Religion as a body of propositions

@nerdfiles,

Quote:

Well the first statement, "God is love", describes what God is whereas the second statement, "God is looking after me", describes some action God does.

Would we be systematically interpreting these phrases as bearing "love*", instead of "love," and some action* as opposed to some action?

If we buy the metaphor understanding, what grounds these utterances? For the religious person "some action" becomes itself metaphorical, because we can ask, "Some action like waving my arms is an action?" or "Some action like my looking after you" is an action?

Surely the "metaphor" concept drives very deep down. Not only is the religious person being metaphorical, but the metaphor seems to have no basis for adequate interpretation in itself. And is the religious person actually attempting to describe God, not to even consider actually describing? (Clearly description is outside of the limits for a finite intellect.)

There's a distinction to be made between actually describing and attempting to describe. By definition, the religious person cannot do the former. And my question is: Is the religious person really attempting the latter? And why do we think so? Must the religious person be attempting to describe God? Is there something about the statement itself that justifies this claim? Merely because it looks declarative, must we take it that way? Must the religious person treat it that way?

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@Didymos Thomas,

Thomas:)

Well, one can only really go by ones own experience, and as I did not have any professional theologians in my circle so I have to go by my own consensus. If most people do not even know what a metaphor is, how likely do you think it is they could make the distinction? Perhaps the shepherd knows the distinct, but the sheep, no, the majority do take their scripture at face value. To all the Christians that I have known, the garden of Eden was a real place, with longitude and latitude, that's called concretizing of the symbol.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Quote:

Surely they do not mean the same thing. They are not substitutable (salva veritate), for instance. Admittedly, they hit at the same idea of the ineffable, but admitting this affords us no better understanding of why these utterances are used and what they actually mean.

You seek to understand why all religious notions are uttered? Are you hoping for a generalization, an ultimate reasoning process behind every consciousness rationalizing "God" on some level?

Quote:

Their meaning cannot merely be "the ineffable." Surely there is some logic behind them that can be given precision and an expressible fullness that does not at the same time express what is meant to be expressed by the utterance themselves. We can distinguish and classify certain religious utterances (and note family resembles) without at the same time robbing them of their "mystery." If we class them all merely as "the ineffable in linguistic expression" we ultimately rob them of their richness and complexity

You're correct, but I don't think it was meant that the utterances would just be lumped into a category for ease of understanding, "ineffable", and then left unexamined. On the contrary, to see this beauty you seek, one must pursue introspection and then share this introspection with others. We cannot classify all religious utterances, as the notion of "God" and the spiritual path of humans varies so immensely. We can, however, share our experiences and contemplation with others, allowing others to benefit from intelligent discourse.

You say with your hypothetical,

Quote:

we'd be making myopic and sweeping generalizations about a self-evidently complex and rich linguistic practice.

And yet are seeking a sweeping generalization for religious utterance?

Please help my understand.

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@nerdfiles,

Quote:

And yet are seeking a sweeping generalization for religious utterance?

I don't really follow this question. I am saying that we should respect its complexity and richness, thereby not suffocating religious language and linguistic practice with generalization and loss of quality and fullness. We should observe it and leave it in tact. We should not "confirm or disconfirm" or merely falsify or demonstrate religious utterances; we should observe them and determine their logical features, their origins and meaning. Their meaning is their use; and we can determine their meaning by understanding their use in language.

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@nerdfiles,

I am going to side with Thomas Hobbes on this one. Religion is outside of the scope of philosophy. Thus, as soon as religion is talked about we move beyond the limits of philosophy. Now I realize that their is a body of philosophy called the philosophy of religion, but this is just a nicer way of saying theology. Also religion cannot be justified because you cannot justify what is not truly known or well-grounded.

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@nerdfiles,

nerdfiles wrote:

I don't really follow this question. I am saying that we should respect its complexity and richness, thereby not suffocating religious language and linguistic practice with generalization and loss of quality and fullness. We should observe it and leave it in tact. We should not "confirm or disconfirm" or merely falsify or demonstrate religious utterances; we should observe them and determine their logical features, their origins and meaning. Their meaning is their use; and we can determine their meaning by understanding their use in language.

