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The Logic of Religious Language1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Cynthia B. Cohen
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Denver

Extract

Expressions used in religious contexts have often seemed odd and paradoxical to philosophers. Statements have appeared in Christian discourse to the effect that God is not a person and yet is a person, that he is a servant and a king, that he is nothingness and being itself. These statements appear unintelligible either because their terms are self-contradictory or because they are mutually exclusive.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

page 144 note 1 See my paper, Some Aspects of Ian Ramsey's Empiricism’, International journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. iii, No. 1, Spring 1972, pp. 217.Google Scholar

page 144 note 2 Religious Language (London: S.C.M. Press, 1957), p. 65.Google Scholar

page 144 note 3 Quoted in Mehta, Ved, The New Theologian (New York, Harper and Row, 1965), p. 119.Google Scholar

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page 145 note 2 Black, Max, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. 222.Google Scholar

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page 146 note 4 ibid. p. 65.

page 147 note 1 Religious Language, pp. 57–8

page 148 note 1 Ramsey implicitly identifies wisdom with knowledge. Wisdom, however, can appear in the absence of knowledge. It involves not only reflection about things, but also sound judgment about a way of life that is not arrived at solely by argumentation. The terms have different, albeit related, meanings.

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page 149 note 1 On Being Sure in Religion (London: The Athlone Press, 1963), p. 62.Google Scholar

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page 151 note 1 History and the Gospels: Some Philosophical Reflections’, Studia Evangelica, vol. VIII, Pt. II, Sect. VI (1961), pp. 212–14Google Scholar; Models and Mystery, pp. 38–40.

page 151 note 2 Religion and Science, p. 69.

page 151 note 3 ‘Talking about God’, p. 90.

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page 152 note 1 These groupings include some qualified models discussed in Ramsey's work that are not mentioned specifically elsewhere in this article.

page 152 note 2 Ramsey discusses the possibility of using ‘Evil’ as a model in Religious Language, pp. 80–88. He suggests that the term may be so used if it is suitably qualified, for example, by a narrative that does not function on the descriptive level. He does not explain why the model, ‘Evil’, requires the very special qualification that he gives it.

page 153 note 1 Beardsley, Monroe, Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1958), p. 142.Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 Black, , op. cit., pp. 222–3.Google Scholar