ABSTRACT
Let us recall the realist assumptions that underlie the present debates on religious realism and non-realism. The realist objection to a religious non-realist, posed in terms of reference, is that the use of “God” must refer to a real God, existing independently of human conceptualizations, in order to be religiously adequate. By denying metaphysical realism, religious non-realism has also accepted that “God” does not refer. Reference is here understood in terms of some kind of correspondence between our referring expressions and an independent reality. Once located it is assumed that the referent can be examined removed from the context in which the reference was made. This claim for an independent referent is, however, unjustified, since the referent to a referring expression is intrinsically connected to the act of reference of which it is part. Therefore, I claim, it is not logically possible to isolate a supposedly unconceptualized object as being the referent of some referring expression, independently of the context of utterance, and make that a criterion for the success or meaningfulness of the act of reference itself.
