes could
provide the resources to provide a plausible account of the meaning of
religious utterances or to individuate the meanings of different
religious utterances. To take just one example, "God is
omniscient" will need to be expressive of a distinct
non-cognitive attitude to "God is omnipresent" to
distinguish their meanings.


### 2.3 Paradoxical Content



Some of the claims most commonly made about God's nature and
doctrinal claims, particularly those of Christianity, have been said
to be absurd, paradoxical or impossible to understand. The most
familiar version of this worry concerns the consistency of the
predicates ascribed to God such as omnipotence and doctrinal views
such as the Trinity. Considerable effort has been directed towards
establishing that religious claims are coherent (for example,
Swinburne 1994). Those who concede that some religious claims are
paradoxical have proposed a variety of different responses. Paradox in
religious claims has been seen as grounds for atheism (Martin 1990),
for modifying religious doctrine or changing our attitudes towards
them (Hick 1977a: 1993), or as an ineliminable part of faith
(Kierkegaard [1844] 1985; see Evans 1989). However, there is a further
question about what such claims mean. If we take paradoxical
utterances (or ones that are in some way absurd or impossible to
understand) as failing to express propositions, then allowing that
some of the principal expressions of faith are paradoxical (or absurd
or impossible to understand) is thereby to reject (a\*).



A number of accounts of religious language appear potentially
sympathetic with this approach. For example, Ronald Hepburn
(1958)--according to whom "paradoxical and near-paradoxical
language is the *staple* of accounts of God's
nature" (16)--proposes that religious ideas and stories may
have the role of imaginatively informing a moral way of life. This
view has some similarities with fictionalism, discussed below. More
recently, Stephen Mulhall (2015) has suggested that some religious
utterances can be understood as unresolvable riddles the meanings of
which we are unable to grasp fully, inviting an open-ended process of
articulating their meaning that is pursued by those engaged in
religious discourse.



Also relevant here are the works of authors in the apophatic and
mystical tradition that was particularly prominent from mid-antiquity
through to the late medieval period. Although a variety of accounts of
religious language are suggested by the writings of authors in this
tradition, some of what they say appears sympathetic to paradoxicalism
about utterances about God's nature. Two themes that are found
in their writings are particularly notable. First, God's nature
is taken to be both inconceivable and inexpressible (Dionysius *The
Mystical Theology*: ch. 5; Gregory of Nyssa *Contra Eunomium
II*: 61; Maximus the Confessor, *Chapters on Knowledge*:
part one 1-2, part two 2; Maimonides, *The Guide of the
Perplexed*: ch. 58). It appears to follow from this that in
saying, for example, "God is good", one does not succeed
in representing God in either thought or language. A second theme
found in some apophatic writers is that an important aspect of
religious engagement is establishing a secure relationship with
God--sometimes characterised as an "ascent" to God
(Dionysius *The Mystical Theology*: ch. 1.1; *Cloud of
Unknowing*: ch. 4)--and a recognition of the abject failure
of what we say to communicate any representation of God's nature
may form part of that process. Far from being pointless, religious
discourse about God may assist in the recognition of our intellectual
and linguistic limitations (*Cloud of Unknowing*: ch. 8). For
further discussion and other interpretations of these works see Turner
1995 and for a detailed review focused on religious language see Scott
and Citron 2016, Gab 2020 and Hewitt 2020.



One difficulty that might be pressed by supporters of the face value
theory is these theories, as least to the extent that they are
providing accounts of religious language, appear revisionary rather
than descriptive of the meanings of religious utterances. For example,
the proposal that "God is good" does not simply express
the proposition that God is good seems, in the case of apophaticism,
to be based on a contentious theological view about what can be
represented in thought and language rather than what speakers mean
when they utter this sentence. The sentence is used in a variety of
apparently descriptive ways by speakers: it is said to be true (or
false), it is used in apparently valid arguments, can be embedded in a
conditional, it is said to be a matter of belief or even of knowledge.
Any account of religious language will need to do justice to the
evidence that religious utterances are used descriptively,
particularly ones that put (a\*) into question.


### 2.4 Reductionism



A variety of philosophical positions go by the name
"reductionism" but reductionist theories of language aim
to give the truth conditions for sentences that are apparently about a
certain range of phenomena in terms of sentences about some other
range of phenomena. We can call these (following Dummett 1991: 322)
the *disputed* and *reduced* class of sentences
respectively. Commonly discussed examples include logical behaviourism
(see Graham 2017), which reduces sentences about mental states to ones
about behaviour, and temporal reductionism (see Markosian 2016) which
proposes that sentences about time can be reduced to sentences about
temporal relations between things and events. Most varieties of
religious reductionism posit various naturalistic phenomena as the
subject of the reduced class of sentences. Unlike other positions
considered in this section, religious reductionists agree with face
value theories that religious utterances have propositional content,
however, they argue that the content in question is not the face value
subject matter but instead the subject matter described by the reduced
class of sentences.



A variety of reductionism adopted by early Christian writers in their
treatment of pagan religion, such as Lactantius ([4th
century] 1871: 22) and Augustine (*The City of God*, VII ch.
18), proposes that the pagan deities were based on real, mortal
historical figures revered after their death for their contributions
to human society and subsequently elevated to the status of gods.
However, this is clearly not a *linguistic* reductionism.
Augustine--in a chapter titled "A more credible cause of
the pagan error"--aims to discourage and debunk pagan
beliefs: they are fictions inspired by the benevolent deeds of mortal
leaders. Linguistic reductionism does not seek to explain religious
belief but identifies a reductive class of sentences by which the
truth or falsity of sentences in the disputed class is determined.



