Some Elucidations and Cognitivity Problems of Religious Discourse

SOME ELUCIDATIONS AND COGNITIVITY PROBLEMS OF RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE GIVEN THE WIDE variety of philosophical expectations , it is not surprising that philosophers have often demanded either too much or too little from their theories of knowledge. Some philosophers have circumscribed the boundaries of knowledge so rigidly that the oppressive standards of their theories have made it impossible to say of what is obviously known that it is known, or indeed could be known. These philosophers are somewhat like the incorrigible cartographer who upon discovering that the mountain on which he stands does not correspond to his cartographical calculations persists in holding that his topographical map is right and that the world is somehow wrong. The mountain, he argues, simply belongs somewhere else. In contrast to the inordinately frugal philosopher is his lavish brother, the paragon of philosophical prodigality. He designs his theories so liberally and so unrestrained that even he is occasionally embarrassed by the chimerical contrivances the standards of his epistemology assuredly allow. He can deny nothing and must admit nearly everything. Many philosophers still find either one or the other of these epistemic extremes irresistable. It has been difficult, therefore, to rid the philosophical market place of inequity and reach a point of equilibrium at which epistemology neither exaggerates nor underplays the logical functions of language. To tip the scale too much one way or the other seems to be a natural mistake, but it is, nonetheless, a mistake. This mistake of epistemic inequity, as I shall call it, has had a profound effect on the species of treatment employed to cure sundry philosophical illnesses. In particular it has resulted in a faulty treatment of certain problems concerning 599 600 RONALD S. LAURA the logic of religious discourse. The attempt to remedy this mistake has led me to consider seriously the relation between knowledge and meaning. For the way in which we " mean " things seems to have much to do with the way in which we " know " things. " Meaning " and "knowing" might well be seen as two sides of the same coin. Thus the more familiar we are with one side, the easier it is to preclude the intemperate inclination to demand too much or too little of the other. In what follows, therefore, I will endeavour to say something of how our view of meaning affects the epistemic demands of religious discourse environments. In so doing I hope to indicate points at which the logic of religious discourse has been misunderstood. A sphere of religious discourse that has received only minimal treatment might be said to consist of a number of questions and answers concerning an individual's general state. These questions and answers might vary enormously, but for the sake of simplicity I shall confine myself to an examination of the question "Why did this happen to me?" At the outset it is important to distinguish the logical environments in which the same question might have both a secular and a religious use. That is to say, it is quite feasible that in one logical environment the question could require a straightforward empirical answer, while in another it might require an answer of the sort we could call religious. Let us examine these possibilities more closely. Suppose one were to use the expression " Why did this happen to me" as a straightforward empirical query. Assuming the respondent has sufficient information in the appropriate subject area, there should be little difficulty supplying an answer to the interlocutor. Where there is a lack of sufficient information it is generally agreed that the nature of the query is such that it allows for an answer which is in principle possible to provide. The possibility of answering a straightforward empirical query is thus a function of procuring the relevant information. It is worth noticing that only an answer which appeals to " the way things are" will satisfy the conven- PROBLEMS OF RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE 601 tions governing the use of a straightforward empirical question. If a man were suddenly to lose the vision in his left eye, it would not at all be unusual for him to inquire regarding the "reason (s) " for his tragic loss. If his question were intended as...