No religious language is cognitively meaningful language.24 There are, according to Gill, three main responses which theologians

J. Gresham Machen was an articulate defender of this view. He takes particular note of the attempt to separate Jesus’ ethical teaching from

3. No religious language is cognitively meaningful language.24 There are, according to Gill, three main responses which theologians

have made to this syllogism (of course those who accept its conclusion without qualification dismiss religious language as non-sense):

1.

2.

3.

Some accept the premises and the conclusion, but maintain that while religious language is not cognitively meaningful, it is none- theless significant in some other sense.

Some reject the first premise but accept the second. These people believe that cognitively meaningful language is not restricted to the analytical and empirical.

Others accept the major premise, but reject the minor premise.

They contend that religious propositions are actually empirical in character.25

24. Jerry Gill, “The Meaning of Religious Language, ” Christianity Today, 15 January 1965, pp. 16-21.

25. Ibid.

136

The Concept of the Blik

Studying God

The first group has to a large extent been made up of professional philosophers who have reflected upon the nature of religious discourse.

R. M. Hare responded to Antony Flew’s analysis of religious language by developing the concept of the blik. A blik is a frame of reference, an interpretation of a situation, which is accepted without question. Noth- ing can alter it. Hare tells of a lunatic who is convinced that all dons are out to murder him.26 Nothing that can be adduced regarding the cor- diality of any dons serves to dissuade him from this conviction. Rather, he simply regards their cordiality as evidence of how diabolical dons really are. Hare also mentions the blik he has that maneuvering the steering wheel will always be followed by a corresponding change of direction of his car. Someone with the opposite blik believes that the steering system will break down; and, accordingly, he will never travel in a car. In the hrst case, the blik is not based upon investigation of the parts of the car; and in the latter case, no amount of inspection of the mechanical operation will alter the conviction. The blik, then, refers to the frame of reference within which knowing, tbinking, and acting take place. But the blik itself is not subject to the kind of verification to which the specific statements within it must submit.

Actually there is some variation among the bliks. Some do not seem to involve any inquiry at all. The blik that the steering system of Hare’s car is intact, for example, is a matter of ignorance as it were. He has not examined the mechanism. Technically, a genuine blik will not be estab- lished until he has looked at the evidence and maintains the blik irre- spective of data.

Hare contends that the major difference between his concept of the blik and Flew’s use of Wisdom’s parable of the gardener is that bliks

mutter very much to those who have them, whereas the existence or

nonexistence of the gardener presumably was not of great importance to the two explorers. Nonetheless, the time and effort that the men in Wisdom’s parable invested in the search do suggest that the existence or nonexistence of the gardener was a matter of some concern to them.

The point in all this is that a blik is not a factual belief. It is an unverified and unverifiable perspective on things. It is almost an atti- tude, and matters very much to the person who holds it. The concept of the blik is of use to some of those philosophers and theologians who accept the conclusion that religious language is not cognitively mean- ingful, but who nevertheless maintain that it is significant. In their view

26. R. M. Hare, “Theology and Falsification,” in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Flew and MacIntyre, pp. 99-103. A don is a head, tutor, or fellow in a college of Oxford or Cambridge, or, more broadly, a college or university professor. Blik is a neologism.

Theology and Its Language IS /

religious language is very meaningful within the framework and as an expression of particular bliks.

Theological Language as Personal Language

The second group rejects the first premise of the syllogism, which limits cognitively meaningful statements to the definitional and the empirically verifiable. They see a unique status for religious statements.

They believe that the personal nature of religious language makes it cognitively meaningful.

An example of this position is William Hordern, who has most fully enunciated his views in his book Speaking of God. After reviewing the various kinds of language games which there are, he notes that religious and theological language follows the pattern of personal language. It is not merely that language about God is like language about human persons. Rather, there is overlap between our language about God and our language about other persons.

As

Horder-n puts it, “although no human language game can be translated into language about God, the language game that points with the least obscurity to God is that of personal language.“27

Horder-n insists that the positivist limitation of meaning is too narrow.

For one thing, it requires intersubjectivity, that is, that the evidence be accessible to other persons. Now in the case of a baseball pitcher who throws a pitch too close to a batter, the umpire, the crowd, and the batter himself cannot really verify whether the pitcher intentionally attempted to hit the batter. Since the pitcher’s intention cannot be veri- fied by others, logical positivism assumes that any charge that his action was deliberate is not meaningful. Hordern points out, however, that the pitchers intention is completely verifiable by one person-the pitcher himself.** Thus, Horder-n is in effect arguing that sense experience is not the sole means of gaining knowledge; introspection must also be allowed.

Further, the scientific approach does not result in knowledge about individuals per se. It is interested in individuals only as specimens of universals. Its very aim is to generalize. When science identifies an indi- vidual human person, it puts him into a series of classes or categories. A man may be described as a middle-aged businessman, a graduate of Yale, Protestant, honest, with an intelligence quotient of 125. But this does not tell us about the unique individual. Hordern’s dependence upon existentialism is apparent at this point. When we have listed all the categories under which a chemical can be classified, we have said all that

27. Hordern, Speaking of God, p. 132.

28. Ibid., p. 139.

_ 138 Studying God

can be said about it. But man is not a chemical. “To know persons we need a different methodology from that used in getting to know things,”

says Hordern.29

Science also is limited in that it attempts to explain everything in terms of cause without any explanation in terms of purpose. To put this in Aristotelian language, science explains in terms of efficient cause rather than final cause. In attempting to deal with human actions in this way, however, it misses something major. It gives us behaviorism. But behaviorism’s picture of man is like the description of a billiard game that would be given by someone who knows the laws of mechanics but nothing of the rules of billiards or the strategies of billiard players.

Hordern’s conclusion is clear: “Questions of fact are not limited to science.“30

How are persons known? Hordern is quite clear that he is talking about knowledge which is not scientific. It is neither verifiable nor falsi- fiable within the language game of science, but is verifiable within its own game. Our knowledge of other persons comes primarily, and even exclusively, through their bodily actions. These bodily actions include what they say.3l We know other persons only as they reveal themselves through word or deed, whether intentionally or unconsciously.32 Further, there is knowledge of another person only as we respond to him. We must empathize, we must reveal ourselves in order to know the other person. We must trust him. And we must ask about his motives and intents.

When Hordern comes to apply this model of the personal-language game to his understanding of the nature and function of theological language, he turns to revelation. Just as we know persons only as they reveal themselves, so the personal God is known only through his revela- tion of himself. It is God’s acts in history and words given through the prophets that constitute his self-manifestation. The typical biblical event of revelation involves a historical situation interpreted by the inspired prophet as God’s word to men .33 As such it “opens the way to a personal relationship with God,” and thus “the Bible becomes the word of God.“34 It is in its particularity, not in general truths, that God is understood. God is loving. What does that mean? The Bible tells us what it means through the particular and personal story of Jesus’ death on the cross-he

29. Ibid., pp. 148-49.

30. Ibid., p. 154.

3 1. Ibid., pp. 140-41.

32. Ibid., p. 142.

33. Ibid., p. 161.

34. Ibid., p. 162.

Theology and Its Language

139

looked down upon those who were responsible for his being there and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.“35

Further, knowledge of God is a knowledge of his purposes. In the parable of the invisible gardener, if the gardener had once told one of the explorers something about his purpose, it would have been possible to detect that purpose, although perhaps dimly, in the garden.36 In consid- ering God’s purposes it is important for us to realize that theological explanations are of a different nature than scientific explanations. The creation account in Genesis 1, according to Horder-n, is not to be under- stood as a causal explanation of the origin of the universe, which could potentially be in conllict with the scientific theory of evolution. What it gives us instead is a statement of intent and purpose-that the universe was created for the purposes of God.37

Because God is a person, he can be known only as we respond to him.

This involves a trusting response of our whole heart. Because an I-Thou relationship requires mutual self-revelation, a necessary part of our response is confession.38 And our response must also involve obedience, since the relationship with God is such that we will want

to do what

pleases him.39

Is this knowledge of which Hordern speaks empirical? In some ways it appears to be, in light of what he has said about our knowledge of other persons coming primarily, or even exclusively, through their bodily actions, including speech. Yet this is not really knowledge which can be verified or falsified by sense data. (The statement that the creation account should not be so understood as to result in conflict with scien- tific causal statements seems to indicate that.) Similarly, he states that we cannot verify Christian faith simply by a reference to history. But while history alone cannot verify the truth, there can be no verification without history either. Personal statements are verified by entering into a personal relationship with, responding to, the person about whom the statements are made. While this depends upon history, it goes beyond history.40 When one responds to God, as centuries of Christians will testify, the gospels promise is fulfilled, the Holy Spirit comes, and a personal relationship with God is created in which one’s life is renewed.