Linguistic reductionism has never received widespread support, and has
never been developed systematically or comprehensively for religious
language. Nevertheless, it has an interesting pedigree. For example,
Spinoza, one of the most influential defenders of pantheism, suggested
ways of interpreting sentences about God in terms of facts about
nature (Mason 2007). He
writes: 



> 
> 
> By God's direction I mean the fixed and immutable order of
> Nature, or chain of natural events ... So it is the same thing
> whether we say that all things happen according to Nature's laws
> or that they are regulated by God's decree and direction.
> ([1667] 2002: 417) 
> 
> 
> 



Since all human actions are, according to Spinoza, the product of the
predetermined order of nature, we can--following the reductive
strategy--say that nobody acts except by the will of God.
Similarly, since anything that we can achieve is produced by either
our own actions and/or by external conditions, all such achievements
can be understood as the result of divine providence. So, for example,
(6) is true if (5) is true.


* (5)Nobody acts except
by the will of God.
* (6)All actions are the
product of the predetermined order of nature.



Spinoza also proposes naturalistic reductions of talk about the Holy
Spirit (1667 [2002, 525]), divine action and providence (1667 [2002,
445]) and miracles (1667 [2002, 448]).



Naturalistic interpretations of religious language became popular in
the 1920s in both Britain and America. For example, Julian Huxley
(1931) suggests that talk of God could be understood as a way of
talking about forces operating in nature or about aspects of nature
that we do not understand (see Bowler 2001), and proposes naturalistic
interpretations of talk of the Holy Ghost and the Son of God (1927:
37). Influential early figures in the American tradition of
"religious naturalism" or "religious
empiricism" are Bernard Meland (1976) and Henry Wieman
(1932). Wieman offers various naturalistic accounts of talk of God,
usually identifying God with natural processes that yield or
facilitate ethically or socially desirable results.



Also notable is the work of Gordon Kaufman, a leading figure in the
development of modern liberal theology. He observes that in many cases
the natural phenomena that are integral to giving our lives meaning
are deeply mysterious, for instance, that humans are capable of
consciousness and thought and the appreciation of beauty. He contends
that "God" is the name given to the "pervasive
mystery" that gives life meaning (2007: 12). Saying that
God is "real" or "exists" express the belief
that underpinning this "pervasive mystery" are natural
forces that promote and facilitate ethical, aesthetic and social human
flourishing (1981: 49).



Does truth-conditional reductionism offer a plausible theory of
religious language? The obvious place to start is to consider whether
or not there are any compelling reasons to prefer a reductive rather
than a face value theory. Unfortunately, reductionists appear to
stumble at this first hurdle. It is clear from the writings of
reductionists that the reductionist interpretation of religious
discourse is not advanced from a consideration of the meanings of what
speakers say when they talk about God but instead on the basis of
religious or metaphysical theories about the nature of the
universe. However, the belief that there is no creator God is not a
reason for giving naturalistic truth-conditions to (1); it is a reason
for thinking that (1) is false. Notably, even among writers more
sympathetic to linguistic reductionism we find lapses into
non-linguistic reductionism. For example, while Kaufman sometimes
presents his theory as an account of what is meant by talk about God,
at other times he presents a much more clearly revisionary
proposal. He writes, "It is this cosmic serendipitous
creativity, I suggest, that we *should* today think of as
God" (Kaufman 2007: 26, my italics) and he proposes that the
"traditional notion" of God's purposive activity in
the word should be *replaced* with 



> 
> 
> what I call *trajectories* or *directional movements*
> that emerge spontaneously in the course of evolutionary and historical
> developments. (2007: 25)
> 
> 
> 



For further discussion of reductionism see Alston 2005 and Scott 2013:
ch. 9; the latter also discusses subjectivist versions of
reductionism.


## 3. The Use of Religious Language



Suppose that religious sentences represent a religious subject matter,
i.e., that (a\*) is true. There remains the further question of what
speakers mean when they *use* religious sentences. The semantic
or propositional content of a sentence and its truth conditions is one
thing, the information that a sentence is used to communicate is
another. Any philosophical account of religious discourse must allow
for non-literal utterances, where the propositional content of the
utterance and the thought that it is used to communicate appear to
diverge. However, according to the face value theory, utterances such
as (7), (8) and (9) should--unless the context indicates
otherwise--be understood as literal assertions that, if sincerely
stated by a religious believer, express the speaker's belief in
what is
 said.[3]


* (7)God created the
world.
* (8) The authors of the
Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
* (9)God is
omnipotent.



There are two main types of opposition to (b\*). The first is that
religious utterances--including utterances of indicative
sentences that are apparently literal--are not literal assertions
but fall under some other standard category of speech act. Speech
acts--or *illocutionary* acts in Austin's (1955
[1975, 95]) terminology--are what a speaker does in saying
something. Examples include assertions, questions, commands, warnings,
threats, statements of intention, requests. So, according to the first
type of opposition to (b\*) religious utterances, while many of them
appear to be literal assertions, are in fact some other kind of speech
act. Proposals include analogy or metaphor
 (3.1),
 praise or prayer
 (3.2),
 and pretence or other kinds of quasi-assertion
 (3.3).
 The second type of opposition to (b\*), considered in
 (3.4),
 proposes that religious sentences are used for various
(non-assertoric) purposes but does not identify a unified speech act
as characteristic of religious discourse.


