The first assumption is that, for a philosophical inquiry, a religious faith may be identified through its language, or, to speak more accurately, as a kind of discourse. This first contention does not say that language, that linguistic expression, is the only dimension of the religious phenomenon; nothing is said-either pro or con-concerning the controversial notion of religious experience, whether we understand experience in a cognitive, a practical, or an emotional sense. What is said is only this: whatever ultimately may be the nature of the so-called religious experience, it comes to language, it is articulated in a language, and the most appropriate place to interpret it on its own terms is to inquire into its linguistic expression. The second assumption is that this kind of discourse is not senseless, that it is worthwhile to analyze it, because something is said that is not said by other kinds of discourse-ordinary, scientific, or poetic, or, to put into more positive terms, that it is meaningful at least for the community of faith which uses it either for the sake of self-understanding or for the sake of communication with others exterior to the faith community. My third presupposition is that philosophy is implied in this inquiry because this kind of discourse does not merely claim to be meaningful, but also to be true. This claim must be understood on its own terms. It implies that we do not yet recognize the truth value of this kind of