Does the word "God" denote something?
As background to the question, I've been reading Bertrand Russell's essay "On Denoting" were he makes the point about how there are statements/words/ideas which are meaningful—such as "the current king of France"—but don't actually refer to anything—where as "the current monarch of England" does. In other words, we can have words/phrases/ideas which seem to refer to something but do not actually denote (or in computer programming language "point" to) something.
In other words, "the Ground of All Being" is a meaningful idea, but is there an actual object to which such a title is referring to?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.If there was ever a word that is more vague than any other, surely it's the word god.
Theists never agree about what their god is, even ones from the same religion.
Other "believers" in a god simply redefine themselves into being believers, like calling the universe their god like pantheists do.
gavlar
Level 4
Jan 23, 2018
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Opinion would vary on what "God" would denote. Concreteness of the object being but one variance.
For myself, "God" would be meaningful, but only in the context of a fictional, superlative agent or as a given in the description of someone else's meaning within a context they would be referring to.
CapriKious
Level 7
Jan 23, 2018
2
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