### 3.1 Analogy and Metaphor



The two main kinds of non-literal discourse that have been seen as
particularly important in religion are analogy and
 metaphor.[4]
 Analogy relates to the use of expressions that occur in both
religious and non-religious contexts. Take, for example, the
expressions "good", "wise" and
"powerful" when used in ordinary contexts to talk about
people. Do these expressions have the same meaning when used to talk
about God, or are they used analogously: is the conventional meaning
they have when used to talk about mundane objects in some way modified
when used to talk about God? Discussion of religious analogy was
particularly lively in early medieval theology and Aquinas was a
leading proponent of an analogical treatment of religious predicates.
See Roger M. White (2010) for a detailed account of Aquinas'
theory, its background in Aristotle's philosophy as well as
subsequent ideas about analogy in religion in the work of Karl Barth
and Immanuel Kant.



A detailed contemporary account of analogy by Richard Swinburne (1993:
ch. 4) proposes that analogical use of a term involves a modification
of its syntactic and/or semantic rules. A syntactic rule for the use
of a term *p* sets down general conditions governing its use. A
semantic rule for *p* gives examples of the things to which
*p* correctly applies, or does not correctly apply. For instance,
giving a semantic rule for *red* might involve pointing to
various examples of red objects and contrasting them with objects that
are not red (1993: 58). In using an expression analogically, Swinburne
proposes, its semantic or syntactic rules are loosened. So *W*\*, the
analogical use of a predicate *W*, may require a less strict
degree of resemblance to standard examples of *W* for its correct
use. Swinburne believes that "person" which in its
ordinary sense has living human beings with physical bodies as its
standard examples, must be used analogically with a suitable weakening
of its semantic rules and modification of its syntactic rules when
applied to God.



It is notable that on Swinburne's theory analogy can be seen as
a commonplace feature of language use that is both compatible with a
face value theory and found much more widely than in religious
discourse. For example, consider the following utterances:


* (10)The lawn is
square.
* (11)The audience was
silent.



Lawns do not, of course, have four sides of equal length and in saying
(11) the speaker does not mean that the audience was not making any
noise whatsoever. According to modern pragmatic theories of
interpretation (such as Sperber & Wilson 1986; Carston 2002;
Recanti 2004), constituent expressions or concepts undergo an ad hoc
modification prompted by the context in which they are uttered and
understood. For instance, (10) might involve a loosening of the
concept SQUARE, i.e., SQUARE\* that includes not just objects that are
square but also objects (like lawns) that look square or are
approximately square. Akin to Swinburne's account of rule
modification in analogy, the condition that squares have four sides of
equal length and internal angles of ninety degrees is relaxed.
Understood in this way, however, analogy is not distinctive of
religious discourse but a prevalent characteristic of normal
communication. When God is the subject matter, expressions undergo a
suitable ad hoc loosening as part of normal, literal
communication.



Recent research has focused more on religious
 metaphors.[5]
 The importance of metaphor has long been noted by theologians, with
Sally McFague (1983) offering the most extensive treatment, while in
the philosophy of religion William Alston (1989: ch. 1 and 2), Janet
Soskice (1985), Anthony Kenny (2005) and Richard Swinburne (1991: ch.
3; 1993: ch. 4 and 5)
have all contributed to the discussion.



Since metaphors are commonplace in various areas of discourse, it may
seem that questions about *religious* metaphor should be
subsumed under questions about metaphor in general raised in the
philosophy of language. However, some have proposed that what is said
about God is *irreducibly metaphorical*. Tillich's (1951)
theory that religious language is symbolic is perhaps an early
expression of the view, and Anthony Kenny and Sally McFague are more
recent proponents of a view of this type (see also Jungel 1974;
Sarot 1992). William Alston, the chief critic of the theory, offers
the following statement of irreducibility theory (1989:
17-19):


* (IT)Religious metaphors
are the only way of stating truths about God, and the content of a
metaphorical utterance about God cannot be stated, even in part, in
literal terms.



Alston sees the supporter of IT as construing even apparently literal
claims about God as metaphorical. However, Alston's formulation
may be overly modest, since both Kenny and McFague seem to take the
view that *all* talk of God is irreducibly metaphorical,
irrespective of whether it is true or false.



IT fails, according to Alston, because metaphors, religious metaphors
in particular, are always in principle susceptible to literal
paraphrase. Scott (2013: 180-182) argues that IT, on any
plausible account of what metaphors are, faces insurmountable
problems. For example, according to one standard theory (Searle 1993),
metaphors say something that is usually patently false with the aim of
implying something *other* than the false thing that is said.
"God is my rock", for instance, might imply that God is a
source of confidence for the speaker. However, it follows from IT that
if a metaphor about God implies anything true about God then that
implied claim should also be metaphorical. This appears to undermine
truthful communication about God. If, however, talk of God is not in
the business of expressing truths, according to what norm are
utterances about God affirmed or rejected? Metaphor theories therefore
face challenges in specifying and defending the irreducibility claim
as well as in as well as elaborating what a metaphor is.


### 3.2 Praise and Prayer



Although some caution is needed in placing work in continental
philosophy into the analytic classifications that inform this article,
the treatment of religious language by Jean-Luc Marion (1994, 1982
[1995]) and Jacques Derrida (1992) appears sympathetic to the speech act
theories considered in this section. Speakers, according to Marion, in
uttering indicative sentences about God praise God (and thereby
express devotion, awe, and so on, towards God) rather than express
beliefs about God. Derrida is critical of Marion; not, however,
because he endorses a face value approach but because he believes
speakers are better understood as voicing prayers to God rather than
praise.



