The big idea: The problem left us pinched: literal God-talk shrinks God, and verificationism says God-talk is empty. Three thinkers offer three very different escape routes.
Three escape routes — together, the standard toolkit for defending religious language
- One reworks HOW the words mean.
- One changes WHERE they mean.
- One changes WHEN they can be checked.
You'll meet them one at a time: Aquinas on analogy, Wittgenstein on language game, and Hick on eschatological verification.
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The first answer reworks the squeeze from micro one — the trap of 'same meaning' versus 'totally different'.
Aquinas: God-words are analogical: Thomas Aquinas spotted a third option the squeeze missed. When you say 'God is good', you mean it by analogy — in a related, in-between way.
Three ways to mean 'God is good'
- Exactly the same way a person is good — that shrinks God.
- Something totally different — that empties the word.
- By analogy — related and in-between. This is Aquinas's option.
Think how 'healthy' works: A healthy person, a healthy meal, a healthy complexion — not identical meanings, not unrelated ones, but connected. God's goodness and human goodness are like that: linked, because our goodness reflects God's, even though God's is greater. So the word keeps real meaning without cutting God down.
Checkpoint — Aquinas: In one line: God-words are used by analogy — a related, in-between meaning that keeps sense without shrinking God. Now a reply that shifts the whole question.
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Two more answers: Wittgenstein changes WHERE religious words mean, and Hick changes WHEN they can be checked.
Wittgenstein: religious language is its own game: Ludwig Wittgenstein said words get their meaning from the practice they belong to — each practice a language game with its own rules. 'Out!' means something in cricket, not at a dinner table.
Applied to religion
- Religious language is its own game: prayer, worship, hope, trust.
- Verificationism went wrong by judging it with the rules of the SCIENCE game, where you check by experiment.
- Inside its own practice — a community living a faith — religious language is perfectly meaningful.
- It was never trying to play science's game.
Checkpoint — Wittgenstein: In one line: religious language is meaningful inside its own practice — you can't judge it by the rules of a different game. Now a reply that meets verificationism on its OWN ground.
Hick: verification comes after death: John Hick accepted the verificationist demand — a real claim must be checkable in principle — but denied the check has to happen NOW.
Hick's two travellers
Two travellers
On one road, one believes it leads to a Celestial City; the other doesn't.
No answer on the way
They can't settle it along the way.
The road's end
At the road's end they WILL find out who was right.
Eschatological verification: Likewise, Hick says, 'God exists' could be confirmed after death, if there is life beyond it. So it's a genuine claim, verifiable in principle — just not yet. He calls this eschatological verification (from a word meaning 'the last things').
Go further — higher-level insight: See how the three answers pull in different directions. Naming that split is a top-band move.
Saving it as TRUTH (Aquinas, Hick)
- Religious language stays a real claim about how things ARE.
- Analogy still describes God.
- Hick's road really does lead somewhere or not.
Saving it as a form of LIFE (Wittgenstein)
- Bolder: he half-agrees with the critic that it's not fact-stating like science.
- He relocates its meaning into practice.
The essay question: So a sharp question for the essay: does defending religious language mean saving it as TRUTH (Aquinas, Hick) or as a form of LIFE (Wittgenstein)?
Checkpoint — three answers: (1) Aquinas: analogy. (2) Wittgenstein: its own language game. (3) Hick: verified after death. All three say God-talk is meaningful — they just disagree on why.
How Section B works: Philosophy of religion is an OPTIONAL theme, so it's assessed in Paper 1 SECTION B: an ESSAY on a set question, no stimulus [25].
What to expect
- The command is usually 'Evaluate' or 'Discuss'.
- Same 5-step method as Section A — just built from the question itself instead of a stimulus.
Evaluate the claim that language about God is meaningless.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: 1. Describing views instead of arguing them. 2. Answering a different question — the claim is 'meaningless', so attack meaninglessness, not 'is God real'. 3. Only one view — top bands need tension. 4. No conclusion — decide, with a reason. 5. Name-dropping — a name earns nothing without its argument.