IAN T. RAMSEY'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE

--with apologies to lectures of W. De Pater, H.I.W., K.U.Leuven.

See Ian T. Ramsey, Religious Language (SCM, London, 1957); also W. De Pater, "Sense and Nonsense in Talking about God", Saint Louis Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1968, pp. 7--48, including a list of works of Ramsey in a footnote, pp. 8-9. Also, "Analogy and Disclosures: On Religious Language", 1995 paper.

(A) The theory in brief:

In what kind of situation does religious language have its home?

According to Ramsey, a religious situation = a situation which involves or elicits a total commitment to (something like a personality, discerned in) the whole of the universe.

This may be elucidated by comparison with a mathematical situation and a love situation. Maths concerns the whole world, in so far as everything can be put into formulas, but involves only a partial interest: Maths = a partial commitment to the whole of the universe. Love on the other hand concerns especially 1 person, but there we have a total commitment: Love = a total commitment to part of the universe.

A religious situation, then, = a total commitment to (something like a personality discerned in) the whole of the universe.

Religious language, in the context of this home: a language rooted in and meant to evoke cosmic 'disclosures', normally by means of 'qualified' 'models'. (Explanation below.)

Religious language is therefore a rather odd language, from the standpoint of ordinary language, with its own informal logic, the logic of its own language game. It is a perfectly playable game, though, and it does have some analogies with other games we play.

(Reply to the problem in context of Wittgenstein II.) Meanwhile, the theory points to the kind of experience which lies at the basis of religious discourse, and thereby replies also to the challenge of the Neo-Positivists.

(B)explanation of the theory:

1) a model:

A model is a situation with which we are familiar, and which can be used to reach a situation of which we are not so familiar -- a language which belongs to one context but which is used as a lens or bridge to reach another context. When we use a model, we view or describe one situation in terms of another.

Ramsey distinguishes two kinds of models, following Max Black: (i)scale models, a reproduction of the original on another scale; (ii)analogous models, more abstract, a reproduction only of the structure of the original, e.g. a hydraulic model of an economic system. Ramsey's models are a variety of the second kind, but he prefers to call them, disclosure models:

the disclosure = the crossing of a meaning or perception gap, as in going from polygon to circle, or from 'mighty' to ' almighty': what he calls an 'evocative' reading is needed.

2) a qualifiier:

A qualifier is a directive of how to develop the model -- in the case of disclosures, a directive never to finish the development of the model. Qualifiers are to be thought of only in conjunction with the model.

A qualified model has two functions:

to lead to the disclosure -- you take the model, you follow the directive, till it leads to a disclosure:

5(polygon) = pentagon
infinite(polygon) = circle.

as a linguistic hint of how to speak about the disclosed, e.g. to describe a circle as a polygon with an infinite number of sides.

Note that language is here functioning differently, not 'flatly descriptive'.

Two types of qualifiers may be distinguished:

(i) expressed, e.g. "God is almighty";

(ii) not expressed, e.g. "God is mighty" -- grammatically similar to ordinary language, but logically different, in a game of models and qualifiers.

3)a disclosure

To explain this, Ramsey always tells stories:

Something happens, and there is a new situation, or as we sometimes say, the situation 'takes on depth', e.g. the wife of the president falls through the chair, and from the decoration of the president becomes a human being; e.g. a formal dinner party, and you suddenly meet a long lost friend; e.g. his best mate, before a judge -- what are you doing here?. A disclosure is a situation where the light dawns, the penny drops, the ice breaks, the situation takes on depth... You begin with empirical, verifiable, flatly descriptive facts; these facts however are such as to invoke an insight, a disclosure of meaning or of the existence or givenness of something not appreciated previously.

What is disclosed is not entirely independent of the verifiable facts, but it transcends them. For this reason, the language used to talk about what is disclosed is odd, in comparison with ordinary language -- a circle is not a polygon, it is not a straight line figure, you can't ask how many sides a circle has because it doesn 't have sides, not even an infinite number, yet the point can be conveyed, the discernment of what you mean can be elicited, by talking in such a fashion.

Two kinds of disclosure:

(i) finite disclosures: e.g. a surgeon finding a friend on the operating table -- limited in what it involves;

(ii) non-finite or cosmic disclosures, e.g. more like the surgeon finding his wife -- now all is involved, his whole destiny, his whole life makes no more sense if it goes wrong, there is a non-finite subjective dimension.