Marion's theory is influenced by the apophatic idea that God
cannot be accurately conceived of. Conceiving of something, according
to Marion, involves placing some descriptive limitation or restriction
on that thing. God and other religious subjects, Marion claims, are
"saturated phenomena" that cannot be captured by human
concepts: 



> 
> 
> That he is the given par excellence implies that "God" is
> given without restriction, without reserve, without restraint.
> "God" is given not at all partially, following this or
> that outline ... but absolutely, without the reserve of any
> outline, with every side open ... (1994: 588) 
> 
> 
> 



However, inspired by Dionysius' writings, he presents an
interpretation of religious discourse as referring to God without
ascribing properties to God. For example, "God is good"
addresses rather than describes God (1982 [1995, 76]). Marion calls
this non-objectifying and non-predicative way of talking about God
"praise"; it is a form of speech that is laudatory but
combined with a recognition (at least by the speaker) that the
property that is apparently predicated of God is inappropriate. Praise
"feeds on the impossibility or, better, the impropriety of the
category" (1982 [1995, 76]). In talking of God, therefore,
speakers praise God but recognise the inadequacy of the concepts they
are using to represent God: the predicate expressions are not used
with the belief that they accurately represent God. In saying
"God is good" speakers do not, therefore, believe or
assert that *God is good*. For further discussion see James
Smith 2002.



Derrida is sympathetic to Marion's account but raises the
objection that praising God (the "encomium" of God), on
Marion's account, still involves predication: 



> 
> 
> Even if it is not a predicative affirmation of the current type, the
> encomium preserves the style and the structure of a predicative
> affirmation. It says something about someone ... [Praise] entails
> a predicative aim, however foreign it may be to "normal"
> ontological predication. (1992: 137) 
> 
> 
> 



Derrida proposes instead that religious talk about God should be
understood as prayer rather than praise. Unlike praise, prayer is a
form of address that, Derrida argues, is entirely non-descriptive.
Prayer "is not predicative, theoretical (theo*logical*),
or constative" (1992: 110). He elaborates:



> 
> 
> I will hold to one other distinction: prayer in itself, one may say,
> implies nothing other than the supplicating address to the other,
> perhaps beyond all supplication and giving, to give the promise of His
> presence as other, and finally the transcendence of His otherness
> itself, even without any other determination; the encomium, although
> it is not a simple attributive speech, nevertheless preserves an
> irreducible relationship to the attribution. (1982 [1995, 111])
> 
> 
> 



Derrida's objection is unconvincing. (12) and (13), for example,
appear to have the same "style and structure":


* (12) God is
good.
* (13)The table is
round.



However, Marion's point is presumably that the similarity of
(12) and (13) is purely superficial. Marion does not give specifics,
but one way of developing his is account is to take (12) to be
communicating (something like):


* (14)Oh, God you are
good!



Where (14) is understood as an expression of (say) the speaker's
respect and admiration of God and the speaker recognises the
descriptive inadequacy of "good". Derrida is, in effect,
reading too much into the surface appearance of utterances: (12) and
(13) may look similar but they are not thereby speech acts of the same
type.



The strengths and weaknesses of Derrida's and Marion's
accounts are as yet largely unexplored in analytic philosophy. There
are, however, some obvious challenges that need to be addressed. For
example, Marion claims in praising God the predicates that are
ascribed to God are recognised as inadequate by *speakers*.
This seems implausible. Speakers in many cases appear to believe what
they are saying about God. Marion might argue that such religious
believers have *false* beliefs about God's nature, but to
claim that they do not have beliefs about God's nature that they
intend to communicate seems to be a misrepresentation of
speakers' states of mind. Moreover, Derrida's own
suggestion that talk of God should be understood as prayer does not
seem to have any advantage over the position his is criticising.
Prayer also involves utterances that appear to represent God:
"Our Father, which art in heaven", for instance.


### 3.3 Fictionalism



Fictionalists defend the moral and intellectual legitimacy of engaging
with a field of discourse for speakers that do not believe that the
sentences of that discourse are true (for a general overview see
Divers & Liggins 2005, for a review focused on religious
fictionalism see Scott & Malcolm 2018, Brock 2020). Some
fictionalists propose that that speakers
employ *quasi-assertion*. A quasi-assertion is a speech act
that has the appearance of an assertion--it is the utterance of
an indicative sentence--but it does not commit the speaker to the
truth of the expressed proposition. The speaker goes along with
or *accepts* the content of what is quasi-asserted but does not
thereby believe it. The details of quasi-assertion depend on the kind
of fictionalism being proposed and a variety of options have been
proposed (for an overview see Kalderon 2005: 119-129). On some
accounts, quasi-assertion involves the assertion of something other
than the propositional content of the uttered sentence. For example, a
fictionalist about mathematics might argue that a mathematical
sentence M is used to assert that M is true *according to standard
mathematics* (Field 1980). Alternatively, to quasi-assert a
sentence might be to
*pretend* to assert it. Comparable approaches are found among
religious fictionalist. Peter Lipton (2007), for instance, suggests
that engagement with religious could be akin to immersion in a
fiction; the fictionalist accordingly pretends that the claims of
religion are true. Other religious fictionalists (such as Robin Le
Poidevin 2016, 2019) propose that the fictionalist, without believing that a
religious utterance is true, may say it on the basis that it is true
within some religious tradition.



Particularly important for our purposes is the distinction between
revolutionary and hermeneutic fictionalism. Revolutionary religious
fictionalism is not a theory of religious language--it is not a
position on what speakers actually mean--but instead a
revisionary proposal that is usually offered in response to error
theory about religion. Despite religious claims being untrue,
revolutionary fictionalists argue religious discourse has sufficient
pragmatic benefits that we should continue to employ religious
language and engage in religious thought rather than eliminate it,
even though we should not believe that it is true. In general,
revolutionary fictionalism is motivated by the wish to continue to
receive the social and other benefits of engagement with a religion
without commitment to its truth. LePoidevin and Lipton are both
revolutionary fictionalists. The Sea of Faith Network, inspired by the
work of Don Cupitt (1980), can also be understood as sympathetic to
revolutionary fictionalism because it promotes Christian practice and
the continuing engagement with religious discourse without religious
belief. Interesting though they are, we will not be investigating these
theories further because they are not saying anything about the
meaning of religious utterances. Instead, they are recommending a change
of attitude towards the claims of religion and quasi-assert rather than
assert them.



