'"God" as a Dummy Noun: An Illuminating Model', Gabriel Citron

Abstract:

At first glance, emotions such asgratitude and actions such as petitionnecessitate the existence of a target (at least an intentional target) to which they are directed. And yet, sometimes people are just grateful (to no-one), and sometimes people just plead (to no-one) – even people who do not believe in God. In this paper I will suggest that looking at these and related phenomena can open up a new way of interpreting religious language. Namely, an understanding of ‘God’ as a dummy noun, rather like the ‘it’ in sentences such as ‘It is raining’. The idea is that in some religious talk ‘God’ plays a purely syntactic role – not referring and not entailing any ontological commitment. I suggest that – amongst other things – this understanding of God-talk could help to explain the seemingly implausible claims of some philosophers and theologians that God is not a being of any sort, despite the seeming ontological richness of our talk about him.