Philosophy of Religion

Analogical — Analogy is an inference where information or meaning is transferred from one subject to another based on similarities or comparison. An analogical argument relies on analogy to show that due to similarities between the two subjects some further conclusion can be inferred. (⇦ Go Back)

Anti-realist — The view that we cannot have knowledge of a mind-independent world, as any phenomena we observe are then interpreted through the mind. Therefore to speak of an unobservable ‘something’ such as the power of the divine has no cognitive content. (⇦ Go Back)

A priori — Claims that rely on a logical deduction and not on sense experience, they are ‘prior to’ or ‘before’ sense experience. For example, the truth claim of the statement ‘a triangle has three sides’, follows from the definition of the term, not from knowledge of things in the world. (⇦ Go Back)

Blik — Term used by R. M. Hare to describe a religious frame of reference within which everything is interpreted (⇦ Go Back)

Cognitive language — Language which conveys a knowledge claim or factual information which can be shown to be true or false depending on evidence. (⇦ Go Back)

Contingency & necessity — A contingent truth or being depends on some other factor it could have been otherwise. Necessity implies that something is required, or always true; a fundamental and essential thing. (⇦ Go Back)

Corporeal vision — A form of empirical religious experience, ie they are experienced through the senses (eg sight, touch, and hearing). (⇦ Go Back)

Credulity — The willingness to believe in something in the absence of reasonable proof. (⇦ Go Back)

Eschatological Verification — A phrase coined by Hick for the idea that some statements will be proved true after death, such as claims about an afterlife. ‘Eschatological’ refers to the end times or ‘eschaton’. (⇦ Go Back)

Evil — That which is contrary to God’s will; cause of suffering; the moral opposite of good. (⇦ Go Back)

Faith — A belief in something or somebody. In terms of religious faith can also imply an attitude of trust or assent to unproved assertions. (⇦ Go Back)

Falsification principle — Belief that the meaningfulness of a statement lies in the method of its falsification. A sentence is only factually significant if there is some evidence to falsify it. (⇦ Go Back)

Free will — The ability to act at one’s own discretion. This results in having moral responsibility for our free choices. (⇦ Go Back)

Imaginative vision — Vision seen in the mind, usually through a dream experience. (⇦ Go Back)

Intellectual vision — A vision without any visual image, an ‘illumination of the soul’ which is seen with the ‘eye’ of the mind. Those who experience them claim to ‘see things as they really are.’ They are hard to describe using language as they are a form of mystical experience. (⇦ Go Back)

Language games — The name given by Wittgenstein to his claim language has meaning within a particular social context. Each context is governed by rules, in the same way that a game is governed by rules. The meaning of a statement is defined by the context in which it is used. (⇦ Go Back)

Miracle — An unexpected event demonstrating the specific power of the divine or supernatural. For Hume, this always entails a breach of the natural laws of physics, but Aquinas and others, emphasize the religious meaning of such events saying that there is no requirement for natural laws to be broken. (⇦ Go Back)

Moral evil — Intentional human action (commission) or inaction (omission) that results in suffering, eg murder. (⇦ Go Back)

Mystical experiences — Mystical experiences or systematic meditation, which cause a heightened awareness of the divine or an ultimate reality. (⇦ Go Back)

Natural evil — Cause of suffering within the natural world including disaster, disease, decay and death. Sometimes referred to as suffering, this is evil which is not the consequence of specific human action and humans generally have little or no control over it. (⇦ Go Back)

Non-cognitive language — Language about which it is inappropriate to ask whether it is true or false in a factual sense. This includes, for instance, statements of emotions or moral claims. (⇦ Go Back)

Numinous experience — An experience of the holy; something wholly other than the natural world and beyond comprehension. Involves the power or presence of a deity. Otto describes them as ‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’ (‘a tremendous and fascinating mystery’). (⇦ Go Back)

Proof — Evidence or argument establishing a fact or the truth of a statement. In philosophy, this means there is sufficient evidence or argument to support the truth of a proposition. (⇦ Go Back)

Realist — Scientific theories can give us true descriptions of the world and knowledge of things that we believe to exist but cannot observe. The world is ‘mind-independent’ and exists in and of itself regardless of our beliefs. about it. (⇦ Go Back)

Reason — The use of logic to come to a conclusion. (⇦ Go Back)

Religious experience — A personal experience of the divine. (⇦ Go Back)

Soul — The ‘essence’ of the person. The nature of the soul is much debated but it is generally considered to be spiritual rather physical and it is usually distinguished from the body and the mind. (⇦ Go Back)

Soul making — A concept that describes how suffering helps humans develop morally. (⇦ Go Back)

Symbolic — A view of religious language which sees the words representing a reality to which they point, and in which they participate, but which they cannot describe. (⇦ Go Back)

Testimony — The reports of witnesses. (⦰ Go Back)

Theodicy — A defence of the justice and goodness of God in the light of evil. (⇦ Go Back)

Verification principle — Idea that the meaning of a statement lies in the method of its verification—so that any statement that cannot, even if only in theory, be verified, is meaningless. (⇦ Go Back)

Via negativa — The ‘negative way’, mainly associated with Thomas Aquinas. He argues that human language is inadequate in describing God; therefore we can only speak of him in terms of what he is not. (⇦ Go Back)