Hermeneutic fictionalism about religion is the view that speakers are
not committed to the truth of what they say on religious matters:
speakers are quasi-asserting rather than asserting indicative
religious sentences. This is not offered as a proposal about what
speakers should do but instead as a fact about current linguistic
practice. Speakers accept but do not believe what they say when
engaging in religious discourse. So, along with other positions
discussed in this section, hermeneutic fictionalists reject (b\*).
Defending this position may seem like a tall order: isn't
hermeneutic fictionalism undermined by the apparent linguistic
evidence that religious speakers are committed to the truth of what
they say? Nevertheless, there are a couple of positions that look to
be potential contenders for religious hermeneutic fictionalism.



First, Georges Rey has defended a position that he calls
*meta-atheism* according to which practitioners of religion
exhibit widespread self-deception about what they say (2006: 337). For
anyone with a basic education in science, Rey contends, it is obvious
that religious claims are false. Rey is not proposing, however, that
educated speakers are insincere when they affirm religious claims
since they may think of themselves as believing what they are saying
(2006: 338). Instead, speakers are in a state of self-deception. While
they may recognise on a more critical level that religious claims are
false, they do not entertain this when engaging in religious
discourse. Why do religious people do not recognise and consciously
draw out the implications of their disbelief? Rey suggests a number of
reasons: loyalty to family and other social groups, personal ties and
identifications with religious institutions, resistance to changing
one's public stance, the wish for one's life to be part of
a larger project. Rey supplements his arguments by pointing up
differences between religious and scientific judgements aimed at
showing that the latter are "understood to be fictional from the
start" (2006: 345). Now, Rey's position is, to say the
least, contentious--for starters, his contention that religious
claims are obviously false seems unsupportable (see Scott 2015 for a
more detailed critique). However, with some assumptions about
self-deception, we can understand meta-atheism as a kind of
hermeneutic religious fictionalism. Speakers are in a conflicted state
of self-deception that falls short of belief: on some level or in some
uncritical contexts speakers treat religious claims as if they were
true, while also believing in critical and reflective contexts that
they are false. Accordingly, in uttering religious sentences speakers
engage in quasi-assertion whereby they accept what is said without
genuinely believing it to be true.



Second, a point of debate in current research on the nature of faith
is whether propositional faith--i.e., faith that
*p*--requires belief that *p*. Supporters of
traditional doxastic accounts defend this condition while supporters
of non-doxastic theories of faith argue that it is sufficient that one
have a positive cognitive attitude towards *p* other than belief.
There are various proposal for what this non-doxastic attitude
is. Candidates include: acceptance (Alston 2007), assent (Schellenberg
2005), assumption (Swinburne 2005; Howard-Snyder 2013), trust (Audi
2011), hope (McKaughan 2013; Pojman 1986 and 2001), or acquiescence
(Buchak 2012). However, to the extent that religious discourse is in
the business of trading in the expression of faithful attitudes then
it follows from the non-doxastic position that a speaker may sincerely
affirm their faith in a religious proposition without believing it to
be true. Notably, some non-doxastic theorists offer linguistic
evidence to show that speakers do not believe what they say. This
appears to concede a hermeneutic fictionalist account of faithful
discourse (for discussion see Malcolm & Scott 2017 and Scott
2020). It seems likely that many proponents of non-doxastic theories
of faith will not welcome the characterisation of their position as a
variety of hermeneutic fictionalism (see Howard-Snyder 2016 and
Malcolm 2018). However, non-doxastic theories are usually presented
primarily as psychological or epistemological theories about the
nature of faith; the implications of the position for religious
discourse, and its relationship with hermeneutic fictionalism, have
yet to be fully set out.


### 3.4 Religious Purposes



We have been looking at theories than characterise the affirmation of
indicative religious sentences by a type of speech act other than
literal assertion. However, some accounts propose that religious
discourse, rather than exhibiting a distinctive type of speech act,
employs language for certain distinctive purposes. Possible examples
of this position include Wittgenstein's suggestion that a
religious judgement should be understood as a picture that has a
regulative function in guiding practical decisions (1966: 53-4)
and Kant's proposal that religious utterances communicate
guidance for how to think (*Critique of Pure Reason* A671/B699;
A686/B714). This section will consider the accounts from Ian Ramsey
(1957) and more recently Rowan Williams (2014).



According to Ramsey, full-blooded religious engagement involves two
things: a commitment and a discernment. The commitment is an attitude
that is directed towards the universe as a whole; it is
"total" and has a particular intensity akin to a personal
relationship. The discernment involves a "disclosure",
which he describes as a recognition of something of enormous
importance. The something in question is not a new fact but a
recognition that "brings together" what is known whereby
one appreciates the world in a new light. For Ramsey, the purpose of
religious language is to communicate and promote religious commitment
and discernment: "religious language talks of the discernment
with which is associated, by way of response, a total
commitment" (1957: 49). With respect to utterances about God,
Ramsey says: 



> 
> 
> My suggestion is that we understand their logical behaviour aright if
> we see them as primarily evocative of what we have called the odd
> discernment, that characteristically religious situation which, if
> evoked, provokes a total commitment. (1957: 50)
> 
> 
> 



