Page 64 - Pure Life 30
P. 64
The Nature of Religious Language… M. Mousavi Karimi and H. Tehrani Haeri / (63
our soul” and “open up levels All of this implies that
of reality which otherwise are religious language is not factually
closed for us”. (Ibid, 1957: cognitive, though is meaningful
42-3) in its domain.
It should be noticed, According to Tillich:
however, that the levels of The religious language,
reality that are opened by the language of symbol
religious symbols are not the and myth, is created in
same levels of reality that are the community of the
the subject of everyday life or believers and cannot
scientific research. be fully understood
In his “Systematic Theology”, outside this community.
Tillich attacks positivistic (Ibid: 24)
verificationism as a general
principle for all areas of On the basis of statements
knowledge, (Tillich, 1951: 112) like this, Irving Hexham
and in his Dynamics of Faith, argues that Tillich’s view is
explicitly asserts that “[t]he very similar to Wittgenstein’s
dimension of faith is not the idea of language game.
dimension of science, history, (Hexham, 1982: 344)
or psychology”. (Ibid, 1957: 33) The last important thesis
Hence no conflict or even according to which religious
competition between religion, language is meaningful but
on the one hand, and science, non-cognitive is Rudolf
history, psychology, and politics, Bultmann’s idea of religious
on the other hand, is possible. language as a mythical
(Ibid: 39) language.