Religious situations are meant as cosmic disclosures, involving a total commitment to (something like a personality discerned in) the whole of the universe.

4) other facts which escape flat description

Any other comparable games? A circle can be flatly described, directly without reference to suitably qualified models. Are there any other facts apart from this alleged one which escape flat description?

Ramsey: yes.

(i) the most familiar example is ourselves, the 'I', also the 'thou', a paradigm case of disclosures which can not be exhaustively described in a flatly descriptive way. The "I" combines several feature:

connected with the observable;

.yet transcends the observable -- I am /you are not limited to the descriptions that people give us. The I is only known in a disclosure -- you have to come over a logical gap, to start with the observable and to go behind it, so to speak. Such can happen in the form of an ethical situation, e.g. the parable of Nathan to David, "You are that man", and David is caught, naked before his God; also in relationships, when one person does the entirely unexpected, and breaks open the depth of another subjectivity, another 'I';

.the observables and the 'I' are connected, but not symmetrically; one goes from this set of observables to the 'I', but the 'I' may as well be disclosed in some other set or even not disclosed;

.the language about the 'I' is not a language about an object in the world but rather like a border of the world;

.a catchword for the 'I' is activity;

.'I exist' as the most fundamental statement which can be made about the 'I', more fundamental, e.g., than that I am 6 ft high, though this is not unconnected with what I am.

These features of the 'I', or rather similar features, apply also to God:

.God is the key word in the map we make of the universe, of all observables and all the events of my and everyone else's daily lives;

.God is given only in a disclosure: all language which is flatly descriptive of events on the spatio-temporal level is inadequate; .you cannot deduce the world from God, yet you can go from the world to God --'God exists' does not entail verifiable propositions, but is entailed by them; .language about God is not a language about an object-- God is not a being amongst the beings, God is in the world more like as a soul is in a body;

.the catchword is probably, 'inexhaustible love'. Ramsey says: use as many models as possible, but the key model, the overarching paradigm or at least the best one is activity, an active person displayed in his body, with the universe as the body of God. (Cf. Ramsey, Models for Divine Activity. )

.that God exists is more fundamental than what people say about Him in other ways.

The thesis of the believer, then: not only at the subject pole of experience ('I's and 'thou''s or other human subjects) is there a disclosure situation but also at the object pole, God, = a subjectivity which shows itself in the world, and which shows itself also in fact in the finite subjects.

Compare Ramsey: a religious situation as a total commitment to the whole of the universe. This is similar to e.g. Julian Huxley: "the reaction of the personality as a whole to its experience of the universe as a whole".

(C)Applications of the Theory

(i)application to the understanding of the Gospels:

.the function of the Scriptures is to show the world, including duties and all the events of daily life, as cosmic disclosure situations, and to invite us to take the consequences re veneration of God and love of neighbour. Scripture teaches us to look at the world in such a way that these make sense.

.the facts of the gospel are describable, observable, but, we may expect, not always flatly describable -- otherwise you don't have the facts of the gospel. To believe that truly this man was the child of God, or that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself or that Jesus rose from the dead to the glory of the Father is to believe observable facts and something more. To believe the resurrection took place is logically not equivalent to the affirmation that fishes were eaten or the tomb was empty. The resurrection includes facts, e.g. an empty tomb, a man eating fish, and transcends it. like love includes physical contact and transcends it.

.the facts of the gospel should be understood with the help of personal models. The logic of deciding that Christ rose from the dead is analogous to the logic of deciding that a person is really trustworthy, or that there is genuine love: 1) some pro-factors, reasons for thinking so, e.g. a smile/prior contacts; e.g. empty tomb, appearances, in the context of the life of Christ. 2) harmonization with what follows, e.g. consequent behaviour; e.g. life in the Spirit. 3) there may be some contra factors, which however will not by themselves invalidate our presupposition. 4) even so, there must be a logical possibility of rejecting our presupposition if too many contra indications. 5) we may come to disbelieve some of the original pro-factors but still believe.

(ii) the theory of disclosures, models and qualifiers throws light on the functioning of (some of) the so-called proofs of God's existence.

E.g. Anselm's Proof and the argument from Descartes' fifth meditation: God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, God = supremely perfect being: model: greatness, perfection qualifier: keep going, on and on.

So also for First Cause, Unmoved Mover, Ultimate Perfection, Necessary Being, Cosmic Designer.