When it comes to the details of how to interpret specific religious
utterances, Ramsey's proposals are very varied. Some utterances
he takes to be expressive of attitudes. Talk of "eternal
purpose" aims to evoke a sense of "cosmic wonder"
(1957: 77). Some are metalinguistic claims about the proper use of
religious discourse: 



> 
> 
> to say that "God is impassable" is to claim that the word
> "God" is a word which cannot be confined to passability
> language. (1957: 89) 
> 
> 
> 



Others are about mystery: 



> 
> 
> Let us recognize that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is essentially
> a claim for mystery at Christ's birth or at Christ's
> death. (1957: 132) 
> 
> 
> 



However, for Ramsey, religious sentences have representational content
but are used by speakers in a variety of non-representational
ways--expressive, metalinguistic, to generate a sense of
mystery--for the purposes of evoking discernment and encouraging
commitment, rather than descriptively.



Recently Rowan Williams (2014) has proposed that religious language
serves to challenge us both morally, by undermining selfishness and
complacency, as well as conceptually by encouraging us to think about
the world in different terms. The use of religious language involves
innovations that "invite us to rethink our metaphysical
principles" (2014: 130), undercut "our sense of being a
finished subject with a clear agenda of need and desire" (2014:
152-3), and "open us to a truth that is changing us and
never leaves us in complacent possession of the power we think we
have" (2014: 154). A similar approach is taken to discourse
about God. What we are representing in talking of God is not an object
but "a particular aspect of every perception, the aspect that
gives to any specific perception its provisionality, its openness to
being represented afresh" (2014: 148). These purposes can be
furthered even by using religious sentences that are not
consistent.



Face value theorists will, of course, find much to object to in both
Ramsey's and Williams' discussions of religious language.
One obvious point to raise is that if engagement in religious
discourse is driven by the purposes that Ramsey and Williams describe
then it seems that one need not be concerned with the truth of what
one says. Notably, Williams appears to be sympathetic to the
endorsement of incoherent claims if they further the broader proposed
purposes of religious discourse. However, caution is needed in
classifying these accounts as descriptive of religious discourse
rather than revisionary proposals for objectives that speakers might
aim for. If they fall into the latter category, then they are in a
similar position to revolutionary fictionalism.


## 4. Religious Minimalism



Minimalist accounts of religious language, which are--rightly or
wrongly--closely associated with Wittgenstein, agree with (a\*)
and (b\*) but take issue with the face value understanding of
descriptiveness along with associated ideas of fact, representation,
reference and truth. For convenience, let us call these
*realism-relevant* concepts. The opposition involves two main
ideas. First, rather than posit a demanding standard that a field of
discourse must meet to count as genuinely descriptive, minimalists
propose that a discourse that satisfies very modest
conditions--for example, that it possesses a truth predicate and
standards of justification for what is affirmed or rejected--is
thereby descriptive. Second, realism-relevant concepts are taken to be
at least partly constituted by features of the discourse (or
"language game") in which they are used. Minimalists
thereby reject a uniform account of descriptiveness across different
areas of discourse. Descriptiveness, reference, truth, and so on are
*language-game-internal* concepts: they are constituted
differently in different areas of discourse.
 4.1
 will consider minimalist accounts of religious discourse and
 4.2
 will look at whether Wittgenstein might plausibly be understood as
sharing this approach.



The discussion in this section touches on issues that have been
explored in detail outside of the philosophy of religion. For more on
the wider philosophical background see Stoljar & Damnjanovic 2014
on deflationary and Pedersen & Wright 2013 and 2016 on pluralist
accounts of truth.


### 4.1 Minimalism About Religion



The two key features of minimalism are prominent in Hilary
Putnam's Wittgensteinian account of religious language in
*Renewing Philosophy* (1992). First, Putnam draws attention to
Wittgenstein's well-known remarks on family resemblances (1953:
65-66). Wittgenstein's target in these remarks is the idea
that an expression requires necessary and sufficient conditions for
its correct application. Intuitively, it seems that there must be such
conditions if the meaning of the expression remains the same when it
is used in different contexts. However, consider the term
"game", with its varying applications--board games,
card games, Olympic games, and so on; we can see, Putnam (following
Wittgenstein) argues, that for any particular condition that appears
to characterise some types of game, there will be others that fail to
satisfy it. Rather than common necessary and sufficient conditions for
all uses of "game", there is a network of similarities and
relationships between them. Putnam proposes that Wittgenstein took a
similar lesson to apply to notions like *language*,
*reference* and *truth*: 



> 
> 
> referring uses don't have an "essence"; there
> isn't some one thing which can be called referring. There are
> overlapping similarities between one sort of referring and the next,
> that is all. (1992: 167-8) 
> 
> 
> 



Philosophical confusion results when, for instance, we attempt to
apply standards of reference appropriate to descriptions of the
perceived world to mathematical claims. Putnam then extends this point
to religion: 



> 
> 
> The use of religious language is both like and unlike ordinary cases
> of reference: but to ask whether it is "really" reference
> or "not really" reference is to be in a muddle. There is
> no essence of reference ... In short, Wittgenstein is telling you
> what *isn't* the way to understand religious language.
> The way to understand religious language isn't to try to apply
> some metaphysical classification of possible forms of discourse.
> (1992: 168) 
> 
> 
> 



A similar point is taken to extend to truth, descriptiveness and other
realism-relevant concepts.



