Some philosophers such as Aquinas believe that it is possible to talk meaningfully, truthfully and factually about God whereas others like Ayer believe this to be impossible. Philosophers have suggested that there are four ways that religious language might make truth claims about the reality of God and whether it can succeed in doing this – Via Negativa, Analogy, and Myth. The ‘via negativa’ or negative way is an attempt to prevent people from misrepresenting God. It claims that the only way we can talk about God is by saying what God is not. God is so beyond our ability to understand that the only way of seeing the reality of God is to continue saying what God is not, God is more than anything we can say of him.
It would seem that both Diana Eck and John Stott are correct to a point. All religions cannot be truly be equal because then there would be no point, as the authority of the religious doctrine and its rites would be lost to some neutral all-purpose pseudo faith. But, pluralism as practiced in institutions such as the U.S. military and the U.S. legal system is not some neutral all-encompassing attempt at a single faith. Nor is it the suggestion that all faith paths lead to the same source. Rather, pluralism is really the commitment to and execution of religious tolerance.
17/09/14 - homework Explain the view that the conscience is the voice of God. In order to fully explain the view that the conscience is the voice of God one must first define what is meant by ‘voice of God’. It has been defined as the ‘heavenly or divine voice which proclaims God’s will or judgement’, however, in my opinion the ‘voice of God’ definition should also include divine guidance as the original definition leaves out the idea of God as a guide without his actual voice telling a person the idea. The argument of ‘is the conscience the voice of God?’ often runs into difficulties; this is due to the fact that if the conscience is not the voice of God then what is it? This may also be a problem for Christian thinkers as, if the conscience is not the voice of God it gives moral authority to something outside of God.
The argument from religious experience seems to state that we can experience God and therefore God must exist, for surely what we experience must be real. William James, American psychologist and philosopher, worked to expand on and validate this topic. James defined religious experience as ‘The feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatsoever they may consider divine.’ He then identified the four types of mystical experiences: ineffable, noetic, transient, passive. An ineffable experience is one that cannot easily be articulated. It is too big a thing for words and therefore not necessarily understood by those who have not experienced it.
On one hand you have the philosophers who believe you can speak and write about God, because God is reality. On the other hand, are the Logical Positivists who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. There are a number of philosophers who claimed to have proven conclusively that religious language is meaningful, for example Aquinas’ theory of analogy. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand and forming relations through attributes or relations that are similar. Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God.
They treated claims made about God as cognitive, meaning that the assertions made are meant to be taken as facts or universal truth claims rather than non-cognitive meaning on a personal level for believers. They believed that language was only meaningful if it was analytically or synthetically verified. Analytic statements are a priori (based on logic) and synthetic statements are a posteriori (based on empirical evidence). They created a test called verification principle to see if religious language was meaningful; Statements can only be meaningful if it can be demonstrated. One could argue that the logical positivists were unsuccessful in arguing that religious language is meaningless because the verification principle has many weaknesses.
The belief and believers are what make up any religion.l They are what keep the structure of religion in order to continue its existence. The beliefs of a religion are defined as the faith, trust and confidence in a tenet or creed. The believers are those who are empowered by faith, trust and confidence of the religion. For example, in Christianity, Christians are the believers of God and live by God’s will to spread His word. A living, dynamic religion integrated with the belief and believers is the ability to incorporate a religions beliefs into a more modern context to suit the current believers without sacrificing the principle values.
Definition of Religious Worldview: Religious worldview is how different religions come to understand the world. It is the perspective through which individuals are able to gain a source of meaning for their lives. Each religion provides its own worldview that determines how adherents see their life and the world. Buddhism and Hinduism, for example, see life as a cycle, where as Christianity, Islam and Judaism see life as infinite Supernatural dimension: The supernatural dimension refers to the belief in the existence of powers which are beyond the natural world. The most significant element is the belief of divine beings or powers.
Paul Tillich thought that metaphors and symbols help bring understanding about God. Tillich believed that religious language tries to “interpret” or “communicate” a religious experience and described it to be “closer to poetry than prose” as a result of this interpretation/ communication between them. Tillich identified that in religious language there has often been a misunderstanding, or lack of the ability to distinguish between sign and symbol. To fully assess the role of symbol is religious language we need to give it a clearly defined definition. The definition of a sign according to Tillich in this sense is something that can either point you in right direction, an example of which would be a street sign or the term sign can also be defined as something to which people make a response to, an example being a red traffic light, the response being from the person to stop, this response however is not a response that is deeply meaningful to them.
There are many reasons for why Christians believe in God. Firstly, some Christians believe that the Bible itself is from God, from himself and it is the revealed word of God. Christians believe that what is in the Bible must be true as it is there in the first place. Some, Christians are literalists who take what is in the Bible word for word, however, some are liberalists and understand what is in the Bible as a metaphor, however, still proves that God exists. Additionally, some Christians believe in the ontological argument by St Anselm, which suggests that God cannot not exist and so that it is logical to believe.