Theological Noncognitivism

 God Language

casual, familiar, ordinary, desecrating, and profane

Theological noncognitivism is the position that religious language – specifically, words such as "God" – are not cognitively meaningful. It is sometimes considered synonymous with ignosticism.

Theological noncognitivism (aka ignosticism or igtheism) is the claim that theists do not believe in a god, but only believe that they believe in a god and behave as though they do, but that they don't because they have not defined any god to believe in since it is not possible to define god. God, by definition, cannot be defined since once they define any god, that god ceases to be god since god cannot be defined because god is beyond definition.

The term "God" is not defined by any primary attributes, so we have no means of understanding what it means. For example, we can understand the phrase "a brown chair," because the secondary attribute (brownness) is being attributed to a chair. Chairness, in this example, is a primary attribute. However, we cannot understand the phrase "a brown echo," because an echo is not the sort of thing you can attribute brownness to. The primary attribute of being an echo precludes certain secondary attributes. With God, we have no primary attribute(s), so we cannot understand how to apply other attributes to God. The result, according to this argument, is that we cannot understand the term "God" at all.

There are three attributes of existants which concern us particularly, these being:

A. Primary Attributes

B. Secondary Attributes

C. Relational Attributes.

B as well as C are dependent upon and must be related to an existant’s A in order to be considered meaningful.

The term “God” lacks a positively identified A.

Because of this, the term “God” holds no justified A, B, or C.

However, an attribute-less term (a term lacking A, B, and C) is meaningless.

Therefore, the term “God” is meaningless.

Therefore, the god-concept is invalid

Since the only attributes of god that humans are able to experience are silence and invisibility, then, since neither of these can be ascertained by human senses, these are not positive or primary attributes that can be verified. They are not primary attributes because they are descriptors of a noun or a primary attribute which does not exist. Since silence and invisibility are the only verifiable attributes that can be ascribed to god they become null and void without a primary attribute, just as an adjective demands a noun to describe in order to be an adjective. 

Any existant without a primary attribute to which secondary attributes and relational attributes cannot be assigned is incoherent.

Image of God

Since there is no physical, visible image of god for humans to see, touch, hear, we cannot verify that reality. In the same way, words were never meant to be any sort of reality in themselves. Just like thoughts, they are only signs and symbols that we use to point to something real. The word "cloud" is nothing like the actual cloud floating by. But in order to use language, we must create an image with thought in our mind and then use words to describe our image of the cloud that we saw. 

Well, god is a step further away from reality toward abstraction. Unlike a cloud, we cannot see or verify this imaginary character in the sky. So in order to use communication and language, thoughts and words to apprehend and try to comprehend this abstraction, we must use words to label and name that which is unnamable, invisible, and silent.

So what are we left with? Our own mental graven image of god that we cling to even though we know that worshipping images of god is against the second of the ten commandments. (past participle - graven: fix (something) indelibly in the mind).

“If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.” (Thomas Merton in Seeds of Contemplation, p. 131)

All of this is within the context of human cognitive understanding. We create human constructs to describe that which we cannot know because that's all we have; theology, religions, creeds, dogma, doctrine, holy books, rituals, beliefs; we call it all faith. 

Recently I have come to realize it is all images 

from our imaginations doing the best we can 

to grasp that which cannot be grasped, 

to understand that with is not understandable, 

to describe that which cannot be described, 

to contain that which cannot be contained, 

to define that which is not definable, 

to name that which cannot be named, 

to label that which is beyond all labels, 

words, thoughts, images, and imaginations.

We do this based on our craving and lust for certainty and security.

Instead of the nonexistent god-shaped hole in our soul,

we create an imaginary hole-shaped god that we then worship.

St. Augustine (354 - 430 AD) has this to say:
“What then, brethren, shall we say of God?
For if thou hast been able to understand what thou wouldest say, it is not God.
If thou hast been able to comprehend it, thou hast comprehended something else instead of God.
If thou hast been able to comprehend him as thou thinkest, by so thinking thou hast deceived thyself.
This then is not God, if thou hast comprehended it; but if this be God, thou has not comprehended it.”

Judaism: Names of God

Do not erase

Rabbinic Judaism considers seven names of God in Judaism so holy that, once written, they should not be erased:   YHWH, El ("God"), Eloah ("God"), Elohim ("God"), Shaddai (“Almighty"), Ehyeh ("I Am"), and Tzevaot ("[of] Hosts").^[1] Other names are considered mere epithets or titles reflecting different aspects of God,^[2] but Khumra sometimes dictates special care such as the writing of "G-d" instead of "God" in English

The seven names of God that, once written, cannot be erased because of their holiness^[5] are the Tetragrammaton, El, Elohim, Eloah, Elohai, El Shaddai, and Tzevaot.^[6] In addition, the name Jah—because it forms part of the Tetragrammaton—is similarly protected.^[6] Rabbi Jose considered "Tzevaot" a common name^[7] and Rabbi Ishmael that "Elohim" was.^[8] All other names, such as "Merciful", "Gracious" and "Faithful", merely represent attributes that are also common to human beings.^[9]

Do not pronounce

The most common name of God in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton, יהוה, that is usually transcribed as YHWH. Hebrew script is an abjad, so that the letters in the name are normally consonants, usually expanded as Yahweh in English.

Modern Jewish culture judges it forbidden to pronounce this name. In prayers it is replaced by the word Adonai ("The Lord"), and in discussion by HaShem ("The Name").