Second, Putnam argues that truth can be understood as idealised
rational
 acceptability.[6]
 This is not to say that truth depends on justification *here and
now*--that is, what seems to us justified on currently
available evidence--but rather that truth is not independent of
all justification: "To claim a statement is true is to claim it
could be justified" (1981: 56). To be truth-apt, it is sufficient that the assertoric
utterances of religious discourse are governed by internal standards
of warrant. While the standards of warrant in a given area of
religious discourse may be significantly different to those in science
(appealing to the authority of the Bible or the Pope, for instance,
would not count in favour of a scientific theory), the condition that
there are such standards is clearly satisfied. To arrive at a positive
account of what constitutes truth (and other realism-relevant
concepts) in *religion*, therefore, requires an examination of
the specific standards of justification that are in play in religious
discourse (or, more accurately, the different standards in different
religious discourses).



D.Z. Phillips was a leading interpreter and champion of a
Wittgensteinian approach to philosophy of religion. His early writings
appear sympathetic to a non-cognitivist account of religious
discourse. He questions whether religious utterances are descriptive
and proposes, for instance, that "religious belief is itself the
expression of a moral vision" (1976: 143) and that 



> 
> 
> the praising and the glorifying does not refer to some object called
> God. Rather, the expression of such praise and glory is what we call
> the worship of God. (1976: 149) 
> 
> 
> 



In his later writings from the 1990s, however, Phillips' remarks
appear more minimalist.



> 
> 
> By all means say that "God" functions as a referring
> expression, that "God" refers to a sort of object, that
> God's reality is a matter of fact, and so on. *But please
> remember that, as yet, no conceptual or grammatical clarification has
> taken place*. We have all the work still to do since we shall now
> have to show, in this religious context, what speaking of
> "reference", "object",
> "existence", and so on amounts to, how it differs, in
> obvious ways, from other uses of these terms. (1995: 138)
> 
> 
> 



Here, Phillips allows that religious expressions refer and religious
sentences are descriptive, etc., but proposes--in line with
minimalism--that the reference and descriptiveness of religious
discourse is partly constituted by features distinctive of religious
discourse. For a detailed and sympathetic treatment of Phillips'
work see Burley 2012 and for a critique see Scott & Moore
1997.



In general, religious minimalists agree on a number of points. They
grant that religious statements have propositional content, and may be
true, descriptive, factual, and so on. Second, realism-relevant
concepts are understood as *language game internal* concepts.
To know what makes for truth in religion, for instance, we need to
look at the internal standards of justification that inform religious
discourse. Third, the primary aim of minimalism, at least in the
Wittgensteinian form it takes in philosophy of religion, is to
elucidate the different standards that characterise different areas of
discourse, and to spell out the differences between realism-relevant
concepts in religion and realism-relevant concepts in science or
history. However, there is also an important area of disagreement
between religious minimalists. Phillips takes the different
constitution of truth in different areas discourse to show that
"true" *means* something different in different
discourses: We have multiple truth concepts, with different extensions
(1976: 142; 1995: 149). In contrast, Putnam appears to be more
sympathetic to a *pluralist* account of truth: the truth
predicate has certain necessary and sufficient conditions for its use
(such as the disquotational schema) but may be additionally
constituted by different further conditions according to whether we
are talking about religious truths, scientific truths, or ethical
truths (see Wright 1992: ch. 2). Fragmentary accounts of truth of the
kind that Phillips appears to endorse have been widely
criticised--see, for example, Timothy Williamson (1994: 141)
Christine Tappolet (1997).



Religious minimalism is usually offered as a program of research
rather than a detailed account of religious discourse. There is talk
of the need to attend to the practices and forms of life of religious
believers, an emphasis on the difference between religious and other
areas of discourse, and warnings against applying scientific or
historical standards to religious judgements, but the positive story
of the meaning of religious utterances is often left as a promissory
note. However, there are some areas where more substantial points of
disagreement can be pursued. For instance, many supporters of the face
value theory will reject the pluralist or fragmentary accounts of
truth that inform the minimalist approach. Also, even if one is
sympathetic to a pluralist account of truth, it does not
straightforwardly follow that truth in religion is different from
truth in science or history (for a defense of this point see Scott
2013: ch. 11). Religious minimalism will also be rejected by
non-cognitivists. If the descriptiveness of religious language is
secured as easily as minimalists propose, then this will undermine the
non-cognitivist position that it is--despite superficial
appearances--not descriptive. Non-cognitivists argue that the
"propositional surface" of language conceals a variety of
different functions: ethical statements express approval or
disapproval, mathematical statements are stipulations, and so on. For
a defense of this see Blackburn 1998.


### 4.2 Wittgenstein



Wittgenstein's work on religion has served as a sourcebook for
modern opposition to the face value theory. His remarks have been seen
as lending support to many of the positions considered in this
article. Non-cognitivists can find support in Wittgenstein's
characterisation of religion as "a passionate commitment to a
system of reference" (1970 [1994, 64]; see also Tilghman 1991);
fictionalists in his proposal that religious believers live their
lives according to certain "pictures"; non-assertoric
speech act theorists in his comparison of religious utterances to
commands (1970 [1994, 61]). Wittgenstein was even attracted (if only
briefly) to a subjectivist interpretation of God-talk ([PO]:
42). Given Wittgenstein writings on religion are only infrequent and
relatively brief, it is perhaps not surprising that, beyond his clear
resistance to the face value theory, he would not have settled views
on the topic. For accounts profoundly influenced by or interpretative
of Wittgenstein, see Winch (1987), N. Malcom (1997), Rhees (1970).



