Abstract

After a survey sketch of the development of analytic philosophy and its application to problems in philosophy of religion during the 1950's, Clarke argues that the non-descriptive functions of religious language depend on its descriptive functions and that the central problem of natural theology, upon which all revealed theology depends for its meaningfulness, is to show that the statement "There is a God" is both necessary and descriptive. To this end its first task is to provide a precise definite description of God for which this may be done. His own suggestions are Hartshornean, carrying with them the explicit argument that traditional conceptions are not viable. In an interesting twist of a Kantian theme it is argued that the ontological argument depends for its success on the cosmological argument. The more general question of the possibility of metaphysics in the light of linguistic philosophy is treated in chapters devoted to the descriptive character of necessary statements and the logical requirements for setting up a metaphysical language. The chapter on the application of symbolic logic to natural theology might well have been included as an appendix, for its inclusion in the main text tends to fragment an essay which is already none too unified.—M. W.