I couldn't agree more -

We shouldn't attempt to presumptuously categorize any language (affirming or disaffirming), religious or not, as there can be quality and beauty throughout all that can be contemplated. If we are to overgeneralize all abstract actions as simply "metaphor", we are making a grave error. However, we cannot always determine meaning, as meaning is not necessarily tied with use. Language is a barrier, and many complex feelings are realized whilst contemplating the spiritual self. To expect to truly understand the meaning of these, sometimes immensely, complex feelings, we cannot merely rely on language usage or even logic. For some notions uttered are illogical -- meaningful, of quality and fullness, yes, but not always quanitifiable.

Quote:

Must the religious person be attempting to describe God? Is there something about the statement itself that justifies this claim? Merely because it looks declarative, must we take it that way? Must the religious person treat it that way?

No, the religious person does not always treat the statements this way. It, of course, varies wildly. Those that express and attempt to describe their "God" ultimately choose how they will articulate their claims. There are those that evangelize (declarative!), and then there are those that simply wish to share thought and are open to contemplation.

Theaetetus wrote:

I am going to side with Thomas Hobbes on this one. Religion is outside of the scope of philosophy. Thus, as soon as religion is talked about we move beyond the limits of philosophy. Now I realize that their is a body of philosophy called the philosophy of religion, but this is just a nicer way of saying theology. Also religion cannot be justified because you cannot justify what is not truly known or well-grounded.

I disagree with this. Religion is not necessarily outside the scope of philosophy. Some actually regard their spiritual path as their philosophy path! We must not oversimplify religion in this way.

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@Theaetetus,

Theaetetus;48081 wrote:

I am going to side with Thomas Hobbes on this one. Religion is outside of the scope of philosophy. Thus, as soon as religion is talked about we move beyond the limits of philosophy. Now I realize that their is a body of philosophy called the philosophy of religion, but this is just a nicer way of saying theology. Also religion cannot be justified because you cannot justify what is not truly known or well-grounded.

Well, that depends on what your conception of "philosophy," which is largely the point of this thread. What do you understand philosophy to be? And what about its methodology do you find unfit to handle the task of religious language?

And who is trying to "justify" religion? What exactly does it mean to "justify" an entire system? What would a justification for look like? What might be an example of a "system" which is indeed justified?

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@nerdfiles,

I was speaking to your mention of in the OP of justification. Maybe I didn't understand what you meant when I mentioned that it is not possible to justify religious beliefs except from a purely subjective perspective--thus, justification is rendered meaningless.

Zetherin wrote:

I disagree with this. Religion is not necessarily outside the scope of philosophy. Some actually regard their spiritual path as their philosophy path! We must not oversimplify religion in this way.

I would say spirituality does not necessarily mean religion. Think about it, how many religious people are spiritual? Thus, a spiritual path is more of a philosophical path. I would argue that philosophy has its foundation in reason and argument--two things that religion generally lacks.

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@nerdfiles,

For sake of clarify, that quoted post was made by user: Zetherin and not myself.

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@nerdfiles,

Sorry about that. I fixed the mistake.

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@Theaetetus,

nerdfiles wrote:

Would we be systematically interpreting these phrases as bearing "love*", instead of "love," and some action* as opposed to some action?

Assuming I understand where you're going, I do not think so. I was just trying to explain how the two phrases can be contradistinguished. To say "God loves" or "God does" is to describe God in animal terms. But God is not just an animal, thus using animal descriptors to describe God is necessarily anthropomorphism. So, we cannot accurately say "God loves" or "God does" anything at all; it's not the nature of the love or the nature of the action that is ineffable, it's everything about God.

nerdfiles wrote:

If we buy the metaphor understanding, what grounds these utterances? For the religious person "some action" becomes itself metaphorical, because we can ask, "Some action like waving my arms is an action?" or "Some action like my looking after you" is an action?

