Religious assertions: A linguistic approach

Abstract

Philosophy's task with regard to religion is mainly analytic. The task of philosophy with respect to religion is of a 'second-order' or 'meta', that is philosophy of religion is to religion as meta-ethics is to ethics or philosophy of science is to science. Philosophy of religion analyses the function and peculiarities of religious language as well as tries to understand the logic and grammar of religious assertions and utterances. Do the religious utterances like 'God is loving' which have the form of factual assertions refer to a special kind of fact, different from the scientific fact or do they perform a different function altogether? There is a long shift of meaning from the secular use of the words like 'loving' and their theological usage. In this article, I have made an attempt to understand the religious assertions from a linguistic perspective.