Philosophy of Religious Language

Dan Stiver is Associate Professor of Religious Philosophy at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville.

• Preface ixAcknowledgements xiii1 Introduction 1The Linguistic Turn in Philosophy 4The Linguistic Turn in Religion 6Philosophical Foundations 82 Historical Approaches to Religious Language 14Three Traditional Ways 15The negative way 16The Univocal way 20The Analogical way 23The Universal Controversy 29Literal and Allegorical Exegesis 313 The Falsification Challenge 37The Early Wittgenstein 37Logical Positivism 42The Falsification Challenge 474 Language Game 59The Later Wittgenstein 59Religious Language as Noncognitive 67Wittgenstein on religion 67Wittgensteinian fideism 69Religious Language as Cognitive 72John Wisdom 73Ian T. Ramsey 74Ian Crombie 78Speech-act Theory 79Austin 80McClendon and Smith 825 Hermeneutical Philosophy 87From Religious to General Hermeneutics 87Ontological Hermeneutics 90Critical Hermeneutics 96Ricoeur and Critical Hermeneutics 100Reader-response Theory 1076 Metaphor, Symbol and Analogy 112Metaphor as Ornamental 113Metaphor as Cognitive 114Symbol and Analogy 122Metaphor in Exegesis 127Metaphor in Theology 1297 Narrative Theology 134The Chicago School 135The Yale School 139Hans Frei 140George Lindbeck 145Ronald Thiemann 150The California School 154James Wm McClendon Jr 154Michael Goldberg 155Terrence Tilley 1598 Structuralism and Poststructuralism 163Structuralism 163De Saussure’s influence on Structuralism 163Structuralist thinkers 166Critique 171Structuralism in Religious Studies 173Ricoeur 174Thiselton 175Patte 177Crossan and Via 178Poststructuralism 180Derrida 181Foucault 184Critique 186Poststructuralism in Religious Studies 1889 Conclusion: A Changing Paradigm 193Reducing the Contrasts 194A Changing Paradigm 197Religious Language and Truth 201Notes 206Recommended Reading 246Index 251

"This is an excellent critical survey of the modern philosophy of language in general, and of religious language in particular, deftly set against the background of its traditional forerunners. It is readable, colourful, and richly informative, without being simplistic or sweeping in its descriptions and judgements." Steven Kings, Reviews in Religion and Theology "Dan Stiver offers, for "tose coming to these topics for the first time", a useful map to an academic (sub)discipline called philosophy of religious language." Brian Davies, Anglican Theological Review