The grounding would be experience - experience of the ineffable.

nerdfiles wrote:

Surely the "metaphor" concept drives very deep down. Not only is the religious person being metaphorical, but the metaphor seems to have no basis for adequate interpretation in itself. And is the religious person actually attempting to describe God, not to even consider actually describing? (Clearly description is outside of the limits for a finite intellect.)

I think you are right. To understand the language of God requires experience of God.
The language of God does not attempt to accurately describe God, but instead it attempts to direct our spiritual search. Finger and moon.

nerdfiles wrote:

There's a distinction to be made between actually describing and attempting to describe. By definition, the religious person cannot do the former. And my question is: Is the religious person really attempting the latter? And why do we think so? Must the religious person be attempting to describe God? Is there something about the statement itself that justifies this claim? Merely because it looks declarative, must we take it that way? Must the religious person treat it that way?

I think you already know the answers to these questions Smile

But, to give a response: no, I do not think the religious person is attempting to describe God, but instead, the language of God attempts to direct our search. For example, we can look at the notion of the Trinity: the theologians who came up with this notion were not trying to describe God, but were instead interested in a meditation that would help practitioners experience God.

boagie wrote:

Well, one can only really go by ones own experience, and as I did not have any professional theologians in my circle so I have to go by my own consensus. If most people do not even know what a metaphor is, how likely do you think it is they could make the distinction? Perhaps the shepherd knows the distinct, but the sheep, no, the majority do take their scripture at face value. To all the Christians that I have known, the garden of Eden was a real place, with longitude and latitude, that's called concretizing of the symbol.

We can go on a great deal more than our personal social experience. In this case, we can look at the writings and teachings of spiritual leaders and thinkers. If we look at what religious teachers and writers have thought and preached, we find that the overwhelming majority reject literal readings of scripture.

Theaetetus wrote:

I am going to side with Thomas Hobbes on this one. Religion is outside of the scope of philosophy. Thus, as soon as religion is talked about we move beyond the limits of philosophy. Now I realize that their is a body of philosophy called the philosophy of religion, but this is just a nicer way of saying theology. Also religion cannot be justified because you cannot justify what is not truly known or well-grounded.

Hobbes did not have to explain away eastern philosophy when he wrote. Today, we in the west should know enough to realize that religion is not outside of philosophy: entire philosophic traditions are rooted in religion.

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@nerdfiles,

nerdfiles;48076 wrote:

If we buy the metaphor understanding, what grounds these utterances?...

Surely the "metaphor" concept drives very deep down. Not only is the religious person being metaphorical, but the metaphor seems to have no basis for adequate interpretation in itself.

I think the problem is that these metaphors are meant to refer to something sublime, i.e. beyond a scope and scale of human apprehension. There is some sort of superlative extrapolation that lies behind the metaphor. If you refer to god as "Lord", or "Father", then the subtext is something beyond a run of the mill lord or father.

nerdfiles wrote:

Merely because it looks declarative, must we take it that way? Must the religious person treat it that way?

I think a religious person is going to resort to more concrete terminology if their fundamental beliefs are deconstructed -- it's a sort of defense mechanism. Beliefs that are based in faith (whether self-consciously or not) are going to find analytical discussions rather uncomfortable when you get to a certain point.

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@Aedes,

Thomas,

"We can go on a great deal more than our personal social experience. In this case, we can look at the writings and teachings of spiritual leaders and thinkers. If we look at what religious teachers and writers have thought and preached, we find that the overwhelming majority reject literal readings of scripture." quote

You may indeed be right about professional spiritual leaders, but that is not what is being sold on the street. I would never probably have had a problem with believers if it were not for their absurd statements of literal interpretation. I read a while back that something like sixty percent of the population in the United States believes in Noah's Ark, undoubtly they also believe in johann being swallowed by a whale--not much in the way of thinking is asked of most congregations, if it was, the numbers would dwindle significantly. With you in part it is an intellectual pursuit, but don't kid yourself, for most of the population, the intellect does not come into play. I am reminded of something Joseph Campbell said, the quality of the belief you have in divinity will determine your behaviour towards the world--literally interpretation is not the hight road, but it is the most well worn.

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Religion as a body of propositions

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