Anthony Kenny develops a theory on religious language as follows: Firstly, a metaphor consists of using a word in a language game that is not its home; secondly, a word belongs to a language game if either the input to the game or its output involves contact with the word's object; thirdly, God does not belong to any language game. Thus, all uses of the ‘God’ are irreducibly metaphorical. Michael Scott proposes three objections to this theory: 1) Kenny’s criterion for words belonging to a language game is implausible. 2) it could be satisfied. 3) In some sentences, both the subject and predicate are religious expressions, so, the use of ‘God’ in these sentences is not metaphorical. Relying on Kenny’s account of the ineffability of God, in this paper, I shall introduce the ‘longitudinal otherness’ and argue on behalf of Kenny against Scott’s objections. However, I shall show that Kenny’s idea is objectionable.
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Philosophical Thought