The minimalist reading of Wittgenstein is supported by his apparent
endorsements of a deflationary account of truth (1953: 136), although
he does not explicitly endorse the idealised justification theory that
Putnam proposes. However, the best evidence for minimalism comes from
his emphasis on the differences between the use of religious
sentences, and historical or scientific (and in general empirical and
descriptive) sentences. Specifically, he points up differences between
the standards of warrant employed in religious and other
discourses--the kinds of circumstance in which a religious
believer judges something to be true, grounds for disagreements
between religious believers and non-believers, and so on. This
pervades his work on religion. For example, Wittgenstein compares the
religious belief in the Last Judgement with scientifically based
beliefs, or ordinary beliefs about observable states of affairs (he
gives the example "There is a German aeroplane overhead").
While religious believers may speak of "evidence" and
"historical events", Wittgenstein argues that the evidence
and events cited in connection with religious judgements do not
constitutes reasons to believe them in the way that evidence given in
support of a hypothesis gives a reason to believe that the hypothesis
is true. In religious discourse "reasons look entirely different
from normal reasons" (1966: 56), religious belief is not
"a matter of reasonability" (1966: 58), religious beliefs
are not hypotheses or opinions, they are not properly spoken of as
objects of knowledge or as having a high probability, and when
historical facts are introduced in support of religious belief
"they are not treated as historical, empirical,
propositions" (1966: 57). Here Wittgenstein seems at pains to
emphasise the contrast between religious discourse and empirical
discourses. Indeed, he implies that when taken (or where offered) as
reporting scientific facts or scientific theories, religious sentences
are in error. Wittgenstein is not, according to the minimalist
interpretation, seeking to find any disadvantageous comparison between
religion and science; to show, for example, that religion is merely
expressive of attitudes, while science is properly descriptive.
Rather, he is describing the different standards that make for truth
and descriptiveness in these fields of discourse and, in so doing,
elucidating the distinctive characteristics of religious
*truth* as well as other realism-relevant concepts.



Notably, if Wittgenstein was a minimalist about religious discourse
then one standard line of objection to his account is misplaced.
Wittgenstein is sometimes criticised as proposing that religious
discourse should be quarantined from other areas of discourse, in
particular science and history. This is seen as leading to a variety
of fideism, where religious beliefs are compartmentalised and
unsusceptible to non-religious intellectual evaluation. The objection
is forcefully prosecuted by Kai Nielsen. According to Wittgenstein,
Nielsen argues, 



> 
> 
> no philosophical or other kind of reasonable criticism, or for that
> matter defence, is possible for forms of life or, indeed, of any form
> of life, including Hinduism, Christianity and the like. (2000: 147)
> 
> 
> 
> 



However, contrasting the different standards exhibited by religious
and scientific discourses is consistent with scientifically or
historically well-founded evidence informing religious judgement.
Indeed, minimalists would be remiss in not taking account of the fact
that historical evidence clearly *is* seriously weighed in a
variety of religious beliefs including belief in Christ's
resurrection, or the creation of the world, and beliefs about miracle
workers and what they have done. Insofar as this happens, the verdicts
of historical or scientific investigation can modify religious
judgements. In a similar way, many religious judgements are dependent
on historically or scientifically assessable evidence. For example,
compelling evidence that the documentary and eyewitness testimony for
a miracle was a hoax would be a good reason not to believe that the
miracle in question occurred and this evidence comes from
"outside" the religious language game. However,
minimalists can allow that empirical evidence is part of the
justification for many religious beliefs while maintaining the theory
that religious discourse employs distinct standards of justification
to science.


## 5. Reference and Logic



Although they have received less attention that the other topics in
this article, two other issues relating to religious language should
be noted. First, the reference of "God", second, the logic
of religious language.



Recent work on the reference of "God" mostly proceeds from
the assumption that "God" is a name rather than a title or
a description (for criticism of this view see Johnston 2011:
6-7; for supporting arguments see Scott 2013: 86-7). From
this starting point, attention has focused on how to apply the rich
resources of research on names from the philosophy of language to this
case. For example, according to descriptivist theories
"God" has a descriptive content (a view that stretches
back at least as far as Anselm), whereas according to Millian theories
"God" refers to its bearer without conveying any
information about the object referred to. The latter theory can be
combined with a causal theory of reference (Kripke 1980) to explain
how the name becomes attached to the referent. Although many of the
arguments in this debate derive from the philosophy of language, there
are also interesting implications of these positions for the
philosophy of religion. For instance, a descriptivist theory appears
to place limits on how wrong we can be about what God is like. A
causal theory of reference, in contrast, will need to be backed up by
a defence of the possibility of causal interaction with God and an
account of how God is named. For discussion of these theories see
Alston 1989 and 1991, Gellman 1997 and Sullivan 2012. For a recent review of the
field see Scott 2013: ch. 7.



Does religious language adhere to a non-classical logic? This issue
has been raised in at least two contexts. First, some of the writings
of authors in the apophatic tradition have been seen as supporting a
paraconsistent logic of religious language, specifically dialetheism,
the view that some contradictory sentences are true (see Priest 2002:
22-3, although Scott & Citron 2016: 72 cast doubt on this as
a plausible interpretation of apophatic authors). Second, Michael
Dummett considers a number of arguments in favour of the view the
divine omniscience entails bivalence, i.e., that for any statement
*p* it is determinately either true or false. For example, if God
knows that *p*, then He knows that he knows that *p* and
therefore it is true; but if God does not know *p* then He knows
that He does not know it and hence knows that it is not true. From
this it can be shown that God must know whether *p* is true or
false, thereby securing bivalence (2004: 94-96; see also 1991:
318-9, 348-351). Since, for Dummett, realism for a field
of discourse hinges on the success of the principle of bivalence for
the statements of that discourse, it would follow that theism leads to
global realism. For a critical discussion of Dummett's arguments
see Scott and Stevens 2007.