Abstract

This paper is divided into four sections. The first section contains an informal characterization of what may, for the purposes of this discussion, be referred to as the standard interpretation of theological statements. Then, in the second section, I mention two challenges to the commonsense view that theological statements have cognitive content: the quote “falsifiability challenge” and the “ translatability challenge”. Both of these challenges involve an appeal to an empiricist criterion of cognitive content, but I contend that they are nonetheless very different arguments and that clarity about the fundamental issues involved in the question of theology and verificationism cannot be achieved unless these two lines are argument are carefully distinguished. The third section is concerned with the question of the possibility of an empiricist criterion of cognitive significance. The underlying purpose of the discussion will be to arrive derive at an evaluation of the commonly advanced claim that verificationist objections to the meaningfulness of theological language can be refuted by simply arguing that is not possible to formulate an adequate confirmability criterion of cognitive significance. I then conclude by suggesting some responses that seem more promising.