answer to Glen Miller: skeptics do not have to give up the religious language objection

Glen Miller is one of the few Christian apologists left on the planet who gets into the real particulars of ideas and arguments, and does it without the sneering "fuck you" attitude seen in the vast majority of other such efforts, at least those seen on internet apologetics discussion forums.

Miller says skeptics need to give up their objection that religious language is analogical:

All language and knowledge is analogical. We are analogical beings, ontologically and epistemologically, created by a God who 'theomorphized'. Skeptics who would repudiate religious language as being 'only analogical' must now try another tack. They- too use analogy in every generic statement and to provide an ontic basis for this is very difficult in the skeptic's anti-theist system! This relegation of all language to analogy is not loss but gain to the believer, for although it might seem to undermine some univocal statements, it rather guarantees a univocal element in all discourse. A special language of God is not required.
Similarity is seen to be the basis of analogy and only univocal definition can orient us to the content of the identity. The similarity of God to the world can be seen in different perspectives, with God as Cause and Intellect providing an adequate basis for analogical religious language.
The believer need not wear the 'persecuted minority'group feeling. Both he and his language of God fit in ananalogical universe. 

I do not see Miller's basis for saying the analogical nature of language obligates skeptics to give up their god-talk-is-incoherent objection.  Nothing in his entire article suggests that the analogical nature of language argues that god-talk could possibly be as coherent as car-talk.  The very analogical-ness of language is precisely why the failure of a sufficient god-analogy is the death of religious language. The bible does not allow there to be a sufficient analogy to God in the physical world anyway (Isaiah 40:18).


Miller knows that if he defines "being" as a physical intelligence, he will lose the theism debate, since his God is not physical.  Therefore he avoids that catastrophe by asserting that "being" can exist without physicality, at which point he opens a can of worms.  He may point to haunted houses, demon-possessions, mind/body dualism (there is an invisible part of us that continues conscious existence apart from the body).

The problem then is that because skeptics deny all these things too, we have to put the god-talk debate on hold and attempt resolution of our differences on these other matters.  And the fact that those other things are highly controversial impedes the likelihood we will ever agree that any case is a confirmed proof that being can exist without physicality.

Furthermore, I view the words "matter" and "physical" as axioms.  That is, they are self-evident, they the most fundamental words we have to explain what material stuff "is", all other words or synonyms simply beg the question, as they must, since word definitions cannot go on an infinite regress.  If you ask "and what's that?" too many times when inquiring about a pencil, you eventually discover the limits of language.  You either "get" what's being asserted, or there's no talking to you.

There are several reasons why the language-objection to 'god' is powerful:

1 - nobody will deny that our first lessons about words (i.e., when we were 1-2 year old) presupposed correspondence between the word and some physical reality. We all had our parents and teachers reading us books in which a single word was plainly associated with a picture of a real object (i.e., puppy, cake, schoolhouse, etc.).   No fool tries to begin a child's first education in words by bringing up the 4th dimension, or dark-matter, or mind/body dualism!   So our tendency to demand that word- meanings correspond to demonstrable empirical realities is not an irrational thing, it draws from the fundamentals we were taught.


2 - the dishonesty of Christians doesn't help.  They insist their trifles about religious language justify it, but the truth is that their desire to vindicate the biblical perspective is the real reason they constantly insist on the viability of concepts like "spirit" and "non-material".  The few non-religious people who believe in such things (New Agers) don't push the issue anywhere near as much as fundamentalist Christians with their clear agenda to vindicate the bible at any and all costs.  It might help things if Christians honestly admitted their motive for pushing the issue is less the evidence, and more "the bible tells me so".

3 - Having common ground is the key to resolving differences of opinion, and yet nobody has produced confirmed evidence or proof, or conclusive argument, that consciousness or intelligence can exist without physicality.  Indeed, J.P. Moreland admits the empirical evidence doesn't favor dualism any more than it favors physicalism, but like a good philosopher, leaves open the exits with the caveat "in most cases...":

“in most cases, physicalism and dualism are empirically equivalent theses (i.e., consistent with the same set of empirical observations of the brain and body),and in fact, there is no non-question-begging theoretical virtue (e.g. simplicity, fruitfulness) that can settle the debate...

Moreland, “The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters”,Moody Publishers, 2014, p. 97)

It's a rather sad day for religious language, that before it can be supported, the debate about haunted houses, demon-possession and mind/body dualism must be decided.  That would justify us in putting on hold any tendency to think god-talk is coherent, until these foundational matters are first settled.  How long do you suppose that would be?  Two weeks?

It's an even sadder day for religious language when we realize that the average unbeliever's daily life is usually filled up with so many normal rational things (job, family, school, finances), that they are precluded from the type of intensive study of such phenomena that would enable them to reasonable decide those matters one way or the other, so that they have reasonable rational warrant to dismiss such trifles from their lives just as quickly as such people dismiss quantum theory from their lives.

It's an even sadder day for religious language when we remember that many of the fundies who try to rebut the religious language objection think the fate of unbelievers involves something less horrific than literal hellfire, which means when we dismiss the subject from our minds, we are not dismissing something of any significant importance.  If spiritually alive people can find the literal hell-fire bible statements unconvincing, they can hardly expect spiritually dead unbelievers to figure out which side in this in-house Christian debate got it right.

For all these reasons, skeptics have plenty of reasonable and rational justification to object to god-talk as incoherent.