Horder-n makes quite clear what the basis of meaningfulness is in this situation: “This relationship itself is the verification of theological state- merits.“““” He says, “Like all verifiable statements, theological statements

35. Ibid.,

pp.

164-65.

36. Ibid., p. 166.

37. Ibid., p. 153.

38. Ibid., p. 170.

39. Ibid., p. 172.

40. Ibid., pp. 174-75.

41. Ibid., p. 176.

140 Studying God Theology and Its Language

are verified in our experience.“42 Yet he is careful to avoid relating this to some kind of mystical or ineffable religious feeling.

Hordern’s statement has built upon the important observation that God is a person, a subject, rather than a thing, an object. There are dimensions to our knowledge of a person which simply do not have any parallels in our knowledge of a physical object. But one great problem causes our analogy between knowledge of the divine person and knowl- edge of human persons to break down. We have knowledge of other human persons, but it comes through sense experience of the other. I can know something about you without your telling me any proposi- tions about yourself. I can observe you, note your physical character- istics, and how you behave. If there is a dimension of the relationship that goes beyond the mere physical perception, at least it arises through and in connection with that sense experience. But what about the I- Thou relationship with God? Surely neither Horder-n nor virtually any other Christian, theologian or not, claims to have sensory experience of God. While disavowing mysticism, Hordern still so distinguishes our experience of God from our knowledge of human persons that the parallelism upon which the analogy depends breaks down. Horder-n’s meaning of experience is evidently broader than the sense experience with which science works. It is a gestalt experience involving the whole person. But unless Hordern can make clearer and more specific the nature of this experience, it would seem that he has committed the sin which the analytical philosopher dreads: a category transgression, mov- ing from sense experience to a broader meaning of experience.

Another problem enters with theological language that is not about the person of God per se. What of the statements about man, about the church, about God’s creation? How are these derived from the relation- ship? For that matter, what of some of the aspects (attributes) of God’s nature? If we know God within and through the relationship, what is it to have an I-Thou relationship with a Triune God? Thus the question of the derivation of a fair amount of theological propositions deserves and needs more complete treatment. Are these propositions not meaning- ful? Are they not legitimate? Or are they different from the personal- language statements, their meaningfulness established on some other basis?

141 and the empirical, while rejecting the contention that religious language is neither empirical nor definitional. These persons set themselves the task of demonstrating an empirical basis for religious language. It is this approach which I personally find most satisfactory.

One very bold attempt was made by John Hick.43 Accepting the veriha- bility principle, and seeking to retain meaningfulness for the language of Christianity, he introduces the concept of “eschatological verification.”

Although we do not currently have verification of our theological propo- sitions, we will one day. If there is life after death, we will experience it.

We will see God the Father as he really is, and all of the propositions about him will be experientially verified. The same is true about Jesus.

Thus the situation with respect to theological propositions is quite sirni- lar to the status of affirmations about the other side of the moon which were made prior to successful moon shots. They are in principle veri- fiable empirically and hence meaningful. All that is necessary to verify them is death, if we are willing to take that step. Hick, it must be admit- ted, has in many ways formulated a genuinely creative breakthrough.

Yet there are certain conceptual difficulties here. Just what does it mean to speak of this eschatological occurrence as empirical? In what way will we have sensory experience of God in the future, if we do not now? And what is the nature of the bodily condition in which this will occur? The conceptual difficulties appear sufficiently great that it might be prefer- able to broaden the concept of experience rather than argue that there will be empirical verification in the future.

There are two other significant attempts to claim an empirical status for theology. One concerns the Christian theological scheme as a meta- physical synthesis; the other concerns it as a means to discernment and commitment. Together they are of great help in answering the accusa- tion that theological language is not empirical and therefore not cogni- tively meaningful.

Theological Language as Metaphysical Synthesis

Theological Language and Eschatological Verification

The final group of approaches to the accusation of meaninglessness accepts the limitation of cognitive meaningfulness to the definitional

Frederick Ferre has insisted that Christianity is cognitive, that is, that the truth status of its tenets is determinable. But we must still ask what this means. If theological discourse refers to reality, to some state of affairs, to facts of some kind, just how does it do so? What is the nature of those facts? It is not dealing with merely natural facts, which can be stated in simple concrete sentences such as the specific gravity of lead is greater than the specific gravity of water. Rather, the reference of theol- ogy’s symbols is to metaphysical fact of some kind. The nature of

43. John Hick, Faith and Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1966), pp.

169-99.

42. Ibid., p. 177.

142 Studying God

metaphysics is conceptual synthesis. 44 And a metaphysical fact, then, is a concept which plays a key role within that system.

A further word of explanation is in order. A metaphysic is a world- view. And everyone has a world-view, for everyone has an idea of what reality is about. A world-view is a scheme that ties together the varied experiences we have. It is the frame of reference which enables us to function by making sense of the manifold of experience. It is to the whole of reality what the rules and strategies of football are to the sometimes confusing and even seemingly contradictory events that go on in a game.

Imagine a person seeing a football game for the first time without ever having received any explanation of football. When the ball is kicked, sometimes all the players frantically pounce on it. At other times, it is kicked and the players stand around watching it bounce. What is hap- pening? Sometimes it appears that everyone wants the ball; at other times no one wants it. When the two teams line up facing each other, one player bends over one of the other players who then hands the ball back between his legs to the first player after the first player has shouted a lot of numbers. The subsequent behavior of this first player is erratic and unpredictable. At times he clutches the ball tightly, as if it were made of pure gold, or he may hand it to a teammate who grasps it tenaciously.

At

other times, however, he runs backward and throws the ball as quickly and as far as he can, giving the impression that the ball must be burning his hand. The spectator might well wonder what is happening. (Another example is one of my graduate-school professors, who said he could not understand golf. If a man wants the ball, why does he keep hitting it away? And if he does not want it, why does he keep following it and looking for it?) But there is an explanation which will make sense of the confusion down on the playing field. It is the rules and general strategy of football. There is a pattern to what is occurring on the field, tying it together into a coherent whole.

What the rules of football are to the events on the football field, one’s world-and-life view is to the whole manifold of life’s experiences. It is an attempt to tie them together into some pattern which will enable the person to function in a reasonable fashion; it will enable him to under- stand what is going on about him and to act accordingly. Consciously or unconsciously, in crude or sophisticated fashion, everyone has some sort of world-view. And Ferre maintains that, despite widespread denials, not only is it possible and necessary to formulate such syntheses, but it is also possible to evaluate them, grading some as preferable to others. He

44. Frederick Ferrd, Lunguuge, Logic, and God, p. 161. See also his &sic Modern Philosophy of Religion (New York: Scribner, 1967).

Theology and Its Language

143

suggests criteria for evaluating the way in which a synthesis relates to the facts that it synthesizes.

Ferre develops a general theory of signs (in this case, the units of language which compose the synthesis), following and at points adapt- ing the scheme of Charles W. M0rris.~5 There are three elements involved. There is the relationship between the sign and its referent, or

semantics. While this term has come in popular usage to designate

virtually the whole of the theory of signs, it is helpful to retain the narrower meaning. There is the relationship among the several signs in the system, or syntactics. There is also the relationship between the sign and the interpreter, or, as Ferre terms it, interpretics.46 (Morris had used the term pragmutics, and I find that preferable.47) In dealing with Chris- tian theology as a metaphysical conceptual synthesis, Ferre is referring to its semantic dimension. In evaluating its semantic sufficiency, how- ever, the other two dimensions enter in as well.

It is probably appropriate that Ferre speaks of grading metaphysical systems. 48 Apart from the terminology’s being appealing to a professor, it also reflects the mentality that he brings to the task. Older metaphysical endeavors frequently sought to prove the truth of their system and refute the competitors. Ferre sees the task as less clear-cut, the prefer- ences not so categorical. Every metaphysical system with any cogency and appeal has some points of strength, and all have weaknesses. The question is which has more strengths and fewer weaknesses than the others.

Ferr6 suggests two classes of criteria, with two criteria in each class.

There are the classes of internal criteria and external criteria.49 The former relate particularly to the syntactic dimension, the relationships among the signs, whereas the latter pertain to the more strictly seman- tic. The first of the internal criteria is consistency, the absence of logical contradiction among the symbols in the system. This is of course a negative test. Inconsistency is a definite demerit, but as Ferre points out, few major metaphysical syntheses are easily vulnerable to this charge.

He is taking his stance here against some Christian thinkers and systems of thought that seem virtually to revel in paradox. He sees consistency as a characteristic of systematic theology as contrasted with what he terms “the paradox-ridden ‘biblical theology often supported by the

45. Charles W. Morris, Foundations of the Theory of Signs (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1938), pp. 1-9.

46. Fen+, Language, Logic, and God, p. 148.

47. Morris, Theory of Signs, pp. 6,29-42.

48. FerrtA, Language, Logic, and God, p. 162.

49. Ibid., pp. 162-63.