The main or at least an important function of such 'proofs' is: 1/to make a disclosure; 2/to provide a language for talking afterwards of that which is disclosed. Also, they result in a kind of map of different kinds of talk about the world, of which God is the apex word. E.g. the moral argument: this is my duty, = this is God's will, two propositions viewing the same situation but from different levels, of which the God talk is the most fundamental, since it links up with world descriptive talk as well, making the whole universe including our ethical life and in general interpersonal life take on depth.

(iii) suggestions for theologians:

.in a new culture one will need new models. Ramsey himself does not introduce new models, just to explain the language that is spoken, and he has been criticized for this, e.g. by David Tracy. But one can introduce a new model only in the background of an understanding of the old ones, so we need to understand the old ones first.

.Ramsey: use as many models as possible -- a plurality of models, a pluralistic theology. Why? 1) not every person is sensitive to the same stories 2) the different models will correct one another 3) God is connected with all the maps of the universe - S/He matters for the world on many levels, can be disclosed along many ways.

Even so, some models are more central than others. For Ramsey the overarching model or paradigm, as already noted, is activity, the fundamental characteristic of persons as distinct from things.

(D) Remarks and Objections

1) One advantage:

: it gives an account of why religious discourse is full of parables and stories. This is not accidental, or because we are weak of mind, but because religious language has to do with facts which are not to be flatly described. It also gives an account as to how these parables and stories work, a kind of operational description of God language.

2) the theory of Ramsey can be seen as complementary rather than in opposition to medieval or modern (Ross) theories of analogy. See de Pater lecture, "Analogy and Disclosures".

It explains the point of the Thomist distinction between signification and mode of realization, while preventing agnosticism w.r.t. mode of realization in the case of God from evacuating the attribute of all meaning, by relating the attribute back to an experience. For example it prevents, e.g. infinitely good, from meaning, in effect, less than ordinary good, by firmly grounding it in an experience elicited by movement along the line of the experienced and imaginable good.

One correction of the Thomist theory involved probably: we have more than merely negative insight into mode of realization, our insight is by way of a cosmic disclosure, a kind of experience, not however amenable to flat description.

3) Ramsey's theory can probably be integrated with Heideggerian ways of talking,

I.e. about Being giving beings, and the giving capable of being experienced as having personal characteristics. See the work of John Macquarrie. Also, Jan Van der Veken in respect of the Process notion of Creativity.

More interestingly, it integrates with Heidegger's notion of truth, as a-letheia, unconcealedness, unhiddenness, disclosure.

Compare Keith Ward on this: disclosure theories of truth as the ones most appropriate for religious discourse. Also Louis Dupre.

4) objection 1: (unless so integrated) massive anthropomorphism -- like seeing shapes in the clouds or faces on the moon.

Possible Response:

.the talk of God as a subjectivity, or as soul in the body, is itself a model, a viewing of one situation in terms of another with which we are more familiar. God is like a subjectivity, only very strange, and we need other models, even non-personal ones.

.the complete objectification of the world is itself an anthropomorphism more insidious for not being realized, a construing of the world according to what we can best understand, the product of a colossal ego-ology. See especially Sallie Mc Fague, Super, natural Christians (Fortress, 1997).

5) objection 2: granted, the world is construable in this fashion, but do I have to construe it like this?

Probably not, though some kind of total discernment-commitment is probably inevitable. Ramsey gives a kind of 'logic of discovery', displaying the mechanics of construing it like this, thereby resolving the problem of meaningfulness.

There is a logic of justification needed also, but it is analogous probably to the justification of a large scale paradigm in science rather than a low level theory, taking account of logical coherence and empirical fit and in addition something like valuational or pragmatic adequacy - it can be lived. Cf. criteria for evaluation of a metaphysics.

In respect of this latter, Ramsey's application of his theory of disclosures, models and qualifiers is probably a bit confused. His theory shows how the descriptions of God used at the end of the proofs might have meaning, how the meanings of such words might be disclosed to us. The proofs try to give reasons for thinking that such descriptions, meaningful as they are, do have reference.

6) I am my body -- God is the world?

An identity thesis possible in this case also? Sallie Mc Fague probably does the world as the body of God better than Ramsey. Indeed, she does well at multi-model discourse. Whatever, one probably needs to be careful to expose it in a pan-en-theistic rather than a pan-theistic fashion, God as manifested in the world as we are via our bodies.

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