Rabbinical Judaism teaches that the name is forbidden to all except the High Priest, who should only speak it in the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur. He then pronounces the name "just as it is written".^{[citation needed][25]} As each blessing was made, the people in the courtyard were to prostrate themselves completely as they heard it spoken aloud. As the Temple has not been rebuilt since its destruction in 70 AD, most modern Jews never pronounce YHWH but instead read Adonai ("My Lord") during prayer and while reading the Torah and as HaShem ("The Name") at other times.

Christianity

Being raised as an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian, I've always wondered how Christians can so flippantly throw around the name of God and use religious language. It is illogical and incoherent to me because in the context of nonChristians, Christianese is meaningless and in the context of Christians, it is redundant which also renders it meaningless. The more open my mind became and the more I understood about language, words, signs, symbols, etc, at first I realized how desecrating our use of religious language had become. I've heard that "familiarity" leads to treating things and people as "ordinary" or taking them for granted. As I understood more deeply, I began to see that our idea of the sacred and the profane has become so familiar that either way, life is rendered ordinary. Then I realized that maybe that is the key to understand our casual use of language, images, and human constructs. One of the first steps of my deconstruction and deconversion is to deepen my understanding of and appreciation for life; both the sacred and the profane. 

Could it be that

The Sacred is anytime we treat the ordinary as Sacred.

The Profane is anytime we do not treat the ordinary as Sacred. 

Anything that is Sacred, if it is truly Sacred, 

would be appreciated, honored, and respected.

It seems that it would be an act of profanity or a form of desecration 

when we do not appreciate, honor, and respect all things.

For me, this definitely applies to language and the way we limit reality with names and labels through familiarity with that which is sacred, beyond understanding, and far too big to fit in my head or in a book. We treat the sacred as ordinary, common, everyday.

As a nontheist, this led me to THEOLOGICAL COGNITIVISM so that I can recapture the essence of the sacred in my life; which I see as all of life, especially the ordinary. I see there is a great sacredness at the center or core of each person and that sacredness extends to our relationships and the connection we have with all people. And ultimately this extends to that which is greater than me and nameless along with the infinite in both the manifest universe and the unmanifest universe. I constantly hear the profanity of the language that many Christians speak, repeatedly referencing spiritual concepts that are beyond understanding, description, and unverifyable with casual language and magical thinking; treating sacred language as vernacular which drags it through the mud of being vulgar. It is sort of like Jesus' metaphor of throwing pearls to the swine. In this way, religious or sacred language, Christianese, is often used in contexts where it becomes meaningless. In a context of unbelievers, Christianese is reduced to incoherent babbling. In a Christian context, it is used where it is not necessary, especially when it is used in its most common manner, to promote the Christian agenda.

For more on The Sacred and The Profane, click here:   https://livingwithopenhands2.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-sacred-and-profane.html 

"He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows. For in this context, to know is not to know. And not to know is to know." (Quoted in both Sanskrit and in the Tao-te Ching)

"The wise man is the one who knows what he does not know." (Lao Tzu)

"The more a man knows, the less he talks." (Voltaire)

Familiarity

Familiarity is our blind spot. We can’t “See” the things we are familiar with; like the way we treat people, the beauty of nature, or the expressiveness of the human face. Unless we “silence the familiar and welcome the strange”, we will not begin to “See” (Sam Keen). Our blind spot will remain blind to us. Remember, there is a difference between “seeing” and “Seeing”, just like there is a difference between just hearing and really listening.

Because familiarity is our blind spot, then things like culture and environment, friendships and relationships often become unnoticeable. We take these things for granted, rather than appreciating them. It is sort of like asking the fish, “How’s the water?” And the fish responding, “What water?”

“Behind the façade of our normal lives eternal destiny is shaping our days and our ways. The awakening of the human spirit is a homecoming. Yet, ironically, our sense of familiarity often militates against our homecoming. When we are familiar with something, we lose the energy, edge and excitement of it. Behind the façade of the familiar, strange things await us. This is true of our homes, the place where we live and, indeed, of those whom we live. Friendships and relationships suffer immense numbing through the mechanism of familiarisation. We reduce the wildness and mystery of person and landscape to the external, familiar image. Yet the familiar is merely a façade. Familiarity enables us to tame, control and ultimately forget the mystery. We make our peace with the surface as image and we stay away from the otherness and fecund turbulence of the unknown which it masks. Familiarity is one of the most subtle and pervasive forms of human alienation.” — John O’Donohue: Anam Cara. Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World, p121

In other words, routine tends to tame mystery and silence wonder.

Therefore, could it be that when we reduce the Sacred to that with is ordinary, too familiar, it loses its power. Is this not the true meaning of the Profane? Do we not do this routinely every day and lose that which is sacred in every moment, every person... everything?

For me, theological noncognitivism is a way for me to mind my language expression, especially when we forget that none of us is right and that we are all wrong in many ways. I choose to steer away from arguing about what god is when I believe that is something that is impossible to know or to describe with any words. I've had enough of theological debate due to the meaninglessness of it for me.

When I started blogging in 2006, ronirvine.wordpress.com, it didn't take long for me to realize that I must limit my use of "god" in my writings if I was to take an inclusive rather than exclusive, peaceful rather than violent approach to communication in Living with Open Hands. Anytime we define, we limit, and that in itself is an example of living with clenched fists. I found that when I got past religious language to a deeper place of common ground with purely human language, then people were drawn from all walks of life to read my blog. My stats showed that I've been visited by 88,000 people from over 150 countries. This was when I was still a very strong Christian! I inherently knew that using religious language is always divisive among humans when it is open and inclusive people that I'm interested in reaching out to. The data confirmed my suspicions. Religious language and especially the word god tends toward divisiveness because no two people use the word god to create the same image in their minds. This is the problem of concrete words representing abstract concepts. It forces us to create our own mental graven image